Shooting Stars

by Brian Falkiner

  She let us both in to the apartment, after first knocking to make sure that no one was home.

  This must be what they call luxury.

  There was a separate room for cooking, which had an electrical oven that got hot just by turning a switch! There was an electrical jug that made water hot the same way.

  Forget lighting fires and burning charcoal. This is way easier!

  There was another room for sleeping in (two of those actually) and a room for washing clothes and the bathroom with the shower (the thing where water falls out of the ceiling).

  Reggie was quite surprised that I had never seen any of these things before and I think she quite enjoyed showing me how everything worked.

  She had the first turn, and she made me get out of the bathroom while she showered.

  I understand that. She is a woman.

  Then I had my turn.

  I think having a shower may be my most favourite thing ever. It’s like warm rain and I used soap (which was really soft and smelled flowery) to clean myself and then I just stood in the shower feeling the water on my skin until the water began to get cold and Reggie yelled at me to get out.

  I dried myself with the paper towels and then washed my clothes in the basin next to the shower. I wrung them out and hung them on the shower rail to dry.

  Then I walked out to where Reggie was waiting.

  “What you doing?” she said. “Put some clothes on, man. I don’t wanna see your dangly bits.”

  I am pretty sure she meant my pee-pee gun. “You already saw my dangly bits,” I said. “Down by the ocean that day.”

  “Just ’cos I seen ’em don’t mean I wanna keep looking at ’em,” she said. “Damn bro, get some clothes on.”

  So I had to put my wet clothes back on, although they did dry quickly, because it was warm.

  Then we had to clean up the bathroom perfectly spotless. Reggie said that if the owners came back, she didn’t want them to know anyone had been there.

  I was a bit worried that this whole thing was like stealing, but as Reggie pointed out, we didn’t take anything.

  So I guess that is okay.

  Thought for the day:

  Showers are my new favourite thing!

  January 16th

  I have been learning a few things.

  It is called a motorway, not a freeway. (That may be the American word for the same thing.)

  Also:

  His name is Tonto, not Four Cough. His mates are Too Skinny (Slim was quite a good guess) and Top Gun.

  Four Cough is actually something very rude.

  So is Four Qs.

  That is all I am going to say on this matter.

  January 17th

  I went back to see Mr Kavanagh today. There was no real reason, I just had nothing else to do.

  He seemed surprised, but pleased to see me. He seemed much happier than the last time I saw him.

  We had a cup of tea together, and he told me stories about my mother, when he had known her. Then he told me stories about his wife. Then he told me stories about lots of other things: countries he had been to, pets he had had, a war he had been in.

  I hardly said a word the whole time.

  When I got home, Reggie gave me a news article. It was from the New Zealand Herald, which is one of the newspapers we looked at when I was searching for news about Moma.

  She used a printer at the library to print out the article. It had photos, and a story about me. The photos were of me as a baby, and of Moma, and one of my father.

  I think it is recent because he looks older than he did in the wedding photo.

  I am not sure how I feel about this.

  I will stick it in my diary for now.

  NZ Herald Article

  Search continues for baby Egan

  Five years after the disappearance of baby Egan Tucker, his father has not given up the search, and has offered a $10,000 reward for information.

  Raymond ‘Ray’ Tucker is a former rugby international, regarded by many as a national hero for his game-saving tackle in the 2004 Bledisloe Cup final. Mr Tucker was awarded custody of his baby son Egan after a bitter court battle with his wife Moana, who had been diagnosed with clinical depression. The night before he was due to take custody, Moana and baby Egan disappeared.

  Initial fears for their safety were alleviated when it was revealed that Moana had taken money, food and other belongings with her. Police at the time described her actions as those of someone who wanted to hide, not those of someone wishing to self-harm.

  Extensive searches in New Zealand failed to find any trace of the pair, and the search was later extended to Australia and the Pacific Islands.

  Despite several promising leads, no sign of Moana or Egan has ever been found.

  In an effort to re-stimulate the search, Ray Tucker has now offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the location of Moana and Egan.

  Egan would now be five years old, and a computer-generated image of what he could look like now has been released by investigators.

  If you have any information regarding the location of Moana Ruth Tucker (née Bailey) or Egan Ray Tucker, please phone the Auckland Police.

  January 19th

  There is a lot to learn when you live on the street.

  I guess there is a lot to learn when you live anywhere. Take any of these street kids and throw them in the middle of the Coromandel forest and they would starve to death in a week – if they didn’t get gored by a Captain Cooker or die of exposure first.

  But the same applies to me. There is a lot I have to learn about living in a city. But my crew have been teaching me.

  Homeless people are one of the dangers here. Not all of them, not by a long shot, according to Reggie. Most of them are kind, gentle, unfortunate people who have had something go really badly wrong in their lives. Some of them were successful business people. Some were lawyers. Some were even teachers.

  But there are some who have had their brains totally fried by alcohol or whatever drug they have been using. Too many years living on the streets, shoving junk into your brain, and it can short-circuit a lot of the internal wiring.

  So you’ve got to learn which ones to watch out for, the same way you’ve got to learn which pigs will have a go and which will run.

  There’s the crazy old cat lady down by Victoria Park. She thinks she has a cat. But she doesn’t. You can see her stroking it and talking to it. She even feeds it, but the crumbs just drop on the ground. And when she gets her benefit money and takes it to the liquor shop, she always tells them she is buying medicine for her cat. Sometimes she wakes up and can’t see the cat (which isn’t even there) and she panics and starts screaming that someone stole her cat. But it always comes back. The cat that isn’t there. She’s loud but she’s harmless.

  Up on K Road there is an old man who looks a bit like Santa Claus (if Santa Claus was a homeless, dirty drunk). He has long white hair and a white beard, except where it is stained with whatever it is that drools constantly from his mouth. He’s one of the dangerous ones. He thinks that street kids are undercover policemen who have come to arrest him. He has a broken old umbrella and if you go too near him he will chase you and try to hit you with it. He can’t really run very fast though. Or very far. So I guess he’s not that dangerous.

  Slinky McStinky is the worst one. He’ll actually act like he is asleep to try and catch you. He’s a thin-faced, ratty looking man who never wears more than a disgusting old dirty singlet and a pair of torn wool pants, even in winter. He is really strong, Reggie said, despite his looks. And fast. He’s like a snake, lying coiled on the pavement. You’re safe as long as you stay well away from it, but get within range and it will strike, tearing at your clothing, biting your arms and legs. Reggie says he probably has some nasty diseases too.

  I wante
d to give some of these people some money (rule #26) but Reggie said not to. She said if I want to help them, buy them food. Give them money and it would go on booze – or methylated spirits if they couldn’t afford real booze. They strain it through bread to remove some chemical that makes them vomit, but it makes them blind and then later it kills them. But they don’t care. Buy them food, however, and they would eat it. They are always hungry. Especially Slinky.

  The police move him on regularly, and he disappears for weeks on end, but he always comes back. Just like a song Moma used to sing to me – about a cat who kept coming back.

  I still think the city is like a big hungry beast, but now I have a better analogy for it. (An analogy is something that us writers use to help explain things to the reader.)

  The city is like a fire. It burns constantly, and it needs a constant supply of firewood to keep it burning. Stop the firewood, and the city would slowly die away to nothing.

  Where Moma and I lived, we didn’t need much. We were like a tiny little fire that takes just a few twigs to keep it burning and it will burn for a long time on a few chunks of firewood.

  But the city is like a huge bonfire that burns and burns and needs massive amounts of firewood just to keep going.

  There are cities all over the world.

  It’s like the whole world is on fire.

  Moma’s Code #26

  Always be kind and generous to people less fortunate than you.

  Help them in any way you can.

  January 20th

  (I am writing this on January 27th.)

  I have not been able to write for a week because my hand swelled up so much I couldn’t bend my fingers. I vaguely remember someone stomping on it.

  In any case, my head has been really sore and really fuzzy for the last few days and I don’t think I could have written anything if I wanted to. Most of the pain is in my left side and I think I have a cracked rib. My face still feels like raw meat.

  Junior said that I had to go to the hospital but I said no, and Reggie, although she clearly thought so too, made them promise they wouldn’t take me there. That would involve the police.

  They said I should take some drugs to make the pain go away, but I don’t want to take any drugs. Reggie went to a pharmacy and bought some painkillers, but they all agreed that pharmacy medicine wouldn’t do much.

  Mohawk went and bought some cigarettes that he said would help, but I also promised Moma that I wouldn’t smoke, so I said no to those too. So they smoked them. They shared the cigarettes. By coincidence, it always seemed to be when the pain got really bad.

  They are not polite smokers either. Moma always used to smoke outside the cottage, and away from me. But the kids sat in a circle around me and smoked. They kept blowing the smoke in my face too, which was really rude, but I was too ill to say anything.

  Usually the pain would reduce after a few minutes, or maybe I was just light-headed from the cigarette smoke.

  Funny thing, they smelled like the same kind of cigarettes Moma used to smoke in the forest.

  I am feeling better now, it has been a week, and the swelling in my hand has gone down enough for me to write.

  So here is what happened:

  I’d been down to do my daily walk by the DOC office and then on to my favourite dumpster to see what was for dinner that day. (I think it was a noodle dish, but can’t really remember.) Then I went home.

  I knew something was wrong as soon as I turned the corner of the street towards the motorway. There was a crowd of people around the entrance to our little concrete cave.

  Junior, Mohawk, Reggie and little Allan were all standing in the entrance. Even from here I could see that they looked frightened. All except Mohawk. He looked angry. But that’s what he looks like when he’s frightened.

  At the front of the crowd, which I estimated at ten or twelve people, were Tonto, Slim and Top Gun.

  I was terrified. Not for me, but for Reggie. Well, maybe a little bit for me.

  Okay, a lot for me. But I knew I had to get involved. Rule #8. Do not look the other way.

  I turned down an alley and tied Jack to a drainpipe. I thought this might get ugly and I didn’t want him involved.

  When I came out of the alley, Tonto was waving his arms around and talking loudly. It’s easy to talk loudly when you’ve got ten or so people to back you up. I moved up quietly behind them, standing at the back of the group as if I was one of them.

  “Youse guys been spending up big time,” Tonto said. “You got seen. So we know you got money. I reckon you owe us.”

  “We don’t owe youse nuthin’,” Junior said.

  “Yeah youse do,” Tonto said. “Me and the boys were talking to Reggie the other day, and this freako dude came by and gave us all the bash. He was like six foot two and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Top Gun ended up in hospital. I reckon youse owe us for that.”

  “Youse was trying to rape me,” Reggie said. “That ain’t cool.”

  “You say,” Tonto said. “We was just having some fun. And you wanted it.”

  “Four Qs,” Reggie said.

  “We don’t got no money, bro,” Mohawk said. “We had some, but it’s all gone now.”

  “Truth?” Tonto asked.

  “Church,” Mohawk said.

  “Then we take Reggie instead,” Tonto said.

  “You ain’t getting none of this,” Reggie said.

  Junior and Mohawk, and even little Allan, moved in front of Reggie, protecting her. I thought it was time I said something.

  “Leave them alone,” I said.

  Everybody turned and looked at me.

  “Aw, that’s that freako dude,” Top Gun said.

  “Who?”

  “That guy?”

  “That ain’t no Arnie.”

  “That runt gave all three of youse the bash?”

  “Yeah, but he knows like kung fu or something,” Tonto said.

  A space cleared around me real quick smart.

  “Get out of here, Egan,” Reggie said. “This ain’t your fight.” She looked really scared.

  I was hoping it wasn’t going to be anybody’s fight. Some of the kids in Tonto’s gang had bits of wood.

  “You come to the wrong place at the wrong time,” Tonto said. “You gonna die today, fella.”

  “If you beat me up, you’ll leave them alone?” I asked.

  “No!” Reggie cried out.

  “Sounds fair to me,” Too Skinny said. “He’s the one that gave us the bash.”

  “Sweet as,” Top Gun said.

  Tonto walked right up to me so we were nose to nose. His breath smelled bad but I felt it was the wrong time to tell him.

  “Last chance to run like a girl,” he said loudly.

  As I noted earlier, it’s easy to talk loudly when you’ve got ten or so mates to back you up.

  “You leave them alone,” I said.

  He nodded slowly, then head-butted me the way I had done to him.

  I saw flashing lights in front of my eyes and my nose started bleeding.

  I didn’t do anything.

  Too Skinny kicked me on the thigh, that hurt even more, but I didn’t do anything.

  I figured I was going to get beaten up anyway and if I fought back it would just make it worse. As long as they didn’t kill me, I would heal. I have healed from some pretty nasty stuff.

  Someone hit me in the back of the head, and I was suddenly looking up at all their faces from the concrete. They started kicking, but it all seemed a bit of a blur. I think I must have been a bit dazed because it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.

  Just when I thought it was going to get really bad, it stopped.

  I could hear someone talking.

  It was little Allan.

  He was reciting the cod
e. Moma’s code. Word for word, all the stuff I had told them a few nights ago. Number 1, number 2, and so on. Don’t lie. Don’t hurt. Don’t despair. When he finished he just started again.

  “What’s all that bullshit?” Tonto asked.

  “The street-kid code of honour,” Mohawk said.

  Allan was standing next to me now.

  “What the freak you talking about?” Tonto said.

  Allan just kept saying the code, over and over.

  “You such a dickhead, Tonto,” Reggie said. “It’s tough out here. We got to look after our brothers and sisters. The pigs and the parents and the rest of the world is down on us, so we got to stick together. We gotta live by a code.”

  “The street-kid code of honour,” Mohawk said.

  “We protect each other. We don’t bash on each other,” Junior said.

  Little Allan stopped reciting and started crying.

  “That’s such bullshit,” Tonto said. He gave me a kick for good measure.

  “I don’t know …” Top Gun said.

  There was a lot of murmuring in the group.

  “She’s right. We ain’t got nobody else,” Too Skinny said. “Just each other.”

  “A code of honour,” Top Gun said. I could see he quite liked that idea.

  “Who told you this code?” Tonto asked.

  “He did,” I heard Reggie say. I couldn’t see her from my vantage point on the ground under their boots.

  “That’s bullshit,” Tonto said. “He ain’t even one of us.”

  That caused another murmur through the crowd.

  “Yeah, he is,” Reggie said.

  “No, he ain’t,” Too Skinny said.

  “Yeah? How long you been on the street?” Reggie asked.

  “I don’t know man, more than a year, for sure,” Too Skinny said.