by Ted Dawe
Karangahape Road.
K. Road to the initiated.
It’s here you’ll find Flash and Sonny, Geronimo and Cheyenne, Jazz and Roxy: a jungle of operators whose lives connect and collide, overlap and glance one off the other. Drifters, surfers, taggers. The gangsters and the street kids, those who hunt and those who run: a jostling urban tribe fighting for turf.
K. Road unsettles with its urgent song: the sharp fear fuelling those close to the edge. It sings of loyalties and betrayals, of debts that must be repaid, of the fragile ties that bind us all.
But it’s Jazz and Roxy, teenage lovers on the run, who try to escape this cruel, subterranean existence. Their ticket to survival is Jazz’s extraordinary gift: their love story heart-breaking.
As tender as it is brutal, K. Road’s plaintive riff lingers long after the music is over.
To K. Road
May your strip be ever golden
And your lights burn ever bright
A refuge to the lonely
A beacon in the night
May you stay
Forever young…
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following people on the implicit understanding that I can call on their services again when that time comes.
To Neville Byrt, Tom Purvis and Bernard McKissock-Davis (my friends) for their positive and useful responses to the rough beast freshly escaped from the word processor.
To Emma Neale, (my editor) for her eye for the ‘diamond in the rough’, and for her tenacity and sensitivity. Where would I be without her?
To Barbara Larson, (my publisher) for her perceptive judgement, loyalty and endless encouragement.
To the team at Longacre (Annette, Christine et al) for bringing their special talents to bear.
Finally to Jane (my patron) for her support and encouragement.
The path I follow as a writer was carved out by the storytellers from my childhood.
This book is dedicated to the memory of three of them:
Peter D’Ath
Joan Smith
Jackie Allan
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
1. Rabbit and Flash at the Beach
2. Geronimo and Cheyenne Go Fishing
3. Reconstructing the Night
4. The Whale Rider
5. The (Cold) Hard Truth
6. Geronimo and Cheyenne Go Hunting
7. This is the Show
8. Wheelie Bin
9. Bryce and Evan’s Morning Beat
10. The Gospel According to Ozzie
11. The Warrior Who Conquered E Mei Mountain
12. Paul’s Day in Court
13. Alchemy in the Burbs
14. Overtime
15. Maus Sez ‘Chill It’
16. Big Bang Theories
17. True Love
18. Ground Zero (Plus 36 Minutes)
19. Cat and Maus
20. The ‘To be Continued’ Category
21. Showdown at the OK Corral
22. Blasts from the Past
23. Room at the Top
24. Ozziemandias
25. Geronimo’s Last Stand: Part 1
26. The Road to Damascus
27. Geronimo’s Last Stand: Part 2
28. All God’s Children
About the Author
Also by Ted Dawe
Copyright
1 RABBIT AND FLASH AT THE BEACH
It was still dark when Flash woke up. Their last day. He had awoken filled with the sudden regret and sadness that measured the passing of time or the end of something good. He lay still, listening to the slap of the breakers in the distance. From the mouth of the tent he could see the tips of a row of macrocarpas. They were being tugged gently towards the beach. Off-shore breeze, he thought. He gave Rabbit a nudge. There was no head visible, just the rise and fall of the green sleeping bag.
‘Rabbit! Listen man.’
Rabbit’s head came out of a hole at the top of the bag.
‘Sup?’
‘It’s going off.’
They both lay silently, straining to make sense of the distant breakers, then Flash wriggled out of the bag and walked the hundred metres or so to the point. He crouched in the long grass and watched the bay lighten with the coming of dawn. There, all in tones of grey, and far below him, was Moana Bay. Its flawless arc of black sand enclosed row after row of sharp, silver waves. For a moment he was lost in the beauty of the scene. The curve of bay with its lines of breakers looked like the strings of a giant harp … music for the eyes.
Surfing was about beauty, about joy, about being the wave. About the impulse that signalled a greater order. A transcendence. It could never be understood, it couldn’t even be described. It could only be experienced in the moments when surfer and wave became one egoless movement, and in the depths of that one-ness, came a resonating chord that drowned the dissonant clatter of existence.
When Flash got back to the tent, Rabbit was halfway into his wetsuit.
‘So how’s it looking?’
‘Primo. There’s an off-shore and the sets are sitting up way past where they were yesterday. The wind’s licking twenty foot tails off the crests and there’s no-one there.’
‘Cool,’ said Rabbit.
He took off his T-shirt and pulled up the body suit so it was snug in his crotch. Flash began the process too. It was always a drag, this. Difficult, slow, but essential at this time of the year if you wanted to stay in for an hour or more. Somehow it was worse now he had scoped out the bay because he was aware of all those waves rolling in, unsurfed, dissipating their moving muscle on the beach. He tried not to hurry because that always made the wait longer.
Rabbit was ready and pacing around. ‘Come on man, pick it up! Pick it up! Put your top on when we get down there. This could be the best day and we’re wasting it minute by minute. Go go go…’
‘Do me a favour … shut the fuck man … you’re doing a good take on Donkey Vander Wall there.’
Donkey Vander Wall had been their rugby coach at school. He’d been called Donkey ever since Ese Fata had pointed out he was hung like one, when they were all together in the post-game showers one day.
Rabbit grabbed his crotch. ‘I’d need an insert in the wetsuit. It would look stoopid.’
‘I don’t know, could act like a fin if you were body surfing.’
They both laughed and climbed into the EH. It started with a subdued roar that said ‘hole in the muffler,’ and they moved slowly through the cows, to the gate. Flash jumped out and restrained the impulse to ride it open. Farmers were funny about their gates, and Terry had been good to them. Not only free camping, but other bits and pieces too. He’d been a surfer once, knew what it was like.
When they got to the car park they were pleased to see it was still empty, as was the bay itself. The other surfers sleeping in the wagon at the far end hadn’t woken up yet. It was all theirs. They pulled the boards out of the back and headed off towards the silver water and the slate grey sky. It was no warmer than yesterday, but the surf was so steep and glassy it could have had icebergs floating in it and they wouldn’t have cared. They swapped looks at the knee-deep stage, where they paused to anoint themselves. It wasn’t just good, it was unbelievable. Then they both plunged forward to begin the paddle out to the back. No more talking now, just the occasional signals that meant ‘Did you see that?’ or ‘Here comes a biggie.’
Hours later, or perhaps minutes – time meant nothing when you were surfing – Flash headed back to shore. After two standout rides he was content to take this wave all the way back in. Like catching a bus. The wave stood up so beautifully in the off-shore that h
e could have beached the board if he had wanted to. It was one of those days. But by now his fingers and toes had turned that chalky colour and feeling had long since left them. He knew fatigue and lack of food were beginning to make him clumsy and less god-like.
Rabbit would be out there for another half hour at least. He didn’t seem to get cold, or sore, or injured. Sometimes he seemed impervious to all feeling. That’s why Donkey always used to play him on a Saturday, no matter how many practices he had missed. One rule for Rabbit, another for everyone else. They all knew it, too.
The beach was a different place now after an hour or two. The locals had come. The campers in the wagons were out and into it. More mysteriously, a number of Auckland surfers had arrived. Flash recognised some of them. How the hell had they known? There was a sort of telepathy that worked amongst the brotherhood. Good waves sent out messages 30, 40 k or more, and the surfers’ finely tuned radars never failed to lock into them. He could see Rabbit and this other surfer take off on a big wave near the back. Rabbit was first on and by all the known and unwritten laws, had right of way. The other surfer, smaller and more agile, dropped in on top of him. They touched briefly and Rabbit had to bale.
‘Jesus!’ thought Flash. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’ Rabbit was not someone you did that to. Or rather he was not someone you did that to twice. Flash watched anxiously, wondering what was going to happen next. Rabbit might stay out there and deal to the kid on the water, but that was not the correct form. More likely he would come in and wait on the beach for him to emerge. Then he would, as he used to say, ‘Clear the matter up,’ which usually meant a bit of a slapping.
The younger guy was really quick, he worked the face of the wave flicking backwards and forwards, tight turns and sharp cuts finishing with a 360 for the benefit of those watching from the beach. He was one of the new breed of surfers, treated the board like a skateboard. They fought the waves the same way a bullfighter fought the bulls. They were clever hoons. There was no Zen in it for them. It was an ego deal.
Rabbit was coming in. Straight in. No further interest. This meant trouble. He was pissed off all right. Flash was sad. It had been six strife-free days and now, the day they were leaving, Rabbit was going to deal to someone.
He looked down the beach at the other clusters of surfers, idly wondering which clique the kid would be attached to. These things happened in surfing, but fights these days often weren’t sorted out one on one. They quickly became gang deals. About 50 metres down the beach there were four older dudes, around his age. One of them looked a bit familiar but it was always hard to tell when the guy had shades on. There was no-one much else. Everyone else was in the water. Conditions didn’t get much better than this.
He turned back to Rabbit who now was wading out of the water. He was big, Rabbit. Hard too. He loved a fight because he was good at it. Flash remembered the one time he had fought him at a school dance when they were 14. He had gone at him with all his aggression and force. But somehow, in the midst of this, he had realised that Rabbit wasn’t fighting back. He was just holding him off, giving him a whack every now and then to put him in his place. Not trying. When Rabbit really put his mind to it he could do damage.
‘So how was that?’
‘Cool until those little punks turned up. They don’t know the beach from a skate park.’
‘I saw him.’
‘Yeah? Well he’s going to see me when he comes out.’
‘Come on, man. It wasn’t major.’
‘Major enough.’
Obviously his mind was made up. They dried off and sat on the beach waiting. Chances were, if the kid didn’t come out for a while, he and Rabbit might push off and the whole thing could be averted. The sun had started to come out, and the wind was now more northerly. The glassy sets were now less picture-perfect and much smaller. They had scored the best surfing of the morning. Before long the surf club would arrive, then the inevitable family groups, and the beach would become something else. Something less than the severe grey sanctuary it was at dawn.
Rabbit stood up. His little interloper was walking out of the surf. He moved down to meet him at the dry edge. Flash could tell even from a distance that the kid knew he was in trouble. He waited in the waist deep water, not knowing what to do. He could stay there forever but he knew he was in for some swift beach justice. Two guys from the group along the bay began to walk down to the water’s edge.
‘Oh shit!’ muttered Flash, as he got to his feet reluctantly. This was not the way to finish up. It was going to poison the whole six days. Still, loyalty was the more urgent course.
Down at the tide line Rabbit was calling out to the surfer in the water, urging him to come out for a talk. He never saw the two guys closing in on him from the back. Flash ran now, trying to be there in time. He noted as he left his gear that two other guys from the beach were following him. It would be four on two. They were surely going to get done here, but it couldn’t be avoided.
Rabbit turned as the first two approached him. He drew his arm back and slapped the palm of the bigger guy. There was a grin, an exchange of words. They knew each other. As he joined the group he saw who it was he had spotted in profile. It was Jake, and that was his brother now emerging from the water. Cheeky little Wilson, all grown up – well, sort of.
Rabbit and Jake turned to him as they all came together on the beach.
‘It’s the Flash.’
‘Hey, Jake. Here I was, all ready to poke you in the ear. I still owe you one.’
He laughed. ‘That wasn’t me. I use the fist not the elbow.’
‘Well, being the back of the head, I’ll never have proof … no video replays.’
‘Man oh man. Still banging on about that. Last words … like an epitaph. “Jake elbowed me”.’
‘Yeah, well I reckon it cost me a bunch of brain cells. The difference between an A and a B Bursary.’ Flash rubbed the back of his head as if the lump was still there.
Rabbit laughed. ‘How we forget, Flash. Too many trips to the tinnie house. That was the difference between an A and a B. Short term memory loss.’
They walked back up the beach together to where the others in Jake’s group stood.
‘Meet the bros. These are all whanau from the Hokianga. They’ve been crashing with us out at Papakura.’
They all shook hands. That sort of edgy way where you stand back and extend the palm a long way forward.
‘If I had known there were so many of you I’d have just dealt to him in the water.’
‘You couldn’t get near me, bro. That was the whole deal. We’re the new generation surfers, fast and furious.’
Wilson was still cheeky. It would be just a matter of time before he did that to the wrong person and got sorted out properly.
‘Yeah bro, you’re fast, he’s furious,’ said his brother, and flicked his head. ‘One day you won’t be fast enough … when the Rabbit hits you, you stay hit.’
He turned to Flash. ‘You still do athletics Flash? You were the quickest wing our team ever had.’
‘Shit no. My times were crap at national level. I had one season with a club playing rugby after school, eh Rabbit, but we jacked it in. Too much training, Too many wankers. Not enough fun.’
‘Yeah,’ Rabbit quipped, remembering. ‘Everyone hanging out to be spotted. How about you?’
‘I do a bit of league now. Get a bit of money for it too.’
‘He’s the hitman for the Dogs,’ one of the Hokianga said, obviously impressed. ‘Someone needs some biff, Jake’s your man.’
‘The elbow of death,’ said Flash, not letting him forget it that easily. ‘The Dogs? Sounds like a gang team to me.’
‘Half the team are connected but I stayed clear. Have to, otherwise my mum would come back from the grave to kill me. She always reckoned one patched member in our family was enough.’
They all laughed. Mind you, Jake’s mum was not someone to under-estimate. She had once chased the Donkey through the c
hanging rooms after he’d sidelined Jake for fighting. The team laughed about it for weeks afterwards.
‘So what are you two up to anyway? Varsity holidays?’
Rabbit shook his head. ‘We jacked that in too. After the first year. I reckon we both knew we had spent enough of our lives being talked down to by old farts. We’re both sort of builders. Contractors. You want a garage built? We’re it.’
Jake was incredulous. ‘You did an apprenticeship?’
Rabbit shook his head. ‘No, we hire people for the hard bits, eh? Labour only. You know. Get in there. Do what needs to be done.’
‘How about you, Jake?’ Flash asked. ‘I thought you were going to PE school in Otago. That happen?’
Jake shook his head as though being reminded of a childhood memory. ‘Sheesh, that was a long time ago. No. I never followed that through. I’ve been in Aussie. Near Newcastle. Worked in a brick factory. Twelve hour days. Six days a week. Huge money. Heaps of fights. It got boring after a while. Went back to Seednee. Bought a flash car. Played semi-pro league for Penrith. Their B team. Now I’m sort of stuck, halfway between here and Aussie. Can’t decide which side of the ditch to camp out on.’
They all stood about for a while, waiting for someone to make a suggestion. Make an arrangement to meet or do something, but there was a reluctance. Like the crucial moment had come and gone and their old closeness was as remote as their memories. The triumphant grapple after a try. The singing on the bus as they traveled to their showdown at the finals, loud and mocking, dripping with aggression and desire. And on the homeward journey, everyone trapped in an aching skin, replaying their part in the 90 minute drama. It was a world away now – and they were different people in it.
2 GERONIMO AND CHEYENNE GO FISHING
Geronimo looked at his watch. Five a.m. No time to lose. He was meant to be picking up Cheyenne at 5:30 but he needed something to eat first. He pulled on his jeans, football socks. It would probably be warm later, but now he felt the cold, especially straight out of bed. He felt on the hook behind the door for his jacket. Gone! His Scorpion jacket gone. He had worn it the day before yesterday. There was nowhere else it could be.