Closing my eyes, I stand erect, chest puffed like a bantam rooster. I feel the room hanging on the sight of me, imploring the white boy to cough (I doan even noe if I cood do that!) and satisfaction bleeds across my face. I count slowly to five and, very deliberately, unleash a cloud to make an oil-fire wince, sending no fewer than three perfect smoke-rings wafting toward the ceiling.
I nod thanks to the bowler, a show that fools no one but must always be maintained.
He struts away, ostensibly apathetic.
And the hostility around us eases some. (Faw a bawl’ead this fulla can smoke, bro! No way on earf that cunt’s a nark.) The music seems to get louder, conversation takes off, laughter erupts of which we are clearly no font.
It seems the snow wolf has won for his pack a degree of rodent acceptance.
Barry, sidling in close to me, grin kept casual, barely: ‘Did I ever tell you that you’re nothing less than the Messiah reborn?’
I drop him a wink. ‘Habitually.’
Across the room Steve slips me a subtle thumbs up, and, waiting for Joe to reappear, we settle in almost comfortably.
Me: ‘Wish I had a fucking beer.’
Barry: ‘Seconded.’
Lefty: ‘Why don’t I go out the car and get a couple?’
Mick: ‘Because you won’t come back.’
Lefty, wronged: ‘Yeah, I will! Why do ya say I won’t?’
Mick launches a prosecution of his argument, recapping some of the many instances when Lefty has indeed gone AWOL from dubious settings, but at this point my attention is snagged by the sight of a girl entering the room from an area that may occasionally pose as a kitchen. In black jeans, a tight red T-shirt that highlights her firm tits well, her prettyish face — even behind garish layers of make-up — seems familiar. Short and slim, she’s quite pale for a Maori, and when her eyes meet mine I place her instantly.
Me, mouthing: Vicki.
Vicki, stunned: Gator?
She looks around sharply, as if expecting somehow to find herself in the wrong house. Gangsters, arse-lickers, molls. No, I’m in the right place. Can’t say the same for you, though.
Again she looks the room over, this time in more pragmatic fashion, and seems to arrive at a decision, walking slowly across to me. She’s weaving a little, but, as pissed as she might be, when she arrives Vicki’s careful not to stand too close, arms folded across her chest like a barrier.
As she speaks, even her face and voice are mindful of showing none but the most cursory interest. ‘What are yu doing ’ere?’
‘Scoring. Long time no see.’
‘I reckon.’ A grin tries to grab her, but she throttles it. ‘’Ow long’s it been?’
Quickly calculating: ‘Six years, I guess.’
I can feel noxious attention spreading to me again, and I know I’m treading thin ice. But what can I do? I can’t just send her away. Besides, I don’t want to: we were good friends once, Vicki and I. Even so, my body language, like hers, becomes an epitome of non-flirtation. ‘Do you come here much?’
Vicki, nodding: ‘I starded going out wif Hemi a coupla years back, ’anging out wif all these fullas and that. When we split up I … I saw a coupla tha others faw a while. Now they’re my family, really.’ She smiles at this, but its heart seems vacant, her eyes duller than I remember.
I’m guessing the Fiend’s been visiting my Vicki. How can I doubt it if she’s running with these mongrels?
Not that god had cut her much slack from the outset.
We’d become friends early in primary school, the roots of our bond in intellectualism. Just two bright kids working together on special projects, something to ‘stretch your minds beyond the curriculum’. That’s all it takes: specious chalk and cheese given alibi for bridging rifts, discovering that, essentially, there is no more shallow a yardstick than palpable distinction — hue, sexual equipment, parental bank balance. Fuck, it happens with kids often, happens any place in the world where contrary elements are merged without bias.
And then we gain ‘maturity’, inherit the toils of our forebears.
We used to discuss all manner of things, share each other’s dreams. Vicki had an older sister who used to read to her, take her to the library. Sometimes I’d go along with them, walking the six k’s gladly, the three of us laughing all the way.
But Vicki had a mother she scarcely knew: a mother who drank all night, slept all day.
She also had a father whose idea of discipline was a clenched fist.
She wanted to be a biologist, had the brains and the will for it too.
Yet by Form Two the spark had been murdered, the black eyes occurring so often that Vicki lost the will to face school; slipped into the murk.
‘So what are yu doing wif yawself these days?’
‘I’m in the Craft of Arch-Treason.’
She does laugh at that, and for an instant I see the woman she should have grown into. ‘Same old Gator. ’Ave yu seen Steve?’
‘Yeah. Surprised me as much as seeing you.’
He comes over and for a while we all shoot the shit, reliving the high times, the days when what really matters is who you are beneath it.
The shotgun I nailed takes hold in earnest, mingling with the booze, swiss-cheesing my brain. My voice soon sounds miles distant, the volume of the room ebbing and sighing. The reflectiveness of dope, overconfidence and distortion of alcohol, clash violently, conjuring absurd thoughts, visions which nevertheless at times hold lurid insights. My body begins to tingle and buzz in time with the room’s throbbing ambience, my companions evoking in me a nostalgia of excruciating sweetness.
The conglomerate effect is stunning, something more akin to an A-class substance than a bit of pot and liquid from the corner wholesaler’s. On the rare occasions I’m silly enough to mix the two these days, this early stage of the buzz is fucking fantastic, a kosh-like trip not wholly dissimilar to the rougher strands of acid.
And the intensity of it just builds.
And builds.
Until, within an hour, the sensation reaches the point where, eyes open or closed, the world can no longer be kept from performing its dreaded merry-go-round enactment.
Then comes laughter of the liquid variety.
And not a good solid up-chuck either, to leave you feeling miraculously better. We’re talking gut-cramping retches for bile and dribble and less. Choking, hawking, spluttering on hydrochloric acid, wishing for death and swearing all manner of priestly resolution, often until morning.
But for the moment ‘she’ll be right’.
It seems that Hemi’s been cooking. He works the room, flourishing a huge iron frying-pan filled with mussels, boiled just enough to open the shells. The smell alone floods my mouth with juices, though in this condition I’m less capable of eating than I am of captaining an aircraft carrier. Theatrically magnanimous, Hemi shares his treasures among the exalted few, pointedly ignoring the rejecteds’ wet lips.
Charlie eventually materialises. He commits our faces to memory, giving each of us a nod: a key to psychedelia.
Charlie, to Barry: ‘’Ow many yu’s want, then?’
‘Seven.’
‘Seven?’
‘Yeah. We’re sorting out a few friends as well.’
‘Bring ’em round next time. So long as they sweet. Doan want no soft-cocks, fullas ’u might squeal if they get busted.’ Even without the sudden eyes, the threat is plain.
Barry, casually counting out cash: ‘Na, these ones are chicks. I don’t know too many chicks I’d give dealer contacts to.’
Charlie, handing over seven small objects, as innocuous in appearance as scaled-down postage stamps: ‘Yeah? Good. Mine dew, wooden mine sum white pussy faw a change.’ His gapped grin could repulse a sex offender. ‘Bring ’em round anyway. We’ll put ’em on the block. Yu can go larst.’
‘Huhuhuhuhuu.’
Tapeka, eyes lighting: ‘Speaking’a that, u’s turn is it tonide, anyway?’
Hemi: ‘I doan �
�member, bro.’ Chin high, he casts a lordly gaze about the room, and I feel a strange tingle grip it. Some seem suddenly aroused, others wary.
Making a show of things, relishing every second, Hemi’s gaze falls finally on Vicki beside me. ‘It’s yaw turn, innit?’
A flash of dismay twists her face, and she shoots me a look I interpret as a plea for help, or a wish I were miles away. Her eyes then beg the gangster. ‘No it ain’t! I went last Friday, ’member?’
Deliberation purses Hemi’s fat lips for a good few seconds, the gallery hanging on his response. At last, implacable: ‘Na, doan ’member that. And even if I did, if I say it’s yaw turn, then it’s yaw — fuckin’ — turn.’
To myself I try to deny what’s been set in motion. But the relish on the faces of the patches, the sympathy and relief — even some jealousy — on the faces of the molls, sniggers at the attempt. I’ve heard about these gang ‘blockings’, and as I watch the strength leave Vicki’s posture, the realisation of what is soon to happen to her hits me like an upper-cut.
They’re gonna strip her naked, spread her wide, and take turns fucking her. My Vicki, the quiet, smiling whizzkid, who should have worked with animals, is about to be violated by upwards of twenty thuggish villains, many of whose dirty black cocks no doubt retain forensic traces of her from the Friday before.
A single tear snakes down Vicki’s cheek, and then, with a grimacing spasm, head bowing, a dull acceptance seems to claim her.
Steve catches my attention, nods toward the door, and, the deal done, I feel my compadres’ equal eagerness for departure.
Still holding the frying pan — now filled with empty shells — Hemi informs the room: ‘Same old story, boys: I’m first. Arfda that, yu’s can do what the fuck yu’s like. Let’s go, bitch.’ As animated haggling breaks out around us, Hemi saunters toward the kitchen … and its long undressed table.
Shuffling, Vicki moves to trail him.
Me, pitching it low: ‘You don’t have to do this, Vicki.’
She stops, turning to me, and I watch a flare of hope and trust go off in her eyes.
Then Hemi looks back, frying-pan in one hand, notices her lagging, notices the direction of her eyes. He strides over and, with a rough hand, spins her about, demanding: ‘Whadid ’e sayda yu?’
Vicki, shrinking: ‘Nothing. Let’s go.’
She attempts to lead him away, but he grips her by the throat, hard, glaring over his nose. Mordantly surprised: ‘I guess yu didin’ ’ear me prop’ly! I wanna noe what this bawl’ead said. Now if yu doan tell me whadit was, I’m gonna fuck you up yaw arse … and make alllll the boys do the same. That’s a promise, bitch.’
True terror flays Vicki’s eyes, and she instantly wheezes: ‘’E said I didin’ ’af t’ do this!’
Forgetting her, Hemi fronts me with a look of mad relish that turns my legs to foam. My disgusted horror for Vicki — my awareness of her existence — evaporates in an icy deluge.
Steve, brusque: ‘It’s time I got these fullas outta ’ere anyway. C’mon, Gator.’
A buoy in a heaving sea, I whirl towards him …
… as a grenade goes off near my ear, the floor rushing for me, vision fading in rapid increments.
The last thing I perceive is an empty Rothmans packet, half crushed and discarded, inflated to ten times its usual size.
PREGNANT WOMEN: SMOKING HARMS YOUR BABY
Though he spoke low, Mick heard what Gator told the girl — ‘You don’t have to do this, Vicki.’ — and almost swooned with surprise and dread.
Jesus fucking Christ, don’t let her hear!
But the late JC wasn’t listening: Vicki turned to Gator as if Redemption were tattooed on his chest. Hemi turned a second or two later, and the gist of what had happened seemed clear to him.
Sense of ruin building, Mick looked to his fellows, barely hearing Hemi accosting the moll. Lefty was a hair’s breadth from bolting; Barry watched developments with what might have been fascination.
Mick, slapping Barry’s shoulder: ‘Let’s get the fuck outta here, now.’
And then things really turned to shit.
A snarling beam cleaving his face, Hemi swung the pan two-handed, like Chris Cairns playing the pull shot, attempted to smash Gator’s head into row twelve of the southern stand.
Heart catching, Mick looses a squeal, something masked by Gator’s almighty grunt, and time seems to slow: mussel shells wafting like leaves; the dong of iron on skull, lingering like church bells; canned fanfare sweeping the studio audience; Vicki’s face frozen in stark dismay; Lefty strolling for the exit, knees pumping. Only Gator remains in real-time, collapsing like a scarecrow with its feet jerked away, blood welling from his skull with all the poise of a tiny spring Mick once encountered on a bush walk.
Survival kicking in, Mick spins for the door … to find it choked by wild-eyed prospects, charging in for investigation.
A stranger inside him speaks, for a second ignoring the appalling circumstances. At least I won’t have to shrink in shame whenever I look back on this.
But this sense of helplessness in the face of savagery features high on Mick’s list of primal dreads.
In a stroke, horror has him immobilised in its flawless suit of ice. Sound comes in waves, vision swimming at the edges. This is all the fear from Mick’s every nightmare delivered in one berserk charge, the dope in his head making it all so sensually surreal.
In his life as a teenage party-goer, Mick has seen violence, some of it ugly. To his consternation, he’s even been forced to fight once or twice. But, despite the fantasies he and Gator verbally enact, this current hand holds cards Mick has all his life prayed never to arrive.
This is capture by Gestapo, awaiting interrogation.
This is a runaway cotton nigger, bloodhounds yapping in background.
And Mick is brought face to face with the filthy creature at his core. A stinking pariah who would sprint on a path of newborns were it the only route from an inferno.
A wretch he hopes lives in everybody.
From this inferno, though, no such trail exists, and as the room fills around him, Mick feels his dick shrivel to a peanut, his jaw quivering like a Parkinson’s sufferer’s.
Steve, furious but in control: ‘Fuck, yaw an arsehole, Hemi!’
He kneels to Gator, but Hemi shoves him away. ‘I ain’t fuckin’ done wif ’em yet, cuz. Not by a longgggg stretch. Maoris noe beda than t’mess in Rabble affairs; wait till yu see what ’appens when bawl’eads do it.’ The gangster shrugs out of his vest, businesslike, handing it to an eager associate, a look of focus about him, a barber preparing a haircut.
Vicki, grabbing him, tears streaming, hysterical: ‘It weren’t ’is fault, Hemi! Doan …!’
Hemi, to a nagging blowfly: ‘Fuck off, bitch.’ Almost absently, he sends her reeling with a short hook across the jaw.
A quick look passes between Steve and Barry.
Steve then throws an arm around Hemi, taking advantage of the manner with which Vicki has spun him from Gator, pulling him further around, voice wheedling but loud enough to snag attention. ‘There’s something you gotta know ’bout ’im, Hemi …!’
Smooth as spilled oil, Barry hoists Gator by the armpits and starts for the door, only then noticing how congested it is. Face declaring he seeks a toilet down which to flush his burden, he manages to cuff Mick across the ear, hard, denting his trance.
Barry, hissing: ‘Find a way outta this fucking hovel!’
Instinctive logic takes over, leaving the answer suddenly simple. Very deliberately, Mick leads the way through the hole in the wall that links the split house … and there it is, just as his subconscious had told him.
The dwelling’s mirror-image doorway, wide open and blissfully empty.
Shouts rise from behind.
Hemi: ‘Bring ’im the fuck back ’ere! I’m not done wif …!’
Steve: ‘Lissen t’ me, bro! ’Is old man’s a cop: heada the Vegas drug squad! ’E’ll be round �
�ere every day if yu doan let it go! ’E’s a …!’
Hemi, roaring: ‘I doan give a fuck if ’is old man’s heada the whole bawl’ead guvmint! You fuckin’ get outta my way now, Steve, or, cuzin or not, yu just as fuckin’ dead as ’e is!’
Mick floats down the steps, Barry and a dragged Gator following hard. Fresh air tastes of distilled salvation; is too rich and sudden — Mick spews across the grass, barely breaking stride.
They’ve reached the middle of the lawn when a shout is relayed to the handful of prospects who remain outside. ‘Stop the white cunts!’
Mick runs. Finds himself hurled to ground effortlessly. Clutching Gator like a prize, Barry attempts to fight his way clear, one-handed, but, fists flying, two of them soon have him held.
Punters pour from the house, a ring encircling the thwarted escapees with horrifying rapidness.
Steve, muscling his way through, yelling into Barry’s face: ‘Fuck orf, bawl’ead!’ He shoves him violently toward the road, his manner confusing Barry’s captors, who let him back away. Steve then rips Mick to his feet, holding him near.
Gator, though, beginning to mumble and clutch at his head, remains at black boots like an offering.
Steve to Mick, whispering: ‘Wake yaw mate up an’ tell ’im if ’e can’t run in less than a minnit ’e’s fucked.’
On autopilot, Mick kneels to Gator, just as Hemi arrives. ‘Cher! Now yaw mine, cunt!’
With a steel-capped toe, he kicks Gator’s midsection with everything he’s got.
Once …
… twice.
Agony mutilates Gator’s face, vile gargling echoing like dodgy plumbing.
An unconscious moan crawls from Mick’s lips. A cornered bird, his eyes dart from face to face unseeingly.
Steve restrains Hemi, rescuing Gator from a third kick, Steve’s own anger patently near overload. ‘That’s enuf, man!’
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