by Alan Duff
The bouncers, the ones stationed inside, bulling their way to the last scene, pushing and shoving and even punching people aside in their greedy haste to get to the action and give it some of their own. But Jake didn’t give it another thought, only the dude’s face who threw the big hit frozen in his mind for later.
People greeted at every step, near. Laughin their crawlin laughs, patting him, shaking his mit, even the left one’d do in their eagerness to be in withim; asking him who he was gonna sort out tonight. Shet. Lodging their greetings with him so he’d not forget, falling at his feet damn near; brushing, touching, squeezing a man’s rock-hard muscularity just like I’m a fuckin god. Shet.
Then the pretend mums and dads and uncles and aunties laying bullshet claim to their relation, kissing and hugging and slobbering all ovah a man, made him feel stink, just wanted to get away from em. But shaking a hand, accepting an embrace, wearing a sloppy kiss because, well, they were his people, he was one ofem. (I think.) Jake never completely sure who he was one of. The popularity sometimes adding to his unsureness, hard that it was in knowing people’s motives. Yet accepting, on the surface of his thoughts, that he was one ofem alright. If not the one.
Some were already succumbed to the booze: slumped out on tables, barely able to stand, being propped up by friends, a wife, a relation; some curled up under tables just like little babes or kids not wanting to go home. These the bouncers didn’t mind so much just so long as they were tucked away out of sight of Mr M for McClutchy himself. If it was Jake he could be anywhere in any state of drunkenness and that was alright. Any bouncer tries me on and I’d take the cunt apart. So.
So people going, all over the joint they were going. Out of their minds, that is. Heads rolling, eyes too, things coming out jumbled, rubbishy, and aggression growing; spit-drops on every spat out word, sentence, a gibberish, a mixed up, fucked-up gibberish from a person sposed to be a human. Man. Did a fulla get as bad as that? Jake always found it hard to believe of himself whenever he did happen to come in sober.
The ones going you could see the different signs, a punch — feeble, mostly — flopping out at some invisible or real opponent, followed by fush and fugg meant to be fucks, or hurling insults at the ghost every drunk carries in his mind and probably in his heart too. And the gats going. But not, like, out of it. Just going as gats do: jingjika strumdestrum … jukebox going up an down in competition depending on what was played; and over at the jukie, look atem, a middle-aged couple dancing out their dumb fantasies and the coloured lights from the jukebox thrown on their oblivious features sort of telling a man sumpthin but what, Jake did not know. Except it was to do with love, and love being mixed up, confused. (Then later the same fulla’d be punching his lover dance partner for giving someone the (imagined) eye or because he thought she’d gone off him. Man, don’t tell Jake Heke, he knows these things: punching, the hurt that causes the punches, Jake understands.)
And you could only just hear Mavis Tatana the Voice Magnificent singing alone to her guitarist strumming for her, an old number from the days when music had melody (and romance) and the words you could, you know, sort of dig them, what they were saying, even if you didn’t always feel like listenin.
Mavis. Shet, people said she coulda been a opera star, any kinda singing star she wanted, if she wasn’t struck with the ole Maori shyness, oh, but that’s the Maori for you, too shy, too scared to throw him and herself forward in case people are looking, listening, maybe laughing and certainly talking; it’s better to stay put and shut up. Till you’re drunk that is. Poor Mavis. Not like whatshername, the famous Maori opera singer, the real famous one, Kiri, that’s it. Kiri Te Kanawa. Even Jake Heke’s heard of her; why, she even sang at that wedding, you know, the royal one with the pretty thing built like a fuckin racehorse married the fulla with the big nose, Charlie, that’s it. Well, them: Kiri sang at their wedding. A Maori, can ya believe it? On the TV too, all over the fuckin world! The world, man. None a this Two Lakes stuff for her. The world. Aee, Jake’d heard em say of Kiri over the years, I cried that day to see a Maori — a Maori — singing for royalty in front of the whole world. Cried. Only thing, I didn’t like that damn dress she wore, made her look like she’d bought it from the Sally Op Shop, eh. And people laughing at that and saying it was the Maori coming out in their Kiri, her lack of taste in a Pakeha world with all their headstart years of so-fist-i-cay-shun. Laughing at that too, their own ability to laugh at emselves. And everyone always remembered or was inspired to comparing their Mavis Tatana to our Kiri Te Kanawa because when Mavis sang she gave you no choice she bowled you with her talent, almost frightened you with the scope of herself, the tones and shades and hues and sheer range of her notes. Except you didn’t understand what was happening to you, especially not if you were Jake Heke, yet you could hear — hear — and so you had this thing inside happening to you but you did not know what. For the life of you, you didn’t.
So there she was, as usual, Mavis Tatana, the lone star amongst the burnt-out bodies and yet representing something of you, everyone knew this. As if she was representing them, the people, at some championship. The championship of life — LIFE. It must be, or why else did she move you so?
Oh, kia ora! Jake being greeted in Maori, the language of his physical appearance, his actual ethnic existence, and yet they could be speaking Chink-language for what it mattered. Course a man understood kia ora, who doesn’t even the honkies do, but as for the rest. Made him uncomfortable if they spoke it to him, so Jake always replied in emphatic English, and sometimes a speaker might exclaim, Aee, the Pakeha took away our language and soon it’ll be gone. But that was before this kohanga reo stuff they introduced, of getting the language spoken in classes, on the TV. But a man still didn’t feel comfortable in its presence. They were older, these speakers of the stolen language, and they ruffled his hair (oh man, but I love my hair being done like that) felt his bicep muscles in that Maori way like they’re sizing up a steak, a good feed, or like a man’s a racehorse; and the men they gave him the google eyes and did their imitations of his imitation Ali shuffle, some ofem pretty damn good for old fullas, gave him looks of mock fear and touched his face, stroked a man (like his daddy never did) made him feel humble. And warm all over. Sentimental. I need a beer. Gotta go, Pop. Catch ya later. Off into the crowd again. Teeth grinding up like an engine restarted.
Giving a wave to the table everyone called the Alkies’ Corner. One small corner of a vast bar in a vast world (or that’s how Two Lakes the greater felt). Jake never forgot that corner, and he didn’t mind telling people it was because he never knew, might be him one day over at that table. And people saying, Aw, come on, Jake. Not you. So a man not really believing he might either. Yet his eyes lingered for a fraction longer on that quartet of daily drunks, and he did feel at some sort of empathy withem, but quickly the main bar claimed him as one a them, a member of this great big happy family of booze lovers, beer guzzlin darkies, that’s what we are, and — oh, a man can’t put his thoughts into words. Just pictures. And funny feelings. Like meeting someone you knew in your childhood and it’s like he or she’s never left you.
Two hundred — nah, there’d be easy three hundred ofem. And Jake and Dooly’s progress could be seen as a swath cut through an obliging but seething, beer-bloated, mindless humanity; three hundred broken dolls, three hundred flopped-out puppets dangling in the hands of some god-cunt making em do things you wouldn’t credit animals with. Then — Huh? (Boogie.) Boogie? It just popped up in his mind. O shit, a man forgot Boog had to go to court and I was sposed to be there. Jake stopping in his tracks a moment even though a path’d been widened for him to take a few more steps. (Sorry, Boog.) Ah, fuckit. Wasn’t me got him in trouble with the courts. A kid is his own master of this world. He’s a wimp anyway. Ya wouldn’t think he was a son of mine. And anyway, too many people calling out hello to a man, touching him, to waste his thoughts on a stupid kid who can’t fight to save himself and maybe if they sent him away it’l
l do him some good, he might have to toughen up. Fuckim.
Six, eight minutes it must’ve taken to get to the bar. Jake telling Dooly, My shout. Dooly grinning, I know that. I’m flat broke, bro. Jake saying, I know that. And the two looking at each other wondering if it was funny or what and laughing anyway. Two. Jake lifting two fingers to indicate the number of litre jugs he wanted. DB for the brand. Giving the Rheineck lager tap a look of pure contempt as if to drink that pisswater was worse’n bein a woman. And he stood there, waiting while the jugs were filled, aware of people’s awareness of him; he felt like a chief, a Maori warrior chief — no, not a Maori chief, I can’t speak the language and people’ll know I can’t, and it’ll spoil it — an Indian chief, a real Injun, not one a them black thievin bastards own half the fuckin shops round town, a real Indian from comics and TV and America … Jake pouted his lips ever so slightly and pulled the corners of his mouth down by use of the cheek or jaw muscles, or maybe it was both it don’t fuckin matter; he flared his nostrils, like a, you know, a bull — I know! Like Sitting Bull. Chief Sitting Bull. And he part lidded his eyes. And he’d done this enough times in the mirror to know what he looked like, so he stood there swelled with pride and vanity and this sense of feeling kingly — chiefly — and inside a voice was going: Look at me. Look at me, ya fuckers. I’m Jake Heke. Jake the Muss Heke. LOOK AT ME (and feel humble, you dogs).
The jugs came over. On the house, Jake. Thanks, man. Much appreciated. Jake pleased with his manners, pleased with the respect he commanded, handing Dooly a jug. Here ya go, boy. Get that freebie down ya. And Dooly, being broke, going along with Jake’s magnaminous act, Ah, thanks, man. Thanks. Thinking: I’m here for the free piss not my stupid fuckin pride. They moved off.
Over at the table, the elbow-height table, Jake Heke always drank at; even if it was taken when he arrived, it was vacant by the time he got to it. Or it’d better be. Hello to his regular school of drinking mates, tougharses the lot ofem. How I like my mates: tough. And if they ain’t tough then they better have sumpthin about em. Mitch Daniels talking about a hell of a scrap’d happened just before Jake and Dool’s arrival, Jake all ears. That right? His eyes just that little bit wider, and disappointment already strong in him for missing it. Tell me, man. But having to make out he was cool about it.
So Mitch telling Jake and Dool about it, how this dude — never seenim before, but I think he’s a shearer from outta town working this way on contract, sumpthin like that (and Jake trying to build up a mental picture of this dude so to get everything quite clear in his mind) — packed a punch like a fuckin elephant, how he took on three and dropped the three ofem: Pow! King-hit on the first one — What was it, Jake butting in, a left, a right? what? Straight right. A left and a right on the second fulla, and oh man! spun him one way then the next, eh. All in the space of — how long you reckon, Rangi? Oh, bout less’n a second — There you are, under a second and two big hits, eh. Everyone’s eyes lit up with excitement, of reliving it or hearing it for the first time. The third fulla, he didn’t wanna know, eh. Cunt was trying to back out of it, started walkin backwards with his hands up when pow! this tough dude smacked a left into his face. Y’c’d hear it all over the fuckin bar. Eh, Rangi, you could eh? I’m telling ya, man. Even your punches, Jake, good as you are, I think this fulla hit hard — no, not harder, but nearly as hard as you. He did, eh, Rangi? Yeah, man. And Jake getting just a little worried; it was the kind of story people told about him, not some other dude. And a stranger at that. (In my fuckin pub.) What, he still here this fulla? Jake wanting to know. And quite prepared to allocate his ready-made left hook to the stranger. Nah, he left. Juss up and walked out. Jake then wanting to know what the bouncers did and being told, Nuthin, man. Packa wankers, all they good for is smashing up old fullas and little guys. They stood there and did nuthin. What was he, a Maori or what? Well that’s the funny thing, Jake, he wasn’t a Maori, eh. And Jake surprised himself: this wasn’t a bar for non-Maoris; you had to be related to one, be an idiot, or be as tough as this dude evidently was to have white skin and come in here a stranger. Pointim out to me you ever seeim again, Jake told all to look out for.
And his heart rate’d picked up, the talk of fighting doing that. And the first lot of freebies went real quick, as did the next lot bought by someone at Jake’s table. And they talked about the king-hit Jake’d witnessed himself when first they came in, who was the dude? Jake hadn’t seen him before either (and wondering, really wondering about all this king-hitting going on when it was sposed to be his thing. I mean, what if someone up and put one on me? Man wouldn’t be able to show his face in here again.) though they knew he was a relation of so-and-so, which is why it wasn’t so bad him getting involved, not with being related to a regular and anyway, that bitch who got smacked first she’d been looking for it for ages but he wasn’t to know, the stranger related to so-and-so, that Ronty the Shonty (no one knew her real Christian name) Pohatu was a bitch. But the fulla can hit. That’s him over there, Jake. I know who he is. Jake picking the fulla out in the crowd and the semi-gloom and the smoke, assessing the dude, working out to stay left of that right — if the fulla got to throw it, that is — to lessen the distance it travelled. And quite sure he was gonna get the fulla even though no reason.
Eyes going elsewhere, at the sea of people and how out of it most ofem were, and downing his own drink as fast he could to catch up withem. Someone plonking a jug in front of him just as he emptied his second, and winking at Dool and indicating it was theirs, the jug. Ours, brother. Together we stand, together we fall. But laughing, mind.
So it wasn’t too long before Jake Heke was adjusted. Feeling just nice, thank you. And darkness fell outside.
Mavis Tatana, the big fat bitch, was up singing again. Oh, she c’n sing alright. She coulda been a opera singer that one, people saying to each other, over and ov-ah again but still they said it. Another Kiri Te Kanawa it wasn’t for the ole Maori shyness. So how come Kiri isn’t shy? Well, that’s because she — I don’t think she had a Maori upbringing. Nah, that’s what I heard too that she was bought up posh, eh. Oo, have to be, eh, to sing that blimmin opra stuff. Shet, I call it. Me too. But some people like it, eh? And she is a Maori after all. Still shet. You the only fuckin shet round here. Laughing. Going back to listening to the woman who woulda been … say that you’re my sweetheart. Oh, I love that song. Whatsit called again? El Morata, thatsit. Shhh…. my one and only sweetheart, the behemoth’s voice ringing out even over the din and they, the people, going ahh and aye in exclamation their appreciation. Seeing so much too: of what this huge woman meant to them, the hope. Yet not understanding. Never understanding. Not the profound. Even though they had a part in it.
Then Bim — that fuckin bitch — the Baby Killer getting so carried away by Mavis’s singing she forgot her unpopularity and came staggering out of the crowd into the half-circle of space cleared for Mavis so people could see her, give her more focus, sorta like a spotlight but without the light hahaha! Bim. Bim with the two cot deaths that everyone said can’t’ve happened she musta murdered em, smothered the poor innocent lil fuckers, so Mavis showing alarm at Bim’s entry onto her stage and the people telling Bim to fuck off, Go kill you some more babies, ya bitch. And the woman, Bim, reeling from the comments the cruelty, and nowhere to go from their attack. And even Jake feeling sorry for the woman she didn’t look like no killer, not of babies her own babies who’d do a thing like that? and glad when someone, one of her relations, snatched Bim from further verbal attack back into the dank anonymity of mass she’d lurched from.
Kiss me, kiss me sweet, in El Morata sang Mavis back in full blossom again till some wanker stuffed fifty cents in the jukebox and out blasted a rock number. So Mavis stopped dead and so did her guitarist follow suit. And there was this young fulla hardly drinking age standing over there with his oblivious features fire-lighted in green and gold from the jukie’s lights jiggin to the paid beat. So someone yelled to the bar they’d better shut that fuck
in jukebox up or he’d not only shut it but the cunt who played that fuckin number you better believe. The jukie died immediately. Mavis got to finish her song.
The crowd — or that section of the mass who could see and hear her — roared their appreciation, Sing it again! Which she didn’t, but she did sing another oldie favourite, Tennessee Waltz. And someone was even inspired or emboldened enough by piss to step forward and fill the gap Mavis’s outstretched arms offered of imaginary dancing partner. And everyone clapped and cheered. And they yelled for more when that was finished but she got a signal that a horserace commentary was about to start on the four pub speakers so she declined. So they filled her table with jugs of beer anyway. And she smiled her big fat smile and went, Ahh. She did love a beer did Mavis Tatana. (Bet Kiri don’t.)
Horses hurtling along some night track under floodlights being transposed on radio for everyone to hear and cheer on, a couple of dozen charioted nags being urged along by whip and punters’ cries, and every bettor praying his bet wouldn’t break regulated trotting stride, because a horse was lost once he broke stride and thus so was the punter.
They were frozen or highly animated poses and poises and postures of air-punching, yelling, tight-lipped, open-mouthed, miserable sons and daughters of bitches and bastards, yelling at their mounts to get a fuckin move on, accusing it of being a donkey, a mule, or not a horse at all but implying it as part of some form of conspiracy against them, me, him, I, personally, you could see it on their faces … and it’s Hel-mut’s Pride a length and a half from Moody Boy and Night Spesshall coming up fast on the in-nah, as they, the hopefuls, were caught there in some time frame of hope mixed with desperation; and outside it’d grown quite dark, and the line-up of swaying drunks with bottles at their feet kept changing as taxis swooped in to take the last of their money, sped them off into the night; then the line swelled again, but this was happening all ovah it was around this time for the ones not of cast-iron constitutions, so they had to wait till the busy period fell off again. And they talked gibberish and you couldn’t understand a word they were saying, nor were their faces visible in the dullish streetlight so they were just shapes and strange callings and grunts and raspy smoker’s breaths and hacking coughings in the night, shadowy apparitions in the semi-gloom of just another two-bit town in a two-bit country, but what the hell they didn’t know.