Once Were Warriors

by Alan Duff

  Then the approach from her home village, a representative of the village, with an offer of financial help, and manual labour if she required. She took both. An idea turned to a project. Even got a mention in the local paper. Wow, a woman had to laugh at seeing her own name and an article about her and her village committee.

  Self-help, that was the catchcry Beth’d taken from reading somewhere, maybe it was the morning paper she’d taken to getting every day because it was a more serious publication, not so localised, trivial. So a woman felt she was learning a little while she was at it. So it was books: we don’t only need to feed these kids but educate them as well. But how? The library.

  They gave her a pile of Teach Yourself books; on a range of activities, from carpentry to making things from scraps of cloth material. She converted her sitting room to a rough sort of classroom. Spent the first month teaching to a class of one. But they came around. As she hoped they would. And the Wainui committee kept coming up with money to buy a range of tools, hardware to put the teachings into practice.

  Self-help!

  She went to sleep at nights with that catchcry exclaiming itself in her increasingly happier mind. Her heart. Like this self-help idea was so beautifully all-embracing it was a wonder they, the Maori people in general, hadn’t cottoned onto it before. Why, it helped the helpers, it helped the owners of the businesses they purchased from, it helped most of all the lost, unwanted, ill-directed kids. It was self-fulfilling. But it wasn’t all beer and skittles:

  Mrs H! Mrs H! Come quick! Racing up the street in the dead of night after this kid. Leading her to a house, just another Pine Block state house, but this one in an indescribable state of filth. And this kid … this teenage boy, lying on the floor … in his own vomit. A plastic bag beside him. Strong smell of solvent fumes. And all these other waif-looking kids standing around the prone boy going, Far out, man … This is freakin me out … I think he’s dead … No he ain’t, he’s just waysted! laughin about it. Till Beth slapped one kid’s face, told him to get the hell outta my sight. And the rest of you, get.

  Going down to the boy, and knowing, instinctively, that he wasn’t going to make it. Not through this cold winter night nor any other. But telling someone to go phone an ambulance at any rate. Then picking the kid’s spew-stinking head up and cradling him in her lap: There, there, honey. Rocking him like the baby he really was; stroking that vomit-and sweat-and filth-matted hair, and staring at that face skin so smooth yet so sallow, as if he’d spent his whole life indoors, or moved around only in the dark he and his ilk had taken refuge in.

  Rocking him. And thinking of a phrase, a biblical phrase of all the suffering children. And what was it He said …? Ah yes, it was: Come unto me. Come unto me … come unto me … all ye suffering children … Thinking of Jesus, and Him saying that all them couple of thousand years ago; Beth wondering what colour the suffering kids were in those days. Because they were surely brown of skin and Maori of feature now. (But we used to be a warrior race.)

  She thought of Grace’s three-day funeral, her elders, the old women, the paramount chief, Te Tupaea. And wondered what’d gone wrong.

  And when the kid sighed his last pathetic breath of not utterance but simply expiry, Beth did not yet weep. It wasn’t till she heard the distant wail of the ambulance siren, how forlorn was its sound on a cold Pine Block evening. And promising herself, and promising the dead kid: Gonna do my best to give you kids your rightful warrior inheritance. Pride in yourself, your poor selves. Not attacking, violent pride but heart pride. Gonna go to my people, my leaders, ask them the way.

  … every Saturday, man, don’t madda if it’s raining even fuckin snowin, man, ya gotta do it. I mean, he’s the chief. The CHIEF of all our tribe. And anyrate, he’s doin it for our sake. To givus, you know, pride in ourselves. No questions asked though, man. Just turn up at Number 27 Rimu at nine on the dot. Rain or snow or what, be there. Be there and listen. And take it in. And when he says ya do sumpthin like this — like he might be teachin ya a haka — you do it, man. Or else. Or else what, man? Or else, that’s all. Ya mean, thas all? Just turn up, bro, and you’ll know what I mean.

  This chief fulla, man, he’s … he’s … I dunno … sumpthin about him, eh. Sort a like a god or sumpthin — I know who like: Buck. Buck who? Buck Shelford, bru-tha, who else is Buck? Captain of the mighty All Blacks, man. Rugby player supreme of all the world. Well, that’s who this chief is like. Buck. Our mighty warrior Maori, Buck damn Shelford, man. Man …

  Oh, and ya want, you know — I mean, ya feelin like down, on a bummer, got no one ta turn to, call on Mrs H, man. She’s choice. Wha’, she gives ya …? Yep, say it: Hugs? Yeh, hugs. And …? Yep, you c’n cry — bawl ya eyes out ya want. She’ll let ya. And she doesn’t tell ya you’re a wimp? No way, Hosay. So what does she say when ya, you know, like hanging out for a bit of — can’t say it, man. Cuddlin? Yeow, cuddlin. Well, she takes you in her arms — and she smells nice, man. Clean. And perfume and that — and ya havin a good howl and she goes patpatpat on ya head, eh, and then she says: There, there, now, honey. Have yourself a damn good cry. It’s alright. Mrs H is always here.

  Is that right? Straight up, man. Sounds choice. She is choice. What number’d you say it was?

  15. The Will of The People

  Waking up, half the time not knowing whose place he was at, having to think; to separate yesterday, last night, from last week, last fuckin month. Of sleeping at different fullas’ houses. And head always running strong with them dreams. Them terrible fuckin dreams — always violent. Always mad crazy worlds and mad crazy people in em. And me, Jake Heke, one of the craziest. Yet Jake unable to figure it: I don’t feel that bad. Not like I am in my dreams. Me and all that blood and guts and stuff and people runnin around with arms half torn off and pulverised faces (usually done by me) and cocks and twats on one person, one minute a man, next a woman, and sometimes both, and me tryin ta grab at em both at the same time and stuff em in my mouth — but I don’t think like that in the daytime?

  Slaughtering people, whole armies ofem sometimes, people dying, him killing em, maiming em, machinegunnin em, carvin em up like they’re just hams or sumpthin. Man, I dunno about myself.

  But no time for that, have ta get up ta use that shithouse before anyone else gets up. I hate havin a shit in someone else’s toilet. (Man, what a fulla wouldn’t do, sometimes, to be back in his own home.) On the crapper — jeez! at a ginormous fart exploding out ofim. Wigglin around on the seat trying to hold the rest in, because of the embarrassment. But impossible. Nature’s nature, and booze don’t exactly help it come out like a ordinary shet’s sposed ta come. And sitting there blurtin and makin these noises and wondering if this house had pretty girls or maybe the lady of the house was good lookin because, I dunno, having a loud smelly shet is worse when ya worried about a pretty woman or a girl (an old enough girl) comin in after ya. Not so bad when ya at a house of fatties or uglies. But the pretties. Lighting up a fag in there — ta cover up the stink. Puffin up big clouds to really hide it. Cept the smell still gettin through. So wanting out. I just want outta here. Stay somewhere else tonight. So slippin out if he could, no kiss my arse, nuthin. Always someone else a man could stay with.

  Thinking about her a lot: Grace. What he was sposed to have done to her. No way, man. No fuckin way. And any man or woman at McClutchy’s even looked like they were thinkin that and Jake’d drop em. Even him, Sonny Boy smartarse Jacobs, who’s not talkin to a man no more even though his brother, Dooly, is — or was — like a man’s own brother. Fuckem both. Even him, Dool, as well. I c’n tell what he’s thinkin, that I’m some kinda pervert or sumpthin — I ain’t. Yet inside never really certain.

  Funny thing but a man gettin all the sympathy from people at the pub because of Grace and yet another side sayin he did a terrible thing to her. But the ones who didn’t know, they’d come up to man with a beer bought forim and tellim sorry ta hear about your girl, Jake. People ya wouldn’t expect to, either. Made a m
an think that, you know, the kid was somehow meant to die: so he could find out who were his real friends and who weren’t. But then there were the ones’d stopped talkin to im but too fuckin scared ta come right out with it, what Sonny Boy Jacobs must’ve toldem, bigmouthin off to em like he always does. (I’ll gettim one a these days. See how he goes when he’s half pissed and not expectin his own mate to givim one in the guts. Wouldn’t a minded one on the jaw, a man mighta been able to come back from a shot like that. Off the ropes like. But in the guts. Takes the stuffin right outta any man, don’t care who he is.) But when Jake thought hard about it, he hadn’t had that many free beers bought for him of late. Mind you, he didn’t expect it. Mean ta say, the kid can’t be dead every day. Well she can and she is, but ya can’t expect people to still think of her like that and so feel sorry for ya, her old man. How sad ya must be. Deep down inside. But not showin it. Not if ya got a rep. Ya can’t.

  The unemployment cunts cut his dole money to the same as a single fulla. The cunts. The fuck they think they are stickin their noses in a man’s private business? What, they ring Beth up — oops, I forgot, we got no phone — writer a ledda ask her if she’s still wither husband? Cunts. How do they expect a man ta live on only a hundred and three bucks a week when a jug alone costs nearly four? What if he had ta rent a place as well? Man’d fuckin starve ta death before those cunts’d lift a finger to helpim. And it’s alright for them, they got a job. A guvmint job. What about the rest of us dumb Maoris out here don’t have work, got no skills, and scared a lookin for a job in case they find one that hardly pays fuckall may as well be on the dole? Fuckem. Any wonder a man has ta drop hints at McClutchy’s that he’d be partial to a freebie if it’s going. These guvmint cunts take away ya dignity, they do. Fuckem. Man even had to go into the office in town every week Thursday to collect his dole cheque becaue he didn’t have no address to givem to send it to. And the way they look at you when you’re gettin your cheque, y’d think it was their own fuckin bread they were givin away. Fuckem.

  Debts. Man was starting to build up a few debts. Ten here, twenty there. Wasn’t so bad when it was just after Grace’d passed away, a man could touch someone up and they forgot it. And so they should. A man’d been good to em over the years; you know, puttin the hard word on some cunt hasslin em, punchin someone over on their behalf. So they should give to a man and forget about it now and then. Plus he’d just lost a daughter in a very bad way. The way she died that is. But they were startin ta hit a man up: Hey Jake, ya got that twenty? And Jake trying to give it the ole Maori pass-off, you know, gigglin about it and saying, Yeow, bro, yeow. Next week, next week. In that way everyone knows means ya not gonna pay back. And McClutchy people, they should know that. They know the rules. Fuckem.

  Doin most of his eating at wherever he landed a bed for the night. Taking a shower when he felt confident enough to. Eating at the takeaways — Chinese. I love the Chink grub, man. Specially the spare ribs — when he’d missed out on a freebie or just felt like Chinese. The Chink fulla there’d taken to calling a fulla by his name. Missa Jake. Even feeling Jake’s muscles, grabbing him by the arm: Oo, Missa Jake, you velly stong man. Talkin how they do these fuckin Chinks; all the damn time workin, slavin their guts out over them woks. And Jake could tell they were envying him being on the other side, the cussima side as they call it. Him laughin about it, them saying, Oh muss be nice be on your side of counter, huh, Missa Jake? Makin a man feel important, and like he had one over em. Fuckem too. The Chinks. They wanna spend their fuckin lives slavin then that’s their lookout.

  Though there were times when Jake wouldn’t’ve minded a job — not a full-time one, but so he could afford those little extras in life (even buy her, Beth, a little sumpthin to make up — no, what’s ta make up? I didn’t do nuthin to Grace. I know I didn’t.) But he missed Beth sometimes. Maybe more’n sometimes. As the days went by.

  Then one day struck by an idea. A brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of it before? Get a job as a bouncer. Man, I’d make the best (the second-best) bouncer in Two Lakes. Long as someone like Buck Shelford himself didn’t walk in and wanna cause trouble, hehehe. Boss, McClutchy himself, said sure, who better. Hired Jake on the spot. Gave him a nice white shirt and a cute black bowtie ta go withit. Best a man’d been dressed since his wedding. And ta think he paid ya thirty bucks a night ta bust heads ya would’ve busted for nuthin. But ya didn’t tell him that, McClutchy, clever though he thought he was. As for the no-drinking rules the boss mentioned to Jake, Jake thought it didn’t really apply to him. Not me, I’m Jake the Muss, the tougharse around here (wasn’t for Sonny Boy Jacobs being around all the damn time).

  Friday. It was a Friday, bound to be trouble, always was on a Friday. Jake standin at the bar drinking, fists achin for action. And action takin its damn time in comin. Man’d had four or five jugs downim — and paid for them himself — before a fight broke out. Lovely, lovely. Jake the first bouncer there, and kapow! boom-boom! smash! and three of the cunts down. Ya want some more? Okay, I’ll give ya more: into this one prick who dared to want it with Jake the Muss. Man had to really deal to the fulla.

  Back at the bar. Gimme a beer, Toby. The fulla he’d beat up being carried out to a summoned ambulance by friends. That’ll be — I ain’t payin for this one, Tobe. But Toby havin none of it: Can’t do that, Jake. Boss’s gotta authorise it. Come on, man. I just dealt to three of em. It’s his pub I just looked after. Then next thing Jake knew was McClutchy’s voice himself in his ear tellin im: You’re fired, Jake. Wha’? You heard. But Boss? Jake, you don’t go beating up customers — But they were fighting, Boss. Your job is to stop them, not join em. And don’t let this spoil our relationship, Jake. Walked off.

  Left a man wondering what’d hit him, and what relationship did the Boss mean? And that hurt comin on … except this time without the surge of power. Of violence come rushing up to the rescue of this hurt person inside of him. Instead, Jake just felt weak. Like his legs’d turned rubbery.

  The days became a battle to survive; just to last out the drinking day and then finish with a bed and maybe a free feed for the night. A man was runnin out of places to bed down; people were just givinim the cold shoulder, or they made excuses like having family stayin withem when a man knew they didn’t. Or they blamed it on wives, you know: Man, it’s my missus, eh, she don’t like people staying the night. She can’t sleep. Shit like that. And people he thought were his friends — had always been his friends — were more and more givin a man either a gruff greeting when they ran into him or they didn’t say a word, not kiss my arse nuthin. Well fuck them too. Cept that didn’t guarantee a man a roof over his head. And this was turning out a cold winter. And never ending.

  Man got cunning in the pub, when it was busy enough to: moving about in the crowd, swiping a jug, a bottle from a table; and even when he was seen, it was hardly anyone who dared say sumpthin. Not me, man, I’m Jake Heke. These people respect me.

  Spare ribs. Jake’d get a hunger for Chinese spare ribs. Had to havem. But the price: five bucks a plastic pottle container ofem and don’t forget the twenty cents because the fuckin Slits don’t; even when a man’d tried to hold out their lousy twenty cents, make out he hadn’t noticed it read five dollars twenty on the menu board, and Slit’d askim, You have twenny cent, Missa Jake? Ah, ya ain’t worried bouta a lousy twenny cents are ya? Mean to say, it ain’t gonna bust ya is it? Ah, Missa Jake, price on board say five dollah twenny. Price not go down. When it does, we change up on board. Fuckem. A man didn’t have to havem so badly he’d a toldem ta stickit. Stickit right up their slit arses, which I bet are, you know, like their eyes: the hole goes sideways. Sideways! Hahaha!

  One night Jake didn’t get his usual eleven ribs — fuckem! Back into the shop he marched, Oi! Ya only gave me nine. Whassa story? I always get eleven. Bossman Slit not battin an eyelid, askin Jake: But they bigger, yes? Threw Jake. He hadn’t thought. He hauled out a rib, held it up for inspection. Looked the fuckin same to him. Glarin
g at the Slit, wantin to punchim over and not only because of the cheating but the fact that he wasn’t showin no fear on his Chink face. And it wasn’t that either, it was the fact that they had a nice warm room ta cook in, and they had a choice of all that lovely grub and plus it was free. Sumpthin else about em too grated Jake, except he didn’t know, had no idea what it was or might be. Mista Bossman Slit himself took out a rib from Jake’s container, held it up right in front of a man’s nose. It look velly big to me, Missa Jake. Jake looked at it … More meat on bone, you see? The Slit smilin. Jake shakin his head, Nah, not that much more. Not two ribs less more. Here. You try. You bite, Missa Jake. So Jake took a bite. (Fuckin nice). Well, maybe it was meatier than the last lot. But fuckim anyway: The container ain’t as full as last time neither. Jake tapping the plastic pottle. Ah, less gravy, is all. You wan more gravy, Missa Jake? No charge. Jake going, Alright. I give you nice piece a bread you dip, hah? The Slit laughin in that funny way of theirs. But free gravy and free bread? And when the Slit came back he had not one but two slices of bread, and it was buttered, even if it was a bit skinny on the butter, and it came on one a them paper towel things, makin a man feel, you know, posh or sumpthin, like he was at a restaurant even though he’d never set foot inside one in his whole life.

  Mondays, Tuesdays and even some fuckin Wednesdays, man, it’d got so a man wasn’t sure of a bed. Had ta sleep out under the stars. First time it occurred to Jake that he was homeless was one Monday night when the bar was near empty and so no one to touch up for a bed for the night, no party to go to where he might just stay on after it was over, flake out on the couch or sumpthin. Had a man walkin the main street and wondering what the fuck he was gonna do with himself for the night. But laughin about it because, well, it was a fine night, a bit cold but nuthin to a tough-arse: and he enjoyed walking down Taniwha Street playin the window shopper when ordinarily mosta the shops sorta scared a man. During the day when they had people inem. Made him feel, you know, inferior. So.