by Alan Duff
And, in time, to he sitting on the edge of his bed, the big man with the big voice and backing choir sang like at a dozen funerals of everyone Sonny ever knew, was close to, gone; transported by voice and voices alone to both that church in far-off Russia and to the gravesides, a dozen of them, and like in dream all at once, staring down into coffin-bottomed holes at life irretrievable, life forever gone (without having lived in the first place) so a man not sure what he was crying for: that or the thought of their twelve deaths, or for that snow-swirled cold village in remote Russia somewhere and nowhere; wanting a hand to hold, a woman’s (my mummy’s?).
So come to me, Jane, come to me. You’re here and Sonny’s here. Come, let us cry together for them lost two lives of ours, and for the dozen lives now being lamented by Boris there, and his choir of good true men and women. Amazing, eh Jane, how they can put so much meaning and musical order into so much apparent grief. But it’s not grief you say, Jane? But I know that: it’s glory to God, to the god they worship in secret Russia. Like we have our secrets, Jane, in this country.
But it ain’t God so much, Jane, you unnerstan? It’s the god in them, in his voice, Boris’s, that he sings to first. Ya see? It’s his voice, the creative outpour from himself, his own special inner workings that has him, you know, like singing praise to himself. To the fact of him having such a beautiful voice. And then, then, dear Jane, he next sings to us and for us; so he can represent of us and for us what we’re feeling. Our own inner understandings, ya know? It’s God but it ain’t God. You unnerstan? Sure you do, Jane, you and me, we’re peas from the same discarded, forgotten pod, aren’t we?
Ya see, he and they, the choir, the collective of em are singing glory to being alive, as much they are to God if even to God. They call it God, sure they do. It’s the excuse they use to strive and then reach those heights. Some ofem might be atheists, ya unnerstan, Jane. Like me and you, we’re standing at these gravesides in our same sad minds and we’re crying, right? But who’re we crying for? Them one dozen lined up down there in each his and her separate hole? Or for us? For us do we cry? Oh, but now the women have changed it, ya see now, Jane? How things shift? How life itself has shifted on us? But we missed it before, didn’t we? Didn’t we? Oh but, Jane, not now, not now, it doesn’t have to be like that anymore does it?
Burying himself in his hands. As the voice and voices throbbed on.
The times, Jane. The number of times I, Sonny, have sat here and soaked up what’s going on on screen. Now you, you’re sharing it with me, Jane. Even though you don’t actually exist, yet you are real in my mind. I can hear you. You have a voice, it’s a husky voice – from too much smoking, eh, hahaha – you have a face, your hands are soft, we’re just a meeting away from loving each other. Looking at the screen again. Thinking of twelve funerals, of a dozen deaths of everyone a man (and a woman) ever loved, and twelve might be an exaggeration, a convict’s cell-practised lie, though any number less didn’t give the experience sufficient meaning, such was the huge grief Sonny felt inside.
Twelve good people, Jane. Taken by the same catastrophic event. What would it be, an explosion? Yes, an explosion. Dead. So all of em dead. And yet, Jane …? You know? And yet not dead, or how this tremendous mourn of song-voice rising up and above even death times twelve? It’s the possibilities, is it not, Jane, of life ascending, rising above death? It ain’t hope so much as it’s triumph; triumph even in our darkest moments, lifting us above the grief even as we grieve. We know this now, Jane, don’t we? It’s the possibility of life triumphing over the goneness of life. And that’s what this tape, these tapes, are: just one of life’s possibilities put to me – no, us, Jane. Put to us – no. Stolen, Jane. Be honest. I’ll be honest. It’s life’s possibilities found to me one night when I was out stealing.
The bells tolled then the screen went blank, but the bells tolled on in Sonny’s (and Jane’s) mind. Then outside a car arrival. Jube’s familiar engine roar. Sonny keen-eared to what followed. For several minutes he listened, but no sound of doors slamming closed, and the engine was still rumbling. Sonny figuring Jube and someone or ones were talking. Having a joint. Picturing them, hearing the gaudy laughter in confines of car. Smelling the dope. Listening to the breaths, of intake, of held breath, of final exhalation. Imagining that, and adjusting himself for their soon entry, of having to laugh at their inane and mad comments and unfunny jokes and remarks. At having to be one of them when he wasn’t, and had never been. Nor certainly, not now, could possibly hope to be. He was just Sonny. Sonny who was out one night stealing when – When the horn sounded.
And had urgency in it.
The two of them; suspended, two closed-up figures in a night frame. Of overhead streetlight. Stars arena-ed around. Bowled above. It’s always the stars, even when the clouds’re covering them: lights down on man his wretched condition. And too his moments of beauty.
An unevenly heighted picture of physical statures. And postures. The smaller frame supporting the taller, the head slumped taller. Hey, Jube … Hey, man, it’s Sonny. Sonny, bud. It’s Sonny. (It’s alright, Sonny’s here. Sonny’s here, pal.)
A suspension of locked, entwined figures, shapes converged under lamplight. Just another night scene, man, ’t’s happening all over. Here. There. The city. The country. The fucking world. Of creatures of the always night screwing up. Fucking up. Happens every time. (Everytime, Jube.) Man, it’s alright, Jube. I’m here. Can ya walk? Wanna get on my back? I think I can make it. Hey, what’s money, man? Don’t be talking bout no money. We never had it to start with, did we? And we ain’t got it now. Gotta get you inside, man. Who did this?
Juss another night. Another streetlight. Another pair done blown it again. Cos one man’s blowing is his friend’s blowing too. How it goes. Juss another night.
Of hurt sobbing and heaving breath in the lamplight dark. A possibility happened, Jube, tha’s all, Sonny whispering and not meaning for Jube’s ears. Though his voice rose as he continued – couldn’t stop it seeing as it’d started – When sometimes the poss’s’re good, sometimes they’re bad. Huh, Jube? So it wasn’t our turn tonight, uh? So what? Come on, let’s get ya inside, cleaned up. How it goes, eh Jube? Ya know? Holding Jube closer to him. How it works out sometimes, Jube. Ya win some, lose some, okay? Holding Jube tighter. And feeling love cos love was all he and Jube got right now. Seein as how the possibility had already been reached, and this was its bloodied outcome. Plus the money, Jube was mumbling out through teeth-broken mouth, was gone. Stolen. Robbed. I got mugged, Sonny, he was mumbling, by our own kind. And sounded so betrayed. So betrayed.
Getting Jube indoors, on the sitting-room floor, on his back, but he rolled over on his side because he’d started to gurgle with blood probably running down his throat. Is alright, bro, Sonny’s here. The mess they’d made of the man. It was unfair. Criminal. Not right. And the fucking money’s gone too, Sonny. I’m sorry, I’m s – Hey don’t worry, man. Who’s talkin money? I’m not. Get you cleaned up, man, we might have to take you to hospital. No, no hospital, no hos … The word fizzed out in a hiss of blood bubbling up out his mouth. But then he lifted himself to a sitting position. And he looked the more hideous. It was the fight left in him: it looked so pathetic at the same time it had this mad pride, this crazy will of effort and determination. Oh Sonnee! he groaned, No, he didn’t groan, he cried it out, as he did again: OH SONNEE! Man, it’s alright, Jube. I’m just getting a wet cloth. Oh, tha’ssa mean cut, Jube, you’ll have to get it stitched. No, man, we’re going back, the madman was protesting in his monumental courage.
Back? Man, you ain’t going nowhere. And I ain’t getting involved, you know I never liked drugs, and I always hated violence. Look what it’s done for you, Jube. Oh man, no, don’t say you’re going back. Please?
But Jube was shaking his barely recognisable head, the face part. No. No, Son. No, Jube. No! Ya hear me? Sonny getting angry, and maybe some of it was upset at what’d been done to his pal (the only pal I got). No Jane a
ny longer in his mind, not at sight of this face-pulped hideosity. We ain’t goin –
– To the house, Sonny.
The what? What house? Where they already done this to –
– The big house. Oh, don’t be si – Man, you’re hurt bad. You’ll be better in a few d – well, a little while anyway. Sonny dabbing at the face with a wet cloth, but no matter where he wiped, blood kept springing forth from another source or the same place. (God, I hope it ain’t his life leaking out of him.) The big house, Son. We’re going back there. Member? Member what it did for us, Son?
And the penny dropped. The Harl – You mean – Man, Jube, you don’t know what you’re saying.
But the man hauled himself to his feet, staggered for a moment. Managed, somehow, to break out in a kind of macabre smile, as if despite it all he’d still triumphed. It didn’t seem possible. Nor probable. Cept it was happening right in front of Sonny’s eyes.
Back to where it all started, Sonny, the man was saying through his broken-tooth smile; these words, this seized hope in his world of bloodied abjectness croaked from his hugely swollen lips: Back, Sonny. We’re going back. Soon’s I’ve healed up a bit. Member, Sonny? How it was the same thing, near? And how it turned around?
But they’ll have alarms now, man.
Back to that big house, eh Sonny, hahaha.
And why’d they have money sitting around now?
Then we’ll see. We’ll show em, Son. We’ll fucking show em.
And one smiled with a mad triumph as if already he was on his way back. And the other fell eyes to the floor, and shook his head. Then lifted them. I’m getting you a doctor.
We’re going back, Son, the voice harsh in its pained delivery. The smile bizzare for the hope Jube had vested in his promise. Let’s get you into bed. Back, Sonny. Ya hear? Back to get ourselves on the high road again, uh? Sonny not answering. Uh Son? Maybe. Not time to be talking – It is!
Jube’s swollen eyes the same slits of vision they’d been from the other beating. The total of it adding more to the macabre, to the fucking unholy mess they were in – again. (A-fuckin-gain.) Slits that the madness was able to glisten through. Or maybe it was just hope born of desperation, and of wanting to change things. To swing this life back on course that the original crime seemed to have promised, but it was now in ruins. Bloodied, face-pulped ruins.
Then Jube started coughing, and it sounded bad. Looked bad as blood came dribbling out his mouth. Like a statement. On both their behalfs.
16
Mrs Harland? (Mrs Harland? Mrs Harland? Mrs Harland?) A hundred times he’d practised that opening; in his mind, under his breath, self-consciously aloud in the couple of hundred kilometres of being driven in Jube’s car from when Jube first got the idea. Mrs Harland? Mrs Harland? Sonny had the opening imprinted on his brain.
And now, it was about to become reality, as Sonny Mahia stood in a Wellington city telephone box listening to the dial tone going brr-ip brr-ip – brr-ip brr-ip. With sweat popped out all over his forehead, hand holding the receiver covered in the stuff. (Mrs Harland?) Mrs Harland? he’d practised to say, yet never had it occurred to him how she might respond back.
Brr-ip brr-ip – brr – click. The sweat flowed. He felt he knew her so well; from the countless watching of her and daughter in piano duet, first introducing herself then her self-assured daughter doing her introductory bit on that home-made video. Her voice, Mrs Harland’s, slightly husky, and very posh. Now, it was echoing in his ear: Penny Harland speaking. And he, the caller, couldn’t speak.
Heart hammering, brain spinning, and with Jube parked right outside watching everything, and a man couldn’t get himself to speak.
He coughed – arrgh – to clear the restriction in his throat. He wanted to put the phone down: (I’ve done my job: she’s home. That’s what Jube wanted to know.) But there was more.
Um … is that Mrs Harland? Yes. Arrgh, again he had to fight the seeming swelling of throat. Yes? she asked again and in a voice sweetly innocent. Um … is Mr Harland there please? (Please please let him be home …)
No. Sonny could hear her as though from a vast distance. He’s at his office in town, do you have his number? No, I – What more to say? Just wanting to put the receiver down. Then he got the idea that he could lie to Jube, tell him Mr Harland was at home, that the office with his framed credentials – and punched out by Jube’s mad fist shattering the glass enclosure – was indeed his workplace, so the whole plan was off since this wasn’t going to be an armed robbery or nothing like that. But then again, what if Jube did the check for himself? What to say then?
Uh, no. No, I don’t have that number. Stiffened when she asked, in a changed tone, May I ask who’s calling? So Sonny put the receiver down. Slumped both hands against the wall. Watched drops of sweat drip from his face onto the phone. And his legs felt weak. And for some reason the voice of the bass singer came into his mind … as though some haunting, ill-omened musical passage trying to warn him. But then a car horn sounded, made Sonny startle; then anger. Out he went, wrenched open the passenger door, What’s with the fuckin horn, buster? Glaring at Jube, who was staring calmly back, So how’d it go? He there? He’s not, is he? Yes? No?
No, Sonny turned away, stared out at a row of warehouse buildings, the comings and goings of vehicles and people, mostly men in overalls. What, no he’s not at home? No, he is. Come on, Sonny. No, he’s not at home. And man, I don’t think this such a good idea even though he ain’t.
But Jube’d already started the engine, and a glance at him said he was raring to go. So did the speed at which they accelerated away from the kerb. But no smiles of the usual chicken counting before they’d hatched. Not even a hint. Just this picture of grim-something, Sonny couldn’t even call it determination, it was more a kind of mad fixation. And so Sonny lit a cigarette and buried himself in the clouds of smoke. (I want to sink deep deep into the clouds. I want to be swallowed. My cowardice, my nothingness, my being thief, I want to lose it. Lose it. Just fuckin lose myself somewhere …) As an engine roared out front of him.
The night (last night) the Jube-driven night (and all the nights and anguished days of his fixed deciding) now come, of three weeks and a few days of physical healing and mental determining, the night the night was come. And now (now, Sonny) it was gone. They were transported, uplifted of home, of no prospects moving to the exaggerated hope of other town prospect. Face wounds mostly healed, cracked ribs near gone of their pain, infection staved off by the medicines prescribed by the doctor Sonny had summoned in; the nights, the days, the nights of nursing the man – you’re the only friend I got, Son. (Yeah, man, sure. While you need me.) Sonny’d not been fooled – had to change his dressings, cook for him, even wipe his arse the first few days because of the rib injuries.
The nights and delirious days of physical pain – oh I hurt bad, Son – but the mental pain was even worse – we’ll get em, Son. Every man jack ofem, we’ll get em. Soon as we hit the front again, go back to our fancy house bank – HAHAHAHAHA!! – down there in the capital city, bro, we’ll soon be doubling our money, Son. And then, bro. Then. The big house, Sonny, the big house’ll save us again like it did the first time; member that, Son, hahaha. From a nightmare to a fucking dream, eh Son? That’s how it was then, weren’t it?
(How it was how it was, but what of the is? How do ya make of this fuckin life!) Sonny trembling close to bursting out yelling, or even screaming. As if he was going to crack. And as if he did not belong to the world. Not in any way unless it was negative. Laughing ironically inside to himself at himself. (I’m here on this Earth so people can throw stones at me, hahahaha. But whaddid I do? whaddid I do?) As Jube took a corner on a lean. And no chuckle came from him as it always did. (Mrs Harland? Mrs Harland, we’re on our way. But not to hurt ya, lady. Not to do you no harm.) Turning to Jube, Man, no nasty business neither. And, getting no response, added, Ya hear me, man? In a voice that surprised himself for how commanding it sounded. I hear. Sonny waited for
something to follow, and when it didn’t: And? And don’t gimme no fucking orders, man. Do you hear?
I hear alright. But I’m staying with what I said, man: no nast – Fuck up. Okay? No okay, I – Sonny, I’m warning you. No! Sonny turning fully in his seat so he was facing Jube. We didn’t agree to nothing bad, man. Look at me, man!
Yeah, sure. And crash us while I’m at it? Juss so I can look at your ugly dial? Jube drawling. And who said anything about nastiness? Not me. Well ya didn’t not say nothing about it either. Didn’t I? Jube gave him the sleep-eyed look. And drove.
(The nights, the days and nights of healing this guy. Him crying out in his pain, even in his sleep, he coulda been a baby. Oh Sonny, my ribs’re on fucking fire. Oh Sonny, my heart feels torn apart with what them dudes did to me. Oh Sonny, oh Sonny don’t leave me man.) Was this the same man? (Come sit on my bed, talk to me, friend. You’re the only friend I got. Yeah, and you too for me, man. (And Jane. Jane of my sure mind that I’ll meet her one day.) Dabbing at the sweat droplets constantly beading on his forehead, dabdabdab. There ya go, man. Oh Sonny. What’d I do without you, man. But we’ll be back on top, Son, just as soon’s I’m better. The big house, bro, we’re going back to the big house. You remember that, Son, with them angles of the dangles outside and in? Man, it was some weird pad, weren’t it? But what a find, huh Sonny? Like, what a fucking find we found, hahaha. And it’ll be the same, Son. I know you say it won’t, that it’ll be alarmed up, but it won’t. It won’t, not when we hit it it won’t. Oh Sonny, we’ll make it up, you’ll see.)
Got the balies? Well, not nless someone’s shifted em from down on the floor here at my feet, Sonny sarcasming as he reached down and took up the two woollen balaclavas every thief has lying around, two sets of gloves by them at the ready. The taking up of disguise jolting Sonny the more with this reality.