Once Were Warriors Read online

  Come on, man, Jimmy Bad Horse in a whisper to Jake. A whisper. (Wankah. Wankah, I knew you had no guts.)

  Jake could smell the man’s breath, or feel it warm on his face. (Wankah. The wankah blew his arse.) Jake? Again in a whisper. Yet said out the side of his mouth as though he was snarlin at Jake. Y’ can’t do this, man. I got my boys watching … I lose my, uh, my pride here, man, and I’m coming back with a shotgun. Promise you, man. I’ll be back to waste you, Jake. Jake shaking. With rage. And outrage: that this cunt should dare plead with a man to don’t take away his pride then tell a man he’d waste im. Shaking. But all Jake gave away of his rage was, So you tell me, punk, how I’m gonna walk away from this with my pride? And he swore he heard Jimmy Bad Horse swallow, a gulp. Of fear. (Wankah.) Dunno, man. Thas your lookout. You the one called us.

  And this whispering and low-voiced talking going on and the crowd — not a one ofem — unable to hear it. But Jake glancing over the Brown Fist’s shoulder atem and seeing — being staggered by the sight, in fact — the hope on their faces, the unspoken urgings of encouragement: G’won, Jake, get the bastard. Jake saw their expectation, and even how the weariness of booze was overshadowed by the firebright of a fight in store. And so he loved em — loved em all, the fuckers — for giving him their love, their hopes in an otherwise hopeless world. So. (So I could die forem. I could die of just love forem all right here.) Tears in Jake’s eyes. Because he (I) was their light, their hope burns eternal flame (who else they got to do this kinda thing forem?) he could see what they were thinking, they were thinking: Punch his lights out, Jake the Muss. For us, Jake, punch his fuckin lights out. They. They, The People — (the bereft, the broken of heart and spirit from all them dirty rotten homes with no love inem. Oh, Jake unnerstans, Jakey’d never leave you, People.) So Jake not budging. Not one inch. And the crowd, the grown up leftovers from the wrecked, ruined childhoods, just one big collective thought of: PUNCHIM, JAKE. PUNCHIM.

  And the man with the precision instrument he’d gone without to acquire, denied himself of earthly pleasures so to gain his due reward from heaven, gazed through his beloved telescope and thought of red shifts, and blue shifts, and how, if some of the red shifts were a fact then so too was it that the universe was moving apart … meaning, that much, if not all, one day should be lost to each other in the heavenly scheme of things. A thought that gave him at the same time a sense of his own unimportance but, too, a sense of loss. Oh, almost a sorrow.

  Whilst They, The Lost, waited as their Light advanced his face still closer to that of the face representing Evil and Dark, thinking: PUNCHIM PUNCHIM PUNCHIM.

  The man was urinating, you could hear it hitting the tarseal street in a dull steady splash — when he started off — then he was playing the discharge with an idiot glee, laughing, and saying, I know. Gonna make me a shape. Thinking for a second. A twat. I’ll draw me a twat. As he tried to form a V on the road and a woman opposite with her dog under her arm and husband walking road side of the footpath with her looked in disgust at the last of the sight of taxi-rankers. And two ofem laughing at the crude wet stain on the road. And the stars above so clear. Reflecting in droplets of urine (in the uplifted eyes of a child, Grace, laying on her back in the long unmown grass of her back lawn gazing at it up there, as her illustrious Maori warrior ancestors’d done before her) and one of the taxi-rank drunks commenting to his mate: See those stars up there, brother? Well our ancestors used em as guides, eh; navigation guides to gettem here, eh. (And Grace thinking how unbelievably vast and beautiful it was up there.)

  And Jimmy Shirkey had nowhere to take his star-tatted face as Jake pressed near nose to nose with him. And Jimmy knowing the wankahs all around were waiting for his blood to be spilled all over the floor though it wasn’t that he minded so much (my blood’s been spilling all my miserable life, my heart’s bled as long as I c’n remember) it was his pride, his manhood. Then he wondered if he shouldn’t take his chance, up and headbutt this Jake cunt. But Jake’s rep, man …

  Grace followed a shooting star, wheeeee … from first flash to white salt-pour expiry lower down in that vast black of a million bursts of light; arching her back to follow the path it traced. Thinking how sick of that damned Tennessee Waltz she was when her eyes fell on blocks and part-blocks of light that must be the Trambert residence. Far out, wonder what it must be like for them this life. What they were doing. Maybe they saw my mother, her making a fool of herself dancing with a ghost, and her face so hideous from what Dad did to her — God, I hate him. Yet Mum, she still loves him.

  Claaaangggggg!! the bell for last orders went off like a fire engine’d just charged into the packed bar. And Jake he used it to tell the Brown Fist leader, You got your pride, man. But don’t you fuckin come onto my territory like you the big wheel. Alright? But Jimmy Bad Horse shrugging, turned his back and swaggered off to the bar servery. Left Jake Heke staring afterim, a look of triumph on his face and The People, even in their clamour to get to the bar servery, were also reflecting triumph. Why, how many people stand up to a Brown Fist, man? And already some ofem saying how they were ready, those other goons just had to so much as blink and I’d’ve been in. In like a fuckin shot. Talking like this, packed tight like sardines, as they worked the seven barmen off their last ten minutes of feet.

  And they downed their last drinks, and the lights got switched off at the servery, made it look so …? so different, man … as if the lights of heaven, or the promise of it’d been switched off. And there was Grace — wheeee-ing at another shooting star scribing its signature across the sky. Ah, so sad really: just a brief moment in time and then gone forever. She was running when she saw it. Right in front of her. Lithe of limb and feeling she could run on and on (though not forever. Grace never saw forever in its positive sense. It was inconceivable that something good could last forever, or even a lifetime. A long time even. Just didn’t happen to a girl from Pine Block) … then she was scrambling through the wire-strand fence separating her state dwelling from that stately one, the one lit up. The moon behind her; a big glowing eye in the sky. And that house just a paddock away. (I’m so excited.) Just standing there, aglow like the moon except parts of it snatched by the shadow of tree outline, foliage cover; an apparition, a spacecraft from outer space just landed. Oh wow. She ran. The strains of Tennessee damn Waltz permanently embedded in her mind from musta been a hundred damn times Mum played that record, and she’s still playin it. Grace stopped: see if I c’n hear it from — Oh Gawd. I can. Turning. To see the whole rear view of houses on her street lit up, partly lit, and just the odd gap of darkness where some real odd-ones-out family must be actually sleeping at eleven o’clock Friday night. And she could see her mother, the figure of her moving across that yellow window screen (Oh Gawd help us, I can see her); turning back to that singular glow of light and running, running fast towards it (and I don’t even know why.)

  And the stars so clear, and a dew formed on the grass of Trambert’s paddock, on the roofs of the beatup cars, the old cars, the hotted-up jobs, the grunt machines out in the carpark of McClutchy’s bar and up the street a fair ways, and on the roofs of the old car wrecks in the streets of Pine Block where some poor kids were sleeping.

  And the bells rang, or they tolled. All over the country, in every lowdown bar in the land. Night was over.

  Bouncers herding their scum customers out like sheep: C’mon, c’mon, let’s have ya. Pretending to be polite, patient about it, but inside aching for trouble to break out as a last bonus for the night.

  And the customers lugging their bottled containers of happiness withem, hitting the cool night some ofem reeling, acting it up because they’d heard cold air and a skinful a piss was a potent mixture so there was no use in denying that scientific fact, even when it wasn’t one.

  And they got into their beat-up cars, they lined up at the taxi rank where they argued, picked fights, had fights, spewed up all over the road where that fulla’d tried to draw a twat (of all the things and he had
to pick a twat for his artistry). And a big scrap broke out in the carpark — so what’s new? — as fullas heard it and were racing to join it, as if it, the brawl, was this powerful magnet drawing em even if they didn’t want to; and this fulla hopped into this car, eh, and no one in the car knew the cunt from a bar of soap, and the driver said, What the fuck? before he punched the cunt, then he and his four passengers they hauled the fulla from their car and he was struggling and saying please, bruthas! as they kicked and punched him senseless. Then they got back in their invaded territory and drove off, laughing, shaken a bit by the violence but also feeling real good about it, and driver saying: Man, who’d that cunt think he was? Yet there was another car-crasher up the street a bit who told the driver, Home please, Jeeves. A stranger he was. And the driver laughing, and thus so did his passengers, and he said to the cheeky fulla, Wha’, party at your place? grinning. And the cheeky fulla said, Yeow, bro. Just like that. And it seemed like a friendship was formed.

  Still others making for Taniwha Street: food. Need a feed, man. And the Slit-eyes waiting hungrily forem to arrive, hiding their contempt behind sugary Oriental smiles (that only the blind drunk couldn’t see through) and snatched at your money, man, and the order hardly outta your mouth (and without shame, convinced it was you the shameful one); they assessed each and every customer for how pissed he was so to know how much less of something to put in his order, add it up, man, it comes to a bit you open seven days all year the cunts don’t even close on Christmas day; looking at you, Maori boy and girl man and woman, brown people, all the time drunk, calculating you, giving you the Chink eye all ovah, at you, stupid drunk Maori, all the time look for trouble, why you not try look for money for a change? Ah, five thousand years of history against you, Brown People, no wonder we Chinese we loathe you. Five thousand years to know secret to life is hard work — work ethic, you hear of work ethic? But smiling at their swaying, red-eyed, foul-smelling cussimas because Chinese person he love what you carry in your pocket, and he don’t mind have to work hard for it. Work easy once you decide. Watching em through their narrow slits of eyes, the customer’s drunken scenes outside, his outbursts, his hysteria, his terrible things — Aee, muss be the race. Muss be. Why they so troubled? So mixed up? Yet thinking they, the prevailing brown customers, were shit, scum.

  So they shook their heads, without pity, at the sound of sirens come to arrest you, take you broken and bleeding and often dying to hospital; they laughed gleefully amongst emselves at your collective stupidity, your monumental idiocy, Brown People, for helpin em get rich; they laughed even more over their woks in knowing you, your miserable untaught offspring, were their children’s guaranteed future. Ah, my children they be here when these scum’s children grow up: spare rib, sweetnsour pork, chow mein, chop suey, dimsims, wonton, fried wings, no matter, all convert to money, and money convert to nice house, nice car, no worry, not much argument, even a holiday, happy family. So life happy, yes?

  And in the early mornings when cussimas all gone to their terrible state house beat up wifes, make ruined children, drink more bad stuff, we who you call the Slits, we first prepare for tomorrow, then we count how much we take from you stupid terrible people, then we put in our secret place or we drop money in night bank deposit, then we walk out into night — oo, and very nice night too tonight — but not have to take Slit-eyes to heaven and dream bout nice things to come; we Chinese, we know from this high, heaven is what you make it. Right here on earth. Ah, Brown People, when you going to figure this?

  So the parties raged, all over Pine Block they raged, man. And people, every man and woman jack ofem, they were thinking this must be life because it is life, you know …? But yet something not quite equating. Ah, but who gives a fuck? Drink up and be happy. And if you wanna fight then go to it, bro. Might even join in it looks good.

  And some wives screaming, or taking their beatings in pain-grunting silence. Or the sexual without feeling. Or hatingim for it. And thinking about life too: you know, how it was never gonna change, never gonna get better, it can’t get better. Ya have to want it to get better first. You and your husband. Together. Maybe even your entire race.

  Out in the car wrecks, or in backyard sheds, building-site sheds, under a bridge somefuckinwhere, huddled together (and some poor buggers alone) talking of their futures: Gonna be a big-time crim one day, man. Me, gonna be a Brown Fist. Nah, man, they suck, the Browns. Black Hawks, man, they the ones. And tats: Gonna get one right here, that muscle there you got it, bro. Yeow. A snake, eh. Curlin round a sword in flames. How bout you? A tiger. A tiger? With big fuckin teeth. Yah! Bite ya fuckin head off. Hey! Man, gonna rob me a bank one day. Know what I’m gonna do with the bread? Nah, man, tell me. Gonna buy a fishnchip shop so I don’t never have to go hungry, and you and all our mates don’t have to go hungry. Ever again. Aw, hey, bro: thas cool. Here, come and get under my blanket, it’s warmer ’n yours.

  Lyin there, looking up at the stars how neat they looked, about to say so but checkin emselves, no way, man. Might think I’m a wankah I start talking bout stars ’n sissy things like that.

  Mr Telescope Man finally calling it a night: lovingly placing the cover over his precious instrument, zippering it closed. Standing there for a thoughtful moment. Smiling at himself, for the desire’d come over him to kiss the darn thing. Laughing. Derek, you’re just lonely. And in his bed thinking, you know, of first a woman … in my arms, her warm sweet breath on me, her warmth her womanly warmth … ooh, darling! … beneath him, moaning her pleasure and he his, sighing, grunting, getting faster and faster and — Starburst. Then his thoughts returned to that Great Vastness out there; and too his marvel, at how it’d never lessened in intensity. Nor his curiosity. Thinking those unthinkable scales of distance and size, the mind-boggling enormity of it all — and how ridiculous that there should be a God ascribed to it all, let alone one with not only goodly intentions but who had to be worshipped or else he was meaningless. Not to mention vengeful. Just nonsense. Utter nonsense. Star stuff. That’s all it is.

  Then he thought of matter and of mattering things, grinning at the connection. But frowning when it next occurred to him: If one is blind, a sea-dweller, or a dweller in perpetual darkness, then what matter the stars? It bothered him. And he thought thus of those humans born to circumstances, social circumstances, into cultures who and which were blind to the Great Beyond. And it gave him a sense of loss, of almost a grieving. For them. The deprived. The ones with no choice; perhaps, even, no escape: you are what you are sort of thing. Then thank goodness for what I am, he said aloud before sleep came.

  And his dreams were at peace with this world and that dream world. If but a little overly symbolic with his bachelor state, women in every possible dreamstate and usually naked. Ah, the lot of a man who finds that species impossible. Just impossible.

  7. The Night’s Last Act

  … that house … that house (The Dream) Oh, not far to go now. Glints of light, like horizontal knives slicing across her vision: that’ll be the other fence. Oh my God. Fearful and excited now. Bladder suddenly full.

  She stopped. Her breathing rapid. Wow, musta been flying. She lifted the hem of her dress, went down in a squat; she pulled her knickers to one side, wincing at the feel of pubic hair (belongs to me?), still not sure about all this hormonal changes, turning from one thing into another, changing and yet not changing; tried to let it out in dignified little squirts but couldn’t hold it. Ah well. Let it flood from her, and ahhh, the relief. She shook herself, swivelling on her heels, giggling. Like a boy shaking his thingy dry. Ee, yuk, I don’t ever want one a them inside me. I know Dad does it to Mum, I’ve heardem. Uh-uh-uh, he goes. And her too, sometimes. Like a coupla blimmin animals. Unless it’s cos he’s hurting her.

  Whew! I’m puffed alright. Heart beating like a jackhammer in her chest with its budded breasts still growing. She stood. Caught her breath, steadied the dizziness of standing from a squat. Then she heard something amazing.

  A
piano. A piano? Out here? Took a little moment to sink in where it was coming from. Now she was really scared: it was like entering — trespassing — a totally different world. Neighbours, huh? Just over the fence, eh. Yeah, another planet. She stood listening. Adjusted to it after a while. Not altogether, but enough to overcome the fear it created in her. So she moved on.

  House looked huge up close and — Shit! She dropped to the ground at the sight of people. Oh and what if they’ve got a guard dog? Curled in a ball there in the grass waiting for some crazed guard creature to rip her to bits for daring to bring her miserable self onto their precious property. She waited an age. And the piano stopped registering. Took some time to come back. Must’ve been me, my fear. She stood, eventually. No dogs? Listening. Heart pounding. The piano going tinkletinkle tatatata. Sweat turning cold on her. Just a tiny breeze. But everything starting to clear: my eyes, my hearing: I can see and hear so clearly.

  Up at the sky the unbelievable cascade of the Milky Way. The formations that stood out, the Southern Cross, the Pot, the Bear, what she’d learned at school. I can hear every rustle on every leaf, over every blade of grass. What’s happening to me? I can picture all the shapes the breeze must take to move around, over an obstacle, and how all those things combined must produce what we call the sound of the breeze. It’s not the breeze, it’s what’s in the way. And she moved forward, cautiously, but with this strange confidence.

  She came to the wire-strand fence, climbed through it. Easy, man. She came to a wall, she touched it, it was brick. About her lower chest height. She stood there (I feel reckless). And everything — them — those two standing listening to that one I can only see her hair, the big piano, even the quality of light, the brightness of their light they stood in, the lot as clear as day.