Once Were Warriors Read online

  It was Jake told Dool no rush, because he liked to drive (be driven) slowly through his own streets, sort of like a king going over his kingdom making sure people still knew who he was; suited Dooly Jacobs too, he had a souped-up old Valiant he’d done up himself, liked to catch the looks it and he got from the young fullas around the Pine Block streets. Car might be fifteen years old but it still turned the fuckin heads. Was Dool’s pride and joy, he spent half his unemployed life working on it: doing the engine up, cleaning it, inspecting, there was always something to do. Big motherfucka hemi V8 in it, man, just its fuckin growl’d scare most ofem off the road. So they cruised down Jake’s street, Rimu Street (and Jake kept his eyes frontwards when they went past his house, thinking, fuck the bitch. She shouldn’t’ve made a fool of a man in front of his mates.)

  Turned right down Manuka Street, going slowly slowly, easy easy. With arms out the windows, and Dooly tapping a beat on the roof, and Jake’s bent elbow on the outer door with sleeve rolled high to remind any might-bes and likelies what they were up against in terms of sheer muscle. (Just let any punk try and he’ll wish he hadn’t.) And Jake kept glancing to see if veins were sticking out on his arm. And a face’d go by and Dooly’d raise his fingers from their complicated beat, Hey man! Howzit! Grinning away, then back to his incredible finger beat that Jake was thinking just flowed out of him, a little envious, thinking he’d have himself a practice at home tomorrow see if he could produce something similar.

  When Jake greeted it was just a lift of his big left hand, a flick of casual greeting, the hand flopping back on the sill, and Jake mostly seeing only the size of his mit, how it never ceased to amaze him he’d been blessed with such big hands, almost as if God’d known Jake Heke was gonna need big mits. And he liked how the veins bulged up on his mit, the one on the door sill not the one rested deliberately hanging off the edge of the seat so the blood flowed down and swelled those veins.

  Not a lot to see out there, just the same old two-storey houses shared by two families, fuckin mirrors of each other, and heaps and heaps of kids of all ages runnin wild and mongrel dogs roaming all over. The car wrecks on the front lawns Jake and Dool’d long stopped seeing, they were just part of the scenery. Cruisin.

  Hoi! Jake yelling out the window in jocular but aggressive tone to a group of kids fooling around and not much older than five or six. Haven’t ya got mothers? The question just jumping from Jake’s mouth without forethought nor afterthought. And grinning all over. And Dooly going, Huh?

  Out of Pine Block, the vacant land that no one wanted; who wants to live next door to a slum full of mad Maoris having all-night weekend parties? The pair laughing at Dool remarking this, they understood. Can’t blame em, eh Dool? Even Jake understood. And Dool responding: Man, I was a Pakeha, I wouldn’t come within ten fuckin miles of this joint. Laughing again in that unspoken understanding of men with no means of articulation.

  And then the rest of the world, the other side of Two Lakes, with privately owned dwellings, and neither man bothering to remark on how good it must be to own your own home and not have a neighbour through a few inches of wall listening to your every fart and fuck and fight; a home with a garden, a carport, a garage. Shit. Whassa use? Ain’t gonna change a fuckin thing.

  But the farther they drove from Pine Block and the more the houses changed, got better, slightly larger, slightly more appealing than the last, it had Jake Heke imagining em, the home-owners, safe and snug in their privately owned boxes with the cars they all seemed to be lovingly cleaning and polishing like it was some fuckin pet or favourite person, Jake was getting to fume more and more over the car-loving successful-appearing white maggot shits. Fuckem. Cunts worship the things, their cars. They do. Man felt like yelling sumpthin out of the window at one ofem, except he didn’t know what he wanted to yell; instinct telling him there was something amiss about anybody who gave a lousy car so much attention.

  Couple of miles, four kays in the new language a man’d never been able to think in even after all these years, it must be ten or more, and over the railway line and they were in town.

  Two Lakes, wow, Jake drawling as if it bored him, did nothing for him, when truth was town made him feel uncomfortable. In fact, from the moment they hit the other residential side of Two Lakes, Jake Heke was ill at ease. Only when he was (safe and snug) at his drinking hole, McClutchy’s, did Jake feel at home again. Though he wasn’t aware of that discomfit. Just a funny feeling in his gut that was there one minute and next it wasn’t. He never connected things.

  Main street. So what, big deal, who gives a fuck, town’s not even a city, and ya call this a main street? More like a hick-town street. So where do we hitch our fuckin horses, man? Having a chuckle inside at his thoughts. A long main street though: must run damn near a mile to the lake sitting at the other end. Taniwha Street it was called, after the water monster from Maori myth, though Jake knew plenty who thought taniwhas really existed, though he didn’t. So what does a taniwha look like? he’d challenge a believer. And so far he’d never had a satisfactory reply.

  Damn place lit up like a Christmas tree. Jake hated this end of town, it was the flash end. Maoris tended to the other end. Like that chemist over there. Bastards. Jake’d never forgotten his one and only time going in there with a prescription for one of the kids sick and the place so fuckin clean and with a funny smell, like a school dentist or a real clean toilet or like at a doctor’s. And this woman in a white coat coming up and running her eyes up and down a man, thinking he was blind. He knew she was telling him she didn’t like his dirty work clothes, but she could go fuck herself, he just couldn’t wait to get out of there. And lookit that clothes shop, the menswear: damn dummy things they got in the front window all dressed to the fuckin nines, I’d give a cunt a bunch a fuckin fives he walked into my pub dressed like that. And how come the dummy things’ve got white-man features? What, they think they the only race on this earth? Fuckem.

  Dooly slowed for a pedestrian crossing; Jake looked sullenly at the crisscrossing of people, thinking of most ofem: The fuck you think you are? Mostly because he perceived their generally tidy dress as being flash, dressed up.

  Again at the lights, Dooly halted; sitting there waiting for the fuckin thing to change and half of Two Lakes deciding they just had to cross the street, and Jake feeling more and more like a sardine in a — no, a monkey at a zoo. People looking at me …

  Jake sitting there fuming, hating the people, the fuckin lights for not changing. I’ll spit at anyone they look at me too hard, like I’m a fuckin monkey. Givem monkey. Then he let out a sigh to cover for his changing position as he pulled his arm back inside and quietly wound up the window. Ah, that felt better. And he sat there, eyes dead ahead. To hell withem; even someone I know comes past wanting to say hello, why should I? Man didn’t come down here to say hi to every Tom, Dick and Harry.

  Hey, why’d you come this way anyway? in an accusing tone to Dool. To look, brother. Look at what? At the people, man. Fuckem. But they’re your fellow cuntreemen and women, Jake. Dool laughing. Fuckem. Oh c’mon, Maori boy, thassa wrong att-titude. And Jake shooting Dool a look in case Dool was having him on. Better not be. (Friend or no friend, man, I don’t take shit from no one.) We all New Zealanders underneath, brother, Dool continuing in his breezy vein. I said, fuckem. And still the lights stayed red. Then, no sooner did they get the green, it was another pedestrian crossing. Jesus Chrise. Jake clicking his tongue in frustration.

  Jake’s patience ran out — Drive through, man. Wha’? Can’t do that, this is a zebra crossing. Don’t see no zebra out there, man, only a packa wankers. Next one to look in here and I’m gettin out cloutin the cunt. Hey, eeeasy, brotherrr, Dooly tried to lighten it up. You not that thirsty are y’? Drive through, man. Aw, c’mon — Drive. Dooly revved the engine as warning, which brought some dude to a halt, stood there staring in outrage at the deep-rumbling Valiant. And Jake was winding his window down as fast as he could, enraged, and out shot his huge clench
ed left fist: You get the fuck outta our way, mutha or — through clenched teeth. Jake, Jake, easy easy, pal. Ain’t no big deal. And Jake swinging on Dool, but with his fist still out the door, You shoulda gone the other way, Manner Street. Why’d you come this way? Then quickly back to the fulla outside, except he’d gone. Lucky for him too. Aw, Jake, where you living, man? This is 1990 not 1890. We’re all one and the same underneath, Jake boy. Neath what? Jake glowering at his friend as they moved forward. Our skin, brother. Gimme that shet. What, you think a Maori’s different underneath to them out there? Dool sweeping his hand across him. But Jake satisfied his sullenness gave explanation enough. More than enough.

  Through the second set of lights, getting a green straight away, all of a sudden Jake came out of his sullen sulk with Dool for taking em the wrong way, leaning back and sweeping an expansive arm and smiling. Man, now this is what I call the real people, at the prevalence of Maoris out there doing their late-night shopping. Brown faces, brother, Jake saying with unnecessary force to a similarly brown-skinned friend. Brown and black and fat and rolly polly, hahaha! Jake laughing and pointing at all and sundry, their more casual, even untidy, style of dress, the way they walked, and talked; or stood around in groups sharing from a newspaper-wrapped parcel of fishnchips, or standing there cracking freshly bought mussels in the shell against each other and slurping — I mean, slurping — out the contents, a man could identify with that, these people. (And their laughter, man: rocking with it, the way (we) they do, and nemine the self-conscious I’m-in-public shit, it’s let it all hang out. Juss look atem the way they walk: that ain’t walking it’s styling. It’s rhythm. It’s going to that beat every (physical) man or woman and even the kids’ve got in your head. Your soul. Pakehas, they don’t understand it. That’s because they got no rhythm. And no, you know, passion. Or passion and violence.)

  Slow, man, slow, Jake instructing and his arm going out the window and pressing it hard against the door to start with just to get the veins up. Givin em a glance, his arm, the veins, the size of his fuckin great mit. And to them out there, even though he felt he kind of loved em, a hard-eyed look. Just in case.

  Outside Tam’s Chinese takeaways another group ofem and all pigging out on sumpthin Chinese. Hoi! Jake yelling grinningly out at em, Save some for me! They returning his laugh, and one even tossing Jake something or other from his plastic container but Jake missing the catch. Next time, brother! yelling to the fulla and grinning all ovah. All ov-ah.

  Till they hit the next Chink takeaways and it was a group of Brown Fists all bunched up trying to look the heavies with their filthy gang regalia and tattooed faces and bare arms covered in em too. Jake giving em his most menacing glare, and holding it till his eyes stung with not blinking. And asking Dool: Who they meant to scare, man? with all the contempt of a man utterly confident in his fighting skills, his fistic power.

  Jake waving to a woman he knew from a party way back, and Dool teasing him, Hey, who’s that, your bit on the side? But Jake shaking his head, Not me, man. Aw c’mon, Jake, big handsome fulla like you? No way, bro. Yeah, sure, man. Dool’s tone disbelieving. And Jake muttering shuddup to Dool, drop it. I ain’t no womaniser. Ah, so you like your mi — Man, I didn’t say that. Turning the corner into the street where their drinking haunt was, and immediately Dool giving a little whoop and Jake echoing with a chuckle.

  McCLUTCHY’S read the sign in red neon, no blinking on and off, no other colours used, no need to. Not when the regulars’d never change for love nor money.

  Past the taxi rank, and people already lined up and not even dark yet, near every one ofem history. Crates or brown paper bags of beer at their feet, their swaying gaits a giveaway. And not yet dark. And every one a brown man. Dooly reminding Jake to look straight ahead in case they saw someone they were bound to know and thus be obliged to give the person a lift home. Hell, only just got here.

  Parked way up the street from the bar because of cars everywhere, walking along briskly, a mild urgency in their stride, and laughing, then Dooly pushing Jake playfully and Jake using the slight imbalance as an excuse for a (very good) imitation of an Ali shuffle. Hahahaha! their twinned laughter echoing down the narrow canyon of two-storey buildings, though only one building mattered to the pair.

  McClutchy’s. Man, oh man. McClutchy’s.

  Cross the street, ignoring the drunken calls from the taxi rank of How’re’y’s? or Here, put it here, brother: shake. Fuck the shakes, silly old codgers can’t take their piss. G’won, off to bed ya old buggers, Jake mildly at the line-up of mostly elderly male waitees. And a chorus ofem — but right out of synch — jabbering, Ooo Jake! The toughest cunt in Two Lakes! that sorta thing. Making Jake feel good.

  Up the three concrete steps to the big double doors and the bouncers in their bow-ties giving Jake, in particular, deferential greeting: the way men of violence defer to those they know or perceive as their physical betters. And Dooly, buoyed by the rub-off of kudos of association with the big man with the big rep and the even bigger mits, pushing the door open with a hard bottom-of-the-shoe kick like in a western movie, sumpthin tough like that. Then they entered another world. Just a set of double doors away.

  It hit em like a blast — it was a blast — of, firstly, sound. SOUND. Sound upon sound within sound. A bizzare humming. A swollen jibberjabberjumble. A great big cacophony of drunken SOUND. And it struck, immediately, as not quite right — even accepting the induced state — as grossly out of balance with something, at odds, terrible odds with the normal world. Even to a Jake, a Dooly, it hit em like that. But only for an instant. Then, unless you were a stranger, the discordant turned to music; sweet jabbering humming music. So they grinned at each other. Made their way to the bar.

  Shrieking explosions of laughter, exclamation, SOUND. Oh man! Dool having to shout to Jake beside and then behind him, It’s packt! with joy in his voice. Layers and layers ofem, of babbling jabbering moaning cursing swearing beer-pouring humanity — cursed by something, a stranger’d think and a regular’d know, except it didn’t matter. What the hell, this whole joint is one big mirror of each other so it’s alright, man, it’s alright.

  The tinkle of breaking glass. The pop of a fist exploding in someone’s face, the immediate yelling and screaming of someone — a woman, some bitch, Jake registering — then a roaring male: I’LLFUCKINKILLYA!!! — Laughter. Humming dying, heads turning to the incident.

  Point your ear anywhere and the sound’d be different, clashing with one another and yet it all felt the same. Or it’d stereo, then hurtle off of each other a violent collision.

  Gats going everywhere, there must be four or five ofem: strumdedum, jingjikajingjing, in clashing accompaniment to each cluster of singers, and they weren’t so much singing as transporting, away somewhere, on stage probably, or in some state of emotional rescue, thinking they were saving some long lost event happened to em, heads back eyes closed mouths agape and sounds and emotions escaping from the gaping holes like poison from an ever-infected wound, ya can’t kid me, even Jake Heke, even I c’n see why half ofem get carried away when they sing it ain’t singing it’s …? But Jake unable to escape his word limits, his boundaries, to nail the perception down. Onward.

  Hey Jake! Put it here, brother. And here. And here. And there, and over here, Jake, everywhere. Man. And the jukebox going feebly in the background but only because the barman had volume control and you didn’t know the barman and he didn’t like your music then fuck your five bucks of fifty cents this ain’t a democracy it’s a dictatorship!

  More glass breaking, and someone toppling over … sloooowwwly, slow-motion stuff, onto a table of full bottles and jugs and glasses. Hey! Pop, the fulla’s nose being punched, bone snapped just like that. Spill our fuckin beer.

  The press of bodies, heat, human heat and stink and sickly sweet wafts of (cheap) scents meant to enhance a person, usually some cheaparse woman, or maybe Old Spice on a man if you could callim that wearing that sorta shit in here. Crowd closing,
even against him, Jake. Someone shoved by Jake, the someone twisting and asking, The fuck you shoving, mate? before he’d seen who it was. Oh Jake. It’s you, brother. Here, put it here, I thought you was someone else. A nervous chuckle in case the Man of Muscle’d taken offence regardless. Smiling all ovah at Jake putting an arm around him, those broad hard shoulders showing their seventy-one inch spread, or the right-hand half of it anyrate. No worries, man. Jake smiling at the fulla. Gotta move. And Dool following alongside when it suited, behind when it didn’t, in front if Jake gave him the lead, got stopped by someone wanting to shake his hand.

  And the air swirling with smoke, damn near every one ofem smoking, or just put out or about to light up or cadging one. Need it, man, and right now. No skylights. No windows to speak of. The lighting bad. Only the bar lit up like Taniwha Street you’d think it was fuckin Christmas. Another woman upset at sumpthin and dropping to Jake’s left. He expressing a mild interest till he saw who it was: fucker. Bitch is always askin for it. His interest really taken when a fulla jumped in and poleaxed the woman’s assailant, dropped the cunt like a stone. Good punch. (Hmm, good punch.) Jake taking note of the dude. (I’ll get him after.) Just in case the fulla thought that king-hit made him king. Not here it didn’t. Onward.

  Then instantly another fight. Man, looking over his shoulder at Dooly Jacobs, Gonna be one a them nights. Pleased at the prospect. He had a big left hook just sat there waiting in him — he could feel it, even see its trajectory, the very shape the punch’d take, whoever was unlucky enough to be wearing it.