Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Big A Little A Bouncing B (Part 1)

PUNK FEST; Car Club Wellington

It's the annual punkfest and this one is dedicated to Neil Roberts who died 25 years ago attempting to blow up the Whanganui Police Computer Centre according to the poster at the door. We follow a women into the gig. Money is taken and a stamp smeared across her wrist. A huge banner "We Remember You Neil" hangs behind the band who stand like frozen possums under the spot lights. The crowd however is going ape shit with bodies hurtling in every direction. The unknown band is playing/destroying No Idea's "Too Late". The song is very familiar to her and she smiles, nods her recognition, mouths a few words... The crowd is mostly young and her body language quickly shows discomfort as they repeatedly crash into her, spill their drinks over her...

After briefly watching she withdraws slowly out of the crowd, avoiding the drunken stumbles and 'dancing' she picks up snippets of conversation as she leaves. The dialogue is a random cut n paste collage of boasts, assumptions and ignorance.


VARIOUS PEOPLE
"Neil was a fucken hero man, taking out the pigs..."
"sensors or something set the bomb off...boom!"
"yeah that's fucking anarchy..."
"Dumb cunt musta fucked the timer or something eh?"
"They like reckon they found eleven fingers eh? Hahahaha!"

The audience is wasted, aggressive, despairing even. She leaves, stands alone on the porch under a weak light. Across the crowded dark carpark clusters of punks drink and smoke, many others simply stagger about. The crowd is young and mostly adhere to the now standard look of the modern-day street punk: filthy, matted hair, sickly, several black t-shirts despite the cold, ripped/patched black jeans and boots. There are 'others' about: older, more conservative, younger kids etc

DENISE
Catherine! Ova here!

She recognises the voice, her friend Denise. There - a small house truck is parked on the perimeter, an arm is waving from a window. She walks across to it. 



HOUSE TRUCK; INTERIOR; FLOW OF PEOPLE IN AND OUT.

The interior is smoky, dimly lit and a riot of stuff. Solar panels are stacked on a chair; a pot bubbles on a gas ring and two burnt knives stick out from under it. A broken vodka bottle lies on the kitchen bench amongst numerous dishes and general 'stuff'. A small B/W Tv is on the bench and shows news footage of the Uerawera terrorist raids - the sound is muted. The walls are covered in photos, posters, flyers, slogans etc, most are overtly political. A stereo is playing jungle, but the noise of the gig remains quietly audible. There are three or four people inside - it's hard to tell with the constant movement. A women is on the loft bed above all the bustling of conversations, drinking and drug taking; she closes the loft window and settles back down. Shortly Catherine is working her way through the small space, greeting and hugging people before clambering up into the loft.

DENISE
You didn't make it back last night then?

CATHERINE
Nah we didn't wrap up till late and by the time we'd had a drink, packed and hit the road I was fucked. Was it a good night here?

DENISE
Yeah! Started off at Janice's place for some fire works for Neil. It was cool, sad memories and vodka... pretty lethal eh. Then here. It was so-so... maybe one good band. The head-liners were grunty metal boys from Hamilton so we didn't stay.

She waves her hand out into the truck space.


Don't matter. Danny's chai tent here is the place to be eh guys?

Hoots and cheers are thrown back and the truck shakes as a couple of bodies attempt to dance. A cry of "spots are up" can be heard.

DENISE
Here.

Twists the cap off a beer.

Bottoms up. So tell me about Whanganui - bet that was an interesting week eh? Dig up plenty of small-town dirt?

CATHERINE
Ha! Fuck. Weddings, retirements, and... new shops opening up. I actually yawned in one interview, very unprofessional...

DENISE
Oh, I saved you a punk cupcake from Janice's party.

She rummages around on a shelf above her.

It's a blue one so don't smile at anyone okay?

CATHERINE
Wicked. Ta.

She raises the cupcake in a toast.

To Neil, for putting the punk into master chef.

Laughing, they scoff the cake before drinking deeply.

DENISE
So, first trip back since you guys staked out the computer centre eh? Glory days. Was it weird? Did ya go check it out - y'know...

CATHERINE
Yeah I walked past, went through that park... Um.. Moutua Gardens. where the toilets are... real flash now and the um iron fence thing they put up after the bombing is gone now so it's pretty much how I remember it. Could have gone in I suppose - just lawyers an shit in there now. Yeah (laughs) there was this old dragon who worked at the paper - thank fuck she wasn't in charge of the students, anyway, she wrote all the original articles about the bombing - she was there.

DENISE
Yeah... And?

CATHERINE
Wouldn't have a fucking bar of it eh; no fucking poxy student journalist was going to be interviewing her. Neil was a nut-job - end of story.

DENISE
Damn... bitch...

CATHERINE
Forget her; I found the copy-editor who was on duty that night, told me how the building shook and they ran around screaming 'stop the press' just like in a movie... and...

Catherine pulls her bag across her and after rummaging inside pulls out a pack of photos.


CATHERINE
I got access to the photo archives and permission to reprint what ever I wanted..

DENISE
Fuck! No shit! Lemme see...

Settled against pillows they flick through a series of B & W photos taken the morning after the bombing.

DENISE
Oh fuck his boots... are his feet still like...?

CATHERINE
Probably. The report said his hands, feet and part of his face were all that was left.."

DENISE
Yeah... yeah that's right. An eyeball was found twenty metres away or something eh... Fuck what a mess... Shit... 'brain'... 'cloth'...

CATHERINE
See that dude there? (points out a bearded man in a photo) I met him years ago in Nelson, he was growing avocados or something. He was the government bomb expert who figured it all out...like how he did it, how much gelli Neil used. Nice guy. Threw him a bit the whole scene an all.

DENISE
Fuck I'm not surprised, the damage is real intense.

CATHERINE
Well he did want to scare the fuckers. No point in being lame about it eh... like the dude who chucked a Molotov at the place during the tour...

DENISE
Really? Never heard of that...

CATHERINE
Yeah well it only burned up an innocent shrub...

The noise from the gig/drunken howls etc suddenly increases as the window in the loft swings open in the wind.

CATHERINE
Fucken' hell, it gets worse every year; is this Neil's legacy?

DENISE
Sure is Grandma; wasted, confused, idealistic kids... ah the memories. I wonder which ones will kill themselves before the years out eh?

She lights and draws hard on a cigarette.

There's this chick just come in the terminal ward on Thursday who dropped a bundle of panadol to freak her folks out, demand some quality loving... who knows. Shit, she's got about two days left they reckon. Doesn't wanna die anymore eh... fucken total hysterics now. Ya know I never really got that whole calmness Neil had around dying... how there was no depression, no rage, it was like a day dream almost. This steadfast acceptance that it was the best plan.

CATHERINE
The suicide parties...

DENISE
yeah, totally, so not fucking funny.

CATHERINE
Yeah it was a cunning plan alright. Shame fucking New Zealand let him down eh? Sheep.


She twists on the bed and bleats out into the darkness


Baaaaaaaa.

A chorus of bleats respond. There is a pause in the music. A new song starts: Riot 111.

DENISE
Holy shit they're playing 1981! Our song!

Together they scramble down from the loft, push through the haze of the truck party and leap off the porch. As they run screaming across the car park they travel back in time; the crowd thins out, clothes, haircuts, piercings, the chant of Move! Move! Move!....  It's 1981...


Vivian Street, Rock Theatre, 1981.

The two girls are running across Vivian Street towards the Rock Theatre. It's 1981 and the environment reflects this... decor, cars, fashion and the riot cops lined up across the road in trench coats with batons swinging lazily...

CATHERINE
Denise! Wait up fuck ya... don't leave me out here with the pigs...

DENISE
C'mon they're starting 1981!

CATHERINE
Where's Neil? Didn't he come out as well?

They're at the door of the club and pushing in past people. Both look quickly at the floor as they pass the bouncer who obviously doesn't care about their age... Riot 111 are on on stage and the drum intro to '1981' is pounding out across the audience. Singer Void is in a kilt with a police cap and baton leading the charge.. The girls find Neil Roberts near the front and leap on him with screams of delight. Our first sighting of Neil sees him with a green mowhawk, tampon ear rings, a dog choker around his neck. Grabbing each other they leap about screaming happily along to the song...



(To Be continued! See notes in script page for more information:)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

As Friends Rust (part 1)

The bastard that stole her sounds took everything.

The fact that a friend had come to their house for the party and slipped into her room while she lay passed out on the bed, horrified and scared her: she'd been listening to the player through the headphones – Nick Cave's Fifteen Feet of Snow was the last one she could remember hearing before she herself was fifteen feet under.

Someone she knew; standing there beside her, over her, just helping themselves.

The silence was unbearable, going cold-turkey into free-fall. Music delivered more than any real or imaginary friend could: lifting, energising, cathartic anger; or when the swing had reached it's apex and she needed the gentle caress, tight comforting arms for the ride back down, there was a song for every step. Now she stumbled. Fuck. Fucker.

Sleeping and reading through the day, waiting for flatmate's to disappear and then out to eat toast, Marmite, cheese, whatever was around. The house had become unbearable, but there was nowhere else to go. Who was it? Who knew? Who was pretending? She locked her bedroom door and windows, listened carefully, moved quietly; this wasn't home any more. No one had bothered to see if she was all right, needed anything.

On the third day she rose. It was dark, so in solidarity she dressed in black. The night sky was blissfully huge, crystal clear and once up on the ridge above the city lights, stars swooped to embrace her. It was so nice to be held. She cried like a baby that night; the joy, the relief in just getting the fuck out of there.

Stars; they move at the most beautiful infinitesimal speed she thinks, feels; so unlike the mania of humans. Stars, whales, tuatara and the rising of great mountains, Christ they must laugh. Time crawled up there on that ridge, the thieves below trapped in the freeze frame of sleep. There was no one about; she felt safe.

That first night, that was the beginning of the end. The relief in finding such space, both physical and mental, got her up off her bed night after night. F'sure it wasn't a healthy cycle, she hadn't shut down that much, but home, people, the whole feeling of threat, it was all piling on top of her.

Once an Uncle had up-ended her sleeping bag so that she fell right to the bottom. The terror she’d felt, unable to find the opening, material wrapping tighter tighter as she struggled to escape; it gave her nightmares for years. And the wanker had laughed.

Why do people laugh so? It was like that; she’d tumbled to the bottom again.

__

A dog at the end of her road would always bark no matter how quiet her nightly escape. A man in a rattly old ute would pass her if she made it onto the ridge road by half-eleven, but he didn't acknowledge her as far as she could see. Once some cops slowed down to stare, but thankfully they didn’t stop. And that was it usually as she looped across the hills and down the fire-break to then cut back across the city. By then the softness of the dawn light would sharpen the skyline, and for a short time awakening birds sounded like they were taking on the world. She had never realised so many birds even existed in this city.

This was the moment she walked for; still beauty.

It was such a fraction of time, yet it was huge, engulfing. It was cold and she was buggered, but she'd got her fill, was smiling again. She would feed on this peace, deep sustaining breaths; and as she lay her head onto the pillow tui would be calling, alone in welcoming another day of stealing, of killing. But this was no longer her world; she slept.

__

In a town full of cabbages, dropkicks and total fuckwits, the small gang she had hooked up with were a life raft; they dragged her on board, administered CPR and then a beer. Yeah she had clung tight, needed them; you could say that she'd even used them to some extent, but she had always thought that it was a mutual dependency, that they were all pretty fucked up and needed each other.
Not now though; they just looked at her, went quiet if she entered the room; they just didn’t get it. Words she used, like betrayal or invasion, just drew a blank.

“Oh someone nicked Ruby’s sounds,” they’d say. Yeah, someone.

Someone she knew, had joked and laughed with; had being a friend too. Perhaps they didn’t care; but then maybe they didn’t know how too. So she left them behind; the cheap cider, pills, hangovers and the unspoken. She walked.

__

After a good 50k or so she spies Arthur, bundled up in a thick white dressing-gown and sitting alone at a suburban bus stop, two-fifteen am. The next time he was on the other side walking slowly up towards the bus stop and she was unsure if he saw her smile, a hand lifting briefly in greeting. No matter. After that is was almost a week before she again spied slippered feet poking out from behind an advert. One foot tapped ever so slowly, up down, up down.

“Ah, it’s the hiker, wondered who was coming up at this hour; beautiful night for it isn’t it?”

She stopped.

“You’re welcome to join me,” he continued, indicating space beside him. “I’ve left my teeth soaking back at the home so I can’t bite.”

She did just that; curiosity mixed with subconscious good-girl politeness towards the elderly.

Arthur cocked a thumb and waved it vaguely downhill towards what Ruby assumed was the old folks home. Arthur confirmed this - “they lock us stroppy ones up you know, we're all bonkers.”

Her first laugh in what seemed like eternity. Oops.

He leaned over towards her and winked, tapped his nose. “Escape from Colditz.”

“Um... yeah.” she replied slightly baffled.

“So,” he continued all brisk and business-like. “Where are you off to?”

It was highly unlikely that he could arrest her or cut her benefit, but her reply was automatically cautious. “Um, not really going anywhere actually.” Old habits and all that. “Just sort of round and round. I like the quiet.”

“Well this spot is just grand; makes my heart skip every time, despite the pills.”

Relaxing against formed plastic, she studied Arthur's view: road, scrappy weeds, and blackness. Perhaps he'd left his glasses behind as well? “There’s not much to see on this side.”

“I know." He holds his hands out before him. "But I'm an old bloke and it's the only damn seat around here…”

She laughed loudly; cool, he had good humour.

He lifted an arm up to the night sky. “See the toilet up there?”

Again her laughter; the stars, of course. “Love life not worth a shit? F'sure.”

Arthur was new to the city and not impressed. Amongst the manicured sterility this collection of renegade weeds was as close to the countryside as he could find. “They hauled me back in when I'd just finally got back on my feet after Fat Charlie flattened me. Can't look after yourself they said, already missed two weeks worth of medication and eating sandwiches for breakfast.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“What was in the sandwiches?

“Bacon and tomato.”

“Yum.”

Arthur had long forgiven Fat Charlie for the busted rib and a dislocated shoulder. “Young Bess was obviously up for a waltz; stupid of me really to get between them.”

“Bess is your...?”

“The youngest in the herd – too young to have a calf of her own, but the bugger got into the paddock somehow.”

“Bloody men eh.” She'd had a few bust into her paddock.

Away from the streetlights her eyes have adjusted to the deep night within the shelter. Sitting on her hands, feet scuffing at collected dirt and stones, fleeting looks build a picture: His hair is dead white and sprouts randomly from everywhere - head, brows, cheeks, and chin, pokes out from under pyjamas. When he briefly leaned forward into the milky-yellow light she could see that sunspots were eating at his face and his nose was a right honker, all red and busted up. A ridiculous brown felt hat perched high on his head, shapeless and full of holes.

“The dressing gown's not yours is it?”

His laugh was great, like an old car turning over on a frosty morning. “No, they supply them for the sake of modesty; and the PJ's too. Never had no need for them at home; can't see any neighbours, or the road for that matter. I like a respectable distance, lets you live as you wish. Does pay to announce your arrival nice and loud with some folk though!”

Turning slightly as he laughs, she catches his quick up-down and sighs.

“What happened to your hair?”

“Thanks, it's intentional.”

“Oh.”


(To be continued...)

Sunday, August 29, 2010





There is only today (for Jeanie)



Then:

Fuck, he was barely able to get off his knees after the second heave. Puke oozed slowly down the steps as he fell back onto the grass.

“What a fucking waste of a good dinner,” says phantom voice.

“Mmmmmmmmm, yeah.” Spittle, thick like an umbilical cord, hung from his slack mouth. Nostrils burned.

Slowly leaning back over, arms shaking in protest, not really seeing; he puckered up his lips and sucked up a baked bean, then another and another.

Laughter, cries of disgust.

“Jesus you're a fucking gross cunt.” Another phantom.

His mates were all around, somewhere, ahhh yeah. Had been all afternoon. That was good cos he couldn’t really move and didn’t want to be left alone up here. Not in this state. Not like last time. That was crap; scary. A cop had cruised up and punched him in the face, threatened to arrest him if he said anything. The cop was a woman. He'd pissed his pants in fear.


Later:

No pigs turned up as far as I can remember, but it was a Monday night so it would have been a slow one for them. Big one for us though. Monday night; no particular reason really, it could have been any night of the week. There were periods when it's six, ten, even fourteen days/nights in a row, getting as fucked up as possible to have a bit of fun.

Everyone does it.

Paper rock scissors. We live on the streets, shoplift food, defraud Social Welfare, burgle, sell drugs and stolen property, take countless risks with drugs we know nothing about in order to leave a reality so totally alien, so sick and twisted in its relentless violence and brutality that we willingly become everything they hate: we flirt with (social) death. As if we care what you think.

I haven't changed my pants in six months. Work-shy anarcho-pacifist faggots who loiter all day drinking cheap beer: we park John's Vauxhall outside the council building and play Discharge on the stereo as loud as possible. 'Scum' is printed on the back of my t-shirt but don't let it put you off eh; we're nice boys.


Then:

So far so good this time though. The afternoons fun had been his shout, his turn to sacrifice a record for the super-duper 'one decent punk record for an ounce of cabbage’ deal from Jeanie up at the top flat – so it was a quick flick to the back of the beer crate to find something that rarely graced his turntable: Bad Brains it was then.

Jeanie was so damned pleased he almost changed his mind, but nah, their Rasta bullshit was getting a bit too much. Now, on with the show.

Nathan’s cesspit of a kitchen had produced only oil, flour, marmite and loads of fat flies so the cake came out looking like a sloppy cow shit but it didn’t matter really; down it went.
   
And up they all went.


Later:

It never fails to amaze me how wasted you can get by eating such shit weed. Could smoke cabbage all night but a slice of cake and kapow! you were flying. Might even sort out another for the weekend; or talk someone else into it at least. No rush. Y'know for a long time my concept of the 'future' only extended to holidays, birthdays and Christmas - like it probably was for most kids eh? All you had to do was sit and wait and before you knew it you were wallowing in joy.

Other wise it was just today and bedtime was ages away eh?

Homework was a curler. And it became more and more serious as you got older with the consequences of forgetting more dire. Then came the school cross-country run, the English speech, exams, and finally the school ball.

The future was increasingly becoming dominated by scary shit.

The fact that school was a finite chunk of life didn't really hit home until well into the seventh form year, but even then it was treated like a half-truth. I didn't even realise that some of my friends actually had plans, actually knew what they were going to be doing the following year.

BA of course; in Dunedin of course.

I assume there was some sort of mental process to reach this decision, but we never talked about it so it remained a mystery to me. But I also wonder whether some of my fellow students simply followed the herd, or treated Uni as no more than an extension of high school – just a different location and more parties. That was the last I saw of many friends, some of whom I'd shared a classroom with since way back in the primary days. The final bell rang: the future had suddenly arrived and it was all bad.

But now I've got it sorted, well mostly.  Y'see once again I've no plans, appointments, important dates, homework or a fancy dress ball. Nothing. There is only today and bedtime is ages away.


Then:

English is such a shocker of a language. Where is beauty, love, and the wondrous insight of hallucinations?

 “Wow, look at that.” Had to be there eh?
   
Right, team meeting, gather round gather round. All agree that hours of intense tripping in Nath’s revolting little flat probably won’t be much fun. No shit eh; close call guys, another half-hour and they probably wouldn’t have found the fucking door out.

So they walked; walked and walked and walked until they came across an apple tree who told them he used to be a policeman so they stood around and pissed on it. Ah, the church steps, scene of so many drunken grovels they almost considered it their own. Kinda predictable but so what – that's drugs for ya.


Later:

Getting wasted is very predictable, but at the same time it takes very little to plunge into chaos. Puking your ring out is pretty much the same each time and the way I feel right now is pretty fucking familiar as well. But getting up at seven-thirty each morning and going to work is also very predicable eh? Ditto Shortland Street each night, after work drinks on Friday, mowing the lawns and Sunday brunch at a trendy cafe. All very very fucking predictable. That's why it's good to occasionally drop a few psych pills with your beer. Unpredictable.

Even better is a tasty concoction invented by the late Howdy Blackmore called 'The Bucket'. From the bottlie score Old Mouttre, apple wine and a cheap cask of vodka and orange. Then duck into the two-dollar shop to pick up a plastic bucket and head for the church steps where you mix them lovingly together. Best when drunk. I don't seem to remember ever actually finishing one of these and in fact I think that each time at least one of the participants has ended up in the cells for the night.

The Bucket is Howdy's legacy to getting wasted.


Then:

The moonlight streaming through the trees had him fucked for a while there, trying to hop over the rays one at a time so he could get to the toilets. Crashing into shit; the grass shimmering beneath him like it was 3-D, electric. Fucking toasted. Toast.

His mouth ached from laughing so much.

And then the fucking Christians turn up with their paper cups of chicken soup yet again; never fucking listen that lot: “Is it vegetarian?” The following week: “Is it vegetarian?” and so on. Duh; target audience research. Like flies to goddamn shit they are. But none of them are young and spunky and while the banter can be entertaining it’s still kinda like hanging out with your parents so the party slowly shifts a few steps further up.

Shit, it's reality. Always strikes at the worst time eh. His arse feels like a couple of frozen chops and probably has for a long while now; fingers are clamped numb around a can of flat beer. Visions of piles distract him for another good chunk of time but it never takes long before the Nelson frost pulls you back down from whatever glorious heights you’ve conquered and eats you. It just depends on how wasted you are to when it becomes too much of a drag to hang in there. Bit like the Christians really. The city though is deliciously quiet; so still. The tourists have stopped loitering, stopped click clicking and fucked off to where ever they go, so the view down the main drag takes you right to the night sky.

Two am is so the best time to be here. Wasted.

Wasted.

Wasted.

The streetlights no longer pulsed. He cautiously staggered to his feet, arms wide for balance and squinted about; there was only Shane clinging to some schoolgirl.
   
Shit, close call.

Shivering with cold he scouted about him to see if he'd dropped anything. Nothing, not even a few brain cells. “Right I’m off home. Been a choice night eh.” No reply.

Crashing down through ruined flowerbeds he finds the path that curls around the hill, out towards Vanguard Street and the couch that is currently home. The road is flat, wide, and empty of danger. The cold is brutal, clinging damp; he walks fast to loose the shakes. Hopefully Jeanie would run out of cabbage soon. It was getting harder each turn, painful even, with his more cherished vinyl getting dangerously close to the back of the beer crate. But it was just too good a deal and in the quest for obliteration sacrifices must be made.

Could always buy another copy someday, but a night out like tonight...
   
Priceless. Damn straight. Right then, home.


Later:

What shall we do tonight guys?


Now:

No regrets.
Except for the records.
I was never a cunt, never hassled anyone, assaulted anyone, never took advantage of anyone...

No regrets.
Except for the records.
And Jeanie. RIP.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Neighbours

There's punk out there, in the suburbs. Stands to reason I guess. I mean where do old punks go?

He came to fix up our neighbours fence or something. Late 30's maybe, big, friendly looking guy. We played him Aus-Rotten and Tragedy at a horrendous volume; accidentally of course as we weren't aware of his presence until he played some Dead Kennedys on his old paint splattered tape deck.

Holy shit. But, that's our music, ours.

“Hey there's someone playing Jello; outside.”

A stranger, outside. Should have seen the jaws drop round here, all the sly peeping through the old net curtains.

“He's old.”

"Fucken' straight-as eh.”

"I wonder where he's from?”

Jeez; what, were you thinking Mars or something? He's from right here of course. Right here.

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Hole on The Hill

“Right-o then.” Matt announces the end of afternoon tea by plonking his tea-stained mug onto the table, encouragingly makes the first move. “Concrete trucks arrive on Monday so unless you're keen on a Saturday...”
    The lads ached, had had enough. They all knew Matt was going back into the warm site office to gaze at the plans, play with his calculator. It was only about 15 metres from the shipping container that was their smoko shed to the hole, but it was far enough to kill any pleasure the reprieve had given them and by the time Casper's hand gripped the top of the ladder to check its steadiness, he was once again wet and cold.
    Down they go. Paul was the keenest, still had spring in his step. Then Colin, Neil and Sean; now his turn. The view of a grey rain-swept world was replaced with layers of West Coast history: mud, mine tailings, old mud, and clay that would soon be mud. The rain and sleet hadn’t stopped for nearly two weeks now and each morning he marvelled that the hole was still just that – a hole and not some evil water-filled death-trap. If Casper had known that this blanket of misery would eventually last for twenty-seven bone chilling days he’d have cried at the prospect.
      As a kid he loved the rare thunderstorms that rocked the family home. “Rain from the east, three days at least,” his old man would intone as the first big drops exploded in the dust. Back then rain was a treat, the drumming on the roof as he snuggled into bed as good as a Christmas eve.
Precious rain: living east of the main ranges meant each summer the land would curl up and die of thirst with cracks in the lawn big enough to put your hand down, road tar trickling into the gutters to snare bare feet, water restrictions and gossip about suspiciously green gardens. Pausing on the ladder, Casper looked upwards at the swirling layers of grey. He could see himself as a boy on the  porch hopping with glee, shrieking as lightning tore open the sky to finally let it all come down. Looking down at his boots he carefully resumed his descent, not wanting to slip and fall. Maybe on a Monday, but not a Friday afternoon. That would be stupid.
    The hole on the hill was a quiet spot, like a mass grave awaiting the bodies and bulldozers, and as he hit the bottom with a splash the dread quickly returns. Picking their way along the shallow trench destined to one-day become part of the floor, his "so what were we doing again?" draws an exasperated laugh from further ahead as they find their places amongst the steel, but no more. No one likes it here, no one wants to work Saturday.
    The hill had no proper name that he was aware of, it being an appendage of a steep ridge that loomed above Rununga, but obviously it was in the way of progress. On the Coast a lot of things are in the way.
    “This place is like Poland,” remarked a sodden German hitchhiker he’d rescued from the service station one day. “Stinking coal smoke, endless rain and poverty,” he'd peered out through the rain splashed windscreen, his relief at escaping evident as they swept past the last house. “Look, the people are all soft and gooey like your white bread.”
    Casper cracked up at that one. "Yep, no wholemeal round these parts mate."
    Before the rain and sleet had settled in, the gang enjoyed views of the surrounding bush clad hills, the town slumbering below with its unemployed and retired filling the pub each afternoon, century-old houses quietly rotting into the sodden earth, the cycle nearly complete. The local’s bitched about the rain as much as they did about any dry spells, the water tanks always half-empty. Two weeks without a good downpour was considered a drought and from their hilltop they watched  tankers deliver precious liquid to homes not connected to the town supply. The last 'drought' was now a forgotten memory, as was summer. It seemed only the weka's were happy. “The rain makes the bush grow,” he'd replied to the petrol station dude's ritual whinge-greeting. "I mean, could you imagine this place with no bush? It’d be like fucking Gisborne man.”
     There really shouldn’t be people here; it was fragile, beautiful and precious. One day their hammers went quiet to watch the rescue helicopters and ambulances race up the highway towards Cave Creek. Fourteen dead on the rocks at the bottom. The West Coast didn’t want Coasters anymore; it’d had enough of the whole blundering about fucking shit up thing they call ‘progress’. The mountains were unforgiving; the rivers treacherous, and simple human mistakes had tragic results. This hilltop was just one more ugly scar. A betrayal and an embarrassment.
    Hungry loggers had cleaned up anything worth a dollar, bulldozers stripped it naked flat and a massive concrete pad poured with wall framing due to start the following week. In the meantime they continued with the ‘tunnel’ that would be used to train coal miners. Of course at this stage it was simply a monstrous hole, concrete slabs would eventually be lowered onto it to form its roof, then a layer of mud to make it look authentic. He wondered if they’d plant something or just let it go to gorse, West Coast landscaping.
    “Fuck I'm a bit over the weather eh?" Casper lobbed into the stillness. Ditto with the humour. Fumbling for his wire cutters, he shuddered. While the rain didn’t really get down this far – it mostly blew horizontal – everything was wet, the mud slimy, and his tools were rusting along with the reinforcing mesh that lay about him.
    Paul stretched up, flexed his back. “Jeez, really need a crap after that coffee eh. Gonna be a long wait.” The others laughed while Casper, the butt of the joke, worked silently on. He was the only one who lived on site – security officially, but it was more about free rent and a ten second walk to work if you asked him – and relied on Matt's idea of 'facilities'. The long-drop for a while was pleasant enough as far as long-drops go, but it leaked like a sieve and had filled up with foul smelling water, making his morning fumble with layers of wet-weather gear a depressing ritual. The places you end up in eh?  As a boy he'd soaked up the back country exploits of Barry Crump like the bog paper that would swell almost instantly on it's wire cradle. Good old Baz huddled in wet tents with wet dogs and no smokes left. Jeez, what an adventure eh? His old man would throw in his own back country exploits: dragging their arses up ‘the puffer’ by candlelight on a Friday night to beat the Uni wankers to the best bunks. He would always be laughing at this historic misery, never realising just how high he made those mountains seem to his only boy. Casper wondered if he’d ever felt like crying as he sometimes did, living like this, on top of a hill yet under water, or if they were just tough bastards back then.
    He wondered when tough crossed the line into stupidity.
    Snorting water and snot out of his nose, he straightened to flex in a futile attempt to ease the pain. He laughed despite it all. "Fucking Barry Crump, pig."


    He'd jacked up the house truck to take weight off the springs and tires, but the chocks had sunk into the mud and the wheels themselves were now slowly following. Could read a lot into that eh? Home was parked up on the eastern side of the site, chosen mainly because it was out of the way more than for any aesthetic reasons and while the sun was shining it had been sweet. The solar panel powered the lights and stereo, the leaking skylight had been forgotten about... but lately things were pretty grim. None-the-less, inside was a warm sanctuary and for that he was grateful. He would be there soon; he would be home.
    Quietly humming a song he stepped methodically from one steel junction to the next; two twists and a snip. Next one. Next one. Colin was dragging lengths of steel past him and paused in head-shaking wonder as Casper raised both fists high to shout towards the sodden world above them: "I am a loser, I am Satan, I am Jesus Christ, I am me, there are no winners in this fucked reality." Laughing out loud he stepped back to survey the mess. “Colin!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "What the fuck are we doing in this wet version of hell building a pretend mine out of concrete?”
    Yeah, how did we draw this reality?
    Colin cocked his battered cap back on his grey hair and had a good scratch; his face was filthy and wet; Casper knew he ached like hell. “I guess cos this is what we do and it's pay day next Wednesday eh, so hang in there buddy.” His shrug says it all – fucken kids. 
    Colin was from Blackball, a town that really defied description. Massive open drains hinted at rain that fell like an Indian monsoon every bloody day. They're born waterproof up there, like  fish; fish with roots. Maybe that was what he lacked – roots. Essentially he was really only a tourist seeing everything in black and white. Y’know, "that town sucked cos it was raining the whole day we were there," type of shit. The secret spots were for the locals only, generational treasures to be only shared amongst family and friends and you couldn't blame them for being so protective eh. Who the hell wants a platoon of Maui campers parked out front of your 'historic' pub?
    While Casper took some comfort in Colin’s contentment, he wondered about the lifetime of decisions that had led him to such a place, to this hill. Pushing barrows of cement at sixty couldn’t be a shit-load of fun, and he hoped never to be in a similar situation. What part of his dream did it play?
    When Casper broke ranks at the age of seventeen by refusing to follow his mates on the path of the expected and sign up for a BA at Vic or Massey, he literally pulled the plug on life as Mum and Dad had constructed it. Dreams in his family were always solid; things that you saved for and a lifetime of hard yacca was how you got there. That was when the spiral down began. His dreams were just a little more abstract than wanting a Holden or gadgets for the lounge - shit, he didn’t have a lounge anyway – and for some reason that really infuriated his old man. He marvelled at the ability of others to find happiness in just chugging along, doing what was expected as they turned into their parents. It was easy, and he was sometimes envious of this. The lure of conformity, to snuggle up to it like cotton wool, safe in the knowledge that everyone would be mowing lawns and washing their cars again on Sunday arvo’.
    That was on a bad day though. Other times he knew that he had a head start on that creeping realisation that the suburbs where a death trap, how the illusions of success can quickly become a noose. They jumped, dropped pills, pulled triggers and ran for the hills.
    Hills like this one.
    Watching his old man coming home each night too buggered to care was an epiphany he knew many children missed. While Casper was as guilty as any other teenager in that he thought of little else other than himself, because the only stereo in the house was in the lounge it meant that he spent most evenings silently observing family life. With headphones clamped tightly to his skull, screaming punk obscenities - they’d almost paid the mortgage when the system dropped the bomb - attacked his brain as he watched his father down brandy and stare blankly at the TV. Imagine climbing that ladder, on and on you go, only to find that when you get to the top it's leaning against the wrong wall.
    "You mean have I ticked up a washing machine, sofa and telly? No," was once his reply to the standard "so have you got a job yet" greeting from his Dad. That was the extent of their communication: expectations, followed by the implication of failure.
    How wonderful.
     See this misery Dad? All this filthy fucking mud. Ain't it a right laugh all these mistakes I’m making eh? Well love me for my courage at least – and quit bloody worrying that I aren’t riding the escalator up to the furniture department with a credit card in my back pocket.
     No; so what was he trying to prove? He watched rivulets of muddy water streaming down before him.
    "It was a choice you made mate."
    "Talking to the little mud men?" asked Paul
    "Yeah, they can predict the future y'know," he dead-panned.
     "And and? Glorious sunshine and a female apprentice?"
    "Who shouts Monteith's every Friday I believe."
    Pack this shit in man and hit the road; that's what the little voice had whispered. Run.
    Run? Again?
    Dad? Super, love it when you just drop in to chat.  
   Look this is it boy, the normal working life – and you can’t do it? Or is it that you just don't want to do it? It’s only rained for two damned weeks and those sure pale in comparison to forty years on the job.
    A quick look over at Colin, a look into the future.
    Bending back down to work, rain and snot running once more, he quickly twisted wire. Did his Dad still have dreams? he wondered. Maybe it wasn’t as screwed up as it looked and there was a cunning plan driving him on that only he could see. He hoped so. He hoped it was all worth it,  screaming kids, stressed out Mum and a weekend of maintenance to look forward too.


    Two hours later Casper dropped his boots onto last weeks newspapers spread out inside the door of his truck. He lit candles, turned on the gas heater, and after washing and changing, settled himself onto the couch. With a beer raised he toasted: The job maketh the man; which makes me a fool, or is that a good keen man?
    The truck rocked in the wind as though it were at sea, vicious rain drumming hard. As he watched the lights gradually switching on down below he pondered the labyrinth of decisions that had led people to Rununga. These people who had chosen to live at the bottom of this hill, was there contentment and satisfaction? Or frustration and a yearning for more? Did the rows of gumboots outside the pub signal a happy fraternity or the drowning of dreams? Was the pub half-full or half-empty? Fuck knows was the answer, plain and simple.
    Maybe it was his kinda town; maybe he would be back some day and his boots would join the line-up. Yeah, who knows? Better stop knocking it then eh? Then again the rain shadow was only two hours drive away and he could be packed up ready to roll in even less time. Easy. Easier than this anyway. A phone call to Matt, another apology. He'd done it before and it was tempting... Jeez, you’re running away again; quitting...  but nah not this time.
    Chicken shit. This is it boy, the normal working life.
    Shut up Dad, this time it's different, it's all sorted.
    And it was; he had several grand saved and would leave with a good reference. It was going to be a good summer, one long party.
    He caught his reflection in a window and it almost startled him, the chin, the narrow face. Again, he toasted. “Sorry Dad, but man, fuck you and your bloody protestant work ethic.” He moved closer to the glass, closer to his old man. “Now I’ve heard you say how mountains can kill you in the blink of an eye, the rivers rise and before you know it there’s no going back. Am I right?” He winked at his Dad who winked right back. They both drunk deeply in confirmation.
    Well he was keeping a close eye on the rivers around here that's for sure. Extend his contract? No thanks. Score a cheap flat in town? No. Get a loan from the bank? Start ticking shit up? Are you mad?
    He deflated; grabbed another beer and settled back onto the couch. Christ it wasn’t his old man's fault, and no point getting wound up cos he only knew what he knew. That generation of fathers who had lost control over their lazy sons. It's cool, work just meant different things to different people. Shit he'd had more jobs in the last two years than his Dad had in his whole working life. It was funny how a persons reluctance to stick at some boring, monotonous shit made them a lazy shirker, yet pushing the same piece of paper for forty years was admirable.
    Stepping out onto the porch step he tossed the empty bottle towards the rubbish pile, heard it clatter in the darkness. He could make out some vague shapes, out there in the misery: sheds, packs of timber, mounds of mud, the leaking dunny. It was shit and he hated it all desperately, but hey, not long now. He stepped back into the soft warmth of his home, cracked another beer, time for one more toast:
    “Hang in there sunshine; I’m coming.”

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A.C.A.B.

So how many scratchies can four strung out punks scratch? Well the box said a hundred and fifty, but no one was fucking counting that’s for sure.

    It’s a scam. Who would've thought eh? Despite the promises of big money and oodles of instant prizes, all they managed to win were twenty-nine chocolate bars. Two hours of scratching for a fucking flake. The punch line to the joke? That they’d managed to steal a fridge full of chocolate in the same burglary. Duh. That’s what happens when junkies go stealing. Beagle Brothers that lot.

Not their fault though eh. Circumstances an' all. I mean petrol station smash an' grabs wasn't their bread and butter - just plan C. So if you bare with me a sec, lets flick back up the alphabet to plan A which I guess isn't really a plan, it's just what they did everyday y'know? A is for any day, any time and anywhere. Yep. Y'see Doug, the guy they usually scored off, just had his arse busted big-time: sneaky little cameras over the road and a phone tap, probably even the odd cute undercover with a couple of crisp new twenties for all we know. Why? Well he brewed good clean homebake and I guess that sort of police shit just comes with the territory; it’s usually just a question of when, although round here the question was  “why goddamnit why?” Unfortunately he also sold nice fat tinnies and that meant everyone inclined to the odd toot was filmed passing through his front door. The old suburban supermarket, always a bit of a give away those thirty-second visits. So now pretty much every one we knew was sweating it out, waiting for that heavy knock at the door.

    It was a good time to spring clean.

    My flatmates were sweating as well, but only cos they were strung out tighter than the clothesline and quickly sliding into full-blown withdrawal. It was late summer, the days gloriously long and hot and the city just one endless party. Everybody was a mate. Spending your dole at the chemist on various codeine based pills earned you double and was an easy days work that put smiles on a lot of faces. Sadly it wasn't long before the paper warned us that 'Codeine Cowboys' were this weeks terror threat to community values and it wasn't long before the traps were set and the party was over. It was stink really. I mean, shit, victimless crime and all that.

    The timing of this shit-storm was impeccable. Not only was our town’s five star 'tick to dole day' dealer in the cells, but the poppy season had been winding down for a while now. Poppies were plan B. Not such a good high, but okay. Total fucking hassle to find and to prepare though. Still, poppies were a great freebie for when you had to pay a bill or something eh. While they were getting scarce out their in cottage garden land, there were a few intentional crops about, but by now it was well past the point of sharing with the more paranoid growers/users  sleeping out amidst the butchered remains to defend those last milky drops from the likes of my flatmates. Nothing for it then: desperate search parties scour random backyards, Tony casually strolling down driveways swinging a dog lead and calling for his runaway pet, eyes peeled for fat juicy bulbs begging to be slit with a razor.

    Bingo; opium that is, not the fucking dog. A black-clad posse is dispatched late to fill rubbish bags and rush back to begin the tortuous bleeding process in the bath; the night shift begins and the chances of anyone getting a shower in the morning are pretty slim.

    And so I found them one day when I got back from school, happily parked up outside on our collapsing couch looking like death warmed up, catching the last of the day’s sun. Head to toe in black, combat boots and heavy lids; I pretended to machine-gun them as I walked past. “Ready for the revolution eh guys?” Smart arse. Tony managed a sly smile that quickly dribbled off his face. One hand held a smoke that appeared to have stalled on the way to his mouth; he completed the journey and sucked greedily, but it was long dead. “Got a light mate? Nah, shit you’re no good; wait I got one somewhere, yeah here.”

    Sweet.

    Tony spends a good chunk of his days smacked out on something, but he scrubs up pretty good if he needs to. Or wants to. It had been a hard road: poxy South Island towns, white power gangs, a lot of violence, a bold , but slightly foolish Molotov attack on a police station that earned him a decent lag in Rolleston. Yeah, just not a lot of the feel-good stuff happening really. Decisions were reactionary, impulsive and often not the best choice in hindsight. Even though he was past thirty, here was a man still unable - maybe incapable - of taking charge and making something of his life. Tony was okay, wouldn't want to fuck with him, but he was nice enough. 

    So ah, welcome to our home. It's a nice enough house, but our presence has lowered the tone just a little. Minimalist style, well kinda bare actually at the moment what with all the furniture now on the front lawn. Some rather brutal Crass posters pass for decoration and a battered stereo sits on an overturned beer crate with half a dozen records leaning inside it; ones deemed fucked enough to risk leaving in the lounge. That's it.

    Dumping my gear in my room I backtrack to face a kitchen that makes me queasy on a good day. Tinfoil, burnt spoons, needles and a couple days worth of dishes; to say it’s a health hazard is a fucking understatement.  I know it sounds like I'm the up-tight kitchen bitch or something, but no, it was just that I had to get on with prepping some tea – I mean, no one else was going to eh - plus all the light bulbs had been thrown out onto the road during the last party and it would soon be dark.

    It was a relief that they’d scored cos the general bitchiness was getting unbearable and flat relations were getting seriously strained. They were pussycats when wasted, on the nod and out of harms way for a good four or five hours a hit. By the look of then now they should all be sweet till the morning and I would be gone. Obviously no one could be arsed getting up to grapple with the stereo and the stillness in the house was nice; hell you could almost say I was alone.

    I put New Order on knowing they all hated it, cranked it up loud.

    Dishes, wiping benches and the stove, filling rubbish bags. Energy to burn after a day in the classroom despite my early rise to catch the bus. Tomorrow I’d be getting up as they were going down; down in as many ways as you can think of. Funny thing being high yet so low. No need to move, nor talk or even think; you just float in a haze, life flat lined. It goes something like this:

Beep                     Beep                        Beep                               Bee

    Luckily the cops usually provided passive entertainment for them on most nights. They were our TV substitute: Y'know, insultingly stupid. Our flat was tucked around a bend on the main road and there was plenty of room for cars to pull over so they always set up their checkpoint right down in front of us. Good-humoured insults would inevitably sink with the sun and surliness rise once more. Poor bastards.

    Zip. That was time when wasted on this sort of shit. This wasn’t a dance till dawn; yabba away till your jaw aches and then head for the fridge type of drug. Cooked over a hot element till it danced on the spoon, sucked through a cigarette filter, banged into a willing vein and zip, the day was gone. Dole day came a lot faster when four or five days of the week went like this. Living the lives they had, I’d imagine it made it all quite bearable; when things were going to plan that is.

    It was Thursday night the following week when things started to seriously crack. Funny to start with, but then not funny at all.

    Bruce was our semi-permanent couch dweller and had gone out to earn his keep by re-visiting a garden for some leftover poppies, but he'd gotten the whole bag load caught in the spokes of his bike and instantly shredded the precious bulbs all over the road. He was crushed, said "sorry guys" more times than I could count. Fuck it was funny; I mean dumb shit just trailed after Bruce: he'd get the sack from some crappy job for something really fucking stupid like turning up pissed, then lose his pay cheque at the pub, miss his WINZ appointment, 'borrow' the flats bill money, forget where he parked your bike and then smash the front door in cos he'd lost the key. "Oh shit I'm really sorry guys eh."

    It paid not to get too close to Bruce.

    It was time for plan C.

Cheap bourbon passes quickly around the lounge floor and like Chinese whispers it all comes together: rob the service station on the highway south and invest the winnings on a drug buy-up. The Valiant would hopefully make it to Christchurch and from there it shouldn’t really be a problem with the all the dodgy fuckers these guys know.

    Well there was no trip to Christchurch. We ate a lot of chocolate instead.

    I suspect that Plan D wasn’t really a plan at all; desperate stupidity was probably more like it – but that accounts for the other plans, so I'm not sure really. The first I knew of it was when Tony crashed in through the door one night pissing blood everywhere.

    Fucking hell, fucking hell. “Just deal with it,” snaps Tony; bursts into giggles. He’s cold, pale and shaking like crazy and I’m wondering if he’s going into shock or something.

    Nah; just straight, just excited.

    He’d booted in the backdoor of a chemist and grabbed a courier package.  This is at like nine thirty or something and smack in the middle of town. Some guy wandering past starts yelling like crazy at him and it’s then that he gashes his arm open on some glass as he pulls away to run. They’d put the dogs out after him of course, but by leaping backyard fences for several blocks and then wading up a stream he managed to lose them. Jesus Christ. Then it was across the soccer fields until he got to the track that climbs up over the ridge and pops out only two houses up from home.

His sneakers went into a bucket of soapy water to soak under some stinking towels. Everything else was chucked into the washing machine while we gingerly extracted tiny shards of glass from his forearm. No worries; Tony was euphoric with his success, the knowledge that soon he would be high and feeling something resembling normal again surpassed our clumsy attempts at strapping the wound shut.

    Santa had called; but what did he bring? No one new what the boxes of drugs were and attempting to turn the mass of letters into a pronounceable word would’ve made us scrabble heroes. Shoulders were shrugged; fuck knows.

    Eyes gleamed; muscles and bones screamed; there were no instructions included, no advice for recreational users - what were they thinking eh?

    “Lets just do our averages.” suggests Tony.

    “Yeah yeah, no point taking any risks eh?” That was Stephen, visiting junkie from the country who had just been refused a repeat on his script by his trusty Doc. He was game for anything - risks my fucking arse. Stephen and his missus were desperate, thieving, scamming junkies famous for passing out on a mate's lounge floor naked after screwing while on the nod. What a morning treat that must have been. Drugs drugs drugs: boring people, totally fucking useless and not to be trusted: perfect dinner guests.

    So tonight on the couch we have four veins just begging for it, but only three well used fits get to preform their ritual dance: BANG BANG BANG. I used to love watching their eyes at that moment the drug hit. The explosion, the orgasm, the “ahhhhhhhhhh....” first Tony, then Bruce and Stephen.

    Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. Yep that’s how it usually goes. Not this time though.

    Bruce feels like shit and hits the hay almost immediately, manages to pretty much slept right through his dose and the shitstorm that swirled about him. Later he told me about the horrible muscle cramps and strange dreams. He was the lucky one.

    At the other end of the rainbow was Shane, our mystery fourth man. He was a nice guy, not your typical junkie; you know, straight haircut, nice clothes, asked before he helped himself to your stuff. We had many good conversations. He was intelligent, gentle and very insightful. Why was he here? I don't know. He was a pretty normal guy and not really in our scene at all. Quiet, reserved; maybe a little too much? Well he left with his share (with a cheerful farewell smile and wave) and died in the early hours of the next morning at his girlfriends place; we didn’t find that out for a couple of days though. He’d only been out of the Hanmer rehab for a fortnight or so and according to Tony his tolerance levels would have been way lower than what he was used to. Math, damn. Fatal mistake eh?

    And that leaves two. Audience participation tonight is provided by me and Sarah, on - off girlfriend of Tony who had just moved back in – again. It was mad, no it was fucking surreal, like we were on our own bum trip, hovering about in the gloom feeling useless, waiting anxiously for them to keel over or something, watching them change before our eyes.

    I guess it must've taken a good half-hour for the side-effects to come on cos Bruce was now well asleep on the lounge floor and snoring like an old trooper, his crusty blanket wrapped tightly around him, boots still laced to his feet.

    It was like some slick body builder moves the way their muscles rippled and contorted. Starting at the injection site in their arms it crept upwards towards the shoulder where it had the effect of pulling the whole arm and twisting it back.

    God it must hurt.

    Well no, not yet anyway. They seemed to be sufficiently obliterated enough to still be in the ‘wow freaky shit look at my arm’ zone. Not for long though.

    Tony was the first to panic with a pleading “I can feel it getting into my throat.”  He was lying on the floor, shoulders hunching and crawling with muscle like the Incredible Hulk. His face had changed shape and he no longer looked like the Tony we knew. His eyes were wide with fear.

    Mine too.

    Stephen was crying; fear or pain had brought him back to earth, his head now twisted down to rest on a contorting shoulder. “Call a fucking ambulance; now, fucking now,” he pleaded.

    We had no phone so that meant a dash next door where our long-suffering neighbour frowned long and hard at me. “This is not a joke right? Okay. Do you need me to come over?”

    Ummmm; no.

    When I got back Sarah was already dumping the remaining pills down the toilet, foil packets, cardboard an' all. She sloshed buckets of water to hasten them on their way “The leftover shit!” she yelled out to me. “Clean the fucking kitchen now; don’t worry about those two fools.” I hurriedly collected pill packets, needles and spoons into a pot and ran to dump it into the overgrown yard behind our house where they threw all the poppy scraps

    A heavy pounding at the front door called me back inside. Sarah had shut the bathroom door and I could still here the sound of flushing. This was going to be tight.

    It was the cops. Wicked.

    I spoke tentatively through the frosted glass to the blue uniform: “Who is it?”

    “Police!”

    “Who do you want to see?”

    “Open the bloody door!”

    “Um, do you have a warrant?”

    “OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR NOW GODDAMNIT!”

    I did. The warrant was a swift punch to the head. I muttered my name in reply to his demand, fist raised in readiness.

    “Ah, Mr Mathews; always nice to put a cunt-ugly face to a name; and I’ve heard yours a lot lately.” He pushed me down the hall towards the lounge. “Shit its dark in here; you guys trying to save power or something?”

    More shadows slipped in through the door after him. Then a dog straining at a lead.

    Wicked.

    “Is it the ambulance?” croaked Tony; his voice was noticeably weaker, each word punctured with a gasp.

    “No, no it’s not. It’s the cops; they’ve a dog too.”

    They spread quickly through the dimly lit lounge, surveying the wreckage, the two on the floor. One of them was trying to wake Bruce who was having no bar of it.

    “What the hell is going on here guys?” The lead cop demanded. I could see his eyes flitting about the room, trying to make sense in a place where there was none.

     I bit my tongue; this wasn’t my hole and it was too dodgy to risk accidentally digging it any deeper. Tony groaned softly before kicking into the survival mode he was well known for.

    “Hey! Where’s the fucking ambulance, been poisoned or something. A party on one of the factory ships; fucking Russians.” His breath rattled like it was his last after that and he rolled over to stare into Stephen’s pleading eyes. Stephen wisely stayed silent, his body shaking as muscles continued to seizure.

    Radios crackled; voices muttered in the shadows. "It’s right outside now sergeant.”

    “Food poisoning eh? Right get them in pronto; and try and wake that guy up too.”

    They couldn’t wake Bruce at all that night. He just kept muttering and rolling over, flailing hands trying to swat away the interference. After the medics checked his pulse and breathing they decided to just leave him for the mean time. He wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

    It was surprisingly warm outside that night as we waited, Sarah, myself and a hulking cop who just stood staring impassively at nothing. Hours; two, maybe three, fuck knows, I nearly fell asleep several times sitting out there on the couch despite nightmarish visions of a police cell with my name on the door.

    They searched high (excuse the pun) and low; lost pipes, mouldy roaches, old fits, dusty pills, spotting knives, scraps of blackened tinfoil, and through several leaking rubbish bags of stinking food scraps that also held dozens of chocolate bar wrappers. Just shit, but you could imagine it in the paper eh? 'Drugs and drug taking paraphernalia were found throughout the house…'

    Ah, and now it's my turn:

    “I go to school. No I don’t know about any drug taking. No I don’t know about any burglaries. I don’t know where the chocolate came from. No I didn’t really care enough to be suspicious. I don’t do drugs; I have to get up early each day and go to school remember? No I didn't see them taking any drugs; they told me they’d been at a party on a fishing boat, eaten some food and felt real sick so came back home.”

    No no no no no.

    “I just went to call the ambulance and then you guys turned up. That’s it.”

    Yeah that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I mean Christ they’re adults; there was no coercion, no nasty drug culture stand-over bullshit going down. This isn't a fucking movie. Sure it probably looks like a bum trip from where your sitting, but it's just their way of dealing with a fucked world they had no desire to be a part of. Just trying to cope is all; an alternative to shopping or porn you could say. Zip, zip, zip. Cool, it’s the weekend again; a week gone and a week closer to something else.

    Surely you can relate to that?

    Things had chugged along just fine till the pigs pulled the plug. Just fine. And believe me things were changing, improving. They just needed a chance. Now there was a court appearance, bullshit justice. Now there was Shane on a slab at the hospital. But best to keep those sort of thoughts to yourself though eh? No need to be stupid. A cop did say after my interview that he appreciated my being straight up with him. Funny fuck. I replied that I really appreciated not getting a hiding.

    He had the cheek to look shocked.

     So anyway they were both kicked out of the hospital within twelve hours after being shot up with some intramuscular goo to counter their completely spontaneous spasms. Blank looks all round; fucking Russians. Tony had to show the nurse where to find his last good vein.

The bill for the ambulance came in the mail three days later and went straight into the bin.

    They buried Shane about a week and a half later, but I didn’t know about it until I saw his girlfriend crying at a pub and clicked. Shit. Always the good guys eh. Can still hear him today telling me to keep the fuck away from needles.  

    F’sure mate. Thanks for caring.

    I didn’t talk to her; I didn’t know what to say.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

First they came for the terrrorists

A little man with a tape recorder up to my face, his squeals incomprehensible. Jabs a pudgy finger at my pocket. Creepy crawly. What the fuck? Oh shit; the chocolate raisins...

Damn. And damn him too (cos he's heard it all before).

Listen to the store manager high up in his office; wrong job arsehole, you should be writing for Shortland Street. He’s heartbroken, he’s furious. It’s a personal attack on his worth, his bank account: “you’re filth and by God I’ll make sure you never get a job in my store.”

That really hurt. I've always dreamed of working the checkout.

The fat cop is well known locally for punching drunk kids 'up to no fucking good', but under the glare of fluorescents he kindly pushes my trolley out towards his car which is parked dramatically across the supermarket's entrance. I wonder if he slid it in sideways, clambered out the window. Nah, not with that gut. First they came for the terrorists, then the shoplifters. We navigate the field of craning necks: the boy in blue and the boy in black.

The hostility is kinda intense (“that's the third one they got this week”). Perhaps I'm the reason prices are so high. I'd love to chat; y'know, the economics of food, benefit cuts, globalisation, profit and all that, but I've places to go as you may well understand. So it's a matter of chin up and look 'em in the eye as they clutch credit cards and discount coupons. It's a long walk.

“What did the man do mum?”

Wouldn't, couldn't, pay.

“He's a bad man honey.”

That hurt the most.


(Originally published in Takahe Magazine 2009)

You can't eat poverty

The dude's real tall and lanky and he's wearing jeans that fit okay long ways, but make him look like a clown sideways; fucking genes eh? He's also got a whopper of a thumb like that cowgirl who had the blues and the way he was waving it about you'd think it was having a seizure all of its own. There's room enough in the Torana so he squeezes on in. He's a JAFA, doing his OE south and keen to party. Tousled hair, unshaven, and an easy laugh, he's more than happy to sample the bucket brew – a homemade speciality of vodka, fortified apple wine and instant Raro; hell by the time they hit Nelson he's already one of the locals.

The JAFA is introduced to Sharon, a randy forty-something only two weeks outta hospital who takes an instant shine to him. He even blushes; like a jaffa. They leave the love-birds to explore the magic delights of Sharon's rented caravan: whisky, a weeks supply of psychiatric pills, and a big messed-up bed. The rest of them head out for a spot of stealing.

Welcome to sunny Nelson. Enjoy your stay!

***

Muz at cabin fifteen sleeps the weird fucked-up hours of someone regulated by pills and he had taken note of the two boys who came into the campground some mornings when they think no ones up and about. They're scrawny, unkempt and look like they sleep under a bridge; one wears army boots and the other is always barefoot. The barefoot one looks right fucken' mad, the other always heads for the showers.

The clean one and the mad one; they flog food from the communal kitchen left by unsuspecting tourists. Permanents like Muz have long wised up to these two; are working around them. Muz has a chilly bin.

Sometimes the cheeky little fuckers even cook their booty right there in the kitchen which had resulted in a couple of juicy confrontations between bleary-eyed tourists in dressing gowns and two feral bastards with not much to loose. Fucking cheeky.

Muz chuckled behind his faded lace curtains as they drift back towards the boundary fence that runs along the beach front, ducking once into a doorway as a cleaner on a quad bike cruises lazily by, buckets filled with bleach, sprays and cloths swinging from each handle bar.

The mad one clutches a plastic bag tight against his body. Cheeky cunts.

***

Vanessa gets the old brown tea pot onto the table without spilling too much, goes back into her kitchen to gather mugs; chipped, mismatched, ugly: everything is from the Sallies. The guys have brought raspberry buns with them and the conversation soon dies as they set about devouring them, stodgy dough and cream tasting all the better by its theft.

“Nothing like a good sugar rush eh?” says the blond one, Brent. Grunts of affirmation. Vanessa wonders if they'll split soon, leave her alone with Paul so they can fuck the night away. Kinda mean though, she scolds herself, seen as they were all homeless – literally.

“So they won't give you back your tent? Is that right?” She asks.

Casper replies; it was his dads tent. “Yeah, no proof of ownership, photos, insurance, what ever.” He licks his fingers clean before continuing. “Only heaps of family camping stories eh; wrong sort of documentation!” he laughs.

“Cunts just laughed at us,” interrupts Aaron. She can remember him from school. His older brothers would get him stoned before class, hence the poetry: “Walking away from the cop-shop in the rain, fucking laughing at us...”

“Want us to be like them is all,” from Paul's young brother, whatshisname.

“So now what?” asks Vanessa who is partly concerned about where they'll end up tonight, but also that maybe they'll all want to stay in her tiny flat and so no shaggin for her.

“Ah it's warm enough, moons up as well,” offers Aaron. Heads are nodding in agreement around her and she smiles.

“And tomorrow?”

“Fuck tomorrow.”

That's the spirit lads.


***

Homelessness can be the tipping point into serious mental shit for some. Brendan eventually tipped, fell over his big feet. Spent a whole weeks dole going to see a psychiatrist who told him to get his arse on home.

We put him on a bus back to Auckland next dole day. We all laughed about it later, the JAFA who had crashed and burned on his first OE, but y'know I bet most of the gang wouldn't have minded being on that bus.

We did originally have a flat when we first moved here, but fuck I dunno, it just fell apart. No one was working and when your coughing up big-time for an empty suburban house it just... sucks. We were expected to mow the lawns. It got messy, pigs coming round, parties and drugs, and then a couple split owing rent and that was it. The bond and shit was all paid for by WINZ and that was the only leg up we would be seeing for a while. So from there we just kind of slid slowly down that poverty graph thing where bad luck and bad moves just add up to a whole heap of LOSER.

The motor camps were okay generally, but we eventually got banned from all of them; shoplifting from two and spotting hash in the communal kitchen in the other. That of course also fucked up things even further with WINZ, no permanent address anymore and the great game of cat and mouse thus begins. There was this one real good campsite in a bush reserve only minutes walking from town that was sweet for ages, but we got sprung by a fashion shoot of all things. Vans, heaps of clothes, skinny girls, guys with lights and shit; reckon me or Brent are in a Farmers catalogue somewhere; we're the good looking ones.

And yeah the night shelter was there if you got desperate/depressed, but they debit your dole ten bucks for each night you stayed which hardly helps. Plus it was always mince on toast, lumpy fatty shit with the leftovers reheated for breakfast. Give me the beach and that tenner any day.

So there you have it; from young upwardly mobile suburbanites to a life well below the radar in six months tops.

Paper rock scissors. All about choices eh?


***

“Bones!” the shout drifts up from the waters edge. “Check the fucking rice man!”

The “Oh shit” echoes back as Ruby clambers over wet rocks and up the slope towards their camp site.

The smell that greets her as she reaches the grassy flat reconfirms what happens when you smoke a cone of hash before cooking. Her “man I'm sick of burnt risotto” elicits only a grunt from Bones as he scraps the pot irritably.

“Just need to be more onto it when cooking on a fire eh,” Bones tactfully offers, squinting up at his friend who had only minutes before put the rice on and then wandered off. The sun is smouldering orange and thankfully ready to drop behind distant Mapua hills. With an apologetic smile and a nod Ruby turns back to its dying warmth to continue her meditation.

Aaron suddenly sits up from amongst the long dry grass that he's being lying in for most of the day surrounded by books and a drawing pad. With a hand held up against the glare he delivers a happy sigh. “Fuck people must pay a shitload to live round here with this sort of view,” he says, a big sloppy stoner grin carving his face into wrinkles.

“Pay with their whole lives,” confirms Bones, who having poured fresh water into the hissing billy is now vainly fishing for floaty black bits.

If you over-shot the number thirteen hole at the golf course the ball would usually splash into the sea somewhere just down in front of them. It was an unlucky number for the punters, but was on their side for several months.

The swimmers, walkers and poseurs would gather at the north end of the beach which was as far as they could drive. Their end was lonely and quiet, cut off by a slow-moving stream which backed up wide when the tide was high and so they were pretty much left to themselves. Waves would push and pull against a tumble of grey boulders bordering the golf course; drift wood fed a small fire and its light facilitated easy conversation, the sharing of beer and smokes.

Nobody however was overly surprised when they got told to fuck off.

Casper and Bones had gone early to the motor camp at the other end of the beach for their usual mish before the morning rush kicked off and got back to find everyone lined up facing an interrogation from the cops.

“Hooning all over the golf course must've been fun,” offers Bones in an attempt to lift the blanket of intimidation/fear, but they don't really do humour, too early.

Yeah yeah blah de blah; off they go.

In single file they carry meagre possessions across the flooded estuary. Shadows stretch long across water that bubbles and splashes about their ankles. Brent and Ruby are kicking water at each other, there fellow refugees, laughing, not giving a fuck. Casper suddenly stops and turns to a resigned Bones. He knows his friend has had a gutsful of it all, has stopped having fun. “Hey lets go for a holiday mate," he gently teases.

Suspicious, half hope and half just fucking over it. “Where?”

“Middle Earth, Never Never Land. Come on man, trust me.”


***

Casper and Aaron had discovered the toi toi bush while hiding from the lawnmower man one afternoon. It dominated a corner garden down the far end of the motorcamp which was closed off when things were slow as was the case at the moment. Sleepy Hollow was bloody ridiculous; dry and comfortable, it could fit four or five with a bit of shuffling around. There was even a nearby gate out to a side road for their private use. We figured it was the work of kids bored with the beach and the swings, told to stop hanging around the caravan, to piss off and play.

And so the play goes on.

The campground supermarket with its lone teenager at the till had long been a highlight of our shoplifting circuit, but once we all moved into Sleepy Hollow we got to know all the comings and goings of the place.

Like when the delivery trucks arrived.

Free food was just too tempting. It allowed ones dole money to be spent on substances too hard to steal; like crates of beer, blocks of hash, records, and pills with funny names…

Free food was the key in the door; no rent the boot that swung it open. You could be happy four or five days a week depending on quality. Or how much cream you could stomach. Not having to work made everybody happy. No monotonous crap, yes sir right away sir can I lick your arse sir; no crawling home at dusk to fall asleep in front of the TV. Fuck that shit. We grabbed our fun for free; and that made us even happier. Like taking magic mushrooms and lying down at the end of the airport runway to let the planes thunder over us; pulling at our clothes, bodies, tearing screams from lungs. We were at war; lots of mooching about bored shitless just keeping our heads down, then those flashes of exhilarating terror as we pushed harder and harder against everything we hated.

Yeah, we were fucking hungry all right.

Deviled sausages, Shortland Street and an early night just don’t cut the mustard eh?

***

Midnight; well more like eleven. They skid dramatically up against the wire fence with a spray of shingle. If you came in from the left side the security lights don't trigger so they remained in darkness.

Brent chucks Aaron the backpack. “Over you go,” he whispers before carefully wheeling his bike back to the corner where he can see the main entrance to the supermarket.

Nothing moves as usual. This has always been an easy place to score the throw-outs and they didn't really expect any hassle.

“Fuck!” yells Aaron suddenly.

“Shh!”

“Aw fucking hell, there's barbed wire everywhere,” the volume is lower but his fury remains.

“What? The cunts, round the fucking rubbish bins?” exclaims Brent. “Christ what are they protecting eh?” he continues, scooting quickly back in to survey the recent addition. Shit, three months ago there wasn't even a fence here, just two big green bins chocka with food.

Aaron has jumped down and is examining his hand; steps forward to give the fence an angry kick. “Pathetic little prick.”

“He must worry at night eh?” he continues as Brent tugs gingerly at the wire wound tight across the top of the fence. “Busy hands going through his rubbish while he reads the kiddies a bed time story.”

Despite empty bellies they're both laughing now at the stinginess of it all, the mentality of defending rubbish; mount their bikes, not caring about the lights anymore with empty bags.

“That's ma rubbish you fucking bludgers,” screeches a laughing Aaron as they loop circles through the carpark jumping gardens and finally the curb. The bakery provides bagels and miniature pizza, the veggie wholesalers soggy tomato's, peppers and smelly mushrooms.

Now it's midnight; now it's time to eat.


***

Ruby was waiting. It didn't hugely bother her as there wasn't anything else going on, but they were tourists and just fucking about really. Barbie and Ken had given up on their lunch a while ago and were now flicking endlessly through their Lonely Planet which was cool, but Christ, go and do something real she silently pleaded. It would really suck if an over eager waitress noticed and took it all away.

She blended in with the street pollution quite nicely, tucked in behind a fake colonial lamp post as the clamour of shoppers rushed on past. The swish of Farmers bags, clicking of heels, the murmur of excitement that comes with spending money; it was post-Christmas and raining sales hard.

Ruby’s pockets were empty of cash, a situation that to many people rendered her as nothing more than an impediment to the day’s business. Another shuffler in the fast lane refusing to keep left. But Ruby was no bum, she was shopping all right, she just wasn’t paying. Mirrors, surveillance cameras, security tags, and store detectives; the industry that had spawned around young rascals like Ruby J was staggering, flattering almost. She was included in the equation after all. She was the reason, a number in the statistic, the threat to cheap prices and stability. She was fucken’ real all right. Ruby knew that back in the day when retailers decided to move their wares from behind their counters to where the salivating customers could stroke them, sales were predicted to skyrocket. And they did. Theft was so relatively insignificant when rated against this overwhelming increase in sales it was barely given a seconds thought.

Until the idea was sold to them. Everybody’s selling something eh?

The human tide flowed on past like sheep off the truck, inflated and giddy with that perception of importance, of belonging and being needed. Poor buggers, thought Ruby. Just running running, searching for that sex appeal, the credit card bill already materialising at the back of their minds. She dragged up snot and spat it onto the footpath and began counting how many stepped on it.

Come on. Falafel, pasta, feta and olive salad; yum yum rumbled her stomach.

Footpath dining had made table diving a lot easier as far as keeping out of the staff’s view, but it didn’t remove the skulking, nor that little shiver of repulsion that came with the first bite. She didn’t like to think of diseases, lipstick, dribble or stray pubes stuck in decaying teeth. It didn’t pay to worry about hygiene at this particular rung on life’s ladder.

But really, why get all hung up and precious about shop food eh?

Born in a pesticide saturated earth; transported forty thousand k to a rat-infested factory to be rendered nutritionless and then delivered to a kitchen crawling with cockroaches to be handled by a slap-happy teenage staff who all use the same toilet and rarely wash their hands; four hours under heat lamps; zapped once more in the microwave and slapped onto a detergent coated plate… yum.

And somebody took a bite out of it and decided they didn’t like it that much which is fair enough really.

So Ruby ate it.

While table food on one hand was hard to swallow, it did offer the luxury of choice and presentation that the unsold or spoiled food dumped out back could ever deliver. Rummaging through the chuck-outs usually rewarded you with more, but quality was way down, what with the meat juices running over the stiffening pizza ‘n all.

Ruby watched the in-store chaos play out: harassed staff, the flow of bank notes, the overfed stuffing yet more in. Nah, it was way more rewarding to take it from the horses mouth, to slip into that still warm seat, pick up the morning paper and finish off the chickpeas on rice.

Yum; food was good.

***

“It was that fucking mad dude Sharon buys her pills off that narked on us,” explained Aaron. Brent held the trespass notice up like he was about to auction it off: “They got all our names too, two fucking years.”

“Fuck it man I might just split.” says Paul. “Fucking sick of all this shit, I mean now where?”

The famous five cast about. Standing on footpath in a suburban street, packs at their feet and about twenty bucks between them, middle New Zealand scowled from every front. Casper broke the silence: “Yeah I want a bed too mate. How 'bout we cruise over to Nath's and see if we can crash in the band room for the night and take it from there?” Brent and Bones pick up there bags, Paul can't get across the ditch till dole day anyway and his sigh indicates acquiescence. “Might as well go past the bakery dumpster eh?”

"What about Ruby? asks Bones. "We'll need to let her know what's happened, where we are and that we have all her gear eh?

"F'sure," agreed Casper. "Hey lets go past the church steps and see what's up eh? We should have a picnic eh?

F'sure, why the fuck not.

***

They find me. We eat. Everything will be ok.

You can’t eat poverty, but you can eat cake that’s past the use-by date. A full belly is happy, round like a rainbow. A full belly means you can dance, swim or ride your bike.

A full belly means you can grab your fun and run.

It’s hard staying happy on the dole. They make it that way. Hard being happy when you’re homeless, physically and mentally unwell, so far down the fucking ladder that the rungs above you have all rotted off.

But you can do it.

Loaves and Fishes were housed out the back of the Anglican Church and the queues for a free meal were always so damn orderly. Meek and obedient now, drunk and defiant within hours; broken again in the morning and back at church by midday. It was the worst part of playing the game; being poor. When loitering in corner dairies, cafes and supermarkets almost became a fucking job and it was just easier to get up late and join the other down and outs. Immobilised, passive consumers playing roles instead of just playing.

The cops stopped us six times last week. Once we were just walking down the road and they reckoned we'd stolen a car. Right, oh here it is in my pocket, silly me. It’s what you get for wearing rags, bare feet and obviously doing sweet fuck all. Should get a job, they’d say. Smarten up, get some pride in ya. Yeah we could get drunk together in front of the big screen down at the Loaded Hog, mow the lawns on Sunday and wish the weekend didn’t go so fast. Gold Coast for Christmas even, if you saved hard enough that is. Sure, you can’t eat poverty; but you can’t live on their side of the fence either. Not if you’re honest, not if you’re real, if you’re hungry for more. Everyday we grabbed it. Sure it hurt at times, but fuck saving up for three weeks mental health leave.

That drew a laugh from me, and also finally got me noticed by the shops staff.

One day I’ll shop once a week, grow my own veggies, and wake up to a healthy satisfying breakfast. I don’t really know how, but I’m sure it’ll come. I’ll do it, you wait.

Smiling at the woman behind the counter I politely ask, “Can I've a packet of zigzag blues please?” We’d score a tinny and get stoned down by the river; goof off, swim. While her back is turned I pocket chocolate and a bag of mixed nuts.

That was tea sorted.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

In the neighbourhood

I'd had several run-ins with her over the years; nothing bad.

She’d never hit me.

She was ok for a pig.

And when she snapped me at the front door wearing an apron, oven mitt on one hand and the Beatles playing in the background, she was the first to laugh.

“I was just in the neighbourhood,” she says. 'Thought I'd drop in.”

“The scones aren't quite ready I'm afraid.” Despite the uniform she has a pretty smile. You sick fuck.

“Well actually we're looking for a women, new in town, has green hair, a mohawk,, thought she might be staying here.”

“Oh? Well actually, no. I've no idea who you're talking about.”

Unperturbed, she turns and stares at my bike on the porch. It's upside down, dismantled.

“Whose is this bike?” she asks lightly.

“That's mine; another flat tyre as you can see,” I reply.

A frown: “Not swapping parts or anything?”

“Ah, No.”

“Ok, see ya then.”

They came and took my bike that week while I was at Uni; said I had fitted it out with stolen parts and was welcome to come down the station to chat about it. Detective Regulation Mo' didn't give a shit that I'd bought that bike when I was thirteen, saved my paper run money with Mum and Dad matching me dollar for dollar. I guess they would have sold it at the yearly police auction. Well I hope some kid got it, that he gets that tyre sorted and has heaps of fun on it.

Weird eh? I'd imagine that when most people see an old well-loved bike they'd fall happily into childhood memories of tearing about helter-skelter like you owned the streets. Our rag-tag gang had pretend licences and we would argue endlessly over who would get to be the cop.

The cop always had the most fun.

We had no idea. How the power we craved can get so twisted. Perhaps, once-upon-a-time, she had no idea either.

Hutt Valley Heartache

She said meet me at the gates at eight; sweet, the factory whistle would scream and we’d all bail, piling out the door eager to escape the stench of bad food and servitude.

She’d said it like it was a date – the gates at eight, with a smile that suggested more; and so I hoped that with the sun rising on a new day, we’d blow like Thelma and Louise and leave all this shit behind for something, anything, but I’ll be straight with you now and tell you that it all went wrong; no fairytale ending, just stupid and sad.

She worked across the expanse of black concrete, facing me as I scuttled around my machine tweaking dials and pulling levers. This place was all about snakes and ladders for the skilled and those that failed school – or maybe it was skin colour, what ever; anyway, she scanned the ‘product’ for foreign objects while I cooked up what passed inspection at the other end on this chain gang of automation.

Screwing the cooker door closed I hit the steam valves and note the time – this batch was asparagus so thirteen minutes exactly before I send in the cold water, no more no less. Thirteen minutes with sweet FA to do. Wander, ponder, I am the great absconder. I slap my boots down hard to fill the caverns of blackness with my presence and chase away fear. Like distant space stations, clusters of light and life appear and disappear.

Cardboard boxes are stacked like Lego behind workers in an attempt to trap the heat emitting from gutless heaters below their feet. It’s sad. This tomb-like factory was born from imaginations that stretched no further than economics with people as ‘out goings’.

For a long while I thought she was just lost in space like me, until she’d smiled - at me.

Oh. Um, shit.

A smile is nice, so simple a gift to reciprocate. Not me; I have no faith. I do have hope though; but it's a long scary road to reach what is essentially an unknown: to trust. Do I jump? No, I run for the safety of fantasy as the cold nights crawl onwards: to be rich, important, to be everything a beautiful girl would want. I walk tall.

Well, a little taller.

Shit, I might have known my math well enough to run the cooker, but some things just don't add up right and it took many repeats of that smile across the cold darkness before the penny dropped into this heart: come talk to me; it's safe, it's ok. Yeah I was always late.

For eight hours quality control sit on high stools with their cardboard insulation, blocks of wood under gumboots, hands sifting slowly through streams of fresh vegetables. Yummy processed food; we get it half price at the office. I can switch off the conveyor belt from where I work. Easy, see. Stoned giggles erupt, echo off into space as they all fall off their stools, their brains still following the vegetables. Huh.

We drop dead rats prised from the traps in the spice room onto the belt to see if The Ladies really are awake at four am… oops…no. Who buys this, this food? The innocent of course. Each week at Team Meeting the managers solemnly read out letters of complaint: "I'm returning a bolt which I assume is important" or "I found (a feather, dead fly, bee, plastic, metal, wood, hair, fingernail ....) something unidentifiable floating in my Spicy Tomato Cup-a-soup." The fun was juvenile and dangerous, but hey we should all be tucked up in bed with our sweet dreams, not living Orwellian nightmares. We were still kids at school, uniforms and bells, yes sir no sir, lets fuck shit up sir. Heavy machinery and cannabis, food products and snot, company profits and hours spent on the roof star gazing with the joint passing slowly round. Just not meant to be.

All together now: we gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do...

The echoes here were just fucking brilliant.

That filthy conveyor belt was the site of my first official warning: covering a smoke break for her, caught alone, reading a book… while millions of tender green peas streamed on past. No matter that I wasn’t even supposed to be there, tripping out to that sea of green. It was her, looping through my mind and growing courage, wings even. Caught in more ways than one eh? I thought she was worth risks; she was worth conspiring with to make mischief. She was fun, her smile intoxicating; I wanted to touch her.

And I did.

The next warning was for an over-cook that had left several hundred cans of butter beans with dents in them. I falsified the time book. Tsk tsk. I’d been perving at her while she worked and as my supervisor bollocked me I could see her cracking up with The Ladies. Her easy laugh, her eyes briefly catching and holding mine sent me straight back to the kiss. The supervisor might as well have beamed back into the matrix for all I cared. Fucking magic.

Collecting a pie and chips for my 2am meal break, I hear:“Hey you need to stop watching me and do your job eh?” Female laughter follows me as I hunker down opposite Tommy. Shit, they all knew. Last night's Shortland Street and then the love-struck Pākehā boy; can ya imagine it?

Tommy was my age, had done three seasons here and sold the drugs that got the team through the night. Important role. Greenery, caps and pharmaceuticals. Blowing smoke out the cleaning room window later that morning we hit the steam valves and strip for a sauna; talking shit, wishing we had lives, girlfriends, something to do.

“This place is fucking suicide; get out quick before you get any HP’s or a girlfriend eh.” Tommy expels wisdom before sucking hard on the joint. His face is tight, eyes bulging as he holds the smoke in as long as possible. It looks like he's drowning, or dead. “Yeah right man, so you going to pass it over or what?”

See? That’s me all over

She’d said to meet her at eight, but I was fucken late. I'm always late.

I tell ya it was a day of some big mistakes, the least of which cost me a cruisey job. More importantly was her.

My third warning meant disciplinary action would be taken: demotion it was and the bitch of a supervisor did not hesitate. I’d sorted a chair for the guy who was emptying the cans out of the big wire bins I push in and out of my cooker; he had a sore back. I found one for myself as well; give him a hand I figured. Wrong.

“We don’t sit on this job – stand up,” the dead fuck had hissed at me. After this quite unjustifiable slap in the face she might have seen my only reason for actually turning up each night cracking up over there on the line – my new friend, but it don’t matter – anyway she turned back around and there I am with me arm still raised in a fucken’ Nazi salute. Her smirk fell lower than her tits: “Right, you’re washing the boxes from now on young man– enjoy!”

Yep I’m a 4th generation New Zealand-made slave; and as I pirouetted on the wet floor with my middle fingers raised at the bosses high up in their warm offices I could almost taste the futility. “There's no justice ladies,” I protested. “It’s just us down ‘ere being fucked over and over.”

Maida, the Jehovah with fifty kids or something, gave me my only applause. Everyone else had buggered off for a fag. I hit the stairs that lead up past the hoppers of soup mix to collect Tommy and climb onwards and upwards to our sanctuary. Sparked up and toked hard. Sedated, deflated. With our feet dangling over a ledge I idly flick dead flies into the open hoppers below. Most of the plant was silent at night with just the odd security light twinkling amongst looming shades of black. Thinking back over the busy harvest when the night shift had come on, we’d dropped a lot of shit off this ledge. Pot if you're lucky, flies, snot, bolts and a good spurt of Tommy’s jungle juice on those nights when things were a little out of kilter if you're not.

It was up here that I kissed her, high as a kite, trying to touch her tongue with mine. I can still taste her. Gave me a push that nearly sent me over the edge and into the Thick Mushroom Soup when I brushed her breast with my hand.

Won’t be trying that again; not up on that ledge anyway.

When she said ‘eight’ she meant it cos she never was one for lingering. Had already missed her a few times, seeing her pedaling off on her bike, headphones on tight unable to hear my yelling over her beats. Christ, I never really knew if she was serious or just playing games as she cruised off to fuck knows where. To do what? To be with who?

Meet me at the gates…. And don’t be late she’d said, cos I don’t wait. Shit, I was trying to save my job, brown nosing the manager that it was all a bit over the top and that the bitch had it in for me. Calm down he’s saying; the union will have to be involved and blah blah blah.
More fool me eh? Man what the fuck was I thinking. The sheer monotony, the humiliation and abuse, a crap wage and shitter of a drug habit to boot. Give it to me baby. There I was trying my hardest to get my leash back on when I’d been all but shown the door marked ‘life’.

Meet me at the gate at eight she’d said. The invitation I dreamed of. I could finally see her out in the real world without a hairnet on; maybe do something normal like look at each other in daylight. We could have some fun; maybe go into town or something.

I’d really like that.

But that invite was only half the story; she was like that, dug her mysteries like where she lived, what she got up to with her mates out there on the other side.

Only cos it was her last shift an all. And I was late.

The sunshine and her smile, it was right there. Well I tell ya, and I really fucking mean it, I'm never going to be late again.

Never going to be late again.