Dreamboat Dad (20 page)

IN HEAVY RAIN HENRY AND
Manu walked under one jumbo umbrella
grinning at keeping the wet out; it ran in streams at their feet down a
sealed road with gutters and underground storm water as Henry told how
he kept at the town council till they gave in.

We could be wading through mud and stepping into ankle-breaking
potholes, eh, son?

What's a pothole, Dad?

Made his father laugh. A hole that forms in a dirt road. As kids we used
to sail little boats in them, out in the rain without a care. Gone now, thank
goodness. I reckon we'll have the baths all to ourselves this morning.

And so they did, five to choose from, the channels rag-stoppered by
Barney, good old reliable Barney who could now converse though with
moments of lapsing back into the shocked silence caused by that incident,
which Henry never forgot, not anything of it, and had a suspicion Barney
now remembered. But what matter now, all in the past never to be seen
again.

The rain hit their naked bodies hurrying out of the changing shed,
blotted out any house lights that might be seen this seven o'clock winter
Sunday morning hour, the sun yet to rise — not that it would bring much
more than a dull grey light the first half hour.

Sweet shock of contrast. Sweeter moment of father and son linked by
the same vessel of water.

Wash your back, Dad?

Henry turned, lifted his weight to accommodate his son's gentle
lathering. Rain hammering down. Man and boy's hearts pitter-pattering
with love. River below them a swollen muddy rush.

No other bathers appeared. They sang a song. Father as always told
his son he had a fine developing voice but if he was harmonising to lower
his volume to allow the lead to dominate. Let's swap parts. Sang as Henry
washed his son's back, part of the ritual.

They walked home. Henry said their roast mutton leg would be just
right. Manu wondering if to say what was on his mind. He would.

Dad? When I told the kids in my class we ate roast meat for breakfast,
everyone laughed and said
no
one eats roast meat for breakfast. Are we the
only ones?

A question Henry had fielded before, from Mata and Wiki. Yank was
sure to have wanted to ask the same, but in the circumstances . . .

Henry said, people have different customs. Maoris come from a feast
or famine culture so, like some dogs, say Labradors, we eat more than we
need when food is around. Wasn't in nature's game plan for food to stay
plentiful. That's why I'm fat. But contented fat. As you well know, people
around here can sit down to a plate of pork bones, spuds and watercress at
five in the morning. It's how we are.

How you are, Dad . . .

He looked at his son, almost the same height and still growing. I'll eat
your share then?

Not this morning. Manu grinned, bumped his father with a hip. Henry
bumped back. Manu exclaimed at being briefly exposed to the rain. His
father pulled him back with a big strong arm.

Out of nowhere Henry heard himself say, wonder how your brother's
doing in America. Saw Manu's surprise, the cover up.

Lucky him.

Oh, it won't be all beer and skittles. Not in Mississippi.

Silence. They passed growling mud holes side by side. They teach you
about how Negroes are treated in America, son?

Only a little bit. American history. But mainly about the Civil War
and their Constitution and laws and stuff. Glancing warily at his father.

Wonder what they'd think of this place, Dad.

Clearing his throat Henry said, well, a few did visit here, during the
war . . . as we know. Coughed again. Lucky us who get to stay here.

Manu gave his father another kind of glance.

Dad? Do you think about Yank much?

Why I just asked the question, I guess. Sometimes.

No, I meant another kind of thinking.

The past again, son. It rolls up on you before you know it, then it's
moved on like a missed bus. Can't change how I reacted, if that's what you
mean. You've been giving it some thought?

Can't help it. He's my brother. Yet you're not—

His father. As if I ever stopped thinking that every day.

But, Dad, it must have stopped. That's what I figured.

Guess it did. You wake up one day and realise the subject no matter
means much, if anything. Maturity, growing up. That and more.

You've been a good dad to me.

And to Wiki. Tried with Mata but missed those first years. What do
you think your big brother is doing right now? I think it's an eighteen-hour
time difference, so that makes it one yesterday afternoon.

You know this?

Well, if my son's got a brother in those parts. Mississippi, from what
I been told, is a place back in time in how they treat Negroes. Least here
the whites have come to respect us and we have the same rights. I'd knock
down any man of any race who showed me disrespect. Hope you would
too.

Manu, being partly his father's son, nodded yes, he would. Threw a
knowing grin at his father, snuggled in closer under the arm. I guess he's
getting into the music over there. At his father again, uncertain.

Negro music, Henry said. They call it black music these days. Boy,
does he love his black music. From a little boy he had an ear for it on the
radio. I think he secretly liked my singing and I know he loved listening
to our returned servicemen. If he gets famous, might be he remembers
me, eh?

He sure will. Manu was smiling, but that could have meant many
things.

THE CROWD, HE REMEMBERED THE
crowd, the noise, the weight of
collective demand, individuals yelled out criticism of individual players, or
dismissed the whole team as useless. The different creatures spectators and
players were. Yes, he remembered that.

The opposition's supporters against everything the opponent's team
did even the spectacular; two thousand and more jeering, laughing at any
mistake, howling in delight if one of their boys put a big tackle on an
opponent. Men against men, like war. Screaming like apes — not that this
country had any but the human kind — when a fight broke out. Sometimes
the blood lust spread, and scraps and even a mass brawl would erupt in the
grandstand, on the sidelines; women fighting too.

Women too: how would he ever forget his mother that day, supposed
to be his finest eighty minutes and she decides to have an all-out fight with
another shameless bitch right in front of the full grandstand — no. Must
bury that memory.

He remembered the power of the massed group, the Waiwera
community, how if they did not yet approve of a player, consider he had
proved himself in battle, no matter what he did their response was muted, no
edge to it, no claiming of a beloved warrior son. No rushing their decision,
quite the opposite, and nor could they be fooled: you either played well
or you didn't. Today being the final, and him having started back only
four games ago, they were wary. He knew why: he was a
convict
, once a
star centre till jailed for violent offences; a nutcase thereafter, a lowlife like
his parents. The young man of promise should have pursued rugby, been
embraced by its spirit of self-control in the interests of the team till he grew
out of his problems; that had worked for other troubled young men. The
beauty of team, of close community living — your burdens got shared
and the noise and clamour dissipated them. Years before, if he punched an
opponent, the group would cheer and scream to
finish him!
But that was
then. Before he went and made himself a criminal, hitting people.

Grown far too big to stay a back player, Chud moved to blindside flanker
in the forwards, his job to tidy up, be a feeder not a runner, a tackler but
not a destroyer like the openside loosie of whom everything was expected.
Nothing fancy, though every game could have its moments. Just be there, get
the ball back, race behind the back line, pile in and support his tackled player,
hunt for the ball, impose physicality, drop back if the defence was crowding
and a turnover looked likely, be there to take a kicked ball or right beside
the fullback as a back-up, or a rear guard if the opposition had closed in.

In the lineouts he was an occasional surprise jumper to throw the ball
to, wished he got it more as he was athletic, had spring heels, big hands,
muscle and mongrel when the opposition applied dirty tricks. Except they,
the people, did not want Chud's old response, not now they didn't. They
wanted a new Chud.

So when a punch dug into his ribs, Chud had to wear it, despite wanting
to tear the guy apart. The spectators, village judge and jury, were silent
awaiting his reaction. So was the referee, even more importantly — being
sent off would bring the blade down as far as his supporters were concerned.
More: he was going out with their beloved Henry Takahe's daughter and
most were skeptical at how long that would last. Such a young man to have
a bad past too.

The punch was so hard it felt like a rib was cracked. He lost the take and
fell to the ground, trying not to writhe in pain. A man doesn't do that. On
his feet again he rushed for the action — the other side were in possession
— saw his man, a picture in his mind of his swinging arm connecting with
the bastard's throat. Especially as he was grinning at Chud. Grinning, the
arsehole was.

At the last moment Chud veered off his target and made a beeline for
the ball carrier, to make a legal tackle. Threw himself at the man's knees,
stopped him dead then reversed the man's forward momentum, drove
him back.

In the tackle he ripped the ball away and like a good number 6 looked
for someone to feed it to. There: the openside flanker in the coveted
number 7 jersey, the position requiring a tireless, heady, fast player
devastating in the tackle. And as he watched the number 7 race in for the
try, Chud hoped for approval as the man who fed the ball.

They roared. He heard his name called. Not as much as Archie
Tua's rose to the skies, but they knew his contribution, the self-discipline
it had taken not to take revenge the dumb way. Now he could listen out for
just one voice calling out she loved him. Not for being a warrior, but for
being a man.

She was urging him, go and join your team mates, enjoy the adulation,
you deserve it. He did consider it but said, rather be with you.

Their flat was quite bare as they were not long moved in. Had money
just enough to buy basic furnishings and both were saving hard. Not that
it mattered how spare the home surroundings, not when you were young
and in love.

Wonder how my brother's doing? You two better make up when he
gets home.

We will, Chud said. I miss him.

Well, she said, giving him a look.

What you said that night at the bath. Well.

She laughed. Because you weren't taking a pretty obvious hint. Told
you, I'd always more than liked you.

I thought like a sister.

Correct. Until the like-a-sister turned into a woman.

You're only seventeen.

Old enough.

Well.

Smiling at each other. The first female he neither feared nor loathed.
The first female he had ever physically touched. The first he had ever
made love with.

WE'RE IN THE NEXT COUNTY,
my boy and me, at a big club on the outskirts
of a town called Irene, and my son's eyes are popping at the sight of
this outlandish crowd. Pimps and hoods, a range of shady characters, and
women loud works of art. I grew up with it but young Mark has never
seen its like. Everybody showing, I tell him. People got nothing else but
clothes and attitude to express, the language we evolved with its own
rhythms and shades of meaning. Southern niggers can talk a bear out of
his fur coat.

Outrageous cats in sable coats, wearing shades indoors, suits that
sparkle and so starched you can hear their crackling coming from outside.
Big afros a style not long in, array of hats, from little skull caps to creations
two foot tall, our race acquires jewelry like credit coupons against the
life we live, we strut like cocks displaying plumage. Every pimp has his
favourite whore or two in attendance. Every man has eye out for woman
flesh. Every mean-looking face is on someone's payroll to watch his back.
That's why guns are checked in at the door, minded by two giants. There's
numbers guys and roving gamblers, dudes just out of the pen; I keep eye
on the drug dealers: some psychotic on their own product might pick on
my son, think he's white. Funny how he doesn't look white to me. I just
see a son.

It starts with a woman come over to our table asks my son does he
want to dance. Later, honey, I tell her. Me and my man got breeze to
shoot. She don't like the rejection. Goes back to a group I don't like the
look of. But hell, the music's calling me, us both. Me and my boy.

You is what you is. Cain't nothing change that.
The singer up there has his
eyes closed as he delivers. Hear my son say, this country spills over with
musical talent. I feel ordinary in comparison.

Don't be, son. You is what you is, I quote the song. I heard you sing
and you got talent. And not because you're my son. I got a black ear for
quality.

Least the woman and her group let the song finish before they send
their panther representative over, tall he is too, threads hanging off him like
bark. He puts a paw adorned with chunky rings on the table front of me.

This your pet Klan boy?

Easy, brother. This is my son, my own flesh and blood.

Look like you adopted it. The guy at Mark who is naturally taken by
surprise. I should have warned him.

We cool, brother. Just here to hear the man himself, Big Boy.

You here, sure, like any nigger. But he — points at Mark. He from
another planet. Planet called White. You ain't no nigger, not even a
mulatto, he says to Mark. The hell you doin here?

Same boat as you, brother, I answer on my son's behalf, starting to
get mad. Same stormy sea we all on. I hope you reading this situation, my
man. Put the menace in my tone.

Up on stage the saxophonist is doing a solo riff and he's good — if I
wasn't with such distraction. Don't mean no disrespect, I say, but this here
young man is my true son, I swear.

I seen albinos darker than him, says the guy. Goes back to his friends.

See what we made this life about, son? We made hard fact and harsh
consequence of what's not important. Like you and I being strangers in
their territory, even though we black the same and barred from the same
establishments, beaten by the same white cops, found guilty by the same
white prejudiced jury, jailed by the same white judge — and what these
niggers do? Why, they check us out like Southern highway patrolmen out
to bust us up, even kill us. For being the exact same color in exact same
situation as them?

Another man comes over, huge he is. Hey, I say.

Hey, big guy says back. Your boy the palest goddamn nigger we ever
seen. Then turns to Mark — spins, actually.

Say something, bitch.

Before I can intervene, Mark says, I'm hoping my father and I are not
going to get hurt because we got different skin coloring and got raised
in different countries. We're still father and son. Doesn't seem fair it's
upsetting you.

The man stares. Glances back at his buddies. Back at Mark he says, tell
me something about where you come from, white bitch.

So we are near in that place of no going back. Got my gun in the
car.

He says to my son, make one mistake and you and this homo daddy
of yours goin get hurt.

Mark says, my mother is a half-caste Maori — that's a race of
brown-skinned
people, the
natives
of a country called New Zealand. My mother
fell in love with this man in the Second World War. I'm the result of that
love. Between a brown woman and a black man.

My son shows guts. He says: Maoris are a ferocious warrior class, who
used to cook and eat their enemies. They kept slaves. Like Negroes were
slaves. But my mother's ancestors ate their slaves.

Dude doesn't know what hit him.

If you like, I'll do a Maori war dance right out on that floor.
Haka
we
call it. You want to see it?

You disrespecting me I'll kill you, fucker.

I realize the band has quieted to background, instrumental music. So
can be heard my boy telling this bullying fucker back, just trying to answer
your question, friend.

Back the big man goes to his buddies.

You got them confused, I say.

They going to shoot us?

Not in here. Anyway, what we done to them? It a crime to exist, for
your skin to be paler than theirs? Guess you light up like a Christmas tree
wrong time of year in their eyes.

If I was a real white, would they dare?

Just then it is announced, Big Boy just about here. Like the Saviour is
coming. I smile at my son, till the antagonist comes back.

You just a Klan boy acting English, he says to Mark.

If I'm Klan then I'm calling the cops. Get you charged with threatening.

This is my son saying this, the naive boy from a whole nation of
them.

Say what?

You heard. If I'm white then I'm calling the cops to be on the side of
one of their own.

I get to my feet, aware this could blow right now. My son follows
suit.

We leaving now, I tell him. With our heads held high.

My father is angry as we drive back to his county.

When whites oppress us, he says, every nigger accepts it like God's
decree. See one of their own who's not dark enough and they want to
hurt him. In every town and city it's black on black and still we don't get it
that we been turned against ourselves. Ain't no one talking revenge against
the ones who been hurting us for centuries.

That's the ultimate act of destroying a people, pitting us against each
other. You still want to live here, son?

Had my moments of doubt, I answer. Tell him how seeing the musical
talent has me ready to give up on my dream of being a professional
musician.

Listen, don't be worried, he says. It's going to take time to catch up on
the influences we grew up with.

He starts demonstrating Big Boy Shand's singing style as the Southern
night throws flying insects against our screen, and nigger menace stalks
my mind.