Jake's Long Shadow (23 page)

THAT NIGHT THIS bunch of youths hanging out under a Pine Block streetlight, as they do and always will unless some higher, greater force decides enough of this crap; until a strong public will dismisses weak
political
will and claims back its own streets and with it civility and civilisation. Not this modern beast of pack violence, standing around talking and wanting so badly to walk it not talk it, violence that is, acting out kick-boxing moves, boxing combinations, others fidgeting with knives and cut-off billiard cue ends, festering in their born anger.

Eff-all’d happened tonight. And they were getting tetchy.

Even the pit bulls steered clear of this human dog pack, avoiding canine shapes and soft-padding movements and flitting shadows in the Pine Block night. It was a Monday, hardly a house partying, money all spent, the usual blocks of window lights weren’t silhouetted with men and women lifting alcohol on a Monday night, they had barely or not enough to buy food to last till Thursday, the welfare day, or pay-day at some menial, shit job.

Only Jojo’s bar was pumping and its hardcore drinkers from the score of hardcore lowlife criminal families, one of them had always scored off a burglary, a mugging, a home invasion (tough guys, they invade old women pensioners’ homes in the old working-class neighbourhoods from days when people took pride in self and their modest homes and made the best, not the malicious worst, of it). Oh, and there were the lost souls on the prowl, too.

And there was the service station, which used to get robbed at gunpoint regularly until the owner installed his night staff in a cage, to keep the animals out not in, and you couldn’t fill your tank, you couldn’t buy anything — an emergency loaf of bread if that was all you could afford to feed your neglected children on, or a tin of baby’s milk powder, a desperately craved packet of cigarettes — without putting the cash into a two-way tray that the guy on the other side pulled his way, and with confidence knowing even a sawn-off shotgun wouldn’t penetrate the bullet-proof glass. He pushed the button to unlock your petrol pump that filled to the exact amount you’d paid him, not a drop more, he put your purchase into another invention of man’s ingenious, perennially short-term devices against the criminal element, and left you to drive or walk out in the night with your petrol and/or your immediate need satisfied.

Out of the night came this astonishing sight, not just a white dude, but a prissy, skinny, hurrying white fulla. His unexpected presence pressed the button inside the pack’s same collective (im)moral cage that instructed them: enemy. Attack.

And they fanned out no differently to the original hunting packs of wolves, from which the multitudinous varieties of dog breed had come, to become faithful, loved servants of men, but not this sub-species. Not this reversion to atavistic past, starting to close in on a dude carrying something (might be a wallet, but could never be what it actually was, a tin of baby’s milk powder) in one hand.

He was whistling and half walking, half running. Feeling good in
responsibility
’s embrace.

Oh, so you’re happy t’nite, are y’, white maggot? We’ll see about that.

Hey you! Hey YOU! Comere! Whatcha got in your freckled white hand, bud? You didn’t
steal
it, did ya? A kind of laughter managing to squeeze past the desire to do violence ballooning inside each and every one of them’s throat, their rotten, festering souls like a rush of malodorous fumes giving off.

Alistair Trambert telling the confronters, Guys, you know me. I’ve been
living here over three years. You’ve seen me around. I flat with Sharns. You know Sharns? Sharneeta. My flatmate. This is milk powder, for her baby. I got to get back to her, I left her by herself.

Hey, you fullas? Y’ hear this dude? He lef ’ a li’l baby on its own, home by itself.

As if in worst moral outrage. As if they cared for a li’l baby, or the
grown-up
version not of their race.

Alistair said, Please, you guys. I’m a nothing. I don’t harm no one, I’m just looking after a
friend’s
baby.

No you’re not! A suck-arse to the ringleader thundered up and stuck his voice and foul breath in the white man’s face. No you’re not! You’re out here and the effin’ baby’s at home all by itself! No, you’re not looking after a
friend’s
baby. You’re a effin’ home aloner, man! Thought you white society shits didn’t do that?

They couldn’t possibly know how far from his own white society a young, privileged man had fallen.

One lone voice in the pack mumbled, Hey guys, leave this dude. That’s a real tin of milk powder. Meaning, even they shouldn’t go this low. But his voice was weaker than lame, it didn’t even get up walking to have a limp. And even if it did, this pack of hyenas would’ve dragged him to the ground and tore his protests apart. He was fated not to be with this lot too much longer.

Now the ringleader stepped forth, and he had this image of himself as a noble, but ferocious warrior. And he had every intention of one day soon getting his face fully tattooed in Maori warrior style, to confirm what he felt inside. As simple and limited as that.

Ringleader’s voice rang out in the Pine Block night under the Pine Block streetlight, saying to the stupid dumb white man: The eff you think you are walking around our patch like you effin’ belong here? Eh? Eh?

Meaning to his boys, Do him. Waste him. Deal to him. Kick the muther (loved) effer’s head in. And worse.

So they made sound like few get to hear, and those that do think it quite the worst they’ve ever heard. Like warriors knowing one day they’ll be mere abject, unspeakably defeated slaves destined for the hot fires and eaten by their victors. Like men who aren’t men who know one day they’ll be found out. And taken into slave captivity (jail). Or killed (by the higher moral powers, if they can get their asses into gear). Poor Alistair.

GORDON HAD CALLED him, and Jake responded immediately, despite the hour not yet four a.m. He wondered why him when Gordon must have closer mates of longer year’s standing.

Alistair’s beating having taken place in Pine Block explained a good part of why Gordon called Jake. He said his son might not live, then asked in an untypically emotional voice if Jake could do anything about it, if he knew people who could find out who did this to his son. And the big question was still hanging in the air.

Jake said he’d make some enquiries, and Gordon kept staring at Jake as if he wanted Jake to make the offer, of presumably his violent services.

Isobel Trambert came downstairs, surprised Jake by kissing him on the cheek as these people do with their friends. She thanked him for coming out at this hour, told him that both had thought of him and only him, as a friend with strength who might help them through this.

He took it on himself to drive them to the hospital. Isobel looked her
strong, stoic self, which got Jake to thinking how she would have been on finding his hanged daughter dangling from the big oak tree on her back lawn. But he couldn’t stay on such a thought. It hurt too much.

At the hospital they were in for a shock: Alistair’s face was blown up like a balloon, tubes stuck out from the boy and he was in a deep coma. Jake knew anger close to the Jake of old, no question about that. And this wasn’t even his son. As for the boy’s father, Gordon looked more than shocked, he was in coldest, unspeakable fury; he sat there trembling all over.

Jake thought in the instant, Something should be done about this. It could not be left to the police, it went beyond that. Gordon’s face was telling Jake so, even as his mature self chided the old and asked, Is violence fixed by violence? They argued inside of him, the two Jakes. And both were strong.

He said to Gordon, I’ll make some calls later today. Meaning he’d call on a few born hard men who’d do the business and not have a need to shoot mouths off about it. Those who in other lives might’ve been the legendary uncompromising town sheriff, or any one of his tough deputies.

(Someone’s got to bring the bad lot into line. Or just hit them so hard they won’t want to come back.)

Isobel’s composure ended at the sight of her son, he wasn’t a human being but more a piece of pulped flesh. She slumped down in a chair beside Alistair and lay her head on his side and wept.

Jake’s mind was going again, and the looks he kept getting from Gordon suggested Gordon could read his mind. Further, that he was thinking the same.

The two Jakes kept arguing inside his head.

He kept vigil with the parents beside the young man’s bed, acutely aware he’d not done the same for his own kids. (Oh, but how long do I punish myself for it? It doesn’t change the past.)

The heartbeat monitoring machine was exactly like on the hospital drama programmes on TV. The smell of sterile solutions didn’t hide the smell of sickness, nor the permanent presence of death. Isobel was quite devastated, saying over and over, How could anyone do this to another human being they don’t even know? The two Jakes debating quite heatedly inside a man. Will I or won’t I?

Then this most beautiful nurse came on duty, beautiful beyond
description
. Seemed strange to Jake that such breathtaking beauty should be nursing the results of an ugly life on the other side. She greeted the Tramberts by
name and hugged Isobel. Clearly they were old friends. Isobel introduced Jake. Sue Clifford. The woman had a strong handshake. You look like someone I know, she said.

You whites all look the same, too, he grinned. She laughed back, appreciating his sense of humour. Jake went back to thinking other thoughts, to do with justice.

THE COURT OF Appeal made its decision, unanimously, that Abraham Heke’s sentence had been excessive, though the sentencing judge had been perfectly within his rights to pass the sentence, so said the three wise men of the Appeal Court. There were, however, mitigating factors too
overwhelmingly
in the appellant’s favour, namely that he had good employment entailing considerable responsibility, that respected citizens spoke glowingly on his behalf, etc, etc. Though there was a conviction for serious robbery some seven years ago, when Heke’s giving evidence against a man
subsequently
convicted and imprisoned for murder had exempted him from a prison sentence. But he had since put his life on a straight course until this incident, etc, etc. Abe was free.

Apeman understood drama as every human being did, it gave greater meaning to life, could be the soul’s way to lift even the hardest hearts. It was like being able to walk through a mist knowing your way. It was nothing
original yet it always worked, a staged fight away from where the real action would take place, between four crawlers eager to get in sweet with the big Maori gang leader (oblivious to his greying hair). The fight pulled in the screws like iron filings to a magnet.

The drama began with him bellowing out to Abe Heke,
I know you! You’re the man gave evidence against me!

It told the truth and the lie at the same time. For then the knife landed at Abe’s feet, another suck-arse doing Ape’s bidding. And Abe bent and  took it up on instinct before reasoning got in. Covered in his fingerprints now. To give Apeman the defence of self-defence, not that Apeman was too worried about the aftermath, not consumed as he was by utu.

He came at Abe Heke between two rows of benches stacked high with tumble-dried sheets. A brawl going on elsewhere was occupying the screws.

Not in his life had Abe been confronted with a knife-wielding man, let alone this snarling, boggle-eyed face-tattooed monster. Yet he felt he could handle most physical threats. He saw his knife had a sawn cut near its full width, but wasn’t sure he could have used it at any rate. He tossed it aside, with but one thought, which he gave voice to.

I’m not fighting you, Ape.

And he started backing away, with raised palms facing outwards in the universal sign of not wanting to know. He saw in that instant Apeman’s eyes changing to brightest animal glee. And Abe knew that he really did hate violence and what it did to men, what it reduced them to. Or were reduced by.

He said, Please, Ape, this won’t change things. When clearly Ape’s mind wasn’t changing either. He kept coming on, waving that big knife, flashing those teeth with the two missing gaps, one top, one bottom. There was a cacophony behind Abe, of warden’s whistles blowing, orders to stop being ignored.

Jake’s son knew the process of this sight before him. A decision made, quite irrevocably, that a violent act was to be done. The mind flooded with stuff, a chemical to be sure, unless it called on genetic memories, from the atavistic past, summoned them forth like soldiers to make a man that many times stronger, blinder. A cannon, a bomb could go off and this man in this state would not hear it. A train could thunder through the room, scattering men and their bed sheets and heavy wooden benches, and this beast would not be diverted or distracted.

(I knew a man like this. He was my father. His violent acts are pictures imprinted on my brain. But I found greater strength to deny them influence, validity. And I still have that strength. I hope.)

Apeman’s lackeys did as instructed and shoved the two last benches closed to an inescapable V. Which Abe heard but didn’t see and walked
back-wards
into. Now he was gone. Just as Apeman was gone, if in his head, not of life at imminent end.

SHARNS HURRIED HOME, urged along by that voice, wishing she'd driven not walked. Lucked out with a taxi and was soon home and for once glad of it.

Till she heard the baby, and then found it in its cot, screaming its damn head off. Alistair was nowhere to be seen (when he's always here to cover for me. I thought it was our understanding. I thought it made him feel a lot better about himself ). Not that baby had her feeling better about herself.

She called out for Alistair, just in case. No response, and the baby's noise had risen to an almost unbearable urgency. Sodden in its nappy, runny pooh, it was all the mother could do to change it, wipe her clean. Felt like
strangling
the little shit. (Stop it! Stop screaming!) Where the eff are you, Alistair Trambert? I thought you were more responsible than me? Go to hell, buster. That's it for our friendship; why, I'd even dared to allow other thoughts in. Men, see? You all suck.

She just managed to hold herself together enough to take baby in the car
to — where? The service station, I guess. Only place I can get some powdered milk.

The drive seemed to take forever. It had rained since she came home, stopped again but left puddles on the uneven streets. Each felt as if a mirror of her, the lost, terminally confounded Sharneeta Hurrey.

At the service station she asked the man behind the bullet-proof screen for a tin of milk powder; both in their closed-off worlds to a young man who had been beaten near to death not far from here. Sharns just trying to fight off the dark, standing here under a hundred fluorescent light bulbs (and yet it's dark) as her baby shrieked like a dervish and the stars twinkled up there, sitting motionless in their foreverness (wonder how it is for you, other creatures out there? Oh, what sights and deeds of man and woman you stars have seen).

She drove home. Rachel continued her deafening noise. The world, the very air, throbbed with the child's (deliberate? Is she just being naughty?) God-awful noise. How long could a woman last without going, finally, over the edge? How long can I put up with this little bitch? Help me, someone. Please help (li'l) Sharneeta.