One Night Out Stealing (4 page)

Hey, Jube, wanna do some numbers? Hey, now you are talking, Sonny boy. Hit me. Okay, add these up: nine, seven, two, thirteen, twenty-thr – Hey! come on now, no twenties, Son, twenties aren’t in the rules. I thought you said you were good at numbers? I am but – Well, I don’t remember no
rule
bout no twenties. Well there is. So start again. Nope. Sonny, come on. Twenties allowed?
No,
man. Okay: add these; ya ready? Yep-yep, hit me withem. Right:
nineteen
, eleven, seventeen, fifteen – Hey! come on now, they’re all in the teens. Yeah, so? So play the fucking game, man. I am. I didn’t do no twenties. No, ya didn’t, ya just dropped down one cog and hit me with all teens. Then I ain’t playing, Jube. What? You heard. And fuck you too. (Good). Sonny smiling, leaning back and smiling. (Lettim have a little sulk. I don’t feel like listening to his talk.) Drinking rapidly himself so to dull that fear.

Soon Sonny able to enjoy the shifts in his beer-affected mind; of perspectives, and of it happening, sometimes, his mind really expanding. So he’d hear music. And see figures dancing intricately involved sequences to that music; seemingly of his own creation, since he never recalled any reference from ordinary life that might’ve gone toward it. Couldn’t. Because it was kind of classical. Like that stuff ya hear when you’re spinning the tuning dial in your cell trying to find a decent station, and ya hit onto something that really grabbed you; even though it was obviously highfalutin music, it still struck a chord. A something that you had inside yourself that you didn’t know about, not till the fluke radio dial tuning happened you onto this; a marrying-up in your mind, a settling of a peculiar curiosity that wasn’t there to start with but just seemed to pop to instant life at the music coming on, and with it satisfying the same something. (Hell, I dunno.)

Once he’d sat on the edge of his prison-cell bunk listening to some opera stuff he was about to spin off till it occurred to him that it seemed to be rolling his entire life – emotional life – through his ears, in his mind, in just the few minutes it took to hear it to completion. He’d wept that day. Just sat on the edge of the lower bunk and wept. And his head remained filled with what made him weep; echoing over and over and over till a screw gently announced that he’d better pull himself together because the main prisoner populace were heading back in from optional exercise-yard
walking
. He didn’t remember if he said thanks to the screw, but probably he did.

But no music now. Nor dancers. Just the stars in their forever mystery, and Jube having a sulk beside him. Hey, Jube, you ever wonder about the stars? Nope. Not even a little bit? Nope. You still packing a sad? Nope. So how come you don’t wonder about the stars? Cos they don’t wonder about me, hahahaha! Yeah, that wasn’t a bad one, Jube. I know it wasn’t. Humour’s my ace card – when it suits me. That right? You bedda believe it, Son. Wanna hear some jokes? Oh yeah, long as they don’t have
rules
you just decide on on the spot. Sonny? Yeow? You’re a cheeky cunt. Thanks, Jube. Did you know that the whole universe started with one big bang? Well, I’ll be – And that it’s expanding and expanding and then it’ll reach a critical point so it can’t go no farther then it starts coming back in? Well I never, Sonny Einstein who’s been doing his reading in the prison library. Jube, are these your jokes you’re saying after I’ve said sumpin? Take em how ya like – Einstein. Hahaha. Night parting outside. The beer hitting the right spots. Speed not so fearful.

They were good guys weren’t they, Son? Who, man? Pete and his pals in Wellington. Oh them? Yep, they were okay. I thought we might put it on em. Put what, not the hard word surely? Ha-ha-ha. Sonny, that was very funny for you. Thanks, Jube. But I meant a team-up job. Oh? Yeah, like in we team up withem sumpin big, like the job they’d done day before we met em, the warehouse. What, another warehouse? No, man, just in general. So why’d they wanna team up with us for? Cos we
got
on,
Sonny-fucking-
negative-Mahia
. So? So I got this strong gut feeling that they might have other big jobs on they’d need a bit of expert help on. We’re experts? Oh come on, ya wanker, you’re making it hard for me to keep my patience, I’m warning ya. Jube, I ain’t trying out your patience –
Yes ya are. No I’m not; just trying to figure out why these guys we met for one night, even though we did crash at their place for the night, what they want to team up with us out-of-towners for? Numbers, Sonny, that’s what. Gophers, extra bodies to carry the stuff off the premises. What premises? What premises …? Sonny, are you taking the piss? No, man, I – Then shuddup, will ya. Hear me out. Okay? Okay, Jube.

Now, I figured having us’d be two advantages: first, we’re extra carrying labour; second, we’re from out of town so we can arrange the fence to buy at our end, so there’s no connection, no tie-up with Wellington from their end, and to tie-up with us on the job itself our end. Simple? Oh yeah, real simple. What’s that mean? Oh, you know. No, I don’t know, and pass me a can while you’re at it. I think it’s too, like, loose, ya know? No, I don’t fucking know. Are you saying it sucks as a plan?

Well … Sonny shrugging, for what it was worth in the
part-dark
and Jube’s eyes on the road anyrate. Hearing Jube’s
tch-tching,
and telling Sonny, Sometimes I wonder about me and you, what we got in common, what use we are to each other with me doing all the criminal thinking and you doing all the dumb-star-stuff
thinking
. Ya know that? Well, I have thought about it, Jube, I must admit. And? And like, you know – Don’t keep saying you know all the fucking time. Okay, and like I’ve come to the same conclusions – but … Sonny pausing, just to irritate. And it irritating: But fucking what! But there’s other times when we do need each other. Oh yeah, since when? Since every week when one of us runs out of bread first and the other one carries till Thursday or the next burglary. And that’s it then? Jube turned his head for a second. It’s a start, and I ain’t heard you complaining before now, other than your, you know, usual grump with the world. Hey, man, you are taking the piss outta me, aren’t ya? Nope. Ya are. I said nope, Jube, so come on. Jube not saying further. Onward.

Jube, you ever think about us, where we’re going? Oh yeah, all the time, Sonny. (Oh?) Like now, we’re headed for Wellington, Sonny, and in a few days we’ll be headed to Auckland. We’ll be loaded up with hot goodies we might even have a hired truck full a the stuff, which’ll head us for the different fences we – I mean
I
– know. We’ll have ourselves, with Pete and his Wellington boys, a massive celebration party with half a k a dope, heads a course, and piss coming out our ears. We’ll order Kentucky Fried and
McDonald’s at a hundred bucks an order, which we’ll feed our party pals with. We’ll go to sleep where we fall, we’ll wake with a fridgeful a cold piss. And they’ll be no shortage of sheilas; I’ll pick who I want from the Tavi, hire some I have to, long as I have myself one within easy fucking distance. So, that’s were we’re headed for the next lil while. That answer your questions?

Sonny waited. HAHAHAHAHA!! for Jube to do just that. Sonny sighed. He gurgled a can from opening to emptying, nearly threw it back up, but held it. He lit a smoke. Didn’t answer Jube’s going, Hey ya still talking to me? Hahahaha. Not till a kilometre or two went past and the one-hit can’d done its work. Sonny felt better. Better able to cope with Jube, their tangents of difference. He asked again: But seriously, you think about – Oh, every minute of the day, Sonny. Yep, I think about my life, you know, how I wish I was a brain surgeon – no, make that a motor mechanic – Hey, really, Jube? Yeah, really and truly; don’t tell me you didn’t know that about your old inside cellmate and outside flatmate, now come on, Sonny? You’re kidding me, aren’t ya? Oh no, Sonny, I wouldn’t do that. Why, only yesterday I was gonna ask you, Sonny how do I get myself qualified as a motor mechanic, cos I’m sick of being a thief. Aw, you’re having me on, man. Paying me back, eh? Yeh! I’m paying you back. And I don’t wanna hear no crap bout going straight, cos I never wanted that not in my entire life. I can’t even lie straight in bed, and that’s cos I don’t want to. I was born bad and that’s how I like being. And I’m beginning to worry about you, Sonny-
fucking-Mahia
.

How come? Cos you all the time think-think-think. Nothin wrong with that, man. There is; it’s not right. It don’t
sit
right, ya know? It sounds like – makes you sound like some fucking con ready to turn into a nark cos sumpin inside you is busted. Jube, I wouldn’t nark on –
I
know ya wouldn’t, but there’s plenty who’re asking me questions about you, Mahia. Like who? Like half the dudes in Tavistocks for starters. Yeah, well, they hardly count. I mean, who the fuck are they? They, Sonny, are your peers, whether you like it or not. Ya got that? No way. They are, Son, and they can sense you ain’t one of them no more. One day they’re gonna get a little delegation together and sort you out. Nah, come on, why’d they do that? Who’ve I ever harmed? That don’t madda a shit to them; it’s how they see you. You know the score anyway; inside you got hassled for being what you are, which is too much of a head-man.
Our kinda people, man, they don’t trust those who live in their own heads, ya know? Half your sentences you spent in the library. And you wonder why your own kind are a bit iffy about you?

Sonny shook his head. Nothing to say to that. Nothin. Not sure if it hurt or he was pleased that his Tavi bar peers saw him as something different. (But, man, I don’t wanna be sumpin I ain’t. I just want, like, some sorta peace. In my mind, and from there in my life. I wanna turn this fuckin life around; that’s what it is, what it’s always been – But
how
?
How, man?) Oh, crack another can. That always cures it, eh Jube? Hey, now you’re talking a language I understand, lil man. Onward.

(… like someone’s opened a door for me. In my head. This door. Opening, but just a peek, to start with. Then slowly swinging open to reveal this other world – that’s inside
my
head? No? Yet it is. And look, there’s the dancers; they’re men for some reason, and they aren’t any particular race, they’re just neutral faces that are beautiful but in a strange way. Now they’re dancing. And there’s music. Oh, don’t let me lose this.) Sonny fixing his mind’s eye on this event taking place, not daring to move, hardly even to breath. (The music isn’t recognisable either. More a beat. Yet there are stringed instruments, maybe they’re violins. But the dance isn’t like that, violinish, and yet it all fits. It fits. And it’s so clear; yet I’m not dreaming, I’m sitting here in this car watching this dreamlike sequence taking place right –) HEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!

The car lurched wildly, crossed the white line, and Jube shrieking his laughter, AHAHAAARRRRRRGGGGH-HAHAHAHA! at the first possum of the night, frozen in the headlamp glare, every little detail of rat-like face and pricked ears as clear as day; picture of dumbfounded unknowingness, thick tail laid out behind it like a veil, a death veil, if they have such things.
Thuck!
Death coming in a glancing blow of rubber at a hundred miles an hour.
Gotcha!
Hahahaha! Man, them possies’re sure suckers for death. Hedgies, though, ya gotta watch for the hedgehogs their prickles don’t puncture your tyre. Aw, come on, Jube, they don’t puncture – They fuckingwell do. (Well, I’ll be damned, eh Nose? I don’t believe it for a moment.) That right? That’s right: hedgies-puncture-tyres. What, you calling me a liar? Would I be so stupid as to do that, Jube? Nah, I don’t think you would. But then, with you, Sonny Mahia, a man can never tell. Pass me one.

Little hiss of Jube tearing the tab on the can, as Sonny lit two cigarettes, handed one to Jube. Ta, man. Jube’s face slightly aglow as the ember switched on like a light. Bubbling sound of him taking a drink from the can. Outside, reflector strips flashing regularly by. Farmhouse lights on Sonny’s side up on a hill. And where, sure as free-range eggs, that window glow was firelight. Fireglow and Mummy-warmth. And her brood sat around the fire, eyes locked into the dance of flames. And Dad reading a story. Tummies full from Mum’s best cooking, a roast, no doubt. Okay, story’s over, it’s dishes time, kids. Aw, Dad. No aw Dads. But can’t they wait till the
Cosby
Show
’s
over? Oh alright then. Their dad’d be one of them kind. A good bastard.

(Not like mine. I hated my old man.) After the dishes he’d help put em to bed, then he and wifey’d go back to the fire. Hehehe. Come and sit down here on the rug, dear. Down she be, legs drawn up to catch the heat around her area. Hon? Hmmm? Come a little bit closer. Smiling at him, his hand reaching out for that smooth line of drawn-up legs. Oh, honey.

Blast of air from Jube’s window gone down. Not a sound, though, from the can tossed to the wind. No different, Sonny in an instant reminded, from a borstal minister putting to his youthful, incarcerated audience, Would there be any sound in the case of a piece of ice breaking from a main body if there were no ears to hear it? Really got them thinking. And flummoxed. Stumped the lot of the dunderhead boobheads. Then one dude, Moomoo Jacobs was his name, asked: Whassa fuckin difference? And everyone laughed away their confusion. Sonny still had occasional ice dreams. The break-offs sounded like rifle cracks.

Flash of silver out front and Jube swinging for it. Too late. No thud of impact. Hey, what’s a frog doin out here in the middle of the night? Dunno, Son. Maybe it couldn’t sleep – HAHAHAHA!

Cans getting warmer. So drinking for effect, not the pleasure of ice chill in mouth, against throat. Just effect. To shut out the whatevers they permanently were with people like them. And don’t forget the smokes: that need to suck, to satisfy sumpin of the mouth.

I ever tell you that poem I wrote got printed in the
Star
?
Yeh, ya did, lotsa times. And not as if it was printed, man. Was the Memorium column and you paid for it. Okay, okay, I wasn’t saying it was a normal poem. But I still made it up. None a that copycatting
like other people do in the In Memorium. I composed it all by myself. Wanna hear it? If you insist. But you slow down a bit first. Why’s that? So I can concentrate. Okay man, a deal. The engine went instantly quieter. Ya ready? Come on, man, get on with it. Well I’m
sorry,
Mr Mahia, don’t want you late for your
appointment
with the Prime Minister now, do we? Here we go: