One Night Out Stealing (5 page)

Hey, Ace weren’t American. Jeezus, Sonny! you interrupted me – and I never
said
he was American. Yes ya did. No, ya spoon, that’s just a saying, it’s a – You wouldn’t understand. You gonna let me get on with it?

Silence. And the car still at its reduced speed. (I can hear his heart thumping. He thinks he’s on the tv, in the movies. He’s sucking on the emotion like a kid on a last bit of lolly. He thinks –) Makes you feel, don’t it? Uh well, yeah. Guess it does. Guess it does. But did it, like, sound okay to you? Yeah, it did. Ya sure? Sure I’m sure. Not having me on, are ya? No way. Thanks, Son. I, uh, preciate that. You know? Yeah, I know. As the speed gradually increased.

The shifts. Beer shifts. Of mood, and perspective. Now attitude as Jube went Huh? at an oncoming set of lights not responding to his foot tap of dip to full to dipped beam. A pause of his anger coming up, then: Give
me
full beam, ya cunt – wrenching the wheel over, taking them to the other side of the white line. Now
muthafucka, see what ya made of. Through his clenched teeth, Sonny could hear it even over the constant roar of powerful engine, the shift in Jube’s mind. From ten, fifteen kilometres back of getting all sentimental over his late pal Ace killed himself in his V8, to this:
Come
onnnnn!
and the floor dip switch a staccato hammer of Jube’s foot hitting it. COME ONNNN! Sonny’s eyes opening and closing about the same rate as Jube’s foot was going on the dip switch. (We’re gonna die.) Jube?
Come
onnnn,
muthafucka.
Jube!
Come
– HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Sonny opening his eyes to see the victory of the other car pulled over off the road with its light going from dip to off. Jube’s window belting down, and an arm going out,
GOTCHA!
Hahahahahaha!!
His triumph bellowing no different to the earless break-off of ice in remote Antarctica.

Did ya like that, Sonny? Yet nothing genial in his tone – cold. The beer shift had him in that cold mode, and only extremes would briefly warm him. So next it was a truck that wouldn’t dip its lights on instant command from Sir Jube. And over he went, to the oncomer’s side. As oncomer barrelled towards them maybe half a kilometre away, lit up like a Christmas tree how they like to these truckies, something childlike in their make-up; the dackadackadackadacka of Jube on and offing the dip to full.
Me
and
fucking
you,
buddy.
The cab outline doing a little wobble of no doubt disbelief. Hey, come on now, Jube … Once was bad en –
You
and
me,
cunt.
Come on, ya fat prick of a truckie, let’s see who breaks first.

The full beam of truck headlight getting through Sonny’s closed eyelids. So he opened them – shut em again.
Jube!
Fuck up. Then came a horn blast. Coulda been a fucking great ship bearing down on em in the night. Jube? (Hate your guts, Jube McCall.) Foghorn blast and juggernaught rumble closing. Then it was a violent swing of movement as Sonny caught the da-dada-da-da! of horn. It could have been a long, echoing laugh.

But Sonny not prepared to taunt Jube on conceding. Too risky; he might play chicken to the bitter end next time. Bigger than us, eh Jube? Took Jube some time to respond, and then it was just, Yeah, was a bit. And silence.

They pulled over at a rest area layby. Not far back the sign’d said Wellington was forty kilometres to go. But nowhere to crash, put their heads down. And too dangerous to sleep in a car in the city, ya might get mugged. Eh Sonny? Jube from the front seat and
Sonny laid down in the back, be a bit of a downer we got mugged by our own kind? Sure would, man. Like my sound system, eh Son? Stolen by our own kind. Who’d do a thing like that? They must’ve seen the paint-job on the car, shoulda told em it belonged to one of their own? Any fucking wonder I got so upset, eh Sonny? Yeah, I don’t blame ya, Jube. Was a good system, wasn’t it, Sonny? (Shifts. Now he’d shifted to his wanna chat mode. The whining lil boy kinda chat, of just before tuck-in-time: Mummy, guess what
happened
? But I don’t wanna hear his voice. It’ll enter my dreams, gimme nightmares. I been to sleep with that voice in my ears, echoing in my head well over a thousand nights of imprisonment. A break. Gimme a break, will ya, Nose?) Night, Jube. Hey, ya not going to sleep already, are ya? Sure am. I’m tired. The thump of Jube turning his sulking form either facing the seat or the underside of his dashboard.

Lying there, sleep not yet signalling it was near; and a man knew his sleep pattern off by heart from them days of prison
introspection
. Sleep, it was a trickle, Sonny was certain, of this chemical coming from someplace in the brain. And it didn’t come then, nor did sleep.

The night chill coming in through the breeze of Jube with his cowboy-booted feet stuck out the passenger’s window. Sonny curled up like the fetus every crim is: huddled unto himself, lost of the womb-warmth, Mummy-warmth (that wasn’t there to start with), just this curled thing taking comfort from itself, since there weren’t no-one nor anything else to take it from.

The stars. Just one opened eye out the window away. A
twinkling
up there in the forever mystery for all men. Sonny staring at them. Wondering about em. Nothing deep, just a small curiosity and a little larger puzzlement. Hearing Jube’s movement then the window going up; must’ve got too cool even for him, Mister Tough Guy who don’t never dance cos tough guys they don’t. Watching the unending vista of stars, till they gradually disappeared behind the fog of Jube’s always troubled breathing and his not-untroubled quieter own. Till that tiny leak of chemical told him sleep was on its way, if not necessarily peace.

In this bar. The same one they were in last visit. Two hours they’d been there, since just after nine this morning; an early opener, like Tavistocks back home in Auckland. Caters for the desperate and the fancy-free. Not
forgetting
the dregs of society who can’t conform. Started off with a handful plus Sonny and Jube, then grew to about the two-dozen mark, and not yet noon. Look atem, they’re scum, Jube every so often scowling. Giving off this eerie hum of collected talk. Alkies, near to a man, and no women to be seen. And look at him over there, that wanker, jeezuz fucking chrise but ya don’t see that even at the Tavi, eh Son?

At this dude, he wouldn’t be more’n forty, meant to be in the prime of his accomplished or contented life and here he was in a sleaze pit, staggering in a tight circle round and round and
gibbering
like an animal. A fretting one. And lookit them packa arseholes over there. Jube sparing no-one, a group of derelicts huddled at a standing table, in threadbare clothing and with filthy matted hair, but it was their teeth, their mouths that gave them away: gaps, gums, gaping holes in acts of insane laughter – Man, what the fuck are we doin here anyway? Sonny wanting to know.

Pete. We’re waiting for Pete to show.

And if he don’t?

He will.

But if he don’t?

Sonny, he’ll show.

By four o’clock, and both of them getting well on the way, the guy hadn’t showed. Sonny came back with two more jug refills, asked Jube for some small change for the jukebox. Jube laughed, No way, Maori boy, you’ll only play your coon music, hahaha. Then Jube’s face changed: Hey? You’re not saying you’re broke, are ya?
Yep. Broke as. Aw come on, Sonny. No come ons. Broke is broke. Was my turn to do the power bill Friday. Left me with about
thirty-five
from my dole. I’m here, I been here, what, eight hours, and it’s done run out, my main white man. Sonny breezy on the beer and no food from since the night before. Jube shaking his head in dismay. But you shouldn’t be broke, Jube, are ya? Jube brought out a twenty-dollar note as answer. That’s it? This is it, Sonny. How come, man? You didn’t have no power bill to pay. I bought half a dozen bullets. Half a fuckin
dozen
?
At ten bucks each? Yep. And you smoked em all since, when, Friday? Jube nodded, And you helped. Hey, I had one lousy joint on Sunday; why I agreed with your fool idea to go on the cruise. Let’s go cruising, Sonny, that’s what you said in your stoned state. Let’s go south again, but try the east coast through from Taupo, we might even pick up some Swedish hitchhikers and they are just
born
to love fucking, that’s what you said, Jube McCall.

Pete’ll show.

Pete won’t show, and why didn’t you organise sumpin better?

Oh? Like me phoning my secretary, This here’s your boss, Girl Friday. Can you phone Pete the Wellington burglar and make an appointment with him? That’s a good girl – Oh, and remind me to feel you up next time I’m passing. Come on, Sonny, don’t worry so much. Pete and his boys’ll show.

Six o’clock and Jube growling at Sonny to slow down cos there wasn’t no more bread to buy any more jugs. The permanent drunks around them in their intended states, and throwing punches at invisible ghosts of their forever haunting; flubbed out on their feet, hardly able to stand but somehow managing to; breaking out in weird cries that seemed to source from deeper than even their tormented hells of souls. And their two observers falling into their own gloom.

The laughter, even the encrazed laughter from the
brain-addled
, more and more sounded like a happiness that the out-
of-town
pair didn’t have. A drizzle started visible through the grimy window that looked over the carpark, where Jube’s dirty
undercoat-grey
monster was parked like some terrible guard creature waiting for its master. And more and more people coming in, but a lot of them workers in workers’ clothes and good honest thirsts, and something else enviable about them too. Outside, the drizzle’d quickly turned to steady rain. The pair were down to their last inch
of beer in each glass, and staring at it or at the rain shrouding Jube’s V8 monster.

Jube grabbed for the smokes, Oh jeezus, not the fucking smokes too; there’s five left. Though he lit one regardless, and so too did Sonny. And a moment of eye glance between them had the uneven number remaining in the packet a separate determination on the part of each.

The patronage, who were Jube’s scum of earlier, were no longer that; in fact, they took on an air of security that the pair were without. If only for the fact that they appeared to have money enough to see the drinking process to its intended end: oblivion. Not to mention no shortage of smokes. As well, it seemed they had the emotional security of having their own kind to talk to, tell lies to, exaggerate to, laugh with, toast, throw ever-expansive arms around each other. Again, another whole point of the drinking process: to break free.

And it didn’t fit. Wasn’t right. That they, the out-of-town duo, come to town with their big dreams of criminal teaming, city-
to-city
A Team of burglars, they who supposedly had the greater freedom and therefore the greater scope, should feel inferior to a barful of alcoholics and enslaved workers. That’s it! Jube’s fist thumped on the table. We are out of fucking here. Fuck Pete. Fuck this whole town. It sucks. Marching toward the door, scattering drinkers as he did, Get outta my fucking way.

In Jube’s car being driven at high speed in the city confines, though not much traffic left of city workers heading for suburban homes. Hey, that’s the Beehive, man. Where the PM his-self works. Fuck the PM. Only PM I’m interested in is Pall Mall smokes, Jube fluking the joke. Nor did he laugh. Speaking of smokes, who’s having the last one? Sonny not answering, looking out his window.

Sonny?

Yeow?

Where’s that last smoke?

Man, it musta smoked itself all up – hahahaha. Though Jube didn’t echo the laughter. Just scowled; told Sonny, You’ll keep. And try the ashtray. But Sonny shook his head. Man, you and I both smoke em right down to the filter. Take a look anyway. Sonny did so. Nope. Sorting through the pile of filters, ash and matches, and not a butt worth smoking. Jeezuz fucking chrise.

Jube drove them aimlessly. They ended up out the other side of
the city, which the shop signs said was Oriental Bay. Jube mumbling that it didn’t remind him of nothin Oriental, just another New Zealand bay. Where’s the Chink food shops? Rain driven at an angle by the wind. Up a hill off to the right – sea was on Sonny’s side, the left – and the houses looked very robbable, so Jube’s mood picking up a little. Tanight, bro, we’re back here tanight. Eyeing the houses hungrily. And so was Sonny, though his mind as much on the food that might be in the fridge, and hoping the people were smokers, which wasn’t very often when you hit a posh home. Not even ashtrays in most ofem.

Yep. Jube turned around up the top of a long, winding climb. This’ll do the boys tonight, my lil man. Back down the hill. We’ll wait it out someplace we don’t get reminded of smokes. And food too, man. And food.

Down the bottom of the hill, turn right. May as well follow the sea, eh Sonny? Round a sharp bend, Jube on the wrong side, a near miss with a car, hitting its horn at Jube and he giving the fingers back. Pulling his arm back in, It’s wet outside, Sonny, hahaha.

Sea beside churned up by the wind. Out of the sea loomed a figure on a sailboard. Heyyy! thas us, Son. That’s us, at this lone dude in a brightly coloured wetsuit riding his board over a boiling sea. Man alive! Sonny in admiration. And Jube grinning the same. Man triumphing over the elements, Sonny thinking as Jube slowed right down. Till he felt the different movement. Then it didn’t seem possible.

Not with how they were feeling. Not when out of their gloom had come that apparition riding the waves, belted along by the wind, and so both had taken hope from the sight. Even with being broke, hungry, out of smokes, you’d still taken hope. So it didn’t seem right – it was an incomprehensible wrong and yet it fitted all the same – that you should be chugging to a halt with Sonny looking at Jube staring at the gauge that was reading E for empty of petrol.

And so far from home.

Two drenched lurkers in a city park, waiting for night to fall and a chance to come by.

Sonny, shivering with cold, dreading the embarrassment, the shame of being caught in this position by some happenstance cop,
or a sharp-eyed John Citizen; crouched, uncomfortably, behind shrubbery with back exposed to the rolling openness of
tree-studded
parkland.

Stationed opposite, Jube, across the small chasm of bank
divide
; and below meandered a path, partly illuminated by spillover light from nearby lamps. Of the kind you see in spooky old English movies, with mist or rain shrouding the scene, the pending scene.

Smells of earth and flower and leaf everywhere. City hardly a few minutes away, though you wouldn’t think so with the quiet; only the thrum of rain. The path crossed every once in a while by late-evening hurriers under umbrella, or huddled into raincoat; unknowingly watched by two desperadoes gone of the warmth of their mobile home. And no money to get it going again; it’d been drunk and then pissed, urinated against just another stainless-steel urinal in just another lowdown bar with fellow flotsam. But it’ll be a piece a piss, Sonny, Jube’s words echoing in his mind as the rain ran off his face in rivers. Soon as it’s dark, I’ll pick the mark, then I give you a raised-arm signal and you only signal back if it ain’t cool. It’ll be as easy as that, bud, I promise you.

But Jube’s promise that Pete and his boys’d be in the bar was what had them now here in the first place – cos all the bread’d got spent hanging around on a hope, a notion, a criminal wank notion. (Fuck him.) A cinch he said it was gonna be. That was back then, when they were walking their dejected states into town, when their desperate destinies’d seemed twinned. Back then, it was an abstract. Just another Jube half-mad idea: I know! Find a park and mug someone. Mug someone? You kidding? The hell I’m kidding. Never been more serious. But why can’t we do a house? No getaway vehicle, remember, Sonny? No getaway vehicle with the park
neither
. Don’t need one. Run across the park’s what we do after the biz. And anyone following’ll have to the same, right? Don’t worry, Sonny, it’ll be a breeze.

Yeah, a breeze, a cinch, a piece of piss, an easy-meat
bowl-over
– fuckin crook-breezy confidence that had nothin’ – ever – to do with how things actually turned out. Story of our lives. We fuck up.

Sonny miserable in his muscle-cramping position. You leave the bizzo side to me, cuz – Oh, Jube was so sure of himself at every new turn of sudden impulsive idea he got: Just leave it to me, Sonny my main lil man. Calling a man that cos it made him feel bigger.
First dude I see looks worth taking I’ll be onim like one a them big cats.

And now, Big Cat calling from across the way, Hey bro! Saves having a shower, eh? His chuckle no less hideous for the rain part muffling it.

Two lurkers in a city park.

Came the sound of whistling – whistling? Then out of the rain, down there on the eerily lit footpath, a figure striding beneath a big umbrella that exploded in bright colours even in the sheeted wet. Whistling in this? Sonny stared down at the figure, his step-out of dark-trousered leg, his whistling in sharp time to his walk. (Man, to be in his head, eh?) As Whistler marched as quickly out of view as he’d come; and Sonny betting the guy’d be going home to a real nice wife, full of positivism like her hubby: How’s your day been, darling? Oh just fine, thank you, and yours? Oh, you know, mustn’t complain. Life’s too short. That sort of exchange. Kissing each other hello: mmmm-uh! And a mirrored wink for the laters to come. Then the kids, falling over themselves to greet the father. Hey, Dad! Hey, Dad! Guess what? Guess what! (I seen it on the tv. At the movies sometimes. Ya only have to watch Cosby to know that some people they do live really happy lives, even when they’re having their downers. Stability. It’s the stability they got that people like me don’t have, that’s what it is. (Is it? How would I know?) Things get sorted out. Problems, big and small, they get resolved. And sure it’s only a tv family of actors – but it’s still based on sumpin, ain’t it? Like, if the acted situation exists, then so can the reality, can’t it? Oh God, I don’t know …)

Staring into the rain-filled space where’d strode the Whistler. Man, I bet he fucks her tonight. Probably why he’s got sumpin to whistle about. I would too I had a real nice someone to go home to. Rain, hail or snow, too. Not for Mr Whistler some picked-up slut from barlife sleazeville, or at a party where the sleaze moved their activities to; a sheila who chews gum or smokes a fag while you’re trying to reach her, find that sumpin special of womanhood a dude like you needs to find or it’s all fucking meaningless, it may as well be a sheep from a paddock, a piece of meat that ya hump in and out of till you’re spent. You wanna show her your specialness of tender concern, your depth of unnerstaning, you ain’t no Jube McCall wanting only to shove her down on your meat as he calls it.

Nope, none of this type for you, Mr Whistler, you and yours’ll
be
loving,
and journeying the depths of each other, I know ya will. Not like a Tavi moll who’s all wrong timing and harsh kisses and untender touch. And talking like that Lyn of Tawa on the tv: Sunnee, didja like me straightaway when ya firz saw me? Or you’ll be inside her and she’ll wanna know what kinda car do ya drive, Sunnee? Is it fast? Is it a Vee-ate? So yeah, Mr Whistler, not for you dying inside her because of sumping she said that was not near of the moment.

Ya wouldn’t unnerstan, Mr and Mrs, that our girls, our
women
, are basic functions of crude back motive, of: What’s it worth if I let you have your way, Sunnee? Of dry twat and hard-kissing lips. Not for your Mrs Whistler to fail to reach your partner; it, love, is a refined process for you both. It is part of the great reflection of having class and breeding, and a little bit of money probably helps too, though it ain’t necessary, not on its own. (I’ve read it
somewhere
… Oh, I know: was a book, that’s right. I was only young, a teenager – Jesus, it was borstal. Borstal. And I was doing solitary. Just sixteen and doing solitary.)