One Night Out Stealing by Alan Duff Read Free Book Online Page A

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 andSonny 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