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

own. Till that tiny leak of chemical told him sleep was on its way, if not necessarily peace.

3
    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