Jake's Long Shadow (13 page)

TWO SCREWS ESCORTED Apeman from the main wing to the office area, the grilles clanging shut behind them as familiar as a toilet flushing, meant nothing, not after going into the seventh year. Maybe not ever.

The screws made jokes about Apeman’s face tats sure to go against him, even though it was only a transfer application, not a parole bid. Then again it might turn the rich woman committee member on, said the big Maori screw, who even Apeman admitted was a friendly and humorous man, for a screw he was, and he never threw his weight around, yet you didn’t mess with him neither. He respected you, you respected him.

Whatever, said Ape. Whatever happens happens. In that way of his, never meant nothin’, nothin’ close to thought came into play, it was just th’ mouth lettin’ go with sumpthin’ to pass the time a day, eat up another minute without you knowin’ it’d passed. That much closer.

In the meeting room in the admin block the three committee members were at the far end of the table whilst Apeman sat the door end, between the
two big screws (real apes), so if he cut up rough they could drag him out before he could reach the good citizens. There were three committee members and the buffer between the female member and Apeman: Mr Grant, the 2IC, with years enough in the prison service to disbelieve
everything
an inmate said. It told like a neon sign on his permanently frowning forehead: never believe an inmate. And he was right, absolutely, without exception.

First to greet Ape was Neil Richmond, a lawyer known nationally for his pro-prisoner views and whom even the inmates had seen from time to time described in newspaper features as the ultimate bleeding-heart white liberal. He called Ape by his real name, the name on his file, Good morning, Montgomery.

Ape nodded back to the man whose efforts on prison inmates’ behalf, as their faithful advocate, they thought a joke. Since none of Richmond’s claims of injustice and unlawful acts against inmates was true. Strange, too, that he took his citizen peers to task for failed morality, whilst forgiving the far worse immorality of convicted criminals, especially dangerously violent ones. It was as if he felt the need to forgive them when he’d never forgive his own law-abiding contemporaries a fraction of moral descent or failure.

Then there was Pora. Manu Pora, the requisite token Maori and the only committee member being paid specially to be here. A pompous,
self-described
elder —
kaumatua
in the lingo — barely past fifty who wore a big jade piece outside his shirt so no one would miss the obvious point that he was a cultural Maori. Manu Pora was a charlatan, not fooling this warehouse full of raw charlatans. Being Maori, he was not here in a voluntary capacity like his two European contemporaries, he had a private contract. Pora was also on the Maori Leaders Roundtable, another bunch of corrupt men calling
themselves
Maori leaders, when the only leading they did was themselves to the public money trough.

Apeman Black knew how to play this Pora guy, with his own ace card: Maori. As in we’re victims. It’s never our fault. So he inclined his head in greeting a little more loaded with empathy than to the two white committee members. Men who needed each other.

Then there was the inevitable woman, even though Hotel Bad-arses was not a place for them, didn’t they know about men here and their attitude to bitches? (Guess they’re too arrogant to be told.) Worse, this one was filthy rich, the screws said her husband was on the Rich List. Rich and breezily
blind to her opposites in the money state not just in here, but most of the outside world.

Sarah Hudson was said to live in a massive mansion up on Ainsbury Heights. She insisted on being called Sarah, not Mrs Hudson, and mouthed every Maori word she thought correctly, when even uncultured dudes like Apeman could hear her pronunciation like missed musical notes. And for someone who claimed to care, she sure did a lot of talking and little listening. Though this time Ape sensed Sarah Hudson would be quiet, he saw the promise in her eyes of his transfer application already decided as far as she was concerned. She greeted him a cheery, Good morning, Monty.

In keeping with a (toughest) gang leader, he only nodded back and took his seat. But he sat down gentler than he might, what with so much at stake, made out like he was struggling with this formal shit, when he wasn’t. It was a game, and he felt he could play it better than they, easily better. Consciously, he lifted his tattooed face like a proud warrior of old. Greetings, (chief ) Ape said.

Greetings! Sarah Hudson near stood up in her toothy eagerness to return Montgomery’s surprise opening. The more when he turned to Pora and asked how he was, Kia ora. Pehana koe?

Pora replied in Maori, but couldn’t manage the smile getting beyond a breaking apart of lips, the upper in a neatly trimmed moustache. Then he opened with a karakia — a prayer to bless the meeting, asking that this occasion bring about a good outcome — spoken solemnly with the right gestures and expressions. And Ape sat there calculating that, on a $150-
per-hour
contract rate, the intoned words would have earned Pora about fifteen bucks. (What I earn in a month.)

Pora did the standard following speech in — convoluted — English on his and the inmate’s Maori ancestors, their wisdom, which he took as unquestioned, but even to an insensible Apeman prison-inmate doing life seemed ludicrous that wisdom from so long ago could have application in an unrecognisable age.

Next Pora took a shot at Europeans for overlooking, as he put it, what Maori had to offer by way of spiritual connection with another world, a different dimension, as if that in itself provided transport to a higher plane of existence. He said it in rather a smarmy way, even to Apeman’s life-hardened eyes, though that didn’t stop Ape from nodding in agreement, his eyes saying yes we did get given the rough end of the stick.

Then Manu Pora asked Apeman if he had considered their last proposal of doing a course on Maori culture, which was available in the Christchurch prison and run by a personal friend of his.

Ape made out to give it some thought, enjoying the silence becoming more and more awkward as he dragged it out. Depends, he said.

On what, Pora couldn’t keep the irritation from his tone.

Ape smiled — his way — a sideways twist of mouth that he knew contorted the tattoos into a more gruesome face (man, my ancestors must’ve looked mean-as). On if you approve my transfer.

Sarah Hudson spoke up: That’s what we’re here to make the final decision on, Montgomery.

Being called his proper name felt as strange as being called, say, Elliot. (No, make that James.) It didn’t set off the tuning fork, have him proud of who he was. It meant nothing. When the name Ape did. It was a low bass hum (like spoken from a dark cave, man).

He looked at Sarah (effin’ rich bitch) Hudson and said, Told you before, no one calls me that. My old man named me after this general in the war —

The Second World War, added Neil Richmond like a schoolboy shooting up his hand, not that he had fought in it. Too young. But his father had, Richmond said.

My … father, said Ape slowly but not deliberately, it just came out like that. He wasn’t a very nice man. (He was the opposite of nice, folks.)

We understand, said Sarah Hudson.

Ape looked at her for some long, unsettling for her, time. Then he said, I believe you, Mrs Hudson. Laying it on thick, the tone, the expression.

Please call me Sarah. Her tone saying, I’m no better than you. When clearly, demonstrably, in physical evidence terms alone, she monumentally was. Let alone the separate universe her wealth and class gave her.

Sorry, Mrs Hudson, I can’t. It don’t feel right. (Doesn’t come out right. It’s like we’re friends when we’re not and can’t ever be. Not even if we liked each other. I’m here, lady, and you’re over there, up there, in the high above.)

Whatever you feel comfortable with. And is there a name you’d prefer?

He smiled again, but differently. This was open. Amused in anticipation. It’s Apeman. Ape for short. Don’t think you’d feel comfortable calling me that, would you?

For a moment she was speechless. Lips slightly apart, involuntarily.

Then she said, Why that’s a most unusual nickname. And no, I don’t
think I could call anyone that. Do you mind Monty as our reference?

Monty’s fine, ma’m. Now, where were we? (You mean where was I, Apeman Black, ’cos I’m running this li’l side-show. This is my carnival. I’m the freak show turned master on these people.) That’s right, the Maori culture class, Mr Pora.

Mr Pora raised lidded eyes at Monty to stop this game-playing before he shut him down. But Ape wasn’t a man who could stop, not when he was on a roll.

What’ll the course do for me, Manu?

You’ll have to wait and see.

That a yes? (Yes, we’ll let you transfer to Christchurch.)

It’s not a no.

(So don’t press it, you’re saying, Pora?) Will it help me understand myself? Which gained a look of cynicism.

We all must understand our past to understand who we are.

Your people have been denied knowledge of their own past by a
succession
of white governments, spoke Neil Richmond. The Maori people are innocent victims of a racist, colonial past.

(Yeah, right. Me and my gang brothers, who’ve denied justice to everyone we made our victims. Stomped heads in, maimed and killed. Stole from, ripped off, destroyed physically, emotionally, financially. Yeah, sure, Mr Richmond, we’re the real victims if you insist.)

Can’t remember feeling deprived in that area, Mr Richmond. Like not in a colonial past (when only past I was affected by is my own childhood). Not where I’m seeing it from.

Be that as it may, Monty, the fact remains your people have suffered unjustly at our European hands, for generations. It’s why — for some reason he checked himself, then finished it — why so many prison inmates are Maori. It is not your fault.

So Ape knew he had two down and one, the Maori ironically, to go.

I knew growing up as survival (of her, my juju-lip old lady and him, a violent old man who didn’t care for any of us kids. Though it was his complete lack of communication that got to me worst. I wanted him to
talk
to me). Only culture I knew was drink and violence (which you come to imitate, then love to bits). Don’t remember no Europeans doing unjust stuff to us.

Well it’s true. Pora spat the words. For so long we’ve put up with our culture, our mana, trampled on by the Pakeha. Our values were treated as if
they never existed. It’s a good part of the reason so many Maori are here, why you are here, eh, Monty.

(Drop the familiarity, bro. We ain’t even on the same planet. In fact, I believe I’m one rung up from you on the morality ladder.)

Those who think knowledge is all written down — when it’s not, Pora continued. And his features leaked resentment. We are an oral culture and will always be. Who says we want this written culture of the European? Why can’t we have ours and they have theirs? It’s taken over a hundred and fifty years to get recognition from governments, from the Pakeha people. We have demanded they respect us, when previously they have treated us as if we didn’t exist. At last we are becoming the masters of our own destinies. We are in a cultural Renaissance.

(You mean you’re in the loop, Manu Pora, of getting paid simply for existing.) If you say so, sir. Apeman’s tone was loaded with contempt for Pora alone getting a fee for being here, when he should be alone in setting an example. One of the more friendly Maori warders would show Apeman and other inmates newspaper articles on Manu Pora and his cohorts, how they were raking in millions from government settling land grievances, asset
redistribution
, charging hefty consultancy fees, being involved in litigation.

Could you see yourself enjoying learning your Maori culture, Monty? Mrs Hudson, with desperation in her tone. We, the committee, feel
knowledge
of your past would be of great help to you.

That’s for people who’re getting out, Mrs Hudson. I’m doing life, remember?

Yes, but the average term is just over ten years. There is a future out there for you, Monty. And in only a few years’ time.

I think a few more than that for me. But you never know, they might see even I’ve got a good side. He turned on the smile in his eyes for Mrs Sarah Hudson. Then turned to Mr Pora.

You said a good part of the reason Maori are here is because our culture, our ways never got recognised?

Yes, Pora nodded.

You’re saying we’re as much the victim as the victims the court convicted and sentenced us over?

Yes, Pora gave an adamant nod. So did Richmond mirror him. Sarah Hudson’s mouth tightened as if in emotional empathy for a great injustice done.

So do I, members of the committee. Sure, I know I done wrong. But it don’t feel all my fault. It’s bugged me for years that something else, some bigger reason, is why I’m in here doing life for, well, killing someone, God rest her soul and may I be forgiven. We’re all in here because we’re Maori. I didn’t want to agree with Mr Pora, or you, Mr Richmond, ’cos you might think I’m making excuses for what I did. I killed someone. And I can’t deny my guilt there. But I know there’s other reasons for why I did this terrible thing. You’re right: it’s the system puts us here. A racist system.

No one noticed the Maori warden shift uncomfortably. And Ape, looking directly at Mr Grant, saw his usual cynical expression darken with the cloud of outright disbelief.

I don’t think that statement is in dispute, said Neil Richmond. Not in this room. Or not where the committee are concerned. My views on this are well known, which is why I believe, and I’m sure my two colleagues here feel the same, that we must all do our bit in putting right this systematic injustice carried out over nearly two centuries. My society, my dominant, dominating white Anglo-Saxon culture, mirrored by successive, oppressive governments, has caused virtually all of this grief, this suffering, this
unnecessary
harm and hurt to innocents. It is high time we put it right.