Thunder Road (5 page)

THE DAY STRETCHED before us like an untold story – full of possibilities and excitement. It was like I’d been bailed out of jail: I relished my new-found freedom.

Devon wooed Mrs Jacques with stories of the terrible living conditions he had suffered up North and how he was so pleased to be back ‘in the bosom of the family that’s more of a family than my real family’. I shrank a bit; it seemed mean to lead on people who believed you.

After breakfast Devon suggested that we go visiting, so we fired up the Escort and headed west. He wanted to know what I’d been up to while he had been away. I told him about the shop fight, the dinner party, the drunken escape. He hung on every detail. We drove on in silence for a while, then he turned to me and said, ‘You’re not tough enough to hang with the richies … specially try-hard doctor richies. You see, Trace, they’ve got where they are because they’ve played the game. Every fucken twist and turn. They were raised carefully, tried hard at school, worked hard for their quals, grafted hard for their money….’

‘You reckon being a doctor is hard work?’

‘
They
do, that’s the main thing. Then they slowly and carefully claw their way up so that their kids will have a shorter distance to claw. It’s a bit like evolution.’

‘So you reckon they’re tough?’

‘Shit yeah. They love the game. Anyone who doesn’t play it or doesn’t play it their way … they’re shit. You’re shit man.
I’m shit too. You had this curiosity value, because of the fight in the shop, but that was it. Don’t think for a minute that you were ever in there. In with a grin. You never blew it, Trace: there was nothing to blow. You were just the floor show for the night and you played it to perfection, right down to guiltily skiving off with the sheets.’

I said nothing. I was feeling scungy and small about what had happened anyway but hearing Devon talk made everything so much worse. I was stupid, a real country hick, just when I thought I knew a few things. I sat staring miserably straight ahead as we wound through the nameless, bleak suburbs.

Rebel was our first stop. Mr Midnight Autos lived out at a sort of half-country, half-town place on the western outskirts of
Auckland
. It was a house that had been lifted up on concrete blocks with the whole downstairs made into a garage and workshop. There were two more big sheds out the back. The section was huge and overgrown, with a corrugated iron wall all around. Something like a gang headquarters crossed with a wrecker’s yard. A lively Rottweiler was tied up by the gate. It seemed to know Devon but gave a couple of obligatory barks. He walked over and patted it as it stood up on its hind legs.

‘Hey Boris … good dog. This is the Bunker,’ he said, turning to me.

‘Why does he call it that?’

‘Well, Rebel, he’s a bit of a Hitler fan. He’s read
Mein Kampf
for Christ’s sake. The Bunker was where Adolf and Eva finally bought it when the Russians closed in on them. You should get him talking about it one day.’

We tracked Rebel down in one of the big sheds and I saw what Devon had been on about. It was full of Nazi bits and
pieces, most of it crappy replicas, but there was a big red flag with a black swastika hanging from the roof and Rebel had a real bayonet stuck into the surface of the desk.

Two identical MR2s side by side were getting the attention. It looked as if some serious mixing and matching had been going on. At the other end were a hoist, gas bottles, grinders, racing seats, sets of spotlights and piles of engines and mags. You could have built several cars with the bits. Rebel sat at a dirty old desk talking on a cellphone.

‘What are we after?’ I asked Devon.

‘Man, we’ve got to get you a car. People aren’t meant to walk.’

‘I’ve got to get some bread together first. I haven’t saved anything yet.’

He turned to me. ‘Let me tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘You never will.’

‘Yeah? So when do I get my car? I’d fancy a motorbike
instead
, I reckon. A big, old, oily Triumph. Something that really rattles and roars.’

‘Oi! It’s Jig and Trace,’ Rebel said, finally tossing down the phone onto a torn, detached car seat.

‘Hey Rebel, I need wheels for my man Trace here. He was on a date and had to catch a taxi.’

Rebel winced in mock pain. ‘It shouldn’t happen to a dog.’ He looked at me. He had mean, hungry little eyes. ‘What are you after, Trace?’

‘Well I’ve got fuck-all money, so I guess that would limit it a bit.’

‘A bit. It’s not about money, Trace.’ He fired a glance at Devon. ‘You’re just trying to save what you earn at the paint shop?’

‘Trying.’

He and Devon exchanged smiles and head-shakes like I was some kid who had gone off the rails.

‘So what would you like? Jig reckons a muscle car, an old Charger, four-barrel Holley carb, mags.’

‘No. I reckon a motorbike. British. Triumph Bonneville maybe.’

He seemed to consider it for a moment and then said, ‘Good call. Come with me.’

We walked over to the house and in the gloom underneath I could see a couple of bikes. One was the gaudy Kawasaki 250 Motocross that we’d seen on the back of the ute that first day, and the other was an old grey Norton Atlas.

‘Take the Norton. It needs someone to run it about, no one’s ridden it for a while. You’ll have to get reg and warrant for it, but Jig can help you with that, eh Jig? You still got that tame mechanic?’

‘Martin? Yeah he’s got a book of stickers.’

‘I just take it? What do you want for it?’

‘I’m not selling it man, I’m
loaning
it to you. I don’t have any plans for it at the moment. Fire it up.’

I turned on the ignition and tried to kick it over. The stiffness and the compression made it really difficult. It just chuffed, lifelessly.

‘Try turning on the petrol,’ Rebel said, pointing to the little tap under the tank. I felt a dork.

‘Let me have a go, there’s a knack.’

He pushed me aside and sprang down on the kick-starter. There was the slight chuff that signalled the willingness to fire. Second time around it roared. A big plume of blue smoke hung around us as the motor blew out the residue of old oil and dust. It was a beautiful, honest noise, a big, low-revving British twin:
750cc of the sweetest boof boof boof boof I had ever heard. Deep and straight, no turbo tricks, just metal muscle. It sang in my heart. I couldn’t believe it. What a buzz!

Rebel looked around for a helmet and found one of those bad-ass matt black jobs that gang members wear.

‘Here! Wear this. This is the deal man.’

I looked inside it, at the soiled foam liner. I wondered what heads had been in it before me.

‘Where did it come from?’ asked Devon.

‘Let’s just say the guy who owned it won’t need a helmet where he is. He lost it on the Te Rapa straights. Passing a car in the rain. Hit a milk tanker. This helmet was the only thing that wasn’t scrunched. It came off.’

‘Oh, great!’ I said.

‘Don’t worry about it. Helmets are just another fucken government con job.’

Devon nodded in agreement. ‘You shoot through, Trace. I’ll see ya in about an hour.’

I could see that I was being got rid of, that there was some other deal going down, but I didn’t care. I ambled out of the yard and back in towards town.

They both watched as I rolled the idling bike out the gates. The big Rotty gave my leg an interested sniff but backed off when I gave the Norton a rev.

‘It’s a beast!’ I thought.

The clutch was incredibly stiff, as though frozen. I found first gear and let it out with a jerk. The bike reared, but didn’t stall. We were off.

As I flicked up and down the gears I could feel things begin to loosen up. It was like the arthritic old joints of a sleeping giant. The dead weight of the bike disappeared as I found the
rhythm of throwing it over low on the corners. It was like
learning
to ride all over again.

The traffic thickened up and I spotted the motorway more by chance than anything. Time to open it up. I wrung my right hand back on the grip and felt the bite of the power train
bonding
with the smooth black road….

At about six and a half the torque flattens out and I click it on to third. The acceleration is still intense, fingers straining at the grips and helmet desperate to part company with my head. At 130 ks I chop into top. A cop car buzzes past on the opposite side of the motorway at 150. I’m gone at 170. I’m invincible, whipping past cars as though they were bolted to the highway. My eyes are streaming and I’m straining to see through slits. I see the green exit sign up ahead and begin the rapid clunk down through the gears. When my feet touch the ground at the lights they are numb with the tension and vibration, but my whole body is awash with adrenaline. I feel like a god wandering through mere mortals….

Riding that big old British cruiser had blown away the shame and the failure that had been sticking to me like a bad smell ever since Karen’s place. All that really mattered was keeping in the power band and choosing the right line for the corner. A lesson for me, I thought.

Back at Mrs Jacques’, I sat on the verandah staring at the Norton where it stood majestically on the front lawn. It was a beautiful object; no car combined such delicacy with such power. Some peasant had painted it all with matt grey paint. The first thing I’d have to do would be to get it resprayed in its original colours. It needed a wash so I attacked it with a bucket of water and dishwashing detergent. As I was scrubbing away at the layers of hardened crud on the tank I found the grey paint came off
too. Underneath it was shiny iridescent red: the original colour. They had sprayed over a perfectly good paint job! An hour of hard scrubbing and careful scratching with my fingernail
revealed
the Atlas in its original glory. Crimson tank and chrome mudguards: a 200 kilo thunder machine, from the days when Brit bikes ruled.

When Devon returned he was amused that the bike had changed colour.

‘A lot of Rebel’s vehicles are matt grey,’ he said. ‘He must like the colour. Maybe it reminds him of the SS.’

‘You don’t think it could be stolen?’

‘Stolen? Rebel? No! No, Trace! How could you? You ingrate!’ Then he burst into laughter.

‘Well, it’s all right for you, Devon. I don’t want to be riding around on a stolen bike.’

Devon held his hands out in the
calm down, calm down
mode. ‘It’s cool! My car’s a Rebel car. I’ve been stopped heaps. He knows what he’s doing, Trace. You got to have a bit of faith, man.’ He sang a few lines. ‘I’ll get you a warrant and reg next time I see Martin.’

‘Why does he call you Jig, Devon?’

‘Nickname. Short for Jiggaboo.’

‘Jiggaboo?’

‘Yeah, you know, nigger.’

‘No.’

‘Rebel and the guys he hangs about with hate blacks, eh. It’s like one of their articles of faith. See a black by himself and they’ll smash him. No questions asked.’

‘You mean Māori?’

‘Yeah. What do you think I meant? Nee grow?’ he said with big emphasis.

‘So he thinks you’re Māori?’

‘Maybe, he’s not sure … so it’s just Jig … to remind me … like I have a question mark hanging over me.’

‘Are you?’

‘My people are from Spain. Santos. That’s a Spanish name, eh?’

‘Oh. I assumed you were Māori, I guess.’

Devon’s tone changed. ‘Yeah, well I’m not. OK?’

It was one of those disappointing moments when you try to look past some major flaw in someone you admire. Try to pretend they didn’t have it.

‘Jesus, Devon. I’ve Māori on my mother’s side. What’s the big deal man?’

‘Yeah, well with skin your colour people don’t assume stuff, you know. It gives me the shits. I put up with Jig from Rebel, he’s a mad bastard … and he’s useful, but I get it a lot, and I’m sick of it.’

I put my hands up to say, ‘Chill Bro!’ I’d stumbled on some sort of big issue and I didn’t want to pursue it. I didn’t want anything to prick my little bubble of happiness. Somehow in the course of half an hour he had got me this glistening dream machine. I learned that day that there were two things you didn’t question with Devon; the other one was money. It was always trade or payback. Cash in the hand was always avoided. What would the payback be for me? And when?

A COUPLE OF DAYS after I got the Norton I found the nerve to drop around to Karen’s place. I had blown it but I wasn’t prepared to flag things so easily. I hoped that beyond her
parents
and the differences between our backgrounds we might still have the chance of getting something going. Thought we could rise above the fishhooks of family.

I had this idea that arriving with the clean washing might help smooth things over. I folded it neatly, bagged it and tied it to the back seat of the bike. By the time I arrived at the front gates I’d had second thoughts. My nerves were wavering. Maybe another peace offering was in order.

I knew this big rose garden that looked out over the sea. A good chance to ‘say it with flowers’. I went back and in a few minutes I had hacked off a big bunch of stems with my pocket knife. On the other side of the plots there was a bus load of old people wandering around yakking, so I tried to keep a low profile. But maybe a knife-wielding, rose-stealing motorcyclist isn’t that inconspicuous, because a posse of them bore down on me and drove me out of the gardens. One big old guy made a staggering rush to catch me so I had to shove the roses down the front of my shirt to avoid ‘an unpleasant incident’.

When I got to Karen’s the second time I drove up the drive and parked my bike right outside the front door. Karen’s mother answered the bell.

‘Oh, it’s Trace.’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘And what can I do for you?’ Her voice cold.

‘Yeah, I guess I umm … blew things the other night. That wine sort of snuck up on me … I’ve brought back your sheets.’

She seemed to soften.

‘And, umm, these roses.’

‘How nice,’ she said and then, ‘Trace, you’re bleeding.’

And so I was. The roses-down-the-shirt trick had scratched the front of my chest.

‘Just a flesh wound.’ And then, ‘Blood and Roses. Good name for a band.’

She seemed pleased with my wit.

‘That’s really sweet, Trace. Look, Karen’s not here at the moment. I’ll give them to her when she gets back.’

I was going to say how sorry I was: for getting drunk, for breaking the wine glass, for vomiting over the bed clothes, for coming across like a hoon. But it looked like I wasn’t going to get the chance.

I stood there on the step, wondering what the hell to do next, then Helena said something that was meant to resolve it once and for all.

‘Trace, this year is a really busy one for Karen. She has Bursary coming up and a lot is riding on how well she does. We like to treat her like an adult as much as we can but in this instance …’ she faltered, ‘… in this instance, Raymond has decided that it would be best for all concerned if she gives study her
undivided attention
.’

She said this crisply, like those politicians you see reading a prepared statement.

‘Isn’t she coming back to work?’

She shook her head.

We stood there for a moment or two. I didn’t know what else to say. She seemed to have a few things she wanted to say too,
but nothing came. It was tense and embarrassing. I was only one step from her, but the gap seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon. I had this feeling that someone else had stepped into my life when I wasn’t looking and had messed about with stuff. That I was crap, and a fool. I said goodbye and left.

Everything felt hollow on the way home. The bike’s hoarse exhaust note and massive weight were the only things that had any solidity. The rest of the world was as thin as tissue paper and in danger of floating away.

As I arrived back at Mrs Jacques’, Sergei was seeing off
August
at the front gate. He made some smart-arse comment as I climbed off but I couldn’t hear it because I had my helmet on. August’s mum, an upmarket blonde woman, was chatting to them both while her husband waited in the car. They both stopped talking and stared at me as I parked the bike. I stood there for a moment weighing up whether I should ask him to repeat it. A good excuse to give someone a smack in the mouth.

I slunk inside, annoyed that Devon hadn’t come home, and threw myself on the bed. I began to replay the scenes from my brief relationship with Karen, wondering if I could have done things differently. It was as if the family had dumped me for being me.

When Devon did finally return I could tell without getting up that he had a new car but I felt so shitty I wouldn’t even look out the window. He walked in the door and shot a glance at me, seeming to take everything in.

‘What’s up?’

‘I went around to Karen’s place to take back the laundry, make amends maybe. It didn’t work. I’ve become an instant leper.’

Devon grinned and shook his head. ‘I’ve never been one to say “I told you so” but … I told you so. Wake up, Trace, it’s the real world, not fairy-dairy-land. It’s ugly out there. You had a brush with the rich and boring. Don’t give a flying one, man. It makes you look so pathetic. You’re better than that.’

‘Devon, I reckon there are some things that you don’t
understand
. You weren’t there, eh?’

‘I’ve been there. I didn’t like it. I’ve done dumb stuff too. But not twice in a row. Rule number one: don’t play by their rules … you always lose.’

‘Yeah. What’s rule number two?’

He thought for a while, and then, in a quieter voice said, ‘Don’t want it too much. You don’t even know what it is you’re after. Look, Trace, I
know
real rich people. They’re not all like that. Just these “play by the rules” stiffs. They’re killers.’

I must have looked a bit down, because Devon got up, gave me a thump on the arm and said, ‘Come out with me, I’ll take you to meet my old mate, Wes. He’s the guy who first had the idea of importing used Japanese cars. Began shipping out four or five, now it’s a shipload at a time. Lives on Parasite Drive. Swimming pool, Bentleys and Jags, dodgy houseboys. He does it the way it should be done. He’s got style.’

I didn’t feel like socialising but it seemed a better idea than lying around feeling sorry for myself. Devon was dying to take me somewhere. Outside was the reason: a Subaru WRX. A rally car for God’s sake. You could see the faint outlines of
advertising
stickers beneath the matt grey primer paint.

‘Do I see the hand of Rebel here?’

‘Yeah, he’s borrowed mine for a while. He probably wants something legit.’

It was a difficult beast to get into because of the roll bars and
the tight racing seats. The inside had been completely stripped: the dashboard was a nest of gauges dominated by a huge tach. Devon fired it up. The motor snarled back with an ugly cackle. It was a bitch to drive: the clutch bit sharply and the motor’s power was so raw it had to be tamed. Devon struggled to keep it within the legal limit; it jerked forward like an unbroken horse, champing at the bit. One thing was for sure, it would cover quarter of a mile in half the time the Escort took.

By the time we made the waterfront Devon seemed to have the knack of it. When he laid rubber now it was on purpose, not bad driving. We reached the cliff-top road, which was lined with huge white houses crammed together like a jaw full of jagged teeth.

‘Paritai Drive, Trace. For people who have made heaps and heaps of money … and aren’t afraid to show it off.’

Wes lived in a sprawling white stucco place, the kind they built in the thirties, but it had been added to by each new wave of money that had rolled in. The driveway was as stuffed with big British metal as Devon had said it would be. This young Asian guy answered the door. He looked like Bruce Lee and seemed to share some private joke with Devon.

‘Hey Joey, where’s the padre?’

‘On a phone. Come through, Devon. He just asking about you las’ week.’

In the front room were all the reasons why people paid a million bucks to perch on a big cliff overlooking Auckland harbour. The dark water scrawled with their reflection, the city lights sparkled all around us. A man in his sixties wearing a white bathrobe ambled in, muttering away into a portable phone. He mimed a greeting to both of us and signalled Joey to
get us something to drink. Me and Devon sprawled on the big L-shaped bank of white couches and waited for the conversation to finish. Joey came back with beers in tall glasses, a tiny black coffee for Wes, then he disappeared.

‘Wes’ idea of a Jap import,’ Devon whispered, grinning.

I was trying to get a fix on what Wes was talking about. It was mostly numbers. Money I guess. Eventually he held the phone away from his head and pressed the off button while fixing us with a conspiratorial grin. Although pushing 70, there was
something
mischievous, almost boyish, about him. His watery blue eyes were the only touch of colour. His smooth, unblemished complexion was unnatural on a man of his age. As though he had never been exposed to the harshness of the atmosphere. Like a baby maybe or a maggot.

He had this fussy way of talking, as if he was dictating to someone in the next room; everything was said slowly, and with great care.

‘To what do I owe this late night visitation, dear boy, and who, may I ask, is this?’ He waved a spotted handkerchief in my direction.

‘This is my mate Trace, Wes. He’s from the Waikato … a
simple
country lad … here in the big smoke to seek his fortune. Just like I was, long ago.’ He made it sound sad, in that ironic way of his.

‘Ah, the fecund land of mist and rain. I always knew someone lived there. So it was you Trace, all the time.’

I smiled, pretending to get the joke.

‘And Devon is your guide to the fleshpots and hot spots.’

I nodded. He turned to Devon who had stretched out along the white sofa.

‘Now tell me, Devon, what have you been doing?’

He leaned back and listened to Devon recount his recent adventures, though Devon didn’t mention the dope stealing up North. I was surprised at how frank he was, and how much detail he went into, especially about girls. The old man leaned back on the couch, chuckling and squawking at every risqué incident. It was all told in the puffed-up style of Wes, as though Devon was playing a role, or taking the piss, more likely.

Devon finished and Wes sighed. ‘Ah, what it is to be young.’ After a few questions and clarifications he said to Devon, ‘Now, young man, I assume this is not a social call. It never is these days. You want something, don’t you? What is it?’

‘Wes, it’s like this. You know I’ve been living in cramped quarters with the lovely Mrs Jacques and the profoundly gifted Sergei? A humble domicile to say the least, but now I have teamed up with young Trace here,’ indicating me with a
condescending
wave, ‘I feel we need something more befitting our lifestyle and aspirations.’

‘You require a bolt-hole, as it were, here in the city?’

‘Well, OK, that is to say, in a word, yes.’ Devon, mimicking.

Wes stared at the big windows in front of us for a long time as though he was reviewing his options. He was quite a short man with a big stomach, and a completely naked head. I noticed for the first time that he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. There was no indication that he had ever owned any hair at all.

‘As it happens, you may be in luck. You will have to do a little job for it though, just to show good faith.’

‘No problem.’

‘I have a little cottage in Parnell: part of my burgeoning property portfolio. A tumbledown dog-box, in the best part of town. The thing is going to be torn down as soon as I get planning permission. There is a family in it. I want them out. I
bought them with the house, and I have the suspicion that the planning process has been held up because someone in the local council feels sorry for them because they are poor.’ The last word he pronounced pooh-ah.

‘Extraordinary! Pooh-ah! How dare they!’ Devon exclaimed in mock outrage.

‘A challenge for you, Devon. If you get them out, the house is yours until I get the go-ahead from the council.’

He paused, then fired off a challenge. ‘Show me what you’re made of.’

‘Consider it done, m’lord.’

We all walked out onto the deck, as if the view wasn’t
powerful
enough from the lounge.

‘So you’ve teamed up with this rapscallion have you, Trace? I assume he is passing on his vision of how it all bolts together?’

I sensed that he was being a bit sarcastic so I looked to Devon for guidance. He was rolling a joint and grinning to himself.

‘Has Devon told you much about me?’

‘Only that you’re the role model for what a rich person should be like.’

Wes laughed through clenched teeth, a scary, hissing noise. Like an old reptile.

‘Yes, I’ve made and lost fortunes. Money has long since ceased to be a source of enjoyment. I haven’t physically touched money for years. I don’t know whether I ever will again …
dirty
stuff, money … and yet everything I do revolves around it. It is everything.’ He paused, trying to locate the next pithy phrase. ‘Yet then again, it is nothing. Like this house, this land we stand on. So much money just for the right to sleep here. There is no
meaning
in any of this.’

Silence. We all stared at the distant lights. He turned to me,
his face a smooth mask.

‘What is it that you fear, Trace?’

I thought for a while. ‘Lots of things. Big dogs, broken glass in long grass, losing my eyesight….’

‘Do you know what I fear?’

I shook my head. He continued to stare at me, his blank eyes drinking everything in.

‘I fear nothing. I used to fear death, but I had a stroke a few years back and while I was on the operating table, I got a glimpse of the other side.’

He accepted a joint from Devon and took a leisurely toke. ‘I was travelling down a tunnel towards some cool, green place. All I can remember is that I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to be swallowed up in it.’ He paused, remembering. ‘But I was dragged back, by the surgeons at Green Lane Hospital. They were so pleased with themselves. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t pleased too.’

‘So after this you had no fear of death?’ I asked.

He nodded and passed me the joint.

‘Everything has its price. Fear of death is a primal fear. When I lost that, I also lost the meaning with which death imbues life. It’s just a card game to me now.’