Both Sides of the Moon

by Duff, Alan

  He wanted her to call the child’s name, to fail in her discipline of not bringing attention to herself, even though her ordeal could not be missed from his vantage point. He wanted this to be another event, a mother calling to her child lost sight of and soon he would appear, safe, unharmed. Innocence intact. But she uttered not. She cried out not. So, then, die, too, womb-giver of our enemies. Die like your child just has.

  Yet he looked for the child — hoping. Rise up, child. Let your little head break to the surface, turn back your haunting smile to me and I shall return it. Leave me not with this last impression of you — you must surface, child! Surface one more gasping, sightless time, or a curse be on you! Yet he heard his own voice echo in his head: Or on you, Te Aranui Kapi.

  Kapi ran along the bank; halted and stared and stared at the raging surface for a smiling child to reappear. Even a child taking last watery breaths would do. And as he waited, the order of the thoughts he knew in the only universe he thought he lived in fell apart. It was like a spiritworld in a breaking mist, ready to reveal thoughts and concepts he had never even dreamed.

  Rise up, damn you, child! Rise!

  Inside a raging river himself, of thoughts, of asking what this image, what this child and mother’s desperate and doomed plight meant? And why should it have to mean anything than what he gave it?

  He turned his back but tasted the memory of the roaming bands of outcasts who taunt warriors returning home from victorious battle, bearing their held-apart bowel cheeks at true people, these despicable sub-humans. He felt now like he did at those times, as if some of his triumph was not only laughed at but taken away. How could the defeated, how could a sub-human band of misfit men, take claim over true men’s, true man’s, mighty deeds and noble mana? How could a drowned child do same?

  In dreaming that night, he saw river torrent, instead of the usual battle scenes and village life with its distortions not so out of kilter they would mean anything come waking, for then the people surely would and do go about their daily affairs, safely wrapped like a tiny child in the garments of culture. No. It was river torrent. And he in it. Tumbling, gasping, drowning.

  And in the mind sequence he broke his lifetime discipline of never calling for help, better to die, it was the child who appeared with broadly smiling face, and only a face. And it said: Look, I have no body, no arms, no legs with which to help you, great warrior. Or I surely would, even though you did not offer me the same. So you must go to death, warrior enemy and murderer of my people, with your head held high, smiling at death.

  And Kapi woke screaming back in the dream that he could not go thus.

  He was awake for much of the night, ruing that he had not taken himself a wife long ago, to at least take comfort, sexual release from this haunting image from the day rolling into his dreams.

  But the next night brought the same child, and this time it was not a river in which Kapi was struggling for his very life but a slave compound — a slave compound! Even in the dream he knew horror and disbelief at his slave status. He cried to the child that this could not be, he told the child that not a single moment of his countless battle deeds, and nor in the harsh practising times, had he shown weakness of act or doubting thought. He told the child it was impossible! Yet here he was, a cowering, weeping slave now begging the child to spare his life.

  The dreams came too much into the thinking day, reliving them. It was like some buzzing insect had got into his very brain and would not stay still. He went to the slave compound and chose a fine specimen of former manhood and dealt him fate most awful, hurling him on to the heated cooking stones and watching him scream, hearing him trying to restore his tribal belonging by crying out chants, except the stones were claiming his every nerve ending until he passed out from pain.

  Kapi stood there savouring the slave’s singeing flesh, enjoying even the rank odour of hair roasting on the white-hot stones. He sneered at witnesses all around him — and they sneered back, in admiration, fearful awe — and in his mind he told the child, I hope your drowning was as excruciating as this. But still the child’s image never stopped smiling.

  Sleep now took too long in coming; and the mind was like a night of clearest star vision except these were ideas, notions never before occurred to him, about death, about children, about innocence — when hitherto there had been no such concepts. His mind seethed with questions, so many questions, of what truly is a man, what the man, whence the man? Why this man? He feared he was going mad. He worried that his deteriorating mind might have him banished by chiefly or elder’s council decree to be an outcast, where those with flaws and unfitting ways went, if they were not mortally despatched. Slave, outcast, such contemptible status! He would not allow his thoughts to reduce him so.

  But time faded the memory. His favourite woman now mother of Tamatea’s child, named Ratanui, was still well-disposed towards him. He found himself more and more in need of her company; and afterward had the deepest, unfamiliar longing to talk. Not of anything in particular, just to speak and be spoken to. And though it was Tamatea’s child, he felt a fondness for his nephew, it gave him a feeling of wanting to protect little Ratanui, to kill any being who dared offer him any but greatest love. He wished to speak of this feeling to the mother, to give her reassurance that even though it was Tamatea’s child, was he, Te Aranui Kapi, not its uncle? He had no difference with the child. The child was an innocent.

  But that was not the way of warrior man, to speak from a position of weakness. So he would take Tangiwai again and again, sexually, and wallow in her compliment on his sexual prowess being comparable to his fighting prowess. But he couldn’t share intimacy of feeling.

  Once he took a brief turn of walking the baby to sleep, crooning an old lullaby learned from hearing others sing. And such loving did the mother give the man once Ratanui was fast asleep with Kapi’s deep voice dreaming in its little brain.

  By and by he returned to who and what he was — Hah! And how could a man be any other? He gained quickly the arrogance of old. A man is who he dwells with, not thoughts he dwells upon. He is what he is and cannot be any other. That has always been the way. (Of my Maori ancestors, always the way.) Not a place, now Kapi well knew, for a man of thought. No place for the thinking man and nor, he told himself over and over again, should it be.

  I am of my times, my warrior times. I do not dwell on the moon, nor on distant stars where man may be different. I am here, supreme of my savage and noble warrior times. Kapi is troubled not, by anything.

  16

  Mother, mother, mother in blue in an arched surround of stone and a head surround of her goodness, her universal quality of motherhood, mother to God’s son, mum of Jesus, she’s on my walking route is Mary Mother of them, the believers and those who have mothers worthy of admiration of erecting statues outside churches.

  How many times have I stood across the street — to get the perspective — staring at the statued image in its concave, white-painted housing, trying to get their meaning, of womanhood tied directly to sexuality, or higher womanhood having no sexual misconduct whilst the mother of me, of everyone, came about through the act, the dirty deed, the good deed, the indifferent deed, the legal but dull deed, the illicit unfaithful deed, the done deed that a child comes about from nine months later? How many times has this statue told me I am not represented no matter how I try to twist the truth?

  Oh well, not having a mother effectively and substantially means you get to question all the fundamental concepts of life, all the normal values and notions held high and true. It’s a miracle in itself — it has to be — having a mother who’s a violent, drunken slut who doesn’t care one stuff for her children. Make you strong, boy, as our Maori uncles say about the rough and tumble of life, Maori life, meaning more physical, meaning parental values different.

  Mother like this makes you strong, gives you freedom from normal burden of thinking, sets you free from believing pain hurts, when it can only be in your mind. Sets you free from
blind loyalty to idea or notion or God, from politics, propaganda, free from British Empire imposing superiority from thirteen-thousand miles away, free from hurt hurting you.

  But hard to stay fixed like that. Hard to stay looking at pie in the far-off sky. Mary, mother of the others, sweet matriarch of the rest, pray tell a boy where he might find what he was not given? Mary, mother, stone statue symbol, figure in a concrete concave, surely you can put blessing on all of God’s wretched children, including good heathens, if I do not question you?

  This is what I asked of Her as I stood across the street, or under her exact replica bare feet, let me be beloved too, that’s all I ask. Or I might surrender to those thoughts starting to stir in me.

  There is a limitation on my friendships, decided by mothers. My mother and friends’ mothers decision on how close they’ll let the necessarily tainted or same-painted son to get to theirs. Even when I am in their houses I feel a door is ready to be closed on me.

  I go to their houses, but they rarely to mine. Not with permission. But you get used to your lot in life, you kind of adjust, maybe distance yourself. And when it’s parent-hinting time that a visit is over I go home and tell my father a double lie: that I have been invited to my friend’s for tea. So he’ll think I’m loved, think I’m popular. Instead, I prowl the window circuit. I become Two Lakes’ best trespasser, and it gives my vessel a trickle from vicarious experience of others’ filled hearts.

  I take my empty gourd to public parks, a private park, public places, the library, the children’s play areas, to pine forest on the outskirts of town, down to the lake, I discover streams and secret riverside places, only to see water run by as if taunting me that what I seek is never going to be. Water and growth and people everywhere, but my vessel is the empty gourd, the seashell echoing with waves that aren’t really there.

  Public parks, public places, public toilets, public toilets, where, my! there’s people like me: empty, in much and dire need of filling. But it’s not talk they want — it’s touch. Touch has become the meaning. Public toilets, private places, private needs, private feelings, strange feelings, why I come back. It’s touch we all want. Hello, kid. Hello. What’s your name, kid? Go away. Hey, I only want to talk. No you don’t, get your hand away. So why do you keep coming back, kid?

  Kid doesn’t know. It’s just that every time he does he senses something coming closer, frightening, but now he’s had a single experience with Edith, there’s no denying it’s similar to that feeling.

  Public toilet private world. Hello, kid. Hello. Back? Yeah. You got the same bad bladder as the rest of us? Guess I have. Step in here. No. Go on, no one’s gonna hurt you. No. You’re not being fair, kid. Leave me alone. You’ll enjoy it. Enjoy what? Come and find out. No. (No. No. Yes. Yes, please yes.) It’s your mind fighting your body — no, it’s your body fighting your mind — no, it’s your heart fighting your mind fighting your body fighting your reason fighting your opposite of reason. Go and find out. No. No one’s going to hurt you. No. No. No!

  Public park, running from it. To another public toilet. Back to the first one. What is happening to you? In a cubicle, lock the door, watch for feet standing right out there, please don’t let there be feet.

  Look at drawings, markings, ugly and sad and depraved drawings and messages and cock sizes and see yourself perfectly sketched there amongst the telephone numbers, the cocks. Sit there in the smell of public lavatory, of human waste and human heart waste. See a cock drawing, a magnificent erection of sketched shape that needs no explaining: it is simply and purely want.

  Feel yourself rock hard against the cold of porcelain, won’t go down. Same as lump in throat, keeps coming up, threatens to erupt in a geyser of vomit. Guess it must be self-disgust. Self-hating. Or unbearable excitement. At planning the inevitable to happen. You in there, kid? Don’t say anything. Listen, kid, I got a bad mother too. Think I don’t understand? Bad old man as well. You hear me?

  I heard him. He sounded like a friend then. My cock wouldn’t go down.

  Just leave me alone will you. Aw, come on, kid — Or I’ll tell a cop. Tell a cop what? — That this man wants to talk to you? You know what my mother used to do …? (No. But I can guess. And I was listening hard now.) She used to get drunk on sherry and pick one of us out for punishment. Know what she’d do? No. Gwon, take a guess. Make you stand outside in the rain? Oh we wish! No kid, she used to burn us with her smoke. Her smoke? Cigarette. Oh …

  I don’t believe you. Honest, cross my heart, kid, I swear it’s true. Can show you the scars, got them all over me, same as my five brothers and sisters. Painful, eh, kid? (Just painful?) Yeah. Yeah, it must’ve been. Kid, are you having a shit in there or what? Yeah, I am. I can’t smell it. Well I am. You sure you’re not doing something else? Like what? Like pulling. Pulling what? Your pudd. No! (No. Just willing it to go down, actually.)

  Know what else she’d do? No, what? Now this is unbelievably disgusting — you sure you wanna hear? Up to you. All right, here it is: she’d get me to sit on her and piss. (Piss!?) Piss where? Open the door and I’ll show you. No. Come on. Piss where? On her, on her chest. What, her tits and that? Her tits, yeah. Why? Why, I dunno know why. I only know I grew up looking at women thinking they all wanted to be pissed on — and you know what? What? I was in a relationship with a woman and I got drunk and I did it. Did what? I pissed on her. Oh. (Oh Jesus!) And what’d she do? She called the cops! I don’t blame her. (But at least my erection got distracted down. I hauled up my pants, flushed the toilet. Too late.)

  Why didn’t I hear paper wiping, kid? What? You heard. Listen, it’s my toilet I’m in, I’ll do what I like. I’m coming out now, so don’t be trying to touch me. What if I do? Then I’m not coming out. And I’m gonna start yelling. Oh come on, kid, that’s no way to treat a friend. Open the door and look at me. I promise I won’t do anything. Just open the door.

  Private world has someone demanding at the door. Open it, kid. I opened it. See? Yeah, I saw. Just the big guy. Smiling and offering his handshake. I shook his hand, it felt so powerful and yet deliberately, almost ticklingly, soft.

  He was telling me I could trust him, that he knew what I was going through, that I wouldn’t be here so often if it wasn’t something bad. He understood. He’d prove it: Gwon, walk out that door. I’m not going to stop you. So I walked. And he didn’t call out or come after me. (It’s called seduction, I think. Not sure by whom.)

  Oh kid, I’m glad you’re back. Took you a few days. I came here every night, you know, hoping. Hoping for what? Just hoping. For what? What we all come here for, kid, that hoping. And what’ll that do? (What will it do — to me, my being, my soul?) Do? Hell, try it and see! No. Yes! No! Yes. What’ll it do (to me, my inner being, my person, the future might hold in store for me)? What will the act do to my essential being?

  Don’t be unfair on me, kid, don’t push me this far. I’m a man. I only got certain control. No. Yes. No! Please, kid, say yes. Just the once. Is once too much to ask? Look, am I forcing you — threatening to murder you? I don’t wanna hurt you, kid, just give each other a good time, a special time, you’ll see. Please?

  I stood there, beaten by his reason, by his unthreatening larger physical being against my lesser, younger body. He was a big man, hadn’t shaved that day, pleading grey eyes, not handsome not ugly. Please? he said it again. And again. I couldn’t hold his pleading eyes. But then I heard myself mumbling, not here. And his gasp.

  Where then? Don’t know. Why not here? It stinks. (And I hate what the drawings do to me.)

  So. So we’re on this bench and he’s got a hand on my leg, and my head is spinning, and we’re surrounded by thick manuka bush, he could murder me if he wanted to. I’m on this bench with this man, with this thing of changed breathing all over me, as if echoing like rolling thunder in our closed surround, I’ve heard this breathing before I have seen it — I have seen it, with my mother and another man, and another man again, many times I have seen it.

 
; Now I’m hearing it and I’m the object, I’m its cause. I’m the reason for his funny breathing. He’s fiddling frantically at my fly buttons, he’s reaching inside my trousers, he makes a sound of exclamation, oh kid, but you do want it! When I don’t. I’m here. I’m hard. I’m near fainting with something. But I don’t want it. (I only want to be loved. To have some special person or moment just for me.)

  He has me out and in the dark with spillover light from the park lamp this head is admiring what nature gave me, gave every male. It’s the picture on the public toilet wall. I’m the event, the arrangement of every written plea and open invite to date male to male. I could leap up and run and none of this then happens. But I’m far gone myself, I’m the same male as he is, as we all are. Melting in the touch of a hand not my own.

  He grabs my hand roughly. He’s strong, much stronger than me. I feel vulnerable, my desire has sprung a leak. Oh kid, don’t lose it. You had a beautiful one on! (Did I?)

  Now my fingers are wrapped around his — he’s huge. I’m frightened. The thrill is gone. I’ve made a mistake. But my hand starts moving, like his is on mine. Two motherless souls, boy and man, found each other in the dark. But it could have been light.

  I am overwhelmed by his need, he is swallowing me whole, of such animal hunger I know this cannot be love, not even in search of it; it is something else, as was I then: subsumed by my own need, cornered in my own vulnerability. A victim of myself, whatever I allowed me to become.

  Vulnerability is tied inextricably to hope — hope stupid, hope pathetic. Vulnerable person is a live, sexual possibility waiting for someone to happen. I am being gobbled up, this beast is eating me, hear his slurping, his bass groans escaping those powerfully sucking lips, that cavernous sweet-giving mouth of his, the beast’s, how can this be, how can it be?