Both Sides of the Moon

by Duff, Alan

  So he advanced on her. And his men and equally wild-looking women and their even worse youth and children surrounded the others, and though the arrivals had known murder as a familiar, it had never looked like this, especially in the deadly eyes of younger ones, boys and girls, not of this world, as if they had been reared on words only of hatred.

  I am Hakere, remind me what this means? — I can see. — I will not tell you again. So she said, It means grotesque. At which Hakere smiled most broadly.

  And the leader with the shiny-smooth head calmly ordered that yes, him, youth there, not one of his terrible ugly own, but that fine-looking specimen with well-cut muscles and noble features of finely structured face that would soon have been excruciatingly adorned with warrior tattoo markings except would now receive another fate. Him, now given a fate the leader deemed be excruciating rendering to the waiting cooking stones, see if his young warriorhood would bear him that, let him utter no cry there from his burnings, his searing markings the stones would make upon his body, so this leader might gaze upon this admirable woman’s cunt without distraction. Though he said of course he’d understand if the young man screamed, but assured him he was not easily distracted when it was to do with sexual matter to tend to.

  So they seized the youth and he made no cry only that he admired Tangiwai and he spoke his dead chief’s name with veneration and thanks that he had an example to die by, and they dragged him off to a pit smoking with heated river rocks and knocked out his legs at the knees so he fell on to the white-hot heat, and he cried not, he uttered not.

  Just stared horrified but determined eyes to the wide broad of sky, like the vastest most beautiful cunt, a last stare at his beautiful beginnings, at his entry into this world and now his exit. He only cried out farewell to his people.

  Now Tangiwai stepped forward, and the bald one laid upon his back on the ground, and she squatted and bared herself to him, her glorious all, as if giving birth to him. And the people of both thinkings did gasp the same, one side in admiration their new leader, the other admiring what sight their leader enjoyed.

  His penis shot up from him like an exclamation, without shame. He gave muttered admiration on behalf of self that echoed his people. Then he pushed his tattooed face up into the true woman’s crotch, so only his shiny head was that part of him; and his people cackled, they fell open with mouths, some panted like dogs put on immediate heat, they made twisting, muscle-flexing movements of surging desire themselves, and the worst of them leaped and made dance grotesque as at a demon’s orgy, and all were widened of eyes. And then they flickered eyes over the female arrivals, selecting out those they would ravage, even Hariana, a grandmother, had an admirer, if ravaging is admiring.

  Their leader’s great, filthy, long-nailed hand reached up and seized Tangiwai by the hair and threw her sideways to the ground.

  Then he got up and his penis was stiffest outjutting from him and he mounted her like a dog that has to satisfy nature’s demand, and plunged into her place beautiful; he plunged and plunged and his people were in awe, they were in excitement, they wanted what he was having, and they grabbed their selections of choice, sweet-smelling female arrivals, unimaginable fools for thinking that here lay some salvation from what their now infamous coward had caused them.

  They took the females, and not all of them women past puberty, on the spot, beating the resistant into submission, taking them, taking them. All over this putrid, uncleaned place of rough abode without permanent dwelling, of the scattered midden of human bones and the fragile broken bone cages of birds, and the thick black swarms of flies feeding on rotting matter, in this forsaken place on this beautiful, bountiful land of terrible divided tribal and outcast separation, of no written hope of salvation. The gang of filthy men and youths plunged themselves into cunts — cunts such as they had never tasted before, which was why they cried out between each other that indeed they were different, more pleasant-smelling, softer, wetter, and the faces that owned them were more attractive to gaze at, especially that they suffered so.

  And so their women, the gang bitches, became jealous, and one young female was dragged out from underneath a man moments after he had spurted, and his climaxing body muscles barely unlocked, and the women killed her, they ripped her hair out, they took out her eyes, they tore her windpipe from its housing, they jammed stone and wooden stick up her semen-wet entry. These more savage subspecies but of the same human race, the same, the same as cunt is same, the same as cruelty is same, only principle is different, only higher standard is different, only knowledge to be clean to be good is not same. Only the desire to make better sets people free from this savagery or any other. This was what Tangiwai was telling herself in her mind as she suffered.

  When the hairless-headed leader was through with his violent taking of Tangiwai, and he stood up with sour-smelling sweat running down him (Tangiwai noticed he had cakings like sore patches over him and, she feared he might have a catching disease, since she still assumed, in these very unlikely moments, that life for her and her own would be made different, it would be made again), he stood before his people in his totally degarbed state, grinning as if this was truly a conquering, an overcoming of an equal.

  He pointed down at his unusually long, now-flaccid length of dark penis and said, I might have made you pregnant, in your first moments, tribe-bitch, with child of outcast lineage. How does that go with you?

  She drew in breath, and spoke on her assumptions that there be no bounds, no civilised codes of behaviour with these people, only each human exchange a clash of who would win, who would gain the spoil, who would gratify his and her immediate need. She said: That is, if I was not with the blood today or tomorrow to flow from there … Waiting for her words to turn to death in the next instant. Knowing that menstrual blood, of all the blood sheddings of her people, over all this land, none was more offensive, none more the opposite state of sacred tapu than the noa state of menstrual bleeding.

  He said: I have no rules, so think that you offend me, woman? Think that blood from there does stop my powerful lust, that it takes away from my sense of warriorness when it was taken the day I stepped over the ravine behind you? Try another tactic, woman no longer belonging to any. Try another.

  So now Tangiwai knew that menstrual bleeding was not a restraint and she should prepare herself for sexual attack at any time. She said: And when would you know anyway whose child it was if you did not make me your wife?

  Wife! Hah! The man’s guffaw boomed and yet nowhere for it to echo so. I have no wife, no female I am tied to, nor love, nor promise not to pleasure my maleness with. He slammed a mighty hand against his chest. I am here not because I failed my noble warrior calls, but because they, the almighty, all-righteous council of elders deemed that I could not take young girls. And when I made retort as only I can: Well, elders, how about young boys then? For I know of no rules restraining a desirous man from them! They wished to kill me on the spot but could not. Or not if they did wish to lose many of their number before I gave up my mighty existence.

  I tell you, I’d have twisted the head off the chief himself as my first act. The tohunga rogue I’d have poured boiling fat down his throat and see if his powers did not cool it, see if his sacred body could not cough it up like a huge white slug so to return him breath. Those smug elders inherited of their positions I’d have tortured into confessing what mere minions hardly better than slaves they truly were. I’d have stood over their dead and broken bodies and told them, how dare you impose rules upon a warrior more mighty than any! Here, woman from a smoke-billowing ruination of place and people. Here, I will show you of what exceptional power I am.

  And he stepped forward and swatted Tangiwai to the ground whereupon he rolled her over and took her like a dog and barked and was quickly yowling like one, in ecstasy. And told her he had every woman within his domain available as wife.

  And poor Tangiwai wondered what dreadful mistake she had made and how life could get any worse than t
his. Yet still she hoped and still she struggled to hold that dream, and if this was the bottom then the only way was up. But it was dirt she tasted, black dirt, and the vision before her was darker than that.

  25

  Inadequate Maori warrior boys fighting in the school yard, in the streets, in backyards, on front lawns, in school toilets, behind school toilets, behind bike sheds, fight anywhere. Then one day in boys’ homes and then graduate on to borstal, to become big boy with big name if fight as warrior. One inevitable day become big man fighting with others of your ilk in a prison exercise yard, in prison toilets, shower blocks, behind anywhere the fight can’t be stopped by authority, fighting can’t bear to be stopped, it feels too good, feels like you’ve been released. Even when you’re in a steel-barred cage, even when you’re in an emotional prison, even when you know you’re dying or dead of something inside, fighting sets you free. Or thinks it does.

  The young don’t see the sneery smiles of studious types from another race, nor the contempt of true people, adequate people, nor see their own grim, hopeless future, nor inner brokenness, nor know why and what process has done all this. Warrior child sees nothing. Nothing he’ll admit to.

  Only sees other warriors, mostly brown of skin; it must be in our nature, we must be born good fighters, must be compelled by our genes, or our limited understanding, or a blindness in our inherited outlook. And yet inside we know it’s not working, life isn’t, being warrior isn’t. We just say it is. Or we’d go mad looking at the truth of ourselves in the mirror of self-contemplation. Of honest self-analysis. In a fight you stop thinking, you cease being a contemplative being and become beast being. Stupid being.

  Listen, I was half a rational boy, I had my father’s analytical mind, my three brothers all did well at school, we were of good enough stock. We never told but a few we had a famous paternal grandfather and how, if all else failed, the knowledge of Grandad uplifted us and at least gave us hope that some day we might be similar and that it suggested we might have some of same qualities.

  I’m saying we weren’t born with low ceilings on our possibilities. And we had genetic influences, if art is a genetic inheritance; we felt our paternal artist grandmother bringing to bear on us in rather more tender sensitive moments, times of acute and rather good sensibility, even Brian had his moments. Our white-related blood hadn’t told us that this is it, life as good as it’ll ever get.

  We had the language to describe ourselves even our faults, our serious flaws, the effects of our growing up. We weren’t like our cousins, who couldn’t be blamed for failing, for being inadequate, for they were of both sides of unanalysing parentage. We experienced much of the same but we did have a difference, an advantage it might be called. So I’m just saying that we lost, three of the four, to warriorhood. And if we can lose then don’t be telling us that there’s hope for other lost children of a warrior outlook.

  Maori warrior boys fight anywhere, young men warriors take fights out to public bigtime meeting places, show everyone how tough, how violently adequate they and we are. Young warrior men like big warrior men like warrior fathers not fathers, just best warriors, and that’s enough. To the closed and closing warrior mind it is.

  Thinking didn’t work. Thinking betrayed me. The stars stopped urging me to keep questioning. I surrendered to a greater power. Of being like others. I became the others. Got drawn to those like me, secretly afraid of the whole world except when we had finished, and usually won, fighting.

  The magnet attraction of each other’s same shyness, same sullen eyes to the ground except to pick someone to fight, except to look around at audience afterward and feel amazing, feel uplifted, feel like gorilla, feel like roaring, like pounding still-developing chest (and fully developed hang-up).

  Feel like grabbing gaping girls and fucking them. But want them, always, to say you good boy for being big tough boy. Want them to say — in private — you nice boy even though you’re warrior boy, not your fault, me, girl, understands, here, have another feel, fuck me again.

  That’s what we want. Them to do. And say. And believe of us. That warrior boy not lost boy, he’s nice boy, too, long as she acknowledges how tough he is and let him fuck and feel girl all day long in affirmation of his manhood. That’s how it feels. We know. We-know.

  Warrior boys growing into warrior young men grown into the mirrors of our fathers and uncles and grandfathers and ancestors, we know.

  Nights belong to warrior boys the best. Our grateful dark. Touched only by spillover light. Of streetlight and house (home) lights. Just spaced tame glows above to give us enough light to fight in. To make warrior posture. Make guttural talk and gorilla grunt like true warriors. Not boys of so many words. Or not so that we’d admit. Warriors don’t talk. They destroy. Warriors respect no one, only better fighters. Warriors destroy.

  Wreck people not like ourselves, their person and private property. Steal their things. (But can’t steal what we secretly most want, the lives inside those yellow squares and rectangles of light.) We aspire to being lifetime pissheads. Pissheads have real good fun. Pissheads get drunk all the time, have big scraps, every occasional Friday and Saturday night brawl. And if everyone is doing it, then it must be right. It-must-be-right-if-so-many-doing-it.

  Dumb, blind Maori niggers, we are calling out challenge to their children, white children, or soft Maori loved ones — Come outside and fight. Come on. You scared? When we’re the ones scared: of responsibility, of what it might truly be to be loved, to have one’s existence confirmed, affirmed. I, we, know this. Come on now, white boy, or Maori boy gone soft with love, come out and fight.

  Or lie that we only want to talk. Honest. Occurring things never occur to warrior mind, I promise you. I promise you from the coal-face street-face heart-face. Occurring doesn’t occur to the warrior type not anywhere.

  Warrior boys come from boozing, gibberish-talking, screaming, fighting homes somewhere, don’t matter where, all the same like women’s cunts, eh fellow warrior boy? All the same, brother (in arms). Even before we knew. Just said it. Like we just said everything.

  With thought gone. Like a missing mother. Or father worth missing. No heart in it. Only passion, mindless passion. We know it, we can hear it even as we say it, I swear most of us knew it.

  But that didn’t mean we could stop it. Put a finger in the dyke and hold back the warrior waters. Come on now, this is history, a thousand and more good, proud, ferocious, consistently, adamantly warrior years of it. Go with the flow. Or you’ll drown in it.

  But warrior boys (and plenty girls, too, brother) in hearts know they’re foundering. It’s why they get together, to pull together. Till they find out it doesn’t work like that.

  Wander the streets and find one another, run away from home with your wretched ilk, break law to survive, break law anyway. Go before court, a magistrate, he warns you boys’ home is coming, the next stage in your life and lives is borstal, and there is a girls’ one too. Then prison. Jail is your ultimate waiting fate, your lovely locked-up destiny. Yeah, where you’ll be surrounded by your residential own.

  You form a pair, a cluster, a group becomes a gang and now you’ve made a tribe of yourself: The Lost, you should be named. Formed not for any purpose or meaningful intent, but because you belong nowhere else.

  Someone throws a rock. It breaks a window. Everyone runs. Laughing. Someone says, That was good fun. When it wasn’t. Not breaking a lousy window. But everyone laughs and says, Yeah, it was, let’s do another one. Before the night’s halfway through we still could have turned it by starting our own window repair. But that’s too occurring. Makes too much sense to dumb-arse, secretly heart-stricken warrior youths, really just little children of same lost rearings from the same unfunctioning, inarticulate warrior culture, of a thousand years’ weak thinking, that believes it is so fuckin’ strong, so fuckin’ tough, so on top of the fucking world.

  An innocent’s walking home, someone says something to him, he doesn’t answer, just start
s hurrying his innocence, but that’s a signal to us that he deserves what he’s going to get because, well, he ignored us, he should’ve answered us, he should have made reply to the question even if it was loaded, what’re you looking at? He should’ve said I’m looking at you, cunts, and I’m tougher than you and we can either fight or we can talk and maybe find a new path for you to be going down. And I swear we’d have been converts to such a reply, even if only because we respect a tougher person and even if because it’s what we really wanted. A chance to talk this through. Of ourselves about ourselves. Might have got there. No?

  Through the night, warrior young bloods attempt to return home. But home’s all shot to pieces, can’t stand the mayhem, can’t stand the beer smell, can’t stand the smell of bodies in total ignorance of what and who and why they are. They have their own quite distinct odour, do breeders of warrior children. Kind of sickly sweet, compellingly stink. Like cabbage boiled with beef brisket. Go home to men sitting darkly having drunk all day and into the night, find fathers who hate their own children, find warrior fathers who can’t be loving their children too much, if at all, or it’ll lessen a warrior’s toughness, make him weaker, maybe vulnerable. Yeah, to attack by warrior man, friend, brother, cousin, mate. Can’t be weakened by love.

  Budding warrior bloods return to the night, grateful for the dark. So you won’t see their tearing. Even though they’ve seen their whole life before. It takes years to learn how not to cry, at mother, at father, at all relations lost of their ability to love, their capacity for dignity and, you’d think, their reason for living. But they party on. A lifetime of drunken wrecking. Of each other’s bodies, facial constructions, insides, basic furniture; crash empty beer crate over head. But you know what they say: They’re such happy people till they get drunk. They sing so good — to start with. Such beautiful harmony. Such fine taken-up solo delivery. It still takes some getting used to, to accepting, fully and finally and therefore with all the hope gone, that some parents are not what they’re supposed to be. They’re monsters creating more like themselves. It’s so fuckin’ obvious.