Arms Race (2 page)

Waves surge against the wharf below. Taihoa's being nice but I gotta tell the truth.
If he gets pissed off, no one's safe, I say.

You're crazy, bro, Taihoa says. He lets that hang there, then his grin flashes white
in the dark.

Let's catch him.

My heart bumps.

Tama groans and unfolds his arms. Oh, here we go, he says. For Christ's sake, Taihoa.

Taihoa got his nickname 'cause it means ‘cut it out' in Maori. He ignores Tama like
he ignores everyone. How 'bout some late-night fishing? he says. We could grab one
of these boats.

How we gonna catch a giant octopus? Tama asks through clenched teeth.

Dunno, Taihoa says. He turns to me. Your dad used to catch them, eh? Before he turned
all god-freaky?

Seriously, I say, you don't wanna get his attention.

Nah, man, we'd be like Maui. The great ancestor takes his jawbone and tames the sun—we
tame the octopus. C'mon.

Before I can say anything he's down the wharf. He stops at a little dinghy at the
far end. Aw yeah! Taihoa yells. Late-night fishing is
on
.

While he's untying the ropes, I get this real clear feeling that he's right. We have
to go fishing. Dad's always telling us there's a reason for everything, everything
for a reason. Tells it to his congregation too, chairs pulled up on the lino in our
kitchen on a Sunday morning. He says it so gentle. A reason for everything, everything
for a reason. So there's a reason I got kicked out of school and got a job out here,
and a reason I saw the octopus. That's the sign. I'm not shit on the end of a shovel
today. Over the surf I can hear Dad's voice, clear as.

Watch for signs and you'll know what to do.

I say a prayer under my breath. Lord bless the
pakeha
in the pub who don't want to
know, and bless us and the boat, and we'll go do some fishing in your name.
Ko Ihu
Karaiti, to matou Ariki, amene.

All right, I shout. Let's fucken go!

We've just about got the ropes clear when there's a shout from JJ inside the ferry
terminal. Check this out, boys!

What is it? Tama calls back.

Just come, dick. Have a look.

We shamble over to the doorway where JJ's standing with this long black bag. He flips
it open. By the light of his phone I can see it's a gun case. Three rifles snug in
grey foam.

Shiiit
, Tama says. Where'd you find that?

Locked in the office, JJ says. Must be some hunter going back on the morning launch.
There's no bullets, though. They store them separate.

It's another sign. Everything's becoming clear. Sweet as, I say. We can shoot the
bastard. I reach into the bag and take a rifle. It feels cold and smooth and good
to hold. I point it out to the bay. Bang! Right in his big horny mouth.

Taihoa's grinning like mad. This is his kind of game. He grabs the other rifles,
hands one to JJ and keeps one for himself. C'mon, he says. Help me find the bullets.

No way, Tama says. That's heavy shit. Let's just—

We're so busy with the guns that we don't notice the truck pull up till its headlights
blaze across us. The doors slam and three huge blokes come marching up the wharf.
They're just black shapes against the light. We're too stunned and drunk to move,
and in a second I see it's the island's one cop, a heavy Maori guy in a Swanndri
and black beanie, and Don from the pub, angry as. Behind them's one of the trampers.

Yeah, that's them, I hear him say.

Shit shit shit, Tama hisses. Put them away—

Oi! a voice booms. What in the hell—

The cop's voice dies when he sees us for real: four scruffy mainlanders, hoods up
against the cold, pants slung low, rifles glinting in the yellow glare. I'm still
wearing my high-vis vest, lit up in the headlights like an angel. The cop reaches
out his hands, palms down, real slow.

What're you boys doing?

I'm still trying to find my tongue when Taihoa starts taking the piss.

It's Tino Rangatiratanga, eh, he says.

Eh? the cop says.

JJ starts giggling.

Time to make the white man
pay
, bro, Taihoa says.

I feel Tama stiffen beside me, mouthing
What the fuck?

We're the roading gang, I say, stepping forward. We're the four road workers of the
apocalypse.

The cop's only metres from us but he turns and runs, grabbing at Don and the tramper
on his way past.

Taihoa cracks up. Tino Rangatiratanga! he yells at them, then: Fuck the police, nigger!

In a second they're in the truck and screaming back down the road towards the pub.
We just stand there in the growing silence, caught between shit-scared and that mad
humour that gets you when you've gone too far.

Time to get the hell out of here, eh boys, Taihoa says. His clean-shaven cheeks are
glowing.

Where the hell we gonna go? Tama demands, and our laughter dies. Go hide out at ours?
Like they don't know where we live? Only two hundred people on this bloody island.

Man, we're just messing around, JJ says. They know that.

Are we? Taihoa says. Do they?

No, I say. We take the boat and go after the octopus.

There's just the road end, the wharf and the boats. Everything else is a black wall
of bush and water. There's nowhere else to go.

We gotta, I say. It's our calling.

Oh, for Christ's sake, Tama says. Let's go—look.

There are lights outside the pub, lights going on in houses up the hill, cars heading
our way. We stumble to the end of the wharf and climb down into the boat. JJ and
Tama find a couple of orange plastic oars and we push off into the bay. The sound
of the waves is the octopus breathing. I cradle the rifle to my chest and hope I'll
know what to do. Taihoa's laughing, crouched low in the back of the boat, yelling
insults in Maori that the wind snatches away.

Shut up, dick! Tama says. You don't wanna mess with these guys.

The oars aren't doing much, and it takes forever, but once we clear the little point
the current takes us out towards the middle of the bay. I look back. Midsummer this
far south, there's already faint light in the sky. I can make
out cars pulling up
beside the Four Square supermarket on the waterfront. They're making a line, blocking
off the road down to the wharf. The police truck's red and blue lights pick out figures
in the dark, black clothes, the glint of automatic weapons.

A bus comes down the hill and turns towards the wharf. They stop it at gunpoint,
and make everybody get off and lie on the ground. I can hear static and feedback
in the dawn air. Someone's bellowing into a megaphone and it might as well be in
another language. Tama's saying something to me but I can't hear him.

We're getting close now. I can hear the creature stir.

Oi, you okay? Tama says. He shakes my arm.

I open my mouth to crack a joke but nothing comes out. I feel the thunder of long
arms running across the ocean floor. We're way out in the bay now, crouched in a
rowboat right over the creature's great unblinking eye. The shore's crawling with
people, all luring him out. Down on the beach a hunter's dog stands frozen, pointing
out to sea, a loud growl of fear in its throat.

I look at the rifle in my hands and I know it's useless. But it's the only jawbone
I've got. I know it's my calling, to raise him. I'll raise him up and I'll tame him.

Before anyone can stop me I'm on my feet in the middle of the boat, a luminous orange
angel in my high-vis vest. It's the uniform of the reckoning. The uniform of Tino
Rangatiratanga. I think of Dad's fierce eyes and I
open my arms to the wharf with
rifle in hand, towards the lights and the voices and all the people, and I begin
to chant.

Aah-uu-tai-na, ah-hee!

There's a flare of light. A flare of light and a fierce crack and a huge wind picks
us up. Someone cries out and beneath us the surface of the bay explodes. With a roar
a blue-black knot of ancient muscle surges up beneath us like a blunt-nosed submarine.
He rises. The octopus, the mighty octopus Te Wheke, rises from the boiling sea. Oceans
thunder from his back. He rises and we fall, and as I fall my gaze takes in the frightened
faces of the hunters and the farmers hunkered down behind their utes.

Eight tentacles go hissing out across the waves—as thick as mighty tree trunks, as
thick as mighty
waka
horned with weed and lethal suckers—and the last thing I see
before I hit the water, before a tentacle lashes through the front of the pub in
an explosion of wood and glass and the gas tanks go up with a thumping flash, before
another great arm hurls the police truck through the front of the Four Square, the
last thing I see is the gleaming, dripping
moko
carved upon the creature's face and
the look in its single world-sized eye that says, finally: it's time.

MAKING IT

MY CAREER began for real in Manhattan, on an unusually mild winter's evening, with
a total fucking scrum. I opened the gallery door and peered out into the street.
A huge expectant crowd looked back. There were patrons and buyers and star-fuckers
and wannabe artists. I imagined, for one dishonest second, that they were there
for me.

My job was to hold the door open. I held the door open.

Oh my god, someone yelled. Here she comes!

The crowd surged forward, shoving and shouting. A phalanx of security guards pushed
a beachhead into the fray. Reeves Galleries weren't taking any chances. Goose, golden
egg, etcetera.

Next came a huddle of gallery big shots: the director,
two publicists screaming into
their phones, the senior curators, plus my bemused girlfriend Lucy, straight from
her hospital rounds. In the centre of the huddle, at the centre of everything, was
the artist. Katherine DuCroix. Close enough to touch.

Katherine DuCroix was the rebarbative darling of the east-coast art world. Her enormous
surreal self-portraits graced some of the most expensive walls on the planet. She'd
already gone down in history for the most MacArthur Fellowships (three), and the
shortest acceptance speech (‘Fools'). She was stout, fierce and a little bit mad:
a female Napoleon.

Tonight she wore a pearl silk blouse and heavy black eyeliner, and her wild grey
hair was twisted into a bun. She might have been three times my age, but I thought
she was beautiful. She looked like she was about to stab the director.

I'm so sorry, he shouted. The cabs should have been here at eight. We'll get to the
restaurant soon.

I let the door swing shut and joined Lucy at the back of the pack. To our left a
man with long tangled hair lunged through the crowd like a drunken prophet. He strained
at a gap between two guards.

Katherine, he yelled. Tell us your secret. How do you do it?

Dude, I yelled, you have to draw with a mechanical pencil.

Nick! The director fixed me with a ball-shrinking glare.

I blushed, but when he turned away I saw Katherine DuCroix looking at me. She seemed
amused. My heart gave a squirming flip.

Katherine DuCroix was the reason I wanted to be an artist. There's nothing unusual
in that: she inspired a generation. But I was more obsessed than most. Our apartment
was wallpapered with prints from her Spirochette series. I'd gone to see all her
recent shows, on both coasts. I'd even painted my own versions of her self-portraits,
trying to get inside her skin. And there she was, smiling up at me.

Please, the long-haired man cried again. Tell us where your ideas come from.

Move back, a publicist shouted. Give us some room here!

Shut up, Katherine said. Let me answer that.

The publicist looked shocked. Katherine was famous for refusing to take questions,
though there were rumours that Reeves didn't let her. I wondered briefly, absurdly,
whether the security guards were there to protect the crowd from her.

You want to be an artist? she called out. The crowd could barely see her, she was
so short, but her smoke-rough voice carried through the crush. You want to know the
secret of my success?

The man stopped pushing against the guards. Yes, he said. His face wore a look of
such sincerity that I felt bad for mocking him.

Then shut up, Katherine said, and I'll tell you.

The man fell quiet, and others who had heard the promise fell quiet, and the hush
spread through the crowd. Even the guards craned round to listen.

Everyone asks what my secret is, Katherine said. But I never tell the truth, because
no one would believe me.

I'd
believe you, the man offered. There were murmurs of assent.

Well then, Katherine said.

She looked out at the sea of faces. Even the blue-grey air and the traffic gleaming
south along Fifth Avenue seemed freighted with expectation. I was pretty sure there
was no secret to being an artist, but I realised I wished there was. I was holding
my breath as much as anyone when she spoke.

The secret, she said, is syphilis.

There was a short pause. Everyone looked confused.

I stifled a splutter. Then Katherine DuCroix erupted in a furious wheezing cackle,
and I let myself go. The sound of our laughter billowed out through the crowd.

Oh my god, Katherine said, turning to me. The look on their faces. I've always wanted
to say that.

People will believe anything, I said.

They will, she said. You're cute.

The long-haired man was staring at her, face flushed with humiliation. People around
him were laughing, but it was a thin, uneasy sound. Behind us a single cab pulled
up.

Here! someone shouted. Katherine. Go.

We were moving again. The security guards cleared a path to the waiting car. I felt
Lucy's hand, cool and firm, take mine in the crush. The director held the cab door
open. Katherine tugged at my jacket.