"You fellas always say sorry with chips": a short story by one of the best new writers in New Zealand
There is a park on Church Street, a grand place that lies opposite an old pub, more a place of gambling than drinking nowadays. The drinking still goes on, of course, but only after the gambling has begun to go poorly. No man in his right mind would leave the pokies on a hot hand, would dare to risk upsetting the affections of those pull-the-lever mechanical maidens.
Their children across the road decorate a rusted jungle gym: Johnny Boy and Whiti and Jay and Beloved and Charity, none of them playing, just sitting, watching the cars pull up and pull away, the old men smoke on the corner, the late sun settle and the red dusk rise. The children don’t speak of the drinking or the smoking or the gambling. It is as mundane to them as the playground that is their Church Street throne; they concern themselves only with prophecies of what is to come.
"When my dad wins, we are going to move to Auckland, buy a big-as house and have McDonald’s every night. Ever had McDonald’s? It’s pretty yum. They have heaps of McDonald’s in Auckland."
"Well, when my dad wins, we are going to buy two houses next door to each other, and then we’ll become robbers. That way when the cops come to get us at the first house, we can just jump the fence and hide in the second one."
"So, when my dad wins—"
"Your dad never wins, Charity."
"Ow, shut up. Yes, he does. He won like a million dollars last week."
"How come he still has to bike everywhere then?"
"'Cause he got his licence taken off him for driving too fast in our new car."
"You don’t have a new car."
"Yes, it’s at my aunty’s house."
Charity is the middle child of the lot: too old to be babied and too small to be counted among the Chiefs of Church Street Park. He nods the same West Coast nod and speaks the same West Coast English; he simply lacks the mana of Johnny Boy and Whiti, the mana that comes only from one great act. Johnny Boy became a Chief when he punched his teacher’s nose in. (In reality, he swung hopelessly at the man, missing, his face streaming in tears, but so it goes around here. Memory gives way to myth.) And Whiti’s got a tattoo. A single black cross that rests above his wrist. (The tūī of Church Street tell that it is merely a birthmark, conveniently shaped. But who can know for sure?)
All their nights at the park are spent between caring for the very young and picking on Charity. They love the boy, because of course they do; he is just a pest, a kind of flea on the back of their fun and games, their keeping themselves busy until their fathers go broke across the street.
"When I’m older I’m going to be the next Bruce Lee. Get my black belt and just go around challenging people to scrap."
"Well, when I’m older I’m going to be the next Sonny Bill, get signed to the Warriors and challenge everyone to run it straight."
"So, when I’m older—"
"You’re going to be a janitor."
"Yes, eh, ow. And he’ll have to follow us around everywhere and pick up our rubbish."
"No, I won’t. I’m going to be a rock star, and I’m going to be rich as, and I’m going to rock all around the world."
"The only thing you’re going to rock is the toilet."
Almost inevitably, Charity will leave at this point, tell everyone to get stuffed and stomp off into the distance, leaving a trail of vengeful tears in his wake. And so the night will settle, and Beloved will ask the Chiefs why Charity is crying, and the park will grow still with regret. It is hard at this point to deny the influence of their fathers upon them, the mean-spirited humour that haunts their homes in the a.m., and even harder to deny their rebelling against it, their quietly conspiring to make things right by the middle child, to remind him he is loved, that Church Street is his home, that they will grow to be different to the men across the road.
Charity’s tears never last as long as the street does. When composure has washed over him again, he is always quick to j og his way back to the park; anxious to get there before his dad does. God knows what would happen if that drinking, gambling, newly broke man found his son missing when the pub had finally washed him out. "You all good, Charity?"
"Yeah ."
"We didn’t mean it, eh."
"I know."
"You sure you’re good?"
"I’m sure."
"We got you some chips from up the road."
"You fellas always say sorry with chips."
"Yeah, ’cause they stop selling chicken after 6 o’clock."
"The children of Church Street" is taken from the new anthology Huia Short Stories 14 (Huia Publishers, $25), available in bookstores nationwide. Two other stories from the book, by Te Ariki Wi Neera and Anthony Pita, have also appeared at Newsroom, with the kind permission of Huia and the authors. All contributors to the book are eligible for the 2021 Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers, announced this evening (October 30).
