Uncle's Story

Chapter Twenty-one

‘Okay, babe,’ I said to Roimata, ‘it’s time for you to get on your plane.’

The conference was over and Roimata and I were separating. She was going on to London, and I was leaving half an hour later for Houston, Texas, to spend a few days with Amiria and Tyrone.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right without me?’ she asked.

‘You’re talking like a wife already.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve had strict instructions from Carlos. If you don’t get back in one piece and on time, he’s pulling my business class ticket from London to New Zealand. I’m sorry, dear, but when it comes to your welfare or my ticket, the ticket wins. Oh, you —’

Sometimes, when Roimata can’t express herself verbally, she resorts to physical stuff. Usually a furious hug and a badly aimed kiss. While I was wiping her lipstick off my nose, she said her goodbyes to Lang, Sterling, Wandisa and Franklin.

Surprise, surprise, Bertram Pine Hawk joined us.

‘This might be unexpected, Michael,’ he said, ‘but I want to thank you for all you and Roimata have done. Not only did you shake us up once, you shook us up twice! The irony is that I have benefited on both occasions. The Council is going to have to change, and it looks like I’ll be up for a more important position either there or higher.’

‘You?’

Bertram laughed and shook my hand.

‘Goodbye, Michael. Some future time, somewhere in the world, we’ll cross swords again no doubt.’

With a nod to Franklin and the others, he turned and left and — Roimata was hugging me again.

‘Come on, Roimata,’ I soothed. ‘We’ll see each other back in New Zealand.’

‘Oh, I’m not emotional about that,’ she answered. ‘I’m so happy at what we did here in Canada! Bertram knows it, I know it, you’re the only one who doesn’t! And this is just the beginning, Michael. Don’t you understand how much you’ve changed, how much you’ve grown? When we get back to Aotearoa, we’ll have to make our stand there too.’

Then she was gone, running through Customs, a whirlwind of beauty and strength.

I turned to Franklin.

‘Goodbye, Fairy Godmother,’ I said.

‘It’s been an honour, Michael.’

I turned to Lang, Sterling and Wandisa.

‘Be strong,’ I said. ‘You all have a long and hard road ahead of you, but together you’ll get there.’

Lang laughed.

‘Are you talking to us? We don’t know each other. We only happen to be standing next to each other. I’m a mountain Indian.’

A few hours later, I exchanged the cool of Canada for the heat of Texas. The first person I saw when I got off the plane was Amiria. Who could miss her? She was as big as a house.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she wailed as she hugged me.

‘Gee, Sis, tell me something I don’t know,’ I said.

‘I can’t even fit behind the steering wheel any longer.’

I saw Tyrone, grinning from ear to ear. I shook his hand and whispered:

‘I suppose it’s twins, right?’

‘Even better,’ he said. ‘Triplets. I was wondering how I was going to keep Amiria off the freeways. Have you seen her drive? Man, she’s lethal — still hasn’t remembered which side of the road she should be on. Now she’ll be so busy with the kids and America will be able to breathe easy.’

Tyrone and Amiria’s uptown apartment was lavishly decorated and had a balcony view of the city to die for. In the early evening Tyrone excused himself, and left for work at the casino.

‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I’d only be in the way. You two have a lot to talk about.’

Amiria and I sat on the balcony and watched the sun go down. Amiria told me about her life in Texas and how everybody was overjoyed about the triplets, especially Tyrone’s ex-girlfriend.

‘She thinks this is her chance to get Tyrone back. No way! All he wants to do at nights is to come home, put his head against my tummy and listen to the three little buggers fighting in there. He goes all cross-eyed and goofy-looking, and he’s full of plans for them. I can’t stand it!’

Amiria made dinner and we sat in the candelight munching on the diet to which the obstetrician had confined her: lettuce, carrots, fish, no dairy products or fatty foods whatsoever. I told her about my split with Jason, meeting Carlos, and Roimata’s proposal that we should think of getting married.

‘Give me that girl’s telephone number,’ Amiria said as the triplets kicked inside her. ‘There’s something somebody better warn her about fast.’

She gave me a quizzical look.

‘You’re moving, aren’t you Michael. I can see it in the way you are, the way you look, the way you act. It’s like you were in soft focus before you came out. Now you’re more defined, more clear, more purposeful. I can see you now.’

Amiria, my twin, had always been able to go straight to the heart of things.

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I think you’re right. It’s taken me some time, but right now, I have embraced being gay. I’m no longer scared of it or ashamed of it. I’m glad of it and proud of it. And —’

‘And?’

I stood up. I looked at the darkening city.

‘Amiria, it has to stop. All this hatred of gay men and women. All the pain that it causes. I can help make the difference. I have to get out there in the front line.’

‘Mum and Dad won’t like that. I was talking to Mum on the telephone last week. I told her you were coming to see me. She and Dad are hoping for a reconciliation.’

‘That’s what they say, but that’s not what they want. What they want is for me to go home and tell them I’m sorry, I’ll be a good boy and that I won’t do it again. But that’s not the way it’s going to be, Sis. They’re going to have to accept me as I am. On my own terms.’

By late evening Amiria and I were like old lovers. There was only one last thing to tell her. I breathed in deep, saw the stars spinning in the night sky and began.

‘Amiria, I need to tell you about someone you don’t know. He was our uncle. His name was Sam —’

That night, speaking Uncle Sam’s story to Amiria, singing and crying his story into the dawn, was the First Telling.

I had a wonderful few days with Amiria. She and Tyrone had an invitation to go to the opening of the Dan Flavin art installation down at Marfa, and they insisted I go with them. We booked into the El Paisano Hotel, where the cast of Giant had stayed while making the film. Amiria and Tyrone had Elizabeth Taylor’s room, I had James Dean’s, and I imagined Auntie Pat’s face when I told her. The Flavin installation was stunning — awe-inspiring fluorescent gateways illuminating tunnels of darkness. All too soon, however, it was time to go home.

‘Will you come back?’ Amiria asked.

‘I’ll come when the triplets are born.’

We hugged and kissed. Amiria didn’t want to let me go.

‘Tell Roimata not to bother to have a kid of her own,’ she yelled, as I ran to catch my flight. ‘She can take one of mine!’

It’s strange how these things happen. On the flight to Los Angeles the plane ran into a lightning storm. The lightning flashed and zinged and crackled across the sky in a display of awesome power. I kept thinking of fluorescent gateways, opening and opening, one after the other, a limitless set of doors leading to some great mystery.

Was the lightning display just to be admired for itself, or was it a portent of some kind? Was there something in what Sterling had told me about people of two spirits and the berdache culture:

‘People of two spirits were shamans. The berdache were the ones to go out onto the battlefields to collect the dead. They could communicate with the gods. They were dream travellers —’

Somewhere between Houston and Los Angeles I tapped into my second spirit. I saw myself holding Uncle Sam’s body in my arms and carrying it through a pyrotechnic storm of lightning strikes and fluorescent gateways. Ahead, in that fearful universe, I saw an altar. I placed Uncle Sam’s body on it and uttered a prayer to any gods who were listening:

‘Have mercy. Have pity. Please, not eternal darkness —’

Was that it? Was that what happened?

All I know is that it was stifling and hot in Los Angeles. My throat was dry. There was a water fountain near the airline’s lounge, but I wasn’t quite sure how to operate it. There was no hand button or foot pedal to activate the flow. A teenage girl, watching, put me out of my misery.

‘It works automatically,’ she said. ‘You lower your face to the fountain and —’

Yeah, the water comes out and spits you in the eye.

I heard a ripple of amusement as I drank. The water was cool. I scooped some in my left hand and rubbed it on my neck. I began to stand.

That’s when I felt the presence of the past.

Perhaps the music being piped through the terminal had something to do with it: ‘Rhapsody In Blue’, redolent of the Big Band era, American nostalgia, Fourth of July. The ‘Rhapsody’ reached that point where the big melody comes in. It soared above me and I followed its path —

And a flight of helicopters came out of the music, circling down through the blue sky over Vietnam, to land at the far end of the concourse. The lead chopper was already on the ground. The rotors slowed to a halt. A pilot stepped out. He saw me, waved, smiled, took off his sunglasses. His eyes, so green. His teeth, so white and even. His boyish grin. He looked so handsome in his flyer’s kit.

‘Hey! Sam —’

Cliff Harper.

‘This can’t be happening.’

The water from the fountain was still fresh on my hands. I swayed, closed my eyes and spread the water with my fingers across my lips.

Ah, rainwater, it is always so cool.

When I recovered, I looked back down the concourse. My heart was pounding — had it just been my imagination? People were rushing backwards and forwards, obscuring my vision. Then I saw him again, the handsome, smiling pilot walking towards me. It was happening. But something was wrong. At every step, at every move as he tried to get through the press of people, he became older. His youthful stride began to falter — and I began to feel an extraordinary sense of aroha for him.

Time had indeed been kind to Cliff Harper. The devastatingly handsome pilot whom Uncle Sam had known had become a middle-aged man who still had an immense physical charm. It was not just a matter of matinee-idol looks. It was also a matter of charisma.

Cliff Harper stopped some ten metres away. He still carried himself with grace and strength. I realised he hadn’t seen me. He had taken off his glasses and was wiping them with a handkerchief.

I stepped into his line of vision. For some reason I became so angry:

‘Why now, Mr Harper? Why come now?’

Cliff Harper gave a gasp.

‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘My son told me you looked like the photograph, but —’

‘Why didn’t you stay in the past where you belong?’

Cliff Harper didn’t hear me. He took a step forward, his walking stick slipped on the tiled floor and he fell into my arms:

‘I never expected you to look so like Sam —’

I helped him to a nearby seat. Some passersby stopped and asked if I needed any assistance.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But perhaps a glass of water?’

I turned to Cliff Harper. I was still angry.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I have friends in the airlines. When I came back from Vietnam I became a commercial pilot. My friends were able to check on the incoming flight details you gave me on the telephone and tell me when you were flying out.’

He was still looking at me as if he couldn’t believe — or was afraid to believe — who I was.

‘So why now? Why?’

‘Young Cliff gave me Tunui a te Ika and your letter. I knew then that I couldn’t keep on closing Sam out of my memory.’

He began to talk fast, almost as if he was pleading for me to understand.

‘This might be hard for you to understand, but whenever memories of those war years threaten to come into my mind, I close them off. It’s the same with Sam. I dare not think about him. If I do —’

He was expecting me to reply, but I remained tight-lipped, refusing to give him any quarter. He tried again.

‘You live your life, son, that’s all I can say. When I left Sam, and your country, I closed the door. I thought, ‘Sam’s made his decision to stay with his family.’ I was stubborn. I was too proud. I kept going forward. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year. And, you know, all of a sudden I’d made it to the other side. I met Wendy. A really good woman. We got ourselves three kids. All boys. Eldest is twenty-five now, Cliff junior, whom you’ve already met.’

‘You still haven’t told me why you decided to come to see me now.’

Cliff Harper looked up. His eyes were brimming with tears.

‘Do you know anything at all about love, son? Do you know what it is like to close it away, lock yourself up so damned tight and throw away the key? Sam and I, we were going to be back to back together against the rest of the world. I believed it would happen. He believed it would happen. When it didn’t, I didn’t blame him. I blamed myself. I’ve been blaming myself these past thirty years. And I know this sounds crazy, but I got to thinking that Sam, he blamed me too. When you began to telephone me, I just didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know anything. Don’t you understand? I should never have left Sam behind.’

Then he became angry. He pulled Tunui a te Ika out of his pocket.

‘No, you wouldn’t know anything about love, you son of a bitch. And you had to bring me the goddam key, didn’t you —’

His face grew grim.

‘You had to disobey me and you’ve left me with a lot of explaining to do to my family. That’s in the future, but right now I want to know about the past. So you start talking, son, and start talking fast. I want to know the details of what happened to Sam. You said in your letter there had been a car accident —’

‘He was coming to meet you at the airport. There was a woman changing her tyre on the side of the road. Uncle Sam stopped to help her. It was raining. The traffic was heavy. While Uncle Sam was changing the tyre, a truck smashed into the car. It fell on him. He died instantly.’

Cliff Harper gave a sharp cry. He groaned and hunched forward.

‘Dear God —’

Five minutes later, I was sitting with Cliff Harper in the business class lounge. We had managed to make a kind of peace with each other, and Cliff Harper was making peace with his past. It was strange how it happened. The story of Sam’s death may have been a tragedy, but in some wonderful way it was also an affirmation that Cliff Harper had been waiting for all these years.

‘So he was coming,’ he whispered to himself. ‘And he stopped to help somebody who’d broken down on the road? That was just like Sam. I wouldn’t have expected him to do anything else.’

Cliff Harper turned to me and sighed.

‘You’ll never know the hell I went through when I left your grandfather’s farm. When I arrived in Auckland I tried telephoning Sam, but Arapeta always answered. He would never let me speak to Sam. I tried to get through to George to see if he would get a message through to Sam. But that never worked either. By the time Friday night arrived I was going crazy with anxiety. I checked in early and I waited and waited. I died a thousand times thinking “There he is!” when it was somebody else. That night, waiting there for Sam while everybody around me had someone they were saying goodbye to or travelling with, was the loneliest night of my life. I heard the first boarding call. The second. The third. Then —’

The loudspeaker crackled.

‘Would Mr Harper please go through Customs and board his flight immediately at Gate One.’

Cliff was going out of his mind. He couldn’t wait any longer. In desperation, he turned to the Customs officer at the gate.

‘Sir, I need to leave a message. There’s a friend of mine, his name’s Sam, he’s supposed to be here. If he arrives, please give him this note.’

Cliff scribbled his Illinois address and phone number: Back of the Moon, Muskegon County, Illinois. He folded the note and put Sam’s name on the front.

‘Please tell him to call me as soon as he can,’ Cliff said.

The loudspeaker crackled again:

‘Mr Harper, Mr Cliff Harper, your plane is waiting for immediate departure.’

Across the departure hall, Cliff Harper saw something strange, almost surreal. A young woman was stumbling through the crowd in a dazed manner. She looked like a madwoman. Her evening dress was spattered with the brown rust colour that Cliff knew was dried blood. She was calling for somebody:

‘Chris? Chris —’

An airport security officer went over to her, and tried to get her to leave. She kept resisting, saying:

‘No, I must find him.’

An old man approached the girl. He cradled her and she collapsed into his arms.

Once more the loudspeaker:

‘Mr Harper? Mr Cliff Harper —’

Cliff’s heart was beating with pain. He thought of the time when Sam had come along on the rescue mission to bring out a downed F-4 fighter pilot. Sam was on the ground with the pilot. The enemy were closing in. Suddenly there was a whump and the chopper juddered in the air:

‘They’ve got a rocket launcher!’ Seymour yelled. ‘We’re hit! We’re hit!’

Cliff’s body flooded with adrenalin: ‘God, don’t let me go down like Fox.’ He was checking his gauges, his training automatically initiating the procedures to ensure damage control. To his right he heard the Skyraiders begin high-speed strafing of the area from which the rocket had been launched, walking their incendiary shells down the slope. The forest flamed and smoked.

Sam was still on the ground with the wounded pilot. Only, it wasn’t a pilot any more but a girl in an evening dress. And MacDuff was radioing:

‘Your call, Woody Woodpecker.’

Bullets were whanging around the chopper. Seymour was yelling that they had to exit the area. But Cliff couldn’t leave Sam. Not like this. He looked down to the ground. Saw Sam moving his fingers in sign.

Hey, Harper! Do you know what haere ra means?

Cliff cried out,

‘Sam, no —’

He worked the controls, seesawing the chopper back and forth across the tops of the trees, mowing through the upper density.

Suddenly there was a sunlit space. Sam’s eyes were glowing with love.

I will always love you, Illinois country boy. You’re in my heart.

And he was gone.

Thirty years later, and I was sitting in an airport lounge with Cliff Harper. Our conversation had circled and spun between past and present. Somehow we managed to stitch together what he knew of Sam and what I knew of what had happened to him. Somewhere in all that circling we found a kind of friendship, a kind of reconciliation with one another.

From talking about Uncle Sam it only seemed natural to talk about Auntie Pat.

‘How is she?’ Cliff Harper asked.

He had a strange look in his eyes, almost as if he didn’t want to know, but he relaxed as I told him she was well.

‘Is she still unmarried?’ he asked.

To my surprise, Cliff Harper then turned the attention to my life.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he asked.

I told him I was gay. ‘Once,’ I said, ‘I was ashamed of it. I’m not any longer.’ I told him about my break-up with Jason, my meeting Carlos, and the interesting shapes that were emerging out of the dynamic of Roimata, Carlos and myself.

‘Most of all,’ I said, ‘I’ve made a political commitment to change my world. To change the Maori world. I owe it to myself. I owe it to Uncle Sam — and to you —’

Cliff Harper nodded.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you talk like that, you take up a particular posture, a way of standing that reminds me of Sam. Leaning slightly forward. Ready to take on all comers.’

The business class supervisor tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Mr Mahana, your plane is boarding now.’

I stood up. Shook Cliff Harper’s hand.

‘I’m glad you came to Los Angeles.’

‘So am I, son,’ he answered. ‘So am I.’

‘Would you do me a favour? Some day, would you tell your son, Cliff Junior, about you and Uncle Sam? It might be a hard ask right now, but you were the one he loved, the one he wanted to be with. I don’t think I’d be able to take it if I knew that of all the people in the world, you denied him, Mr Harper. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next week or next month. But tell your son sometime?’

‘Yes, I will,’ he promised

I turned to walk away. I don’t know why, but something made me turn back. Something to do with gladness, with joy, with grief. I grasped Cliff Harper fiercely and pulled his forehead against mine, his nose against mine in the hongi. Mourned and keened over all that could have been between him and Sam.

‘Goodbye, Mr Harper.’

‘Wait,’ he said.

His face was blanched with grief, as if he didn’t want to let me go. As if he should do something to keep Uncle Sam alive between us. Then he found the way.

He took Tunui a te Ika out of his pocket, lifted it up. The light glowed through it, showing its upright penis, its mana, its strength. The greenstone twisted and flashed in his fingers.

‘I know you brought this all the way to give to me. But I need to return it to you. Your uncle would have wanted you to have it. You will need it more than I do if you are to achieve all the things that lie ahead of you.’

He placed Tunui a te Ika around my neck. At first the greenstone was cold, as if only just awakening. Then it began to take warmth from my skin, and I felt it searching for a place to settle. A place from which to begin battle.

‘Tell Patty,’ Cliff Harper said, ‘I forgive her.’

The flight soared across a midnight sea. The sky was still sunless as we made our descent to New Zealand. Mist was streaming across the land, spilling over the cliffs at the end of the world. Mist, sea, land, all spilling over into oblivion.

Carlos met me at the airport. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.

We drove to the apartment. Made love. Talked about what had happened in Canada. Talked about his skindiving while I’d been away. I told him about Cliff Harper. He asked about Roimata. We made love again.

That night I tossed and turned in the tightening noose of jet lag. My dreams were fractured, cut glass tearing at the dreams and letting the nightmares in. Once more, I felt that tremendous dread as, all of a sudden, a thousand shards fell about me and I saw that black highway at midnight. I fell to the tarseal and listened to the ground throbbing with hoofbeats. The thrum thrum thrum of the black stallion. It had pursued me all my life, through countless years, countless beds and countless dreams.

You know what it’s like in nightmares. It’s dark and you’re always alone. It’s like those horror movies where the actor is in a perilous position and there’s never anybody around.

And so, once again, I began to run. I could only move in slow motion. I could hear myself grinding my teeth. I heard myself moaning, willing myself to run faster, get out of there, escape from the blackness. I felt my pores pop with explosions of fear, and I was drenched with sweat.

I looked back again. I could see the stallion. Its eyes were on fire. Its hooves struck sparks like flints, taunted me, circling me in the blackness, choosing its moment. The thrum, thrum thrum was all around me and then —

There it was. Coming towards me. There was nothing I could do.

I cried out to myself, Wake up, wake up.

But the stallion was rearing up on its hind legs. It was screaming its rage and slashing out its hooves like steel blades. It shredded the blackness with arcs of fire. Its eyes were bulging. The veins on its neck were like ropes.

The hooves descending. Slashing.

Then I heard myself saying in my dream, ‘No.’

The stallion was standing on its hind legs. For a moment it was motionless, looking down at me. Its eyes were wild, unwavering. It whinnied again, surrounding me with its rage and fetid breath.

‘No,’ I said again.

All of a sudden, I saw that there was a bullwhip in my hands. The whip was covered in blood. And all the fury, sadness and anger of the world rushed into the whip as I raised it and began to crack it at the stallion.

‘Get back. Get back.’

The whip arced through the air. At each snap it showered sparks through the dream. The sparks fell upon the stallion, making it cry with pain. Then the whip began to sing. Its song was one of strength and power. It said, ‘I will take this no longer, I will no longer let you have power over me. From this day I will fight back and I will win.’

I brought all my rage to the bullwhip.

‘Oh, you bastard world!’ I called.

My eyes were on fire. My feet struck sparks like flints. At each crack of the lash the stallion began to diminish, to squeal with confusion and pain. It began to retreat. Slowly. Giving ground.

In the dream I heard the whip singing. I saw the stallion retreating. The arc of the whip shredded that dream until it no longer existed. Then I woke up. How Carlos had slept through my tossing and turning was beyond me.

I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and had a long hot shower. After a while an extraordinary sense of release and calm came over me. I went out into the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee and took it out onto the balcony.

‘What’s up?’ Carlos asked, yawning and scratching his armpits.

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

He put his arms around me. ‘Well, seeing that we’re both wide awake —’

We had a race back to bed. He won.

Chapter Twenty Two

There was still one thing left to do to complete my uncle’s story.

But first there were more immediate matters to take care of. One of them was to formally end my relationship with Jason.

‘I’ll see you in court,’ he had said. He wanted his day there — but I instructed my lawyer to give him the property or money he wanted. Half of everything, all of everything, it didn’t matter any longer. His lawyer persuaded Jason to settle out of court, and we met for the last time in his lawyer’s office.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Carlos asked.

‘No,’ I answered.

It was better for me to face Jason alone. But I hadn’t expected him to bring along his cheerleaders, Graham and Margo.

I can’t begin to tell you how difficult the meeting was. On my part, I was sad that our goodbyes had to take place within a legal framework. Jason was ballistic, out of control, wanting his pound of flesh.

‘You owe me more than half of everything we had together,’ he said. ‘You owe me my life back. All those wasted years with you —’

He was still spiralling, on a descent to confront whatever demons Margo had found lurking in the shadows of his life. Angry, I turned to her and Graham.

‘You are responsible for Jason now. And you both better look after him.’

I had brought roses to give Jason. He laughed with incredulity and threw them at me.

‘Keep your roses.’

The petals scattered in the air like blood.

Another matter involved Carlos. Whatever was going to happen to Roimata and me, marriage, children, would be in the future. And it would have to take into consideration the fact that I had decided to let Carlos into my life.

‘How about going to the next level?’ he asked.

I think he was surprised at my answer.

‘You give me Mayfair, Piccadilly, $5000 cash, a Chance card and a card to get me out of jail — and I’ll think about it.’

His eyes brightened.

‘Can we be a bit more specific? Is that a yes?’

‘Well, okay,’ I said, ‘but I’ll have a crayfish with that.’

Then Tane Mahuta rang me and gave me the opportunity to go to Gisborne and to settle the matter.

‘A young gay boy has died of Aids,’ Tane said. ‘His name was Waka. He comes from the Gisborne area and somebody needs to lead an ope to take his body back to his marae. Will you and Roimata do it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s time, and I will be proud to lead the group.’

Tane conveniently forgot to tell me that Waka had been a rent boy on Vivian Street and that the ope, in consequence, wasn’t going to be conventional. Quite the opposite — and when I called all his friends together to discuss the travel arrangements, I gulped at the enormity of the task. Talk about a dog’s breakfast. There were about thirty who wanted to accompany Waka’s body to his marae — an assortment of other boys who were on the game, two trannies, some street kids and other teenagers with green hair, pierced noses and chains hanging from their belts.

I called Auntie Pat.

‘I need your help, Auntie Pat! Can I count on you to be at Poho o Rawiri to do the karanga when we go on?’

As for Roimata, she tried to back out. ‘Oh, no you don’t,’ I said.

Carlos promised to join us in Gisborne after attending a fisheries hui in Christchurch.

The ope started out from Wellington during the weekend. Waka was accompanied in the hearse by his boyfriend, Jewel, and a cousin, Tim. The rest of us were in cars of all descriptions, and one of them, a flash Jaguar, had been stolen — though I didn’t know it at the time. When we arrived in Gisborne, Auntie Pat said it looked like a circus had come to town. She was waiting for us at the gate to Poho o Rawiri.

‘Boy, oh boy,’ she warned. ‘There’s a big row taking place in there and you started it. Some of the dead boy’s family don’t want him back here. They may not welcome you onto the marae.’

‘We’ll wait all day and all night if we have to,’ I said. ‘It is Waka’s right to be buried in the place where he was born. He is Maori as well as gay. We’re here to make sure his right is honoured.’

Oh, I felt so proud of our ope. I didn’t care that we looked a rather odd tribe. It took courage to front up to a culture as forbidding as ours. The meeting house with its warrior carvings. The welcome ceremonies with all their strict protocol. In the old days, one false move and you could die. And the local people didn’t even want us there.

Roimata took charge of the young girls, explaining the rituals of the tangihanga and what was required of them. When Carlos arrived he gave the boys, including Jewel, a five-minute lesson on haka. None of them had been on a marae before. The bravado in Wellington had evaporated into absolute terror.

We waited and waited. One hour later, the arguing was still going on in the meeting house.

‘Well, we’ve been here two hours,’ Roimata said. ‘If the local people don’t come to a decision, you’ll have to force the issue.’

That’s what I like about Roimata. She is such a dear, always implying that I have to make the decisions.

‘We’ll give them five minutes more,’ I said. ‘If we aren’t called on, we’re going on, and to hell with them. Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate. If we stand, we live. If we lie down, we die.’

At that, some of the ope wanted to bolt. Not that they would have got far. I had told them to wear black, but I had forgotten to tell Jewel and Tim to leave their high heels at home.

‘Okay,’ I said to Roimata. ‘You and Auntie Pat begin the karanga. We’re going in.’

And after suggesting it herself, you know what Roimata asked?

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘We are a people. We are a tribe. We bring our dead. If tradition has to be broken, then I will break it. Nobody will stop us from burying our own among the people where they belong. The time for hiding ourselves and our dead is past. The time for burying them in some anonymous cemetery is over. ‘

Roimata went to the gateway to begin the call announcing that we were coming in no matter what.

Just then, an old woman, walking stick in her left hand, came out of the doorway of the meeting house and approached us.

‘I didn’t know Lilly was the grandmother,’ Auntie Pat said.

‘Lilly? Turei’s mother?’

Immediately, three men came running out after Lilly — and, oh no, now they were having a row with her in broad daylight. In a temper, Lilly raised her walking stick and began to hit them.

‘Get away you mongrels —’

The men backed away. One of them swore loudly at her and gave us the fingers. Lilly didn’t care and neither did we. We’d had worse.

Lilly straightened up. She looked at us. I think we probably gave her a bit of a shock. She knew we had brought Waka’s body back, but she was trying to figure out some tribal reference point. E hika, we were like no tribe she had ever seen. Ah well —

Lilly raised her right arm.

‘Haramai ki te ope tane me wahine takatapui —’

Listening to her, I thought: ‘Yes, this is only to be expected from a woman who once took an axe to her son’s coffin so she could see his face.’

‘Welcome to this marae,’ Lilly called. ‘Welcome you strange tribe I see before me! Come forward, you tribe of men who love men and women who love women! Welcome, you brave gay tribe, whom none have seen before! Come! Bring your dead who is also our dead —’

Our tribe was born that day. It was born out of a grandmother’s compulsion to take her grandchild back to her bosom. Out of a need to accept that a new tribe was coming. That day we signalled, ‘Make way, we are coming through.’

We would not be stopped.

Yes, there was still one last thing to be done, but I didn’t get a chance to do it until late that evening. By that time we had been formally welcomed, even if reluctantly, and all the speeches were over. Waka was now lying in state in the meeting house, and the anger against us had begun to dissipate as locals mixed with our new gay tribe and we got to know each other. Bedrolls were being spread in the meeting house. Dinner was over in the wharekai. If it wasn’t for the green hair, garish clothes and pierced noses and eyebrows, you wouldn’t have known that this wasn’t your usual crowd at a tangi. Or that something extraordinary had happened.

Auntie Pat had gone home early. There had been a moment, just after the welcoming ceremony, when she knew I was on to her. I had been following her, waiting for the moment to confront her. When it came, she had been talking to Lilly. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned and beamed a smile:

‘Yes, Michael?’

For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then:

‘Cliff Harper asked me to give you a message —’

Tell Patty I forgive her.

As soon as I said the words, Auntie Pat knew she had been found out. Her eyes gleamed with sorrow.

‘Do we have to talk about this now, while I am defenceless, Michael?’ she asked. ‘Come and see me at home —’

I went to check that things were okay with Roimata. She was sitting with Waka’s family, beginning the vigil over his body that would continue until he was buried. Then I sought out Carlos, who had gone to check the toilets to make sure the kids weren’t snorting coke or doing anything else illegal in there.

‘Can you look after everybody?’ I asked. ‘There’s something I have to talk about with Auntie Pat.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But get back soon. When I asked you if we could go to another level, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind —’

I hopped into the car and drove away from the marae towards Auntie Pat’s place. Gisborne was bright with streetlights and, as I drove along the main road, I remembered Auntie Pat’s description of the first time she had met Cliff Harper. Was that when it had begun for her?

I loved my brother. People used to take us for girlfriend and boyfriend. Then Cliff Harper came. I had my face pressed tight against Sam’s chest and I felt and heard his heart beating. It was going der der der der der der. But when he saw Cliff it changed to der der der der der der —

My mind was whirling. No, perhaps it had all begun down at the waterhole. Sam was singing the Woody Woodpecker song, and Cliff was making mock poses, green eyes like the river, hair set on fire by the sun. Auntie Pat was with Anita and Kara, and they had wanted to take revenge on the men for stealing their clothes.

When had it begun?

I arrived at Auntie Pat’s place. All the lights were off except for the blue illumination of the television screen in the living room. She was still up, watching one of her old movies.

I walked to the open front door. I went past the poster of Till the End of Time. Auntie Pat was sitting in her favorite armchair, and her face was aglow with excitement.

‘Hello, Nephew,’ she said. ‘You’ve come just in time! There he is! There he is —’

On the screen, a young man in American uniform was getting off a bus. A young man who could have been Guy Madison or Cliff Harper. Guy Madison playing Cliff Harper. Or Cliff Harper playing Guy Madison.

I walked over to the television set and switched it off.

‘No,’ Auntie Pat pleaded.

I whirled on her and she shrank back, huddling into the armchair to get away from me. I looked at her — and at the house to which she had escaped for thirty years.

It was time to bring her out.

‘Why did you do it, Auntie? Why?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

I grabbed her by the wrists and she fought me, striking out at me.

‘You know nothing, Michael,’ she yelled. ‘You know nothing.’

Auntie Pat has always disliked physical contact. I used to joke that maybe it all had to do with those slobbery kisses you get when you’re on the marae. But despite her screaming and raging against me, I held her tight.

‘Let me go, Michael, let me go —’

She was kicking, scratching and biting. All of a sudden she began to scream and scream. Before I knew it, the dam inside Auntie Pat burst apart.

‘They should have told me, Michael. They should have told me the truth. I thought that Sam and Cliff were just friends. That’s what Sam told me. But it wasn’t the truth. If I’d known about them I wouldn’t have —’

‘What, Auntie, what —’

George’s wedding. The dancehall, 1971. Patty was drunk and giggling because she had played a trick on Cliff and run to the bandleader and told him, ‘Get Cliff up to do a song for us.’ And Cliff had been positively fabulous, singing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ just like Elvis. And Patty knew that she loved him, had loved him ever since he had stepped down from the bus, ever since she had seen him at the river, ever since the beginning of Time. And she screamed herself hoarse as Cliff scorched the hall with his number.

Auntie Pat’s eyes were wide and staring. ‘Then the song was over, and I saw Cliff running out the door with Sam, and I remembered that they were going home that night, back to the farm. I yelled above the crowd, ‘Cliff, don’t go!’ I wanted to tell him to stay. I wanted to tell him I loved him.’

And Patty couldn’t let Cliff leave just like that. She pushed through the crowd to the doorway. Where had Cliff and Sam gone? She saw them stumbling down to the rental car and, next moment, they had fallen. ‘Cliff! Cliff! Don’t go, Cliff!’ She ran after them and heard them laughing. And she too was laughing with happiness that she had caught up with Cliff, and then —

Auntie Pat turned to me. She touched her lips.

‘And then I saw you kiss him, Sam.’

Her voice was hushed, almost with awe.

‘I saw you kiss each other and I didn’t know what to think … I didn’t know that men would do that, kiss like that … and Cliff saw me and later, he must have realised I was the one who …’

‘Who did what, Auntie?’

And all of a sudden, Patty was vomiting. She ran back to the dining hall. Daddy was there. He asked her, ‘What’s wrong with you, Patty? What’s wrong?’

‘I told Daddy, Sam,’ Auntie Pat’s voice was small, plaintive. ‘I told him I saw you kissing Cliff. You should have told me the truth, Sam. If you had told me the truth about you and Cliff I would never have fallen in love with him. Or become so angry as to tell Daddy.’

I remembered the last words in Uncle Sam’s diary.

May God have mercy.

‘So who was it who wrote those words, Auntie? Was it Uncle Sam?’

‘Of course it wasn’t.’

‘You did, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

It took me until five in the morning to calm Auntie Pat down and to help her find her way back to the present. When she did, it was like watching somebody newly arisen from a morning sea.

‘Yes, Auntie Pat,’ I said, ‘it’s done. It’s over.’

‘I’ve been carrying the guilt all my life,’ she answered. ‘I’m glad you know everything.’

‘You have to forgive yourself. You weren’t to blame. You can put the past behind you now and get on with life. And I need you.’

‘Need me?’

‘This is just the beginning, Auntie. There are other Sams to fight for. I’ll need your feistiness, your fighting sprit.’

I watched as Auntie Pat’s back stiffened and her head went up to look at the far horizon.

‘Okay, Nephew,’ she said, spitting on her hands. ‘Just put me in the front row. You’ll hear all about it if you don’t put me in the front —’

Roimata was right. Auntie Pat was going to make a good kuia for our new gay tribe.

When I returned to the marae, the Southern Cross was turning just above the meeting house like a pinwheel. The meeting house had become its axis, determining the revolving of the world and stars. Roimata was sleeping next to Waka’s casket. Some of the kids from Wellington had crawled into her arms.

‘Yes, Roimata, you will make a fine mother for this great new tribe of ours. Your children will be as numerous — twins, triplets, whatever. Pity you couldn’t have chosen a better father.’

I went to find Carlos in the meeting house. He was by himself, watching the stars spilling over the brim of the night.

‘Keep your hands to your sides and don’t move,’ I said.

I stood behind him and slipped my arms under his shirt and around his chest. He shivered at their coldness.

The sky started to streak with the dawn.

‘Hey,’ Carlos said, ‘It’s going to be a great day —’

I felt Tunui a te Ika leap with expectancy against my heart. A good place from which to do battle.

A good day to begin battle from.

My mind went back to Cliff Harper when we were saying goodbye to each other at Los Angeles Airport. I was at the jetway, boarding my flight. He was at the other end of the terminal, walking away. He looked so lonely.

In despair, I called down the concourse. ‘Mr Harper!’

He turned to look at me. I didn’t know what to do next. Then I heard music surging like the sea, music filled with timelessness. The retreating sound of hunting horns. Two lovers taking the reckless chance to be together. Clattering down through the music, a huge chopper came through the roof. The helicopter hovered, its rotors slicing the sun.

‘This is from Sam!’ I called.

My voice echoed and echoed along the concourse. It seemed to open gateways in Time. People stopped, looked at me, curious.

I pointed at Harper. You.

I pointed at my heart. Me.

I made the thumbs up sign. Love you.

I stood tall. Saluted to him.

Cliff Harper seemed to crumple. Then he straightened. His hand snapped up as he returned my salute.

He turned and walked away.

In the roar of aircraft taking off and landing, in the sound of a helicopter suddenly jumping into the sky, I watched Cliff Harper until he was gone.

And the sun was there, bursting across the horizon.

I thought of Uncle Sam and his great love story. I made him a promise.

Uncle Sam, it is time to construct the world again, but a brave new world. Your story will become part of it and I will tell it until the whole world knows it.

I make my promise, Uncle Sam, to bind the new world’s top and bottom with light. I will tell your story to everyone I meet, whether they want to hear it or not. I will tell them how you loved a man and how wonderful that love was. With that love I will bind the outer framework of the world with the inner framework.

I have realised, Uncle Sam, that the telling of our stories will bring a location and a history to the world that we build. We who are gay and lesbian must fix the stories with firmness and solder their knots with purpose so that they become part of the narratives — the foundations, walls and roof — all peoples tell about each other. We must speak our stories, we must enact them, we must sing our songs throughout this hostile universe. We must bring a new promise to life and a new music to the impulse of history.

Tuia i runga, tuia i raro.

Tuia i roto, tuia i waho.

Tuia i te here tangata ka rongo te Ao

Ka rongo te Po.

Tuia. Tuia

Tuia.

No, Uncle Sam, not eternal darkness.