Back in Tawatawa

By Vana Manasiadis ft. Tangaroa Paora (Muriwhenua)

It happened on Te Wharepōuri on the corner of Rintoul at the bustop that you’d bump into Maaka and fixate on his fuschia nails, red lips and mini-skirt with tears below the zip. Hi Maaka, you might have said, while you waited, Hello my little ginger, Maaka might have answered, My scruffy little minx. It happened on Te Wharepōuri on the corner of Adelaide that you’d walk alongside Irina, her face of rouge and chalk and outline. She might have talked to you about her lost fortunes, and cousins in the camps, before carrying on in her peeling pumps and  black coat worn daily since the war.        It happened down Te Wharepōuri on the way to Russell that you’d follow Ari after special school, or Mirza with his mum. Mirza never opened his eyes so his mum had to pull him sideways, and you were in love with Ari, his wide-green eyes that never blinked, that never saw you see him.   It happened off Te Wharepōuri that if you didn’t cross in time, the kids from SWIS would ask you for a smoke or where you lived so they could come-bash-you-up. They hung out behind the haunted bungalows at numbers 24 and 6 and were mates with wairua who coughed at you as you ran past.       It happened not far from Te Wharepōuri that gangs like Satan’s Skins got off their four-wheel bikes. You’d never ever bump into them, except one time when you went with your mum to give them koulourakia. At this time lots of white grandparents lived down Te Wharepōuri and called it Waripori, not knowing any better. 

Skylla was trying to figure out how to write this. She’d crossed out five A4 sheets of paper, five physical false starts until her head hurt. So she grabbed her woven kapa and climbed up Tawatawa to look over the park and the old tip, and on towards the protest where Maaka got his head smashed in, in 1981

on a Saturday, after the group met up: Irina in her fur stole, and Naisha, Mirza’s mum, in leathers, and small Skylla bumping into both, her dogs’ heads nipping, asking if she could go along. You come, Irina had said, knowing full-well that getting heard wouldn’t be as simple as digging in her heels, and Let’s show ‘em, said Naisha since she’d had a gutsful of slurs thrown at her boys for not managing to Kick the Fucking Ball

or Swing that Cricket Bat or Shoot ‘em in the Guts, said Maaka his black hair poofed big and powerful (his platform boots, his crop top vest, his deliberateness, his beauty). He held an electro-voice mic nicked from last night’s act and added: No way I’m staying in bed today, after last night on the booze, no way I’m not joining all my commie mates on this one in our hood. His purpose atomized the chipseal, called the river in the road

so off they stepped, a wall against the warnings to keep out, Maaka, Irina, Naisha; and Skylla trailing but still windproof, and foolproof. She didn’t know then how things could get for hybrid kids with dogs heads showing from their chests. She didn’t know how freaky that was for folks who were smooth batons instead.  Stop the Tour, she called with Naisha who folded an arm around her mongrel little trunk. Not quite normal, not quite normal, they all sang

and they marched over Berhampore Farm, occupied by Luxford in 1850-something, over the hospital built for plague in 1900, then converted into dingy flats for working poor after healing wounded soldiers. There’d been a lot that wasn’t right, a lot of Wakefield and MacAlister. There’d been a lot of rinse-repeat like the mauve rinses of The Knitters Group who didn’t care for politics, and drew blinds against wrong colours

like the pounamu of the SWIS jerseys who climbed the bank as if over a trench. They had placards saying Burp-poor Stinks and Social Studies Sucks, and a comic of the East India Company smashing Barahampur and of Prince Siraj-ud-Daulah getting shot against a wall; and of the New Zealand Company coasting on the Tory and Hunter naming the place Berhampore for his hungawai, but spelling it all wrong. Fuck, both Naisha and Maaka spat, we’ve had it up to here

and here and here, said Irina, I know how these things looks like. So Maaka picked up the pace, the others in his tracks, and by the time they’d reached the major fuss, Adelaide the road, not ship, was filled with blue and bloodied. That is, the scene was not so sporting. And Skylla was pulled into the quick. And Skylla was rolled against a curb. And Skylla’s dogs couldn’t see the sky and were hurtled to the front

which is when Maaka pushed past the helmets and the red as if Te Kakapi-o-te-rangi Te Wharepōuri back from Te Pō for a little restoration. 

Taiaha Ha
I taiaha Ha
Kia hiwa rā
I kia hiwa rā
Kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku
Kia hiwa rā ki tēnā tuku
Kia tū
Kia oho
Kia mataara

he smashed as he grabbed the little minx 

Waerea te rangi e tū iho nei
Waerea te papa e hore nei e
Kauparetia ki te aho matua
Whītikina ake te aka matua e
Kia māhea, kia wātea
Hui e
Tāiki e!

he stood as the club came down flat against his mouth, then arm and temple. 

(Πού να βαλθούν τα δάκρυα μου για τον ξεχωρισμό σου)

What happened next? The park collapsed, the stadium and fences. The quarter acre pickets disappeared, and the streams rose to the surface. Even the tuna came swimming back, and the kōura too, since they’d never welcomed real estate or musket magic tricks. And Irina spoke Polish and Naisha didn’t worry when Mirza worshipped in plain sight

and Skylla, her heads howling, her tail brushing against the earth that covered all the streets where all the weirdos lived, grew old. It was time to come down Tawatawa and sit again with Ari who’d turned into a rimu. She unfolded her last sheet of A4 and wrote one last sentence, and it was simple it happened on Te Wharepōuri Street that Ari’s leaves staunched all the bleeding.

Kia ora ki aku kiritata o Tawatawa
ki a Kerryn Pollock
ki a Paige Pomana me Sour Heart Productions