Machine Gun Vignettes

I

His agapanthus were the best in the village. His shining pride and joy. Retired 10 years his days were spent tending the garden.  Precision was his game. A ruler was used at sowing. His petunias sparkled. On his berm a row of bright plastic signs prohibited any excretion of excrement or urine. Having sorted out the instructions to God’s literate creatures it hadn’t occurred to him how to prohibit the birds and the bees, the cats and the dogs.

II

She didn’t like how he said good morning to her each day. She knew his sort. Hairy and tattooed, unkempt and in the company of a boisterous dog. He was trouble, he was lowering the tone. She had moved here to be in the company of the right sort of people. It was bad enough there were blacks next-door.  Now she had to deal with a mouthy thug. If only she could go back to how things were before. When Nigel was alive. The past wasn’t perfect, but it was jolly close.

III

The meeting of the Grand Lodge of the Kaka filled the pensioner hall. The honourable member from the Conservative Party, of phobic cultures and real estate industry rights, scanned the room. Once his predecessors had to keep grubby farmers happy, but farmers were now so few in number and so enthral to culture battles that he just needed to keep this lot happy. As long as their property values kept climbing, they would part with a kidney.  Of course, as it stood the kidney to be sacrificed would not be theirs.

IV

Her people had been here since before there were roads, before there was a railway, before there were pākehā. Things had sure changed.  Her house sat on the wrong bit of the right side of the tracks. A rusty Subaru marked the front boundary of the property.  Weeknights she worked checkout at the supermarket.  Most the customers were ok but the shit some of them felt able to say to her. Nothing new. Her people had been here a long time.

V

He was bored shitless. All there was to do was drink, smoke spots, and if his dad was to be believed wrap his car around a lamppost. Not him though, he was quietly confident of his immortality. Mostly he just gamed. His skin had a grey tinge, and his ribs were strangely visible even through a t shirt. He started his day with V slowly easing himself onto Pals. He would drive south to Maccas before he got too blazed. Then it was back into the dank embrace of his room, a cocoon of BO and “bad life choices”, sick.

VI

He had a nose that turned red in the presence of bourbon. It was a constant beacon shining out at the world. He didn’t hold with people, but he loved dogs. He would only talk to people on the street when they had their dogs at heel. Even then he was really only talking to the hounds. He eked out a life between durries, things were fine as long as people didn’t try and talk to him. What bloody good was it talking to him? For god’s sake.

VII

He was a Viking of a man. His brothers once ran this hood, bouncing the pub and breaking bastard bones. Now they made do with plumbing, rye whiskey and ACDC. He eyed up the blow ins with disdain. Still every new house needed shitters and showers and that kept him in dope, durries and grog. He would say he couldn’t complain but in truth he did little bloody else.

VIII

He was up to date on every “Alternative theory”. He knew how the world really worked. There was a stockpile at the back of the garage. He wasn’t going to be unprepared. He let comrades camp on his lawn. The cause had brought him into contact with all sorts of people, many he didn’t like but if they were to overthrow the New World Order, well you need to put up with people who smell.

IX

She was Te Suburbia through and through. Born and bred. Did some time in the smoke but here was always home. She came back to teach. The young minds made her feel both forever young and one hundred and one. She came over all tearful when the haka started the rugby.  It was what we were all about. She hated all that Mahri rubbish on the news though. Speak what we all know.  People should only hear what they know.

X

He once described himself as being exiled here. He missed his city with its dramatic views, wild coast and self-contained rage. They had meant to come up here together, in the end they came up apart. Hearts were broken, his, and lives changed direction. A decade here now and he felt less like an exile. The straight, lawn obsessed, rugby regime, beige-ness set amongst intense natural beauty had grown on him. It had caused him to develop his eccentricity wilfully. He looked through their windows at net curtains, single dangling light bulbs, oversized TVs and bare easily dust-able surfaces and swore to himself “never like that”.

 Also, the old lady who refused to return his ‘good morning’ made him smile.