Witi Ihimaera - Pounamu Pounamu

The trouble was, that only visitors to the family seemed to notice the changes in him. Homage wasn’t at all forthcoming from his own family. There was the time when Uncle Frank had commented on Hema’s fuzz and had said he better start shaving. All that day, Hema had gone around the house with his head cocked to one side, hoping that his father would see and take the hint. But Dad was as blind as a bat. And Georgina had said:

‘Have you got a stiff neck, Hema?’

He could have throttled her on the spot. His big sister was always spoiling things. Nobody would ever marry her! She was going to be a spinster and a good job too.

His family was hopeless! All they wanted to do was keep him in short pants for the rest of his life. That had been another source of friction between himself and his father. He’d first asked his father to buy him longs when he was eleven. And here he was, thirteen years old now, and his knees were still exposed. What had Dad said?

‘When you’ve got something to hide, Hema, then you can have long pants.’

What a dumb father. Couldn’t he see? It just wasn’t fair. All the other boys at school had long pants which they paraded around in at the pictures and dances. Yet he still had to sneak round in shorts. They made him look like a kid, even with the obvious! No wonder he hadn’t had much success with the girls.

Hema sighs to himself. Nobody understands him, nobody sympathises with him. He’ll just have to make a stand against his father. Have a showdown with him. Give me some long pants, Dad, or else! After all, he’s a man now, and has been one for two whole weeks. Yes, he’ll just have to make a stand.

‘You and me have bin a long time together, Pardner, but this is where we go our separate ways,’ he will say.

He levels a glance at his father, sitting on the other side of the card table in the Last Chance Saloon. The other drinkers scatter to the sides and the piano roll stops rolling. Somebody whispers, ‘Get the sheriff!’

‘Are you gonna give me those long pants?’ he continues.

‘Nope.’

‘You’re sure about that, Pardner?’

‘Yup.’

The silence thickens. Blondie, the dancehall girl, screams:

‘Don’t do it, Kid!’

He cocks his eyebrow at her and aims a well-directed spit at the spittoon.

‘Don’t you worry about me, honey. Me and this here hombre have some unfinished business to attend to. Shall we mosey outside then, Pardner?’

‘Yup.’

The street is dusty. The sidewalk empties of people. Out onto the street he and his Pardner go, spurs jingling while the sun shines at high noon. He turns and faces his Pardner. Regret shows on his face.

‘You ain’t changed your mind about them pants, Pardner?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then draw!’

His draw is lightning quick. Two guns spurt lead. He is hit in the shoulder. But it is his Pardner who falls. The smell of cordite drifts across the street. A woman screams, ‘Murderer!’ But he, the Kid, just blows at his revolver, spins it twice before slipping it in the holster, and then walks over to the still body.

‘Why’d ya make me do it, Pardner? Why didn’t ya just give me my pants?’

And he weeps there while a lone voice sings and violins play a Western song …

Yup. It’ll have to be done, Hema decides. Man to man. A showdown with his father. Regrettable but necessary. For he, Hema Tipene, received the final proof of his manhood two weeks ago.

When it happened, it was a shock to Hema, but afterwards, he had been delighted. The dreams had started coming a little before that time, composed of one part actual knowledge and six parts imagination. Whatever he knew about sex from paperback books, toilet walls, discussions with friends and accidental sightings of girls down at the river made up the structure of the dreams. His imagination filled in the gaps, liberally and with an appalling disregard for the practicalities of the matter. When he awoke from these dreams he was stiff and sweating and he used to moan to himself:

‘Hurry up won’t you!’

Naturally, he wasn’t addressing anyone in particular, but Dad used to think it great fun to yell from the other side of the wall:

‘Who you talking to in there, Hema!’

Then Hema would hear his father and mother giggling and that put him in a rage. He’d pretend the sheet was his Dad and start boxing with it. Take that and take that you b.b. so and so, he would mutter. He’d kick with his legs and twist and turn, then start to panic because the sheet was strangling him. So he would give one mighty uppercut and dispatch his father forthwith. Trying to be funny, huh? That’ll show him!

The waiting was the worst part. Sometimes he tried to will it to happen, but he gave that up quickly because he started to worry.

‘Oh, gosh! What happens if I’m sterile?!’

The utter horror of such a thought. Doomed to a life as a eunuch. The living death. Or wandering through a world where everybody is having fun and he, poor lad, is unable to participate. Oh, misery!

At such times of stress, he, Hema Tipene, often performed an act which would have earned the scorn of his school friends had they seen him. He pulled down the blinds, knelt down, looked round just to make sure nobody could see him, made a house with his hands and …

‘Our Father, which art in Heaven,’ he would begin.

But even He seemed to be deaf, just like Dad. That was the trouble with older people: deaf, dumb, blind and mean! Think they own the world do they? Well, they better watch out for Hema Tipene!

And then all of a sudden, the long awaited event happened. On a Wednesday night (happy night!) it was, after the witching hour of midnight. He went to bed after having done his English and Maths and General Science homework in the usual five minutes, turned the lamp down and hadn’t even given a thought to sex. Then the dream fell around him: a Bacchanalian delight obviously derived from a Roman epic movie he’d seen the weekend before. He, of course, was the dissolute emperor, munching on a bunch of grapes, his other six hands each around nubile slavewomen. A voice whispered in his ear. It was Claudia. She kissed his chest and the sweetness began. Softly. Unfolding. He the giver of sweetness and yet being given it. Participator and also spectator. Until with a shout, he brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down.

And he awoke, startled with joy, peered closely at the sheets for the final proof that his manhood had come at last. Jeez! Gosh!

He lay back in the bed and sighed. He was all right. He wasn’t sterile. It had happened at last. And even though he was only five foot two and a quarter inches tall, he didn’t care. Napoleon was short too! Tomorrow, he’d have to take a bath. What about the sheets? That’s Mum’s worry. Tonight, he was finally a man. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

His heart was thundering with relief and happiness. An owl hooted:

‘Happy birthday!’

An opossum snarled its congratulations. The moon winked knowingly as it passed above a dark cloud. And it just felt so great to be alive and able! He sighed again and thought of the Claudia of his dreams.

‘Oh, Claudia,’ he whispered happily, ‘peel me another grape.’

The morning sun shafts between the pine trees. Hema is standing beside the cow bail, shivering in the morning cold. His breath is hissing steam from his impatient nostrils. He has been waiting and waiting and still those blankety blank cows haven’t come. And he has called and called and his echo has cracked the silence of the hills far away. He calls again.

‘Queeeeeeennniieee. Rrrreeeeeddddd!’

Where are they! They should know by now that their lord and master demands their presence. Just wait till he gets them, just wait. He’ll make them run all the way to the cow bail and they won’t get any hay after he’s finished milking them either. They’ll be sorry!