Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘I told you, leave me alone —’

Harper was swinging, ineffectually, his movements uncoordinated. He was half whimpering, half crying. He gave a mighty left hook which didn’t connect and, spun around by his own momentum, fell again into the water.

Sam waited for Harper to re-surface, but he only flailed wretchedly before going down again. Sam stroked out to where Harper had disappeared, took a breath, and dived. A few seconds later he felt something in his hand, pulled, and dragged Harper back up into the air. Together, the two splashed into shallow water.

‘How come you can’t swim!’ Sam asked. ‘Everybody can swim.’

‘Not if you come from Illinois you don’t. All we’ve got there are the great lakes and you have to crack the ice to get in. No way .’

Harper floundered up to the beach and fell down.

‘Oh Christ —’

He sat there, his elbows on his knees, cradling his face. He was panting with exhaustion. Sam sat beside him. Harper’s mind had flipped completely away from the attack. It was somewhere else. Somewhere darker.

‘What’s up with you?’ Sam asked.

Cliff Harper was up again, trying to find something, anything, to hurl at the sea. A rock. Another rock. And another.

‘This fucken war, that’s what’s up with me. I’ve lost some good pals to this war. Fox is gone now, God dammit, Why didn’t he bail out, man? And I keep taking soldiers to the front and they count on me to get them there alive and get them back alive. I’ve seen their eyes, how they trust me. They see me as some kind of god. When they’re stuck in some shithole of a situation they’re saying to each other, “Good old Cliff, he’ll get through. He’ll get us out of here to safety.” But there are times when I can’t deliver.’

Harper looked across at Sam. ‘Have you ever had a man die in your arms? Have you ever seen his eyes roll up and into white and felt the warmth draining away from his body? Have you? Every time I go out, every time I take grunts to the front, I know some of them won’t come back. When they come piling back into the chopper, you know what I see? I see the gaps where somebody’s supposed to be. During the medevacs after Bucephalus, for instance, there was this cute kid, couldn’t have been more than twenty for God’s sake. He kept saying, “Please don’t leave me. If you stay with me I know I’ll be okay. Please.” So I rode with him to the base hospital.’

Harper looked at his hands. ‘When we got to the hospital, the kid begged me to stay with him. He held my hands and he pleaded with me as if I was his saviour. But I didn’t listen to him. I said, “You’ll be okay, kid.” I was tired, I was exhausted, I just didn’t have anything left over to give to him. When I left him he was okay. But he up and died on me. I feel angry at myself for not being there for him. This war’s getting to me. I can’t keep on doing this. I can’t.’

Harper began to shiver. Next minute he was puking his guts out.

‘I’d better take you home,’ Sam said. ‘Get you out of those clothes. Get you to bed. Where are you staying?’

‘The Flags.’

Sam hoisted Harper to his feet. Together, with Sam shouldering Harper, they made their way to the soldiers’ club. Harper threw up a couple more times and, when they arrived, the sergeant on the desk didn’t want to know. He backed away from the wet, blood-spattered pair and threw the keys of Harper’s room to Sam.

‘If you’re planning to get back to your own quarters before curfew,’ he said to Sam, ‘you’re out of luck.’

‘Looks like you’re staying the night with me then,’ Harper said.

Once they were in the room, Sam propped Harper against the wall. Harper was still drunk and kept on sliding down. Sam lifted him up again and, to keep him upright, put a knee between his thighs. He started to take off Harper’s shirt and Harper came over all coy, buttoning up all the buttons Sam had unbuttoned.

‘For Christ’s sake, stop that willya?’ Sam said, slapping Harper’s hands away from the shirt.

‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Harper answered, wagging a finger, and giving Sam a blast of his acrid breath. ‘I’m heterosexual and I never kiss on a first date.’

Harper gave a drunken giggle, yawned and, next minute, his head came forward onto Sam’s shoulder as he fainted. Out like a light. Just like that.

‘Great,’ Sam said to himself.

It took Sam quite a while to wrestle Harper’s shirt off. He finally got it unbuttoned and pulled the tails out of the pants. He opened one flap and then the other. The wet shirt clung to Harper’s ratty T-shirt and skin, so that unclothing him was like ripping off a band aid. Harper’s dead weight didn’t help matters either. Sam placed his head in the middle of Harper’s chest and wrestled Harper’s arms out of the sleeves.

The T-shirt came next. Harper was struggling so much there was nothing else to do except take it in two hands and rip. The pressure of Harper’s chest did the rest, causing the T-shirt to break across his nipples. Sam reached behind Harper and ripped the back of the shirt. Harper made a murmur of complaint — and then surrendered. Exposed, his upper body was an artist’s dream. He was like a nude model in a drawing class, breaking out of the shreds and tatters of the shirt. His shoulders were wide and his chest was smooth and hard. His pectorals were well defined and his abs rippled in the light. Harper’s chest hair sprang in tight curls against Sam’s skin. His dogtags clinked within the clavicle of his breast. The scent of Harper’s armpits was like sea water.

Hard against Harper, Sam moved his hands down past Harper’s navel and started to undo Cliff Harper’s belt. Harper began to rotate his pelvis and murmur to himself.

‘Oh, baby, yeah baby —’

Harper’s penis pulsed against Sam’s thighs, and he began to butt against Sam’s pelvis.

‘Oh, boy,’ Sam said to himself between clenched teeth.

The pants dropped to the floor. Underneath, Harper was wearing Army regulation boxer shorts.

‘Okay, chopper boy,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s be having you.’

Sam bent, let Harper fall over him, flexed, and took him in a fireman’s lift. He kicked the door open. The dogtags waggled in his face as he carried Harper to the showers. He sat Harper in one of the stalls and turned on the taps.

‘Daddy, Daddy, the water’s too cold,’ Harper complained in a small boy’s voice.

Sam adjusted the temperature and Harper began to sigh. He curled himself up within the water, lifted his head to the flow, and started to snore. Leaving Harper there, Sam went back to the room and collected Harper’s puke-stained clothes. He returned to the showers and threw the clothes in the next-door stall. He stripped off and stepped into it himself.

Five minutes later, Sam switched Harper’s shower off. Harper protested as Sam pulled him out.

‘You’re not making this easy for me, are you!’ Sam said as he tried to get Harper dry with a towel.

Harper opened his glazed eyes and tried to focus them. He looked at Sam closely, gave up, and snuggled into Sam’s arms.

‘Tickles,’ Harper giggled as Sam dried his hair and under his armpits.

‘Okay,’ Sam said to himself, ‘here comes the moment of truth.’

With a quick motion Sam gathered Harper’s shorts in his hands and gave another rip. Harper sucked in his stomach in a deep indrawn gasp, clenched his buttocks, and the fly buttons went popping across the shower room floor. Unleashed, his penis stirred strong, and wedge-shaped, thick-rooted, in a grove of golden pubic hair. Cliff Harper was a big boy.

Sam towelled Harper briskly. For the sake of modesty he knotted the towel at Harper’s waist.

‘Alley-oop!’