Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

Lifting Harper in his arms, Sam took him back to his room, put him to bed and pulled the sheet over him.

‘Night Mommy, night Daddy, night John-Boy,’ Harper whispered.

He turned into the sheets and began to hump them in a movement that Sam didn’t even want to think about.

Sam turned out the light and went back to the shower room, washed his and Harper’s clothes and strung them out to dry. When he returned to the room the moonlight was flooding in the window. Harper had turned onto his front, pushed the sheets down and released the towel. His right arm was flung across the bed and his head nestled on his left arm. One leg was pulled up, the towel tangled around it. As Sam watched, Harper moved, and the towel slid away. He began to breathe deeply. Sam grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself. He arranged himself as comfortably as he could in a chair at the foot of the bed.

‘Oh, what a night,’ Sam said to himself.

But it was not over. No sooner had Sam drifted off to sleep than Harper began to toss and turn in a terrible dream. Harper dreamt he was flying in a gunship convoy through a red sky filled with flames and showering sparks. All of a sudden, to his left, his friend Fox’s chopper was hit. Harper screamed. He followed Fox down through the fiery sky and saw Fox’s gunship explode on the ground. He managed to touch down and saw that the land had been napalmed to death and was writhing with agony. But Fox was walking out of the explosion. Only, something was wrong with Fox and he was not alone. Walking with him was a whole battalion of soldiers and, silently, they all began to pile into Harper’s chopper. But each soldier was Fox and he kept saying Don’t leave me , his fingers like talons on Harper’s arm. The chopper became filled with soldiers, and still they kept coming and wanting to board. I can’t take any more of you, Harper said. Before his eyes, all the men metamorphosed into masses of seething maggots — and Harper woke up screaming.

Dazed, Sam heard Harper’s scream and saw Harper was standing on the bed, backing away, making wiping motions, as if he was trying to brush something off his body. The entire gunship was filled with rotting corpses crawling with maggots, and each liquifying corpse was shouting Please don’t leave me. Then the nightmare changed, and the corpses transformed themselves into Vietcong soldiers, jabbing at Harper with bayonets and —

‘Harper —’

He saw Sam and gave an unearthly yell:

‘Keep away from me.’

He was going up the wall and straight over the cliff into hysteria. As Sam approached he lashed out and reached for Sam’s throat, as if he wanted to rip his windpipe out.

‘I’m not the enemy,’ Sam cried.

Harper whimpered and scrambled out of the bed, onto the floor and towards the wardrobe. He reached for something inside and then leapt back on the bed. Sam froze as Harper levelled a Colt .45 at his head.

‘Then who the hell are you?’ Harper hissed.

He pulled the trigger. The chamber revolved. Sam’s heart stopped. Click. The chamber was empty.

Harper pulled again. Click .

‘Bang. You’re supposed to be dead,’ Harper said.

His gun arm wavered. His sanity returned as he pushed against the nightmare and started to lift his gunship out of it. He cleared the battle zone, blinked, and saw Sam — and he looked down and saw the gun he held in his hand.

‘I could have killed you —’

The Colt fell to the floor with a thud. Sam was just in time to catch Harper as he collapsed, limp, into his arms.

‘Oh God … Fox, Fox , where are you, man … How long will my own luck hold, how long can I stay up there … How long before I go down …’

Harper began to shiver uncontrollably. He pulled Sam’s arms around him and whispered, horrified, into Sam’s face.

‘I can’t keep doing this … Flying backwards and forwards every day … Taking guys to the front and bringing them back dead … Day after day …’

Sam held Harper tight. He began to stroke him, and he thought of the golden palomino and a mackerel sky.

‘Harper, you have to find a place where you can put all this stuff you’re talking about, all these fears and nightmares. A place where you can throw it all. Then you have to lock it up there, and walk away from it without looking back.’

‘Without looking back? But they follow me —’

Sam waited a few moments for Harper to calm down. Then gently, he tried to free himself from Harper’s arms.

‘You should try to get some sleep now,’ Sam said.

Harper held on tight.

‘Please don’t leave me. If you stay with me I know I’ll be okay.’

For a moment, Sam hesitated. Then he nodded and lay down. Harper turned on his side away from Sam.

Sam didn’t know how long they stayed like that. But, just before sleep sneaked up, Harper’s voice curled across to him.

‘Was that you down there at the beach?’

‘Yes.’

Harper was silent. Then:

‘So you came for me when I went down?’

‘It was a small thing.’

Harper reached back for Sam’s right arm, pulled it underneath his armpit and across his heart.

‘Don’t let go,’ Harper said. ‘Please —’

And it was still not over. When the dawn came Sam was aware of a sudden stillness. His left arm was numb and he could feel Harper’s head nestling in the harbour of his upper arm and neck. He realised that at some time during the night Harper had turned in his arms and was now facing him. Something about the moment made Sam realise that Harper was awake.

Sam opened his eyes. As soon as he saw Harper’s dark green eyes staring at him and the double rows of blond eyelashes that framed them, he knew he was gone, gone, gone forever. His mouth was dry and his heart began to pound. Even so, he tried to escape.

‘I hate people watching me when I’m asleep,’ Sam said.

He pushed Harper roughly in the chest and tried to get up. As he moved he realised that Harper had an erection, his penis rock hard against his stomach. He heard Harper’s groan — or was it his own — and he gasped as he became drenched with sexual arousal, his own cock pulsating and lengthening.

‘No, this mustn’t happen,’ he said to himself.

He looked into Harper’s eyes and saw what must have been in his own eyes — the sheer incomprehension and horror that this could be happening with another man.

‘No,’ Harper said. ‘Don’t move —’

It was a plea for help. I’m heterosexual , Harper had said, and I never kiss on a first date. Harper was almost there, almost ready to climax. Sam saw he was fighting the moment, hoping that his insane desire would disappear. But Sam could feel Harper’s heart fluttering against his chest and the way in which Harper’s penis was pulsing. He was gasping, out of control, past the point of no return. And Sam found that the force of Harper’s lust was taking him with it.

‘No —’ Sam said.

It happened so quickly. Everything in him told him this was wrong. Maybe he’d been made vulnerable by Hempel’s death. Maybe it was living all this time taking orders. Then Sam looked into Harper’s eyes again and realised no, it was the reality of Harper himself. It was all mixed up with sympathy and passion and physical yearning — and he felt himself yielding.

Harper’s arms tightened around Sam. Propelled by desire, Harper began to turn Sam onto his back. He was whimpering, his penis trying to find a sheath. As he turned, Sam saw Harper’s eyes, clouded with a terrible look of fear and lust, and gladness too that Sam was capitulating. When the kiss came, Sam felt the electric shock of it go right through his body and somebody said Yes inside him, somebody who had been locked up all his life in a room with a closed door.