Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘So he was coming,’ he whispered to himself. ‘And he stopped to help somebody who’d broken down on the road? That was just like Sam. I wouldn’t have expected him to do anything else.’

Cliff Harper turned to me and sighed.

‘You’ll never know the hell I went through when I left your grandfather’s farm. When I arrived in Auckland I tried telephoning Sam, but Arapeta always answered. He would never let me speak to Sam. I tried to get through to George to see if he would get a message through to Sam. But that never worked either. By the time Friday night arrived I was going crazy with anxiety. I checked in early and I waited and waited. I died a thousand times thinking “There he is!” when it was somebody else. That night, waiting there for Sam while everybody around me had someone they were saying goodbye to or travelling with, was the loneliest night of my life. I heard the first boarding call. The second. The third. Then —’

The loudspeaker crackled.

‘Would Mr Harper please go through Customs and board his flight immediately at Gate One.’

Cliff was going out of his mind. He couldn’t wait any longer. In desperation, he turned to the Customs officer at the gate.

‘Sir, I need to leave a message. There’s a friend of mine, his name’s Sam, he’s supposed to be here. If he arrives, please give him this note.’

Cliff scribbled his Illinois address and phone number: Back of the Moon, Muskegon County, Illinois. He folded the note and put Sam’s name on the front.

‘Please tell him to call me as soon as he can,’ Cliff said.

The loudspeaker crackled again:

‘Mr Harper, Mr Cliff Harper, your plane is waiting for immediate departure.’

Across the departure hall, Cliff Harper saw something strange, almost surreal. A young woman was stumbling through the crowd in a dazed manner. She looked like a madwoman. Her evening dress was spattered with the brown rust colour that Cliff knew was dried blood. She was calling for somebody:

‘Chris? Chris —’

An airport security officer went over to her, and tried to get her to leave. She kept resisting, saying:

‘No, I must find him.’

An old man approached the girl. He cradled her and she collapsed into his arms.

Once more the loudspeaker:

‘Mr Harper? Mr Cliff Harper —’

Cliff’s heart was beating with pain. He thought of the time when Sam had come along on the rescue mission to bring out a downed F-4 fighter pilot. Sam was on the ground with the pilot. The enemy were closing in. Suddenly there was a whump and the chopper juddered in the air:

‘They’ve got a rocket launcher!’ Seymour yelled. ‘We’re hit! We’re hit!’

Cliff’s body flooded with adrenalin: ‘God, don’t let me go down like Fox.’ He was checking his gauges, his training automatically initiating the procedures to ensure damage control. To his right he heard the Skyraiders begin high-speed strafing of the area from which the rocket had been launched, walking their incendiary shells down the slope. The forest flamed and smoked.

Sam was still on the ground with the wounded pilot. Only, it wasn’t a pilot any more but a girl in an evening dress. And MacDuff was radioing:

‘Your call, Woody Woodpecker.’

Bullets were whanging around the chopper. Seymour was yelling that they had to exit the area. But Cliff couldn’t leave Sam. Not like this. He looked down to the ground. Saw Sam moving his fingers in sign.

Hey, Harper! Do you know what haere ra means?

Cliff cried out,

‘Sam, no — ’

He worked the controls, seesawing the chopper back and forth across the tops of the trees, mowing through the upper density.

Suddenly there was a sunlit space. Sam’s eyes were glowing with love.

I will always love you, Illinois country boy. You’re in my heart.

And he was gone.

Thirty years later, and I was sitting in an airport lounge with Cliff Harper. Our conversation had circled and spun between past and present. Somehow we managed to stitch together what he knew of Sam and what I knew of what had happened to him. Somewhere in all that circling we found a kind of friendship, a kind of reconciliation with one another.

From talking about Uncle Sam it only seemed natural to talk about Auntie Pat.

‘How is she?’ Cliff Harper asked.

He had a strange look in his eyes, almost as if he didn’t want to know, but he relaxed as I told him she was well.

‘Is she still unmarried?’ he asked.

To my surprise, Cliff Harper then turned the attention to my life.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he asked.

I told him I was gay. ‘Once,’ I said, ‘I was ashamed of it. I’m not any longer.’ I told him about my break-up with Jason, my meeting Carlos, and the interesting shapes that were emerging out of the dynamic of Roimata, Carlos and myself.

‘Most of all,’ I said, ‘I’ve made a political commitment to change my world. To change the Maori world. I owe it to myself. I owe it to Uncle Sam — and to you —’

Cliff Harper nodded.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you talk like that, you take up a particular posture, a way of standing that reminds me of Sam. Leaning slightly forward. Ready to take on all comers.’

The business class supervisor tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Mr Mahana, your plane is boarding now.’

I stood up. Shook Cliff Harper’s hand.

‘I’m glad you came to Los Angeles.’

‘So am I, son,’ he answered. ‘So am I.’

‘Would you do me a favour? Some day, would you tell your son, Cliff Junior, about you and Uncle Sam? It might be a hard ask right now, but you were the one he loved, the one he wanted to be with. I don’t think I’d be able to take it if I knew that of all the people in the world, you denied him, Mr Harper. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next week or next month. But tell your son sometime?’

‘Yes, I will,’ he promised

I turned to walk away. I don’t know why, but something made me turn back. Something to do with gladness, with joy, with grief. I grasped Cliff Harper fiercely and pulled his forehead against mine, his nose against mine in the hongi. Mourned and keened over all that could have been between him and Sam.

‘Goodbye, Mr Harper.’

‘Wait,’ he said.

His face was blanched with grief, as if he didn’t want to let me go. As if he should do something to keep Uncle Sam alive between us. Then he found the way.

He took Tunui a te Ika out of his pocket, lifted it up. The light glowed through it, showing its upright penis, its mana, its strength. The greenstone twisted and flashed in his fingers.

‘I know you brought this all the way to give to me. But I need to return it to you. Your uncle would have wanted you to have it. You will need it more than I do if you are to achieve all the things that lie ahead of you.’

He placed Tunui a te Ika around my neck. At first the greenstone was cold, as if only just awakening. Then it began to take warmth from my skin, and I felt it searching for a place to settle. A place from which to begin battle.

‘Tell Patty,’ Cliff Harper said, ‘I forgive her.’

The flight soared across a midnight sea. The sky was still sunless as we made our descent to New Zealand. Mist was streaming across the land, spilling over the cliffs at the end of the world. Mist, sea, land, all spilling over into oblivion.

Carlos met me at the airport. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.

We drove to the apartment. Made love. Talked about what had happened in Canada. Talked about his skindiving while I’d been away. I told him about Cliff Harper. He asked about Roimata. We made love again.

That night I tossed and turned in the tightening noose of jet lag. My dreams were fractured, cut glass tearing at the dreams and letting the nightmares in. Once more, I felt that tremendous dread as, all of a sudden, a thousand shards fell about me and I saw that black highway at midnight. I fell to the tarseal and listened to the ground throbbing with hoofbeats. The thrum thrum thrum of the black stallion. It had pursued me all my life, through countless years, countless beds and countless dreams.