The Ball

When I was six, my dad left us to go to Auckland. It wasn’t an abandonment, he had tuberculosis. Rural Ngāruawāhia was never going to be able to treat him. If you were going to go to our nearest hospital, you wanted to have functioning lungs. In Auckland, they took half of one of his away.

The whanau, led by Koro, my father’s father, decided mum should go too, leaving her three children behind. The older two, my brother and sister, stayed with him and his wife, who we called Skinny Kuia. I went with my Kuia from Mum’s side. I was secretly pleased. Koro and Skinny Kuia were really strict. Fat Kuia, which she told us kids to call her, was way more fun.

Although unwell, my father was a big man when he went to hospital. On his discharge, two years later, he left with folds of skin hanging from him, as though there wasn’t enough flesh to fill his body. He didn’t come home either, there was no work for a man in his condition where we lived; for the next five years he managed on scraps of work and benefits, while mum toiled at cleaning jobs and looking after him.

We went to Waingaro School, which had just two teachers: one for the senior room where my siblings went, giving them the opportunity to mostly ignore me, while I was taught in the junior room with the other. At first I pestered my siblings during their breaks, but we soon tired of each other, and I found my way among the kids more my age.

Fat Kuia always picked me up after school in her battered Datsun Sunny. Once a week we’d go into town to the 4-Square to do the grocery shop, and she’d drive down River Road past the netball courts. ‘You know your Matua Wahine was a great netball player. Probably would have played for New Zealand if we didn’t live here.’

‘I know Kuia. You tell me every time.’

‘And it’s true every time, ay,’ she would laugh, excess weight jiggling as she giggled at her joke.

Mum came home every Christmas, staying with us until the New Year, increasingly showing signs of looking like her mother, making it difficult for me to imagine her flying about the court.

Later, when I started at the high school and when the weather was too grim for me to cycle, Fat Kuia would give me a lift to school, supplementing her commentary about my mother’s sporting prowess as we passed the rugby club. ‘Your dad was a pretty handy rugby player too,’ she’d say, although she never suggested he’d play for the All Blacks, or Waikato for that matter.

Like most kids, I wanted to play for the All Blacks. It was unlikely to happen; none of my friends even had a ball, but that didn’t stop any of us thinking that one day we might make it. There was a kid at the high school about four years older than my brother who made the Waikato team. When that happened, we decided to up our game.

Hemi Tuatangi, one of the more enterprising kids had an idea. ‘I seen a ball for sale for nine-ninety-nine in the sports shop, ay.If we can get two bucks each, I reckon we can get it.’

I looked around at my mates. ‘But there are eight of us,’ I said. ‘We don’t need that much.’

‘Oh, it’s just to be safe, ay. In case.’

I hid my scepticism, along with the others. We all new Hemi would find a use for the change, but nevertheless, we all somehow managed to bludge the money.

We played in the school grounds most days, pretending to be Jonah Lomu or Christian Cullen, but most of us lumbered up and down the field, fumbling passes and catches, slicing kicks.

Next to the school was a scrap metal yard and occasionally we lost the ball over the fence. ‘Shit,’ said Tane Edwards when he kicked it over. ‘I hope the dog’s on the chain.’

Zeus, a ferocious Alsatian, occupied the yard. At night, he roamed free, guarding the place, barking at anything disturbing his equilibrium. During the day, when the yard was open for business, he was anchored to a pole. Whenever anyone entered, he came racing to the length of his chain, barking and snarling, ready to rip entrails from wayward children. Whoever lost the ball over the fence had to retrieve it. If Zeus didn’t come after you, as often as not, its owner, Billy Wilder did. The name suited him.

Billy was probably the angriest man in the Waikato, though I never knew why. I think his dog was the only living creature that liked him, and even then, I don’t think much. If the dog barked when he was around, it wasn’t for long. We heard, ‘Fuckin’ shut up, dog,’ as often as the bark.

Most times, when the ball went into his yard, he’d give it back. Sending it over the fence, almost always with a perfect spiral kick that we could only hope to emulate. Other times, and always when the ball was closest to his dog, he was nowhere, and a stealthy recovery would follow. We always knew he was watching, waiting to see whether his dog would get to the child before the ball’s retrieval. You always heard Billy’s laugh when Zeus charged, a sound like boots crunching on broken glass. If we got away unscathed, the dog continued its frenzy of barking until the inevitable.

‘Fuckin’ shut up, dog.’

On a particularly windy day, the ball carried over the fence into Billy Wilder’s yard on three occasions. On the first, Tane narrowly avoided Zeus, the dog snapping close behind the fleeing boy. The next time, Billy sent it back, slicing his kick and it only just reached us. I don’t know which of the idiots among us it was, but someone laughed. Billy stood where he was, staring at us through the chain-link fence wearing a snarl to match his dog’s. No one said a word, we examined our feet, waiting for him to go before we resumed. Eventually, he got bored, leaving us to our game, sidling over to check on Zeus before climbing into the old caravan he called his office.

I sent the ball over for the third time that day. Nowhere near the dog, but we didn’t expect Billy to be in a cooperative frame after laughing at him. I skirted the fence to enter the yard, unphased by the mission, knowing the ball was far from Zeus’s range. As I picked up the ball I heard the first bark, without the tell-tale rattle of the chain that constrained the Alsatian. I turned to find him tearing across the yard toward me, less than twenty metres from where I stood. There was no way I could escape through the yard’s gate, I had to scale the fence.

It was a close thing. As I swung my legs over, the dog leapt, its teeth ripping a strip from my shorts. When I landed on the other side, the dog continued its snapping, inches from me, bashing against the fence, fevered in its barking. Billy Wilder emerged from his caravan.

‘Zeus,’ he shouted, the dog stilling at once. He strode towards us, appearing as angry as the canine. ‘Kick that ball over again and I’ll let the fuckin’ dog eat you.’

We didn’t doubt for a moment that he meant it.

‘Now fuck off.’

‘Wanker,’ I said, just loud enough for him to hear.

When I looked back, he was still standing in his yard, glaring balefully, making an imprint of me in his mind.

The ball only ever crossed the fence once more. After the windy day episode, Billy unshackled Zeus whenever we gathered to play. The next time the ball sailed into the yard, the dog pounced, puncturing the ball, shaking it like a dead rabbit to extinguish the last of its life. My All Black dreams died in the mouth of an angry Alsatian.

Later, when I told Fat Kuia what happened, a look of fear crossed her face.

‘Billy Wilder,’ she said, alarmed.

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t you ever go near him again.’

‘Why, Kuia?’

‘They say he put three fellas in hospital once. One of them never came out. Battered them with a crowbar for stealing some lead. Cops could never prove it.’

‘Nah.’

‘He’s the devil boy. Stay away.’

After I left primary, no longer spending my days in a school next to the man Fat Kuia had warned me about, I didn’t think much of what she’d said. I played a little rugby at the high school, but was never any good. If she’d been around when I had children of my own, I doubt Kuia would boast of my sporting achievements.

Soon after I finished secondary school, Fat Kuia died, finally succumbing to the extra weight she carried. Koro and Skinny Kuia offered to take me in, but I chose a reunion with my parents, who had now decided to stay in Auckland. I got a job as a courier, delivering parcels to people who had too much money, and was able to help Mum look after Dad, which I think made them both feel better.

We were watching TV one night when Simon Dallow mentioned an incident in Ngāruawāhia. News from our quiet little town never much spread beyond its borders, so to be on national television, something serious must have happened.

It was horrific: four children dead, three more in hospital, a teacher fighting for her life. The reporter stood outside Waingaro School, relating the attack; a lone man on a brutal rampage through the school, battering anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way.

‘No arrests have yet been made, however, police are looking for local businessman, Billy Wilder, in connection with the attack. The incident follows the intervention of the police two days earlier, when they had Mr Wilder’s Alsatian put down following a complaint that it had bitten a child.’

‘Businessman,’ my dad snorted. ‘Bullshitter, more like.’

‘He’s the guy from the scrap metal yard.’ I said. ‘Did you know him?’

‘Went to school with him. He was mental as.’

‘His dog nearly bit me once.’

Mum and Dad looked at me. They both wore the same look I’d seen on Fat Kuia’s face many years before, but instead of the alarm turning to fear as happened with my grandmother, the changes to their expressions told an altogether different story, one of unbridled relief. I wiped it away.

‘He’s still out there, though, ay?’

Their expressions clouded again.

As they were pondering my statement, our front door exploded open, and my mother began to scream.