An early work-in-progress dedicated to helping,
circuitously, precipitate the Great Mobilisation
Dare to be wise!
Kant
Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240725
Also, it takes much longer
To get up north, the slow way.
Ian Dury, 1977
Home Alone: In fairness, I should say our Burmesies, because while we had agreed to live cat free, a.) the farthest these cats get outdoors is the lofty deck immediately outside the windows, which Harriet and Hudson, here, are imploring to be opened; and b.) Harrietshe/they, left, acquired more recently, promptly became my most dutiful companion—to the extent that, to reach the keyboard, I am frequently obliged to perform Garth Hudsonian contortions. image Cimino
Home alone, her beloved unmatched-pairor possibly: beloved, priceless unmatched-pair of Burmesies had dictated Sarah and I only tarry an hour or so, after Skerman’s send-off. Heading northward—that much was apparent from the bearing of the sinking sun—we were only slightly disconcerted at how long Sarah’s gps was taking to reconnect us with the Hamilton expressway. The rural highway”country road” would have carried unfortunate, accidental Denveresqueian? bathos—it was approaching dinnertime Saturday—was mercifully empty, as I recounted a succession of stories from the KūitiTe Kūiti. The Te deliberately dropped in this rendering to avoid the grammatically clumsy: the The—te being reo Māori: the childhood that I’d shared with many of those with which we’d spent the afternoon.
You’ve never told me that story before!
…Sarah said, for a second time in succession. I was incredulous I hadn’t. Then with the well temporarily dry and Sarah driving, we sang along with Paul Simon, shining like a Nationalstrictly speaking: “like a National Guitars, guitar”, but that would have zero poetry guitar as the Hauraki Plains rolled beneath us.
I would love to say that that was when it happened. When I experienced the epiphany as to how I might contrive to contribute to the memorial of a man who whose cruel death, in what so richly deserved to have been his prime, had stopped, and only grudgingly restarted, time. I am, however, nothing if not slow—the realisation and resolve came two days later. Meanwhile, seriously disconcertingly for the navigator, Sarah’s screen was telling me that our 90-minute destination was 4½ hours away.
Eight hours! That can’t be right—at this t-intersection coming up, go left !
My wife, bless her, has never been good at math or roundabouts, and two-lane highway roundabouts are about her worst nightmare—along with surprise parties. Consequently, Sarah, who was quite the motorcycle mechanic when I first met her, had expertly configured the satnav to avoid a specific two-lane expressway roundabout, somehow not appreciating that her busy little smartphone had devised a fiendishly ingenious route to the Mahurangi, whereby we didn’t get to drive so much as one motorway metre. I remain unsure as to exactly what the route entailed; suffice to say we narrowly avoided being drafted off via MirandaPūkorokoro. A small prize is offered for the definitive source of name of the HMS Miranda, which replaced the locality’s Māori name., and hence an eternity of journeying. We would have needed even that Inn.
All this by way of acknowledging the love of a woman who, after 50 years still asks me to sing to her and to tell her stories—thus precipitating this one.
Hutchins and Young—I resolved after the Winstone Road Reunion—would feature amply in the story, but they are acknowledged here for their formative role in getting this project rolling. Russell Young is the lifelong, constant friend that every creative soul deserves. He and his thus-fortuned friend, Graham Hutchins, had taken me in as their living-room flatmate, ahead of our subsequent, spacious Winstone Road digs. I brewed a batch of bush-beer there, but it was broached prematurely and deemed inert. Grindingly poor, and out-of-the-question unable to afford the sly-grog prices at that year’s Collegean historic, latterly student-organised inter-Makaurau-college institution Riflesan historic, latterly student-organised inter-Makaurau-college institution, we took along a flagon only to find it had matured meantime into a murky looking veritable firewater hadn’t dawned on the suddenly comprehensibly inebriated main imbiber. By the time police arrived—but an anecdote perhaps best offloaded to a footnote…
To be continued…
Moccasining against the pricks Mindful of the strict curfew implicit, most of the students were pouring out and on their convivial way, to regroup in hundreds of smaller gatherings the length and breadth of the isthmus.
Instantly incensed on hearing that preying on Auckland university students was the sport of rookie city police, Cimino, as he swayed up the curving driveway sidewalk towards the venue’s entrance swung a surprisingly well-aimed moccasined left foot into the passenger door of each passing patrol car. Cherishing the glow of a blow struck for freedom, and academia, the unworldly suburban-house carpenter’s euphoria evaporated the instant he felt the strong fingers of a pair constables clamp his biceps. Minutes later, sat in the back of one of the two slightly bruised squad cars, Cimino, from dancing like nobody was watching—to Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? —was suddenly stone-cold sober. The officers, disconcerted that they hadn’t bagged a student, tested the crowd. One spotted a cocky car-keyring-jangling specimen and bellowed:
You’re not driving in that condition!
Wouldn’t dream of it, officer.
…shot back the suave-beyond-his-years bona-fide university student.
The hastily resumed police car emerged just in time to see, farther up the road, the entitled mark climbing in the driver’s side of his spotless, late-model Volkswagen. Tailing the two students at a distance, all that could be observed, disconsolingly, was the picture of propriety. Subsequently tiring of witnessing anything resembling dangerous driving, the squad car pounced and blasted the broad, deserted, crosstown connecting road with its siren. The quarry demurely pulled over, politely winding down their respective windows in anticipation. How many yes-sir-no-sirs or the like were proffered Cimino couldn’t judge from his limited backseat vantage, but after a lengthy inquisition, the officers returned, plumped back into their seats, the younger lamenting:
Ah, I was just waiting for him to take a swing at me.
Had the constables know then that, later that morning, a judge was going to unhesitatingly let off the neatly suit-white-shirt-and-tied, first-time-offending former telephone-salesclerk with a suspended sentence, the night might have taken a less comedic turn. The goading and cudjolingcoined: cudgelling/ cajoling—alluding to the “entice into a cage” etymology of cajole may have resumed, redirected at their meagre bycatch. Mercifully, it didn’t; possibly by the grace of a looming end-of-shift. At Central, after an eternity of processing—the full photographing, fingerprint-taking, belt-stripping malarky—Cimino made the best of his cell bunk, rattling hungry. But there was not even to be bread and water, much less a cuppa; Cimino was awoken at 0600 hrs and shown the door. Walking through the empty central city streets back to his suburban digs provided much time for self-examination, and mental preparation for his 1000 hrs court attendance. Freshly showered and cravenly cleanshaven, and chauffeured…
To be continued…
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Winstone Road Reunion
Graham Hutchin’s title for the reunion of his mid-1960s house-mates Cimino Cole, Russell Young, and Jane Watts née Cole, hosted by he and his wife, Jenny, at their Hamilton residence on the occasion of Jane’s 2024 six-week visit from Hollywood, California. Winstone Road was the address of the PuketāpapaPuketāpapa, Makaurau (Mount Roskill, Auckland) house, rented from Cimino’s employers—two-men-and-a-boy carpenter/builders of low-rise houses and apartments. Cimino had long since forgotten the property’s address, although could have navigated there at a pinch.
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‹ Author’s note | Introduction ›
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Disclosure The author of this novel modello is no longer the secretary of Mahurangi Action Incorporated or the Mahurangi Coastal Path Trust. The content published here, however, is that of the editorially independent, independently funded Mahurangi Magazine.
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