Chapter Seven: The First Māori
Chapter Seven: The First Māori
And then it happened
“That’s him! Oh, my God!” She starts to read. “Marcel Bousquet, Sydney, Australia—
“Oh!”
Beau puts his arm around her shoulder.
“Oh!”
MARCEL BOUSQUET
Sydney, Australia — Marcel Bousquet, 82, of Sydney, died unexpectedly at home, Thursday, on March 19.
He was the husband of Rebecca (Jameson) Bousquet.
Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he married in 1944 in Sydney and remained there after the war.
Mr. Bousquet was an electrician for the Australian government, retiring in 1983 after 35 years.
He served as an electrician in the navy during World War II aboard the USS Alhena—
“I can’t believe he’s dead. I don’t know why, I mean, he was 82. But.”
Dee turned and labored back up the two steps to the kitchen and started clearing the table. We could hear her talking to herself. But quietly for a change. Very quietly.
I looked at Beau. “What a stupid idea I had.”
We joined her in the kitchen.
“I can’t believe he’s dead. And on my birthday. Died on my birthday, three years ago, while I was celebrating my birthday, I didn’t know. March 19. What a strange coincidence. What does it mean? An electrician. That’s because of me. I told him, Marcel, you gotta do something different. I wonder if he was different or if he turned out like all the others.”
“What others, Ma?”
Dee sat down at the half-cleared table. “Sit down, Boys.”
“You know, Boys, I got a problem. A big problem.”
Complete silence. Dee sounded really troubled.
Finally, “What’s your problem, Ma?”
“I never have good taste in men. I saw this program on the TV. You know, when they caught Sadaam. He was a good-looking man, oh not when they pulled him out of that hole, but he was a good-looking man, so strong and handsome. You ever seen pictures of him when he was younger? Gorgeous. And when I was growing up, I thought Stalin was the handsomest man in the world. Gorgeous. My God! I got a problem. Good taste in men I don’t got.”
She shook her head slowly. Moments passed.
“I wonder if he turned out different from the others. Stalin. Saddam. Your father. I wonder if Marcel turned out different.”
She kissed Beau on the cheek, then me. “I’m going to bed, Boys. I’m tired. We got a big day tomorrow. Cape Reinga. Spirits Bay.” She sighed.
From Doubtless Bay, it is a long way up the tail of the fish of Maui to the very top of New Zealand. Not in kilometers, only about 150 (that’s about 93 miles) but in hours. The further you go, the worse the road, until the last stretch peters out in a metal road. Dusty when it is dry, muddy when it rains. And not much in the way of amenities. There are very few settlements, and almost nothing in the way of rest stops. But it is a beautiful stretch of country, wild, green and unspoiled. And you can drive almost the entire way on the hard flat sand of Ninety Mile Beach if you want. It is exhilarating if you don’t mind ruining the underside of your car with sand and salt water.
“Imagine a beach ninety miles long,” said Dee as I explained that we would take her down Ninety Mile Beach on the way back.
“Actually, it’s only sixty miles long.”
“What?”
“Ninety Mile Beach is only sixty miles long.”
“Oy vey iz mir. What, are they trying to out-Texas the Texans? Now Kiwis gotta lie about everything like they’re from Texas or something? Or they gotta lie like the French. The Hundred Years War was a hundred and thirty years long. Everybody’s gotta lie? Anyway, Beau, honey, I’m sorry, I need to stop. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Se croise tes jambes et pense à la Reine d’Angleterre,” said Beau.
“I don’t know why you wanna talk like that. The old country is old and worn out. I like new. Give me Massachusetts and Arkansas and California any day or time. Or New New New Zealand. Mange la merde. There. So anyway, what’d you say to me?”
“Cross your legs and think of the Queen of England. There’s no place to stop up here. Unless you want to go in the bush.”
“No, thanks, I am not gonna pee with no snakes in the forest.”
“There are no snakes in the New Zealand bush, Dee,” I said.
“St. Patrick been down here, too, eh? Or is this another Irish story they tell? Also known as a lie. I love the Irish but they’re like Texans and the French. Don’t believe a word they say.”
“I thought you liked the Kennedys?”
“I love the Kennedys but you can’t believe a word they say. They’re Irish and politicians, what a combination, they can’t help it. Except maybe Caroline. She’s a nice young girl. Her I would believe. And don’t call it ‘the bush.’ I hate it here when they call it ‘the native bush.’ That son-of-a-bitch spent America into a hole, just like Mr. Lady Bird-brain Johnson did and just like his old Father Bush, the old man Bush. Is it my imagination or is everybody from Texas stupid? They all got killed at the Alamo, now they want to make the rest of the world pay. The Vietnamese. The Iraqis. Next stop Iran.”
“Enough, Ma. You’re gonna get yourself into a mood.”
“I’m gonna get you in a mood if I don’t get to fait pi-pi soon. Oy vey.”
Beau and I both love to speak French. It is what brought us together. Many moons ago, ok years ago, he was working for International Travel Abroad. You can have an idea of the high-class company it was by the redundancy in its name. Where else would ‘‘international travel” be if not “abroad?” Anyway, I was living out a dream by knocking around Paris, teaching English, acting with a small company in the Rue de Seine, and desperately trying to find a French boyfriend to fall in love with. Beau was in Paris, also trying to find a French boyfriend. But we met each other instead. And the rest, as they say, is l’histoire.
“Ha! You went all the way to Paris and fell in love with an American!?” My friends back in Laguna Beach were relentless. “Don’t tell us, we don’t wanna know. He’s from California, isn’t he?”
“Worse. He lives in Newport Beach but he’s from Arkansas originally. Just a hop, skip and a jump from Poplar Bluff.” (All my Southern Cal friends always thought Poplar Bluff was a made-up town in T.V.’s “Designing Women” sitcom — Poplar Bluff, home of Charlene and Carlene and the Poplar Bluff Mules. No, it really is a place and yes, I really did go to high school there and yes, I loved it. But of course I couldn’t stay. You really can’t go home again.)
Beau’s friends were even more unforgiving. “This Aaron, at least his boyfriend’s grandparents were French. But your boyfriend, Monsieur Beau, is a very White, very Anglo, very Saxon, very Protestant from Almost Arkansas. Arkansas-Missouri Stateline tractor boy. Dangerous insect maybe! Wasp! Oh. My. God. Not Little Rock, bébé, but the real thing. A boyfriend from the boondocks. Beau, darling, you can’t get more un-French than Aaron Wasp Allbright from outside, as in way-outside, Poplar Bluff, Missouri. And you went all the way to Gay Paree to find him. Yee-haa and oh-la-la!”
At last, we arrive at Cape Reinga.
“Ma, you can uncross now and stop thinking of the Queen. There’s a toilet over there. Then we’ll walk out to the Lighthouse on the point. So we can see the clash of the South Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea.”
“That’s one thing I don’t like about New Zealand. The Queen on all the money. It’s enough already. Do you know we were born the same year. I’d look good too, on my money, if I used a photograph that was taken when I was twenty-something. And those hats she always wears! If I wore hats like that back in America, Homeland Security would have me in Guantanamo before I could curtsey. And can you believe that hairstyle? I’d like to get my hands on her hair, it’s the 21st century for goodness sake. If I did my hair like that and tried to get into New Zealand, I would have been sent to quarantine like the animals, and not for 30 days or even four months like the poor animals from South Africa but for a year at least, or maybe forever. Does she think she looks good like that? I’m telling you Boys, they’re not all locked up!”
Dee wasn’t in a good mood today.
Beau and I started out the path to the Lighthouse. We stopped down the path, maybe a hundred yards or so, then turned to wait for Dee.
It was a beautiful day at the top of New Zealand. Blue skies, fluffy white clouds overhead, clouds barely moving. Beau and I wondered what was taking Dee so long.
She came out of the Ladies and was turning towards us when he appeared from nowhere and made straight for Dee, moving fast, his legs like massive kauri tree trunks bulging out of tight black rugby shorts, muscular chest and arms straining his tight black singlet. Barefooted.
The first Māori we ever saw in New Zealand with a full facial moko, black tattoo swirls covered his face, he had both arms tattooed, both legs were covered like a geological survey map, black lines and swirls everywhere. The most fearsome individual I have ever seen. Heads taller than Dee, very dark and broad and muscular. Maybe 250 or 300 pounds of muscle and black ink.
He ran up to Dee and grabbed her by the arms just above her elbows and thrust his face right into her face. Beau and I started running towards them.
And then it happened.
—End of Chapter Seven—
Wait for the next chapter on Substack or buy the whole book on Amazon
Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published on Substack.
Before too long!
In a Desert or a City
BOOK I
‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING
BOOK II
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS
BOOK III
THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS
BOOK IV
TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER
BOOK V
WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?