“That’s what that noise was,” Mum said, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. We were in the kitchen listening to the black transistor radio. Struggling to hear the newscaster’s voice through the waves of static.
“Far out,” Dad shook his head.
“Far out,” I said, copying him. Just yesterday we caught the bus down to the harbour to see the boat. Dad said he was going to stay home and work on the car. But we all knew he’d be getting pissed with Mad Sam. So it was me, Mum, my big sister Summer and my best friend Al.
We’d stood on the wharf staring at the big green boat. The people working on it had kinda looked like Mum and Dad and their weird mates. Dishevelled and hungover.
“That boat sucks,” Al had said, a premonition of sorts. Mum was really excited about the rusty ship, but it was hard to believe it was going to stop a nuclear war.
The front door slammed. Al came crashing into the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” Dad said. He was pissed off because last time Al was over he’d eaten the slice of pizza Dad had been saving. Al smiled.
“What’s going on, Obi?” he said, slapping me on the back before dancing towards the empty fridge.
“They blew up the boat,” I said, not knowing how to feel about it.
“The one that was going to save us?” Al asked, smirking.
“Get the f*** out of it ya greedy p****,” Dad said, blocking Al’s path.
Al tried to sidestep Dad, who grabbed him and started pushing him away from the fridge. Even though Al was eleven years old, he was already bigger than Dad. It was a real struggle.
“One crew member is reported missing,” the radio continued.
“Jesus,” Mum said, looking at the radio as Dad and Al wrestled behind her.
“Ahh well,” Al said, giving up and retreating to the doorway. “Have yous seen the dead body yet?”
The body lay on the berm just outside our house. The man was big, face down in the grass. He wore a leather vest but there wasn’t a patch on it or anything.
“Has anyone called the cops?” Mum asked, leaning on Dad for support. Al shrugged.
“You sure he’s dead?” Dad asked.
“He hasn’t moved all morning.” Al sounded like he was sick of the conversation.
“He’s been here since the morning and no one’s called anyone?” Mum said. Everyone went quiet because they didn’t want to be the one to do anything.
“It’s not Lance from the Bacon Factory is it?” Dad said, peering down at the corpse.
“Lance has brown hair,” Summer said. She was standing behind everyone trying to act like she wasn’t freaking out.
“What colour is that then?” Dad asked.
“Black,” everyone said at once. Dad threw his hands up.
“Ok ok, didn’t know I was surrounded by a bunch of f****** Picassos.”
A car drove past and slowed as the family inside craned their necks to get a look at the body.
“Somebody should call someone,” Mum said.
Someone must have called the cops because they turned up all red-faced and confused. Dad reckoned it was probably the rich c**** from across the road. One of his favourite topics of conversation back then was not talking to the police.
“Only cowards and the weak hearted call the pigs,” he used to say, as though he was quoting the bible or something. Looking back, I don’t think our neighbours were really rich. But they painted their house white and had this flash car. When they first moved in someone threw pig guts on the bonnet. Everyone knew it was Al’s brother Lui, but no one cared except maybe the rich c****.
Anyway, the cops came and stood around and we all went back inside just in case they were going to start getting accusatory about the dead guy. We never found out who the body was. But by the end of the next month another one would turn up. As we all shuffled back into the house, I remember thinking it was strange this happened the same day we heard about the Rainbow Warrior, which was also the same day Gus got out of prison.
Extract from 1985 by Dominic Hoey. Published by Penguin. Out now. Dominic Hoey will be appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival May 13-18. For more information and tickets, visit writersfestival.co.nz.
