Into the Darklands (17 page)

He flexed his fists in the silence and I heard his knuckles crack.

I dropped my voice again, focusing in on him like he was all there was. ‘You have a good heart, Jerry, I can feel it in there. It’s faint, but I can feel it. I wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true. You’ve done some terrible things along the way, but you have a good heart. The problem is it’s buried under so many years of shit I think you’ve forgotten where you left it. I think you still look for it from time to time, but I worry that you’ve almost given up hope of ever finding it again.’

He said nothing. Just that cold stare wrapped in old scars and prison tattoos.

I meant it all. I never lie about things like that. If I say he has a good heart I have to believe it without question. He won’t believe me unless I do. ‘Does a human heart still beat under all that evil shit, Jerry?’ We sat like that for what felt like hours and seconds all at the same time. All the while I’m staring right at him, not breaking.

Then he swallowed, and I saw his eyes glisten. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear what he was saying. ‘I think it stopped beating years ago.’

‘When you were just a little fella,’ I said quietly. It’s not mind reading, it’s just a safe bet.

He swallowed again, and then nodded, his movements suddenly small for such a big man.

‘Long before all this shit,’ I said, waving my hand around at the walls.

He nodded.

I leaned across the table and ripped his list of convictions out of the file, tossing it on the floor between us. ‘And long before all this shit too.’

He nodded again.

‘Tell me about
that,’
I said.

Here’s something else you need to know: never say those words unless you’re prepared to go all the way down to wherever it is he
really
lives. Never ask someone to go to those places unless you’re prepared to go
all
the way with them. Anything else would be cruel.

Jerry started to speak, slowly at first, as if each word was a terrible weight, but then faster and faster. Some things find their own momentum. Some things find their own way out. Especially the old hurts. As he spoke I let the pictures form, looking back all those years to the place where he really lived. The place he’d never left. Seeing in the dark.

Jerry was seven the first time it happened. He’d been lying in bed asleep when he’d heard a noise. At first he hadn’t known what it was, but little by little he realised what it was: breathing.

‘I thought it was some kind of fucking bogeyman,’ Jerry said, his voice impossibly tight.

In my mind I saw the little boy lying in his bed listening to the night breathing. His fingers white against the sheets, peering out at the darkness in the hall. Then he sees something slowly crawl
from the shadows of the hallway. It pauses for a moment, like a snake tasting the darkness, then it quietly slithers over the floor towards him. Terror locks his body tight against the darkness. He can’t move. He can’t cry out. All he can do is watch as it comes closer and closer.

Then it’s beside him, and he can hear its ragged breath. The bed moves as it slides a dark arm under the sheets. For a few seconds he can’t breathe, literally can’t breathe. He waits for the feel of its claws ripping through his skin. But it hasn’t come to eat him, at least not in that way. Instead of claws his skin feels the touch of clammy fingers, and he learns at seven years old that the night steals from some children. The night steals in the worst of ways.

‘I cried,’ Jerry said, small tears staining his cheeks wet. ‘When he…when he
buggered
me,’ and he spits the word out like it burns his mouth. ‘It hurt that much I fucking cried. But he just put his hand over my mouth and kept going.’

Jerry was raped by his father from the age of seven until he ran away from home at 14. When he wasn’t being sexually abused his father would drink and alternate between beating him and beating his mother. He got in trouble the first time with the police when he was only 10. He was kicked out of school for fighting when he was 11.

All those years, lying in the dark, waiting for the night to take on human form. Waiting for the sour touch that curdled his skin and curdled his heart.

Can you picture that? Can you see that poor wee boy lying trembling in his bed? Can you hear his muffled screams through the fingers that cover his mouth? Can you feel his pain? His rage?

Now can you see the man who grew from that boy? Sitting with his layers of scars and prison tattoos. Can you see the man who has been all but consumed by never-ending nightmares that play
out in his head over and over like the beating of a drum? Can you see him? Can you
really
see him? In his fist he holds a paper tissue that’s wound so tight it’s like a small white spike. ‘Sometimes,’ he hisses, ‘sometimes I just get so fucking
angry.’
He looks up at me, and his eyes hold more pain than eyes were ever meant to hold. ‘You know?’

We sat there in silence.

‘Listen,’ I said at last, gently. ‘Can you hear that, Jerry?’

‘What?’

‘Listen.’

We sat there for a moment together, me and this hardened criminal. This violent repeat offender. This man-boy.

‘That’s the sound of a beating heart.’

‘Sometimes…’ His voice faltered and he swallowed. ‘Sometimes I feel dead inside. You know?’

I nodded. ‘I know, but the thing with hearts is that they beat whether we believe in them or not.’

He looked at me for a moment, this violent angry man, seven and 70 all in the one body. And as always I feel the familiar sadness, a familiar ache, for a little boy alone in the night with no one to save him. Even monsters begin as little boys. Especially monsters.

In the end, my job is really about nothing more than seeing in the dark. I have to try and find long-forgotten things in the absence of light, often in the absence of hope itself.

A COUPLE OF FRIDAY nights ago I was sitting at home watching a movie. My wife was out and so that meant I wasn’t stuck with a compromise movie (you know the kind—those awful ones about relationships where no one gets blown up), so I could watch exactly the kind of violent escapist muck I love.

Just as I was biting into my burger and fries an unwelcome truth came knocking at my door. Feeling somewhat irritated I paused the movie and got up off my couch.

‘Yes?’ I asked, opening the door with a somewhat irritated tone.

There was a small well-dressed woman standing there holding a plastic bucket.

‘Hello,’ she chirped, ‘I’m collecting for (bleep).’

It could be worse,
I thought to myself.
It could be one of those completely annoying door-to-door sales bastards flogging off some stupid coupon system thingy.
God, how I hate door-to-door salespeople. They thrust something into your hand and then talk a hundred miles an hour trying to sell you something as they assure you they’re not
selling anything. The only way to deal with them is to immediately cut them off with a curt ‘no’ and close the door in their face.

‘What’s (bleep)?’ I asked, stalling for time and looking for a reason to close the door. My mind was still firmly focused on my burger and the movie.

‘It’s a charitable trust that works with troubled young people.’

Great,
I thought to myself.
I do this all day and now my Friday night gets interrupted as well.

In my world Friday nights are sacrosanct. That’s
my
time. You will always find me with takeaways and a movie. Don’t ask me out, I probably won’t come. Don’t ring me, I probably won’t answer the phone. On a Friday night, you better just let me be.

‘I already do lots of work with difficult kids,’ I said, stepping back and beginning to close the door.

And here’s the interesting bit; here’s the piece that kicks the ground out from under me. She just looks at me and says: ‘Really?’ It’s her tone that’s the kicker, because she says it in this strange maybe-I’m-interested-maybe-I-don’t-believe-you way. Standing there I can’t for the life of me tell which one it is.

‘Yeah,’ I say, feeling slightly off-balance. ‘I do.’

She just smiles. She doesn’t say ‘OK’ or ‘thanks anyway’ and turn away—which would be the polite thing to do—she just stands there smiling with teeth that seem suddenly incredibly white, like they’re painted on. ‘What do you do?’ she finally asks.

And I still can’t tell if her tone is saying she thinks I’m lying or she really wants to know.

‘I’m a psychologist.’

‘Who do you work for?’ Still with that tone.

‘I work in private practice, but a lot of my work is with troubled kids.’

‘Oh.’

Oh? What does ‘oh’ mean?
I don’t know whether I should be feeling pissed off or whether I should just laugh.

There’s something about her that’s kind of freaky though, the way she just stands there and asks her off-beat little questions.

Perhaps she’s some kind of Charity Demon,
I wonder,
some creature from another dimension? Maybe in a moment a long forked tongue will flick out and she’ll hiss at me before plunging her hand into my chest, ripping out my heart and putting it in her white plastic button with all the rest. Then she’ll lick my warm blood from her fingers as she moves on to the next house.

‘Well,’ I say, stepping back again, ‘I’m just busy with some stuff so…’

‘Sure,’ she says, briefly smiling even wider. ‘Nice talking to you.’

And that tone is really beginning to rattle me now, because it feels like she’s pointing invisible fingers at me.

‘Bye then,’ I say, closing the door and watching her walk off through the glass.

‘Good riddance,’ I mutter, resuming my position on the sofa with a puffy, indignant anger. I do
lots
of work with troubled kids. I don’t need some little door-to-door do-gooder making me feel defensive.

I do plenty. I do my share.

But it’s not as if you don’t get paid for it,
a little voice piped up from somewhere up the back of my head. I hate that little voice, because it’s usually right about things I’d rather believe were wrong.

‘Yeah, but…’

In fact you get paid pretty well for what you do, don’t you?

‘Well, yeah, but the point is that I really care about the kids I work with. I’m not just doing it for the money.’

Fine, but you couldn’t spare a few bucks for the lady?

‘Of course I could, but if I gave away money to everyone that turned up at the door I’d be…’

What? You’d be what?

I paused. Stupid little voice with its stupid difficult questions. ‘Well anyway, I help lots of kids so shut up.’

Uh huh.

‘What?’

Nothing.

‘No, obviously you have some problem, so what is it?’

Look around you.

‘Why?’

Just look around you.

So I did.

Now what do you see?

I sighed. ‘A bunch of stuff.’

What kind of stuff?

‘Nice stuff.’

How much did your takeaways cost?

I shrugged grudgingly. ‘I dunno. Ten bucks or so.’

You couldn’t have gone without the ice cream and let that woman have a couple of bucks so maybe some screwed-up kid could have an ice cream instead of you? You of all people should know what their world is like.

Like I said, I hate that little voice. ‘I guess I could have.’

Could have?

‘Should have,’ I muttered.

So why didn’t you?

‘I guess I was just being selfish. I guess I just wanted it for myself.’

I guess you did.

‘Yeah, yeah. So what do you want me to do about it now?’

You tell me.

Stupid little voice. I got up off my comfortable sofa in my comfortable house and went to the front door. The Charity Demon was coming out the front gate of the house across the road. I walked over to her and pushed 10 bucks into her bucket.

‘I found a spare one,’ I muttered.

‘Thank you,’ said the Charity Demon and her tone could have meant anything from ‘thank you’ to ‘fuck you’.

I didn’t feel very good walking back across the road. Giving never feels as good when you’ve been shamed into it. Like I said, I hate it when unwelcome truths come knocking at the door.

I thought it best to start with the Charity Demon before we go on to some unwelcome truths that belong to us all. It’s time to talk about why it is that children die, and why some little boys and girls grow up to be killers. Some of what follows may be a little harsh, but then most unwelcome truths are.

Over the years I’ve learned there are tides in the Darklands, secret tides in a hidden sea. They work to their own rhythm, their own secret beat. They leave odd bits and pieces stranded above the waterline, and then take them away just as quickly. Driftwood of a sort, human driftwood. Children. Most of them anonymous, faceless nobodies.

Some of them we hear about, like 12-year-old BJ Kurariki, who was a member of the group that killed Michael Choy. But for every BJ there are tens of thousands we never hear about. In New Zealand, in 2002, there were 25,000 notifications to Child, Youth and Family Services of children in need of care and protection. There were 7500 notifications of young people who were in trouble with the law. There were 7600 kids in foster homes. In Australia there were well over 100,000 notifications of children at risk. Some of these kids go on to kill others, some kill themselves, some do nothing more than a string of equally anonymous petty crimes. Some do
nothing at all, literally nothing, their lives empty and meaningless. They have no celebrity value, no interest to the viewing public because their histories are boring cliches of abuse and neglect.

I work between the tides, picking over the bits and pieces, looking for anything that looks salvageable. The problem is, though, that there’s far too much to carry. As fast as you pick one up, another washes in. And if you don’t get to it soon, it just as quickly washes away.

There are a thousand stories I could tell you of the children caught up in the hidden sea. Killers and angels all in the one breath.

We could talk about the children, some no more than 12 years old, selling themselves on dark city streets for 20 bucks a pop to businessmen in suits who spill out of glass towers when the sun goes down. Or the nine-year-old girl pimped by her junkie mum.

We could talk about the kids living under bridges and in concrete caves under city streets. Eight-year-olds living rough in the middle of all this civilisation.

We could talk about kids living empty lives in a hundred different homes. Kids who will never know what it is to be loved. Kids who will never know what it is to be cared for. Kids who will never feel special. Kids who will never feel anything except fear and a terrible empty fury at a world that cares so little for them.

We could talk about kids in jail cells, knuckles still bleeding from their last fight. Kids carrying a rage so immense and raw all it takes is one wrong look and it spills out of them like a firestorm. We could talk about children who hurt so much that the only way they can bear it is to hurt someone else.

There are so many of them it’s impossible to count their numbers. Some of them exist only in cases and files. They are paper-and-ink children. Like toe tags on corpses at a plane crash. Real, but not quite real.

Shortly after the conviction of BJ Kurariki I did a television interview on
Holmes
where I made the comment that I’d seen three BJs earlier that day. A few people oohed and aahed over that particular comment. ‘Why does this happen?’ they asked. ‘What can be done?’

As always there was the usual talk about finding answers, about generating debate. Reporters wanted to get to the bottom of the issues. Talk shows overflowed with opinions.

I have to admit I find all this angst vaguely amusing these days. I used to ask the same questions myself when I was younger, but then I did a little research, paid attention to what was happening right in front of my face, and pretty soon I figured it all out. It wasn’t even that hard.

You want to stop kids from hurting people? You want to really reduce the crime rate? No problem. I could do that in two generations. It really isn’t rocket science. We’ll get to the how-to-fix-it stuff later, but just for now let’s dwell a little on the why.

The unwelcome truth here is that we already know the answers, we just don’t like them, so instead we look for ever more complicated explanations that don’t entail us having to give up any of our nice stuff. As long as you’re still looking you don’t actually have to do anything. There’s always time for one more subcommittee, one more enquiry, one more special commission.

So, let me tell you why this happens, although you won’t like it and you won’t agree. What’s more you’ll say I’m being simplistic and naive. Whatever. The answer is simple: this stuff happens because most of us don’t really give a shit. When push comes to shove, we just don’t give a shit. And that’s pretty much it.

This stuff happens for the same reason I didn’t want to give the Charity Demon any money, because we want to keep our ice creams all to ourselves.

Too simplistic, people will say. Such explanations don’t take account of the complex historical, socio-economic, political and cultural factors. The issue is far too complex to be summed up in such a glib statement. There are multiple causes here that are interlinked in a complex sociological and historical matrix.

Let me say it one more time: this stuff happens because most of us don’t really give a shit. And for that, we are
all
to blame.

That’s why kids have died in dreadful circumstances, and will continue to die for all eternity. That’s why the list of names will continue to grow. Right now some poor wee soul is getting the life beaten out of her. Children are being burnt, broken and violated even as you read this line. And out beyond that are children not yet born, children who will only live long enough to suffer a terrible death, bruised and bleeding in some forgotten corner of some dark cold place.