Crimechurch

1. Set The Playground on Fire

It’s 10.30 on a Saturday morning and instead of kneeling in a park catching cricket balls, I’m at a gangsta’s granny’s flat in Halswell. We’re on a tiled patio looking out at roses, a bird bath, and a jungle of cauliflower. There’s no granny in sight; Jade Slattery’s pretty much taken over the place. We’re doing shots and tryina talk tough to impress Jade. His granny could be sleeping, or dead, or gone, we’re unsure. There are no adults in Jade’s world.

My friend Joel Lin told me on the way over, as he hovered his mountain bike alongside mine, that I should never speak any nerd-s**t in front of Jade, which is why I’m carefully controlling what I say to sound cool.

Just be chill, Marty. Don’t use no nerd-words. No cricket, no computers, no Tintin. I’m auditioning to get into Jade’s gang, 2 Hard Corpse. Jade’s refilling my glass with fiery bourbon that I don’t even want. I have to drink it. If I look staunch, Joel might get me patched, not that 2 Hard Corpse really have patches. You join 2HC, you get a brand from a hot bit of metal plus a t-shirt.

I’ve looked up to Joel Lin since we were little. You could do anything you wanted at his place, like eat whole packets of cookies. He’s some sort of mystery brown race with kinda thin eyes, Chinese I think. White kids used to always rip on him, which I guess is why he stopped coming to school and started doing burgs and hangin’ with gangstas instead.

Today, Saturday morning, I’m adding streetsmarts to my booksmarts. I’ve been devouring Bill Hicks, Hunter Thompson, Bobby Sands, but I’m hungry for something real gritty, something that’s hard to find in our safe hood. Something spicy and dangerous. When I grow up, I’m going to write revolutions like Kesey and Kerouac. Right now, I just need to round out my street cred a bit. Get down and dirty and dangerous with people who aren’t as posh and brainy as my family. I can’t think of anyone better to soak up badass-ness from than this Jade guy. Dude’s the most deadliest person I’ve heard of. He’s a total psycho, always looking for reasons to kick or scald or stab people. He looks like an evil hippie, with long blonde hair he keeps shaking over his shoulder, and glasses like little windows through which he can peer down his beak at us, waiting for an opportunity to peck once we’re f****d up on buds and booze.

I went to primary school with Jade and still have the Jesus doll he stole from the Bible teacher and melted with a magnifying glass, then ordered me to hold onto for him. I haven’t seen Jade in like five years. He still has this f****d-up habit; he giggles nervously like someone murmuring in their sleep, Hininin, plus he always rhymes like Dr Seuss or some s**t. Seems like in the last five years he’s become a man, learned a tolerance for drink and drugs, and now he doesn’t need that stuff to get a buzz.

HinininHe gets off on running his dictatorship. We heard his mum smoked him out from when he was like nine, and that’s how come the court ordered him to go live with his granny, wherever the hell she is. The dude got taken away to all these reform schools for a while—for throwing a bottle in the principal’s teeth when we were like 10, plus he set the playground on fire, and carjacked Kelvin’s wheelchair, and put a popsicle stick up this girl’s p***y. If I hang with Jade for a day, hopefully his dangerousness should rub off on me. Just a day.

While we suck breakfast bongs and put our bourbon glasses on lace doilies, Jade gives us a lecture about the fishing line guillotine he set up in the botanic gardens to try and chop people’s heads off. Jade reckons he hasn’t quite got the counterweights perfect but he’s workin’ on it. Total nutcase, this dude—but that’s why people are scared of him, and that’s why I’m here. I’m 15, I haven’t made a dent in the world so I’m’a learn how to make the world a little more wary of me.

Jade pauses the lecture every 30 seconds to study us through his glasses; he asks me what he just said five seconds ago and kicks me in the shin when I get it wrong. Me and Joel Lin have been nodding and giving him encouragement but Jade holds up a hand to shut us up and cranks up this Insane Clown Posse song that goes Knock ’em down, skull to ground / choke ya throat, no more sound.

Knock ’em down, skull to ground / choke ya throat, no more soundWhile I rub my sore shin, Jadey paces a circle around us, explaining the ICP lyrics, ordering us to take shots. Jadey begins telling us a good way to knock your enemy down. If you wanna be a 2HC soldier, the best thing to do is sweep their legs out, allllways knock the knees out, then as soon as they’re on the ground, you race to the freezer and get a frozen plastic two-litre milk bottle and hold it by the handle and smash their face in. He stands up and starts shadow boxing, slamming imaginary milk bottles on people’s faces and makes Joel Lin laugh till he chokes. I pretend to find it funny too, even though I’m picturing my little brother getting bashed and it’s me that wants to puke.

allllwaysThe collar of the baggy t-shirt swings away from his neck, showing Jade’s bony chest. No tats, no eyebrow rings, no decorations at all ’cause of that weird religion his mum was into before she went to Sunnyside. They were like a s*x cult that got into needles and half of them went to jail. Jadey has a sister, Shameless Shayna we used to call her, who’s like a girl-version of him, living on stolen sandwiches and smashing boys. She’s even more mental than Jade, people reckon. They lost their virginity to each other, if the urban legends are true.

I accept another shot of stinky alcohol, toss the toxic sludge down my throat, try rap along with the latest stuff on the stereo, Eminem. I keep up with Slim Shady’s angry white words decent enough and Joel Lin lifts the rim of his NBA cap to see if Jade’s impressed, flicking his eyes between us.

‘The bro’s brought a mixtape too,’ Joel says, clearing his throat.

I want to tell the guys this music will warm their hearts, but that’s not a very gangsta thing to say. ‘Yous niggas is gonna hear some s**t that’ll blow your motherfuckin’ MIND,’ I venture.

‘Let no corrupting talk come out of your mou-ouths,’ Jadey croons.

‘Is that … ICP?’

‘That’s Fenians. Means no swearing.’

‘Um—d’you mean Ephesians? Fenians means, like, Irish and stuff.’

Joel Lin looks at me with drowning eyes.

Jadey kicks my shin again. I grit my teeth. He doesn’t like that I’m not crying, so he kicks my ankle. I gasp a little and hit ‘play’ and Henry Rollins and the Black Flag boys start screaming about burning the suits out of the White House.

THINK THEY"RE SMART, CAN"T THINK FOR THEMSELVES

THINK THEY"RE SMART, CAN"T THINK FOR THEMSELVESRISE ABOVE, WE"RE GONNA RISE ABOVE

RISE ABOVE, WE"RE GONNA RISE ABOVELAUGH AT US BEHIND OUR BACKS

LAUGH AT US BEHIND OUR BACKSRISE ABOVE, WE"RE GONNA RISE ABOVE

RISE ABOVE, WE"RE GONNA RISE ABOVE‘How ’bout this, oi, check this out!’ I’m out of my seat with excitement, skipping songs. ‘Dead Kennedys, yo! Jobless millions whisked awayyy / At last we have more room to playyy! Kill kill kill the poor tonight, yo, kill kill kill the poor!’

Jobless millions whisked awayyy / At last we have more room to playyy! Kill kill kill the poor tonight, yo, kill kill kill the poorWhen I open my eyes, Jadey’s head is tilted sideways. I’ve shown him a sensitive belly to bite.

‘Are you poor?’ Jadey begins. ‘I should kill you, right? Your mum’s rich. I seen her on them real estate billboards. Glenda. That’s your old lady. You’re rich.’

‘Nah, honest, like –’

‘So, I’m a liar, Marty?’

‘Nah, Jade, n—’

‘How much money’s your mum got, real estate boy?’ Jade squats in front of my face. His eyes bore into me. There’s a weird shivery giggle he can’t seem to stop bubbling out of his throat. Hininin the giggle goes, like he’s vibrating with glee. ‘Song’s sayin’ you deserve to die, Martin.’

HinininJoel Lin creates an interruption, forcing the bong into my hands. It’s a delicate black glass object like a beautiful vase, which Jade must’ve nicked from somebody important. Joel’s been using a barbecue lighter on it and the cone is glowing orange.

‘Don’t keep Jadey waiiiii-tiiing,’ Jadey says, weirdly talking about himself from above. ‘Your mum sells houses hard-out. Big fancy rich billionaire. Think you’re better than Jadey? She got some big chubby t**s on her. You like your mum’s t**s, rich boy?’

‘Well, not me personally, I, um—’

‘91 Charles Upham Avenue. That’s where you live, hininin. You lie to me, I come fiiiind you, hininin.’

hinininhininin‘TIME FOR A TOKE!’ Joel goes, clapping to interrupt, ‘Marty, no more revolutions, eh? Scratch that s**t on a desk on Monday, bro.’

I attempt to take a heavy toke, get a shock as the scorching lighter flame passes through the glass and zaps my hands. I let go of the bong so I can suck my thumb. In the half second the bong drops onto the tiles and explodes, my life derails.

Steaming bong water spatters our pants. Glass shards settle on my shoes. We stare at the wreckage on the floor. Jade bends his pouty lips into a smirk, tilts his eagle head sideways, shunts to the edge of his seat, seizes my ears with both hands, starts twisting, tells me the bong’s worth 80, nah, 100 bucks. 120, maybe. He speaks in a calm, flat, almost quiet voice, with little giggles of hininin, like a real-life Beavis & Butthead. I’ve given him a ticket to smash me. His eyes sparkle with excitement.

hinininDown the driveway, over to the park, towards the woods, I march ahead of him, not daring to look back for bystanders to call the cops. For a minute, then five, then we’re passing fields and the last houses with hope in the window.

We plunge into a mushy forest of logs and stumps and bamboo and wild willows. We’re near the Dirtmounds, now, the tussocky construction zone where acres of Canterbury are being ripped up and rebuilt.

Jade orders me to stop in a clearing. There is a blow-up doll with fishing line around its neck, dangling from a branch. There’s a hole in the ground full of duck feathers. There’s a scorched area with a lake of melted plastic. I want my Mumsie.

Right now, she’ll be in a trance, working on a portrait on a paint-spattered sheet in the kitchen, listening to Wagner. Dad’ll be dabbing gloss on his model trains, getting ready for an afternoon train demo with a bunch of other dads while my goody-good brother Winston puts a tiny perfect dot of yellow on the headlights of a Pacific Pegasus.

Jade positions me against a tree, jams the bourbon bottle against my teeth.

‘Drink it all, get numb, hininin,’ he giggles, producing from his pocket a handful of skyrockets and a lighter, tugging down my pants and boxer shorts. ‘You won’t feel as much.’

hininin