Title: One of THEM!

Author: Peter Wells

In: Sport 7: Winter 1991

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, July 1991, Wellington

Part of: Sport

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Sport 7: Winter 1991

he's no rebel to me

he's no rebel to me

'Why?' I say. 'Why?'

'Because Dad doesn't like him.'

'Why not?' I say very quiet.

'Because,' says Mum, and she's floundering suddenly, switching her eyes away from my face which is searching hers for clues, for knowledge. 'Because,' she says finally, like it's been decided between the two of them, 'because he's not a good influence.'

Mum and I are standing in the front room, that is how important it is. Out our front window you can see the reef, the dump, the city, then, behind it all, rising like a green-black moon, Rangitoto.

A trolley whistles down the road, first of all an eerie sound, almost a presentiment; then the bus, the pub bus, full of men drunk enough to come home cheerful, till they open the screendoor. Mum and I watch little lights and fires fight and flare at the end of the trolleypoles, like birds trying to escape as they are dragged along. Dad is on that bus. Dad, the disappointed almost All Black.

'Mum, he's not a bad influence,' I say softly. 'He's just not.'

'No James,' says Mum in this sort of firm voice which says it is going to be law and it hurts her but it has to be. 'Lemmy's a bad influence on you and we'—we, I thought, I've never heard that before—'we don't want you to see him.

'But he's my friend, Mum.'

'You've got other friends.'

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I think of them. Alan. Kevin. Lionel. They all faded away into complete nothingness when I got to know Lemmy. Besides, Lemmy doesn't like me having other friends. He gets critical.

'But Lemmy's my special friend, Mum,' I say looking at her, not moving, after a pause. We can hear Dad's footsteps up the side of the house, the special, almost blind bang of the flyscreen as it closes behind him.

'That's what we don't like. We don't, James. We don't think he's having a good influence on you.'

But I'd die without Lemmy, Mum, I want to say. I'd die.

There isn't a mountain too high. There isn't a valley too deep.

But I say nothing. Dad is home. The vegetables are overcooked.