14

Towards the end of 1987, I read extracts from my then unfinished novel Diesel Mystic in the lounge bar of the now demolished Gluepot Hotel in Ponsonby, Auckland. Just as I was concluding the title chapter, in which a Maori flamenco-guitarist/diesel-mechanic from Ruatoria attains an illuminated state and starts levitating, the painter Tony Fomison stood up in the midst of the audience and said: I know that man.

The guitarist/diesel-mechanic's name was Robin Williams—the same as the Hollywood actor—and Fomison had heard him busking at the Otara Market. I would later record that moment of recognition in the published version of Diesel Mystic in a chapter entitled ‘The verge of losing somebody’:

The park is located on the verge of the highway south and on the verge of losing somebody.

Can I tell you a story a diesel mechanic from Ruatoria once told me? Johnny Ruatara asks.

I know that story, I reply. I know that man.⁸