Free What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? by Alan Duff Page B

yeah. Jake. Tha’s right. And who said I was wanting you to buy me a beer? Jake taking offence. But Kohi grinned and said, You got that look, Jake. The water in your eyes like the alkies get, brother, an’ how they lick their lips. The reference to the alkies stunned him, he’d had a time right after Grace left that damn(ing) letter when the only company he could find who’d havim was the corner of alcoholics . He’d even moved in with them, the house they shared, till he found out he hated the sherry they started each day off with (man, I liked my booze, but not that early in the day and not sherry), and besides, he was used to the company of men, fighter men, men who’d stood their ground in their lives even if they weren’t such, you know, achieving lives, there’s such a thing as a minimum of manhood a man’s gotta have and these alkies didn’t, so he moved out, ended up in the park, sleeping rough (but I made me a little house with my own two hands, first thing I ever made like that. Felt like a tree hut, ’cept it was on the ground), and there he’d met Cody and made friends (I never worked so hard to make someone my friend as that kid), so what the fuck was this Kohi saying? It’s hope, Jake. I call it hope, is what he added.
    Hope for what, man? Kohi came up, stood himself up straight, looked at Jake: don’t call me man, bruth-ah. Not in that tone a voice. But immediately followed with, Now, where were we? Oh, that’s right: hope. It’s hope for a free beer seein’s all other hopes’ve gone, how’s that for an answer, Jake? When Jake never knew this man from shit that he could be so familiar — dismissive — with him.
    But I gotta rule, Jake, I don’t buy no one a beer who’s not gonna buy me two back! Then he laughed. Jake copped the spit from it exploding on his nose. So. So Jake Heke thought about hauling one off on this Kohi’s nose — a punch, not smartarse laughing spit drops. And he straightened up his posture. And he sees Kohi glance somewhere else. Next this utha fulla comes over and he’s not fucken small neither. Jake, meet Gary. My brother. I’m the good lookin’ one in the family, of thirteen. Laughing again. Jake noticing the cunt hadda thick neck, too, so he’d be able to take a punch. Have to be square on his chin to takim out one hit, if a man was gonna throw it, which he wasn’t so sure he was. Not now there were two of them, when normally he’d’ve thrown it if there wassa fucken hundred of ’em, how he got when he was ready to fight: blind with wanting to cut loose. Blind with hurt that someone should want his blood, his reputation, or whatever it was they wanted of him.
    Kohi laughing and pointing out into the crowd, An’ there’s another brother, Jake. Tha’s …? He frowned a look at his brother Gary. Which one’s that, Ga? Hepa or Haki? Turned to Jake, We got so many we can’t ’member who’s who. This Gary was half turned to Jake (like he don’t give two fucks about me. But he will if I get any wilder) and, without so much as a glance at Jake, drawled, It’s Hep. There’s Hak over there, chatting up the one in the shades. Asking his brother, Why she wear shades inside, man? Jake picking up on the word man, and how it was alright for Gary to use it yet when Jake’d said it this Kohi fulla threatened.
    Who cares, Kohi shrugged as he kept looking around. She mighta escaped from the Blind Institute. (Or covering a black eye) Jake thinking with just a tadge of guilt. Oh, there’s another brother, tha’s Jason. And Jake could see he was big, too. The whole fucken lot of ’em were. The two fullas with Jayse’re our cousins. And they weren’t small neither. Kohi turned full on to Jake Heke: You gotta big family, too, Jake? The question not unexpected. Yet it was: seemed to Jake this Kohi guy was telling a man he was all alone in the world even though Jake had yet to answer the question. That Two Lakes was a bigger place than Jake’d always thought and