Crimechurch

By Michael Botur

Life in the safe suburbs of Christchurch isn't dangerous enough for Marty. He needs excitement, and goes looking for it in punk, protest, politics and crackpipes.

Marty soon finds Mona, a teenage runaway living in a flophouse of skinheads and goths. The two live for drugs and dodgy deals, but they are minnows compared to savage siblings Jade and Shayna.

Meanwhile, war has broken out among the bikers Marty and Mona depend on for their daily fix. Fuelling the fight is 'King Kong' Chong, a thug determined to be Number One in the 0h-3.

Swimming between the sharks is Winston, Marty's baby brother, who has big plans. When Winston gets in over his head, it's up to Marty to try and pull him out of a neo-Nazi nightmare before their family becomes a target.

“Breathtaking, relentless, unapologetic… It's a wild, wild, wild ride.” - Australia & NZ Crime Fiction Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Apr 27, 2023

Book preview

Crimechurch

CRIMECHURCH

MICHAEL BOTUR

Copyright (C) 2023 Michael Botur

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Edited by Tyler Colins

Cover art by Lordan June Pinote

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

You want a dedication? I am dedicated to Abe and Violet, my perfect kids. If you’re reading this, I love you and I am one hundred percent proud of you. Thanks for being loyal fans and listening to my stories. Hopefully, after I’m gone, people can look back on this book as my masterwork—a book which captures private thoughts and perceptions I struggle to communicate otherwise. We needed someone to try and capture male-on-male codes of violence and ask angry young Kiwi men what the world looks like to them. I’m the only artist who wanted to take on that job.

It was very hard getting any attention for this book while the COVID-19 pandemic was happening, so thanks to every single person who read the early versions of it.

I’m singling out a couple of reviewers who have selflessly gone out of their way to review, endorse and support Crimechurch and my other books—so huge thanks to Paul Brooks and Jeremy Roberts.

Thank you to all the people on Goodreads, from around the world, who read the book—and double-thanks to those who have reviewed it. It means a lot that you took the time to ride the book with me to the end. If you’re brave enough to experience Crimechurch with me, you’re awesome.

Cheers to you.

Michael Botur

February 2023

The new Canterbury was to be as genuine a reproduction as possible of the old country: an English county, with its cathedral city and its famous university; its bishop, its parishes, its endowed clergy; its ancient aristocracy, its yeoman farmers, its few necessary tradesmen, its sturdy and loyal labourers; and all this with no crime, no poverty, and no dissent. It was to be a veritable New Atlantis or, rather, a City of God. Project Canterbury. H. T. Purchas, 1909

I against my brother.

I and my brother against my cousin.

I, my brother and my cousin against the world.

—Bedouin proverb

PRAISE FOR CRIMECHURCH

"A brutal novel full of horrible people doing horrible things, leaving themselves no obvious path forward or out, Crimechurch isn't going to be to everyone's taste. So dark, so populated by downtrodden, desperate people I'm not even sure you could call this noir - there's something breathtaking, relentless, unapologetic […] It's a wild wild wild ride, and this reader found it utterly fascinating despite the confrontation, brutality, and dysfunction."

– Karen Chisholm, Australia & NZ Crime Fiction Reviews

Botur has claimed for himself a piece of literary territory occupied by the desperate, downtrodden and damned.

– Paul Little

"I’m exhausted and overwhelmed reading this harsh tale of gang life in Christchurch, NZ, and I feel as if I have just emerged from a freakish carnival roller coaster ride. Moments of intense graphic violence, relieved sporadically when I uttered a laugh at unexpected, but totally appropriate, humour.

The book is populated by inhumane and psychopathic gang leaders, and those who would do their bidding, who occasionally show a glimpse of sentiment. A bungee-cord ride from start to finish. Gritty, raw, and bleak don’t even begin to describe the general tone of this remarkable account given life by the author. […] This is not a book I will easily forget. Marty, Winston et al will lodge in my brain for a long time."

– Jamie’s Reviews

If I had to sum up this novel in a few words, I’d say, intense from start to finish." Yes, there are a few darkly comical moments, but they only allow us to catch our breath. Author Michael Botur minces no words, respecting no boundaries of subject matter, no niceties of language in telling his tale of youthful rebellion in modern day Christchurch, New Zealand. From page one, the author dives below the peaceful and picturesque surface of the city into a rebellious nether world of alcohol, drugs, thievery and destructive—often self-destructive— violence. […] Overall, Crimechurch is a fast-paced page-turner, full of the kind of twists and turns—and surprise outcomes—readers of modern crime fiction relish."

– John Timms

"Reading Michael Botur’s books brings you face-to-face with characters you are unlikely to find anywhere else in contemporary NZ fiction. Fiction rooted in the world of multicultural Kiwi scuzbuckets and hobnockers. The lowlife crim’ element, if you’re struggling with those terms. Crimechurch is a story of redemption, though. The book is a vivid, wild piece of imagination – or is it? It’s so convincingly written that you can’t help but wonder – maybe Mr Botur was born with a criminal mind and should probably be behind bars, along with these Punks, runaways, bikers, and losers. […] Botur doesn’t waste a sentence. The reader is swept along, moment-by-moment – with fantastic, graphic descriptions of highly charged scenes, as the arc of the time-shifting story plays out, and all the characters meet Mr. Fate."

– Jeremy Roberts, Award-winning NZ poet

"Crimechurch can be brutal, nasty, with moments of humour and some clever use of language. I read this book in one sitting, not daring to interrupt the flow or decrease the story’s speed by lifting my eyes from the page. No matter where you come from, or where you’re planning to end up, this book will have you thinking thoughts you never thought possible, and finding empathy with characters you’ll probably never want to meet."

– Paul Brooks, Wanganui Midweek

"A fascinating book… the nearest thing you could compare it to would be Pulp Fiction. Michael is a very powerful author. He’s the type of guy that rolls up his sleeves and puts his heart and soul into it. He’s so involved in what he wants to say. … An excellent book…. He doesn’t conform to nobody for nothing."

– In Brief Book & Film Reviews

Gritty, violent and captivating. A tense story of life on the seedier side of Christchurch. Botur writes with authority and humour.

– Anna Willett, Author

ON THE DEVIL TOOK HER: TALES OF HORROR AND OTHER BOOKS

Probably the most terrifying collection of chilling fiction I've read in 2022.

– Pan Book Reviews, on The Devil Took Her: Tales of Horror

Botur is the last beacon of darkness in the modern Kiwi cultural landscape.

– Luka Tomic, Director

"With The Devil Took Her, Michael Botur has created a series of wonderfully unsettling stories that fill the reader with ill-ease. Settle in for some energetic, evocative, jump-off-the-page writing and stories that do what all good horror should do - repulse and intrigue."

– Kathryn Burnett - Award-winning Screenwriter/Playwright

It’s rare to read an author that puts it all out there, straying well and truly outside the boundaries of today’s PC societal views. Botur invites backlash in, and I respect that. There are so many great tales in here, all written with panache and a street cred that can only be garnered, I feel, from experience, which makes me like this guy even more. He trades grammar convention for a stream of consciousness that pulls you into each story, a roller coaster with a fresh destination Botur hides in each telling with aplomb.

– Scott Butler, Screenwriter, Shortland Street

Botur’s energetic prose and clever and compelling storytelling deserves recognition and a wider audience. […] Botur is definitely a new New Zealand talent to keep an eyeball out for.

– Linda Niccol, Award-winning screenwriter/director

Michael Botur’s work grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go. His stories throb with what feel like real people, real conversations, real moments of pain and hope, misunderstanding and reconciliation, remorse and surprise.

– Maggie Trapp, New Zealand Listener, on True? (2019)

"Written in unvarnished street language about the rougher side of life - drugs, jail and death, the book shows rare bravery and honesty […] The thing about Michael Botur is his voice is very much a street voice. His language is street language: it’s raw, it’s coarse, it’s

obscene. It’s tough and it’s confronting […] There are gems s– some of them are absolutely great."

– Ian Telfer, Radio New Zealand on True? (2019)

"One of the most original story writers of his generation in New Zealand.

– Patricia Prime, Takahē 86, on Spitshine (2016)

As a former journalist he has perfected the skill of telling a story and evoking emotion. Botur is a clever writer. He has mastered the art of leaving things unsaid.

– Rebekah Fraser, New Zealand Book Lovers

CONTENTS

MARTY

1. Set The Playground on Fire

2. Going Wrong In Your Own Way

3. Live Fast, Die Young

4. Staying Hard By Staying Hungry

5. Revolutionaries Unsure What To Do

6. Not The Revolution I Planned

7. A Year Driving

8. A Birthday Card Has Broken Me

9. Let’s Get The Fuck Out Of Here

JADE

1. Everything Except A Friend

2. The Nicest Jail Jadey’s Ever Been In

3. Sugar Is For Cookies

4. Idle Hands

5. A New Frontier For Jadey

6. Ten Thousand Kays From Canterbury

7. You Gotta Go All In

8. They Ain’t Killed Old Jade Slattery

MONA

1. Bacchanalian as FUCK

2. Court Sucks

3. Alpha Māori

4. The Devil Took That Boy

5. If She Can’t Get Her Money

6. All Your Troubles Will Be Gone

7. Babies Who Need Me

8. Come Back To Your Whānau

9. Taking Charge Of Our Fucked-Up Family

CHONG

1. Just Try Callin’ Me Chink

2. Chongyboy Invented Crime

3. In Jail, I Dreamed

4. Twice As Outcast

5. The Definition Of Ruthless

6. Halfcaste Little Upstart

7. Soldiers Till They Die

8. Riders Forever, Forever Riders

9. Leave It Up To Jadey

WINSTON

1. Who’s This Minimart Kid?

2. Chickens Coming Home To Roost

3. A New Kind Of Warrior

4. We’re Animals

5. My Big Bro Carved a Path

6. A Bit Of a Rep

7. Wish Marty Was There

8. If You Want To Get Out

9. King of Australia

MAMA TA’A

1. Thank God My Boy Isn’t In Trouble

2. Irreversible Damage

3. Creating Lasting Change

4. Too Delicate For All This Man Stuff

5. My Boy Is The Best

6. That Boy of Yours

7. We Don’t Want Any More Deaths

8. Don’t Get Mad, Mama

9. A Tonne of Courage

BEZUIDENHOUT BROTHERS

1. Mopping Up The Mess

2. Escape The Shame

3. I Done Somethin’ Real Bad

4. Make It To The Other Side Without Falling

5. The Last Night I Ever See My Family Alive

6. Pure Hungry Predator

7. You Wake My Sister, You’re In Trouble

8. This Is Boy Stuff

9. Strap Yourself In Real Tight Till This Is Over

AFTERMATH

1. Thug Life All The Way

2. We’re Not Running Anymore

3. Beauty In This City All Along

EPITAPH

1. King Chong Put The Crown On

About the Author

MARTY

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-shit 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 fucked 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 fucked-up habit; he giggles nervously like someone murmuring in their sleep, Hininin, plus he always rhymes like Dr Seuss or some shit. 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.

He 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 pussy. 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.

While 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.

The 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 sex 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 shit 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

RISE ABOVE, WE'RE GONNA RISE ABOVE

LAUGH AT US BEHIND OUR BACKS

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!’

When 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.’

Joel 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 tits on her. You like your mum’s tits, 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.’

‘TIME FOR A TOKE!’ Joel goes, clapping to interrupt, ‘Marty, no more revolutions, eh? Scratch that shit 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.

Down 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.’

2

GOING WRONG IN YOUR OWN WAY

The burns from Jadey’s fireworks, the hiding, crying in the bushes, stumbling home, sleeping in a bed of puke … it was useful, all that. I needed the pussy slapped out of me.

I wake up with a text on my phone from Joel Lin, saying he’s got me a 2HC t-shirt and him and Jade are going to the pool and they’ll pick me up. We head vaguely towards QEII pool but never make it past Colombo Street. Colombo invites us to make mayhem. Everyone’s an uncaring capitalist clone. Fuck ’em. We put dry ice bombs in a Coke machine, pour petrol in a clothing bin outside a church, we borrow Mumsie’s credit cards and get out $300 cash, then Joel gets busy and Jade gets busy, and they both sorta forget about me and I find new friends at school I’ve never noticed before—friends with homemade tats and pregnant girlfriends. Risky people who make my heart race. The whole 2 Hard Corpse Jade Slattery thing was like a new pair of shoes I couldn’t quite fit.

We cruise the flat streets, yell shit at people out the windows as we drive by, splash each other with shaken-up beer. We barely see older or younger people, only peeps our age. Our strata of 17. Our universe has no parents to tell us off. We are a tribe of teens ruling the world, no responsibility, fake IDs for all, fucking skanks and fucking each other, waiting for Saturday nights so we can walk into parties in Somerfield and scrap with private school bourgeois pigs. Jade has hardened me up to fight when the revolution comes. There’s riots on TV at the G8 Summit. People smash up Starbucks. It’s electrifying. School can’t contain me. There’s a battle zone out on the streets. I’m being called up.

I read tons of books. I listen to that Naomi Klein journalist-lady on my headphones. I hang out on Reddit and we talk about everything controversial. Psychedelics, anarchism, cyberpunk.

Ken Kesey said, ‘He who marches out of step hears another drum.’ He was talking to me when he said that, directly to me. Think for yourself; question authority; redefeat fuckin’ high on drugs. That’s me, yo. Every time I skip school and get off the bus in Cathedral Square and smoke weed and kick around a hacky sack with the hippies, they pull back the curtain a little more. Show me what’s beyond the visible spectrum. Comfort is complacency. Every lounge suite, every sedan, every heat pump my parents buy, it’s The System trying to make them soft so they’re easy to conquer. The world is oppressive. The world needs me to fight it.

My last day at Hillmorton High School doesn’t start out being my last day; it’s just Mr Mohammed keeps telling me to pay attention. We’re supposed to be copying his dumbass PowerPoint onto A2 paper but I’m writing some serious words of revolution and when I hold my poster up, the Establishment trembles.

Teacher stands in front of the class

But the lesson plan he can’t recall

The student’s eyes don’t perceive the lies

Bouncing off of EVERY FUCKING WALL

His composure is well kept

He fears playing the fool

complacent students listen to some of that

BULLSHIT he learned in school

WE GOTTA TAKE THE POWER BACK.

Mr Mohammed tells me to go wait out in the hall and I just grab my bag and slap a bunch of palms and bail, leaving my poster as my epitaph.

Rage Against The Machine: 1. Mr Mohammed: 0.

Half a dozen of us sign out permanently, collect our leaving certificates, and gap it. To celebrate, me and the boys spend a whole night on the farming expo showgrounds out at the far end of the Dirtmounds, squirting each other with fire extinguisher, shaking up beers, shooting potato guns at cows, cutting wires with fire axes, burning anything plastic with our lighters.

Still drunk at dawn, we drive to the Waimak, a desert of stones with a cold opal river twisting through it like a ribbon.

We set fire to Johnny Rabies’ car and push it in the river. Johnny Rabies runs his mouth as always; he convinces us all he can get insurance money for it. It burns as it floats, like a Chinese lantern, giving off gas bubbles and an oily rainbow bloom.

The insurance thing doesn’t work out and I get ordered to go to a family conference. I can’t cope with little Favourite Son Winston staring at me, looking all holy with his Scouts gear on, and I ask Mr Favourite if he wants a fight, then storm out.

My tribe picks me up in the parking lot, of course. My tribe don’t think I’m abnormal. We smoke a sesh but the weed’s not quite potent enough and luckily one of the boys has got a strain he calls Hot & Spicy that’s been soaked in speed and that gets our hearts racing.

They dare me to drive down Colombo Street on the kerb for fifty straight metres without hitting anything. We send a couple rubbish bins flying, spook some buskers. Yeah bitch! Fuck paving stones! Fuck the Arts Centre! It’s all Illuminati anyway. I have to go to Youth Court for that. I get a suspended sentence. It means if I get in more shit, I have to go back to court. Pffft. Boo-hoo. I’m growing me some dreadlocks and a yellow goatee, and my eyes have sunk into tired black pits in my skull. Chuck me in jail, I don’t care. Just take me away from this hypocrisy you call the first world.

I live with my olds, but only ’cause I don’t have enough work to get money to pay rent on a place. I stay up all night, get up at lunch, and guzzle milk out of their milk bottle. I use up their internet watching videos about the brewing industry’s conspiracy to ban weed. I’m the last one awake at midnight. I drink my dad’s brandy in the small hours, snort my mum’s Prozac. At the dinner table we get into these debates and I tell them they’re wasting their money on lounge suites and Indonesian statuettes when there’s real exciting shit out on the street to spend on. Pills, man, powder! Pipes! Prozzies! Fuck comfort. Go wild. Blow it all at the casino, Dad, before you die.

But nah. Eating the chocolate chips and hazelnuts from mum’s