Within minutes of arriving at the plant nursery, Marcus knew he’d overdressed. The career adviser at university said it was safer to overdress than underdress; you could take off a tie, unbutton your top button, and voila: interview Monday to casual Friday in a few small steps. Marcus looked at the mud-stained clothes worn by the people around him, then down at his pressed T-shirt, clean jeans and new Vans. The career adviser was wrong; there was no voila moment to be had. Short of Marcus grabbing a handful of dirt and wiping it over his torso, he’d continue to look like an overdressed wanker as long as he stayed in this place.
A man wearing a Swanndri walked towards Marcus and held out his hand.
‘You must be George’s boy. I’m Hoppy.’
Hoppy’s outstretched hand was caked in dry mud. Marcus winced as his hand was squeezed and pumped up and down. Ow. Hoppy didn’t have a handshake – he had a filthy hand-grabbing vice.
‘Great to have you for the holidays,’ Hoppy said. ‘I’m sure you’ll get on well here.’
‘Thanks,’ Marcus said.
‘We don’t usually take varsity students, but of course I made an exception for George’s boy. We go way back, me and him. Good times.’
‘Thanks,’ Marcus said again.
‘Let’s get you started then. Follow me.’
Marcus hunched his shoulders and trailed after Hoppy. People stood around in clusters, pretending to be busy as they shot surreptitious glances in his direction. They wore baggy tracksuit pants, faded jeans and oversized T-shirts. Marcus mentally sifted through his wardrobe. What could he wear tomorrow so he didn’t stand out so much? His old Barkers pants were too small. What about his new jeans – the ones that were specially faded and torn? No, he couldn’t wear those; they’d cost over a hundred bucks. Besides, he wouldn’t wear them on principle. They were the jeans that had made Dad say Marcus had to pay for his own flights to Dunedin from now on. Marcus kicked at a lump of dirt, wishing it was Dad. This was his fault. Hoppy had no idea. Marcus being here wasn’t a favour to Marcus’s dad. It was torture that Marcus’s dad had dreamed up because he was an autocratic, oligarchic, dictatorial sadist who was obsessed with making Marcus stay ‘in touch’ with where he was ‘from’, whatever the hell that meant. Hoppy opened a wooden door to a large shed filled with piles of dirt on platforms. A motley group of men scooped the dirt into small black pots. The local radio station’s Y2K countdown blared from a tinny speaker.
Hoppy motioned towards the men. ‘And this is the team.’
The men turned and smiled and mumbled. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘Kia ora.’ ‘Hey there.’ One of them grinned at Marcus, proudly displaying his lack of front teeth. Another tilted his head upwards in acknowledgement of Marcus’s eyes on him. Marcus looked away; he didn’t know if that meant ‘hello’ or ‘I’m going to beat you up.’ A third man wore a T-shirt that said ‘Tupac 4Eva’. Marcus sighed. What would he even talk to these people about? Wasn’t there anyone here like him?
Hoppy slapped Marcus on the back. ‘You’ll be in good hands here. I’ll leave you to it.’
Marcus stood at the dirt-covered platform, looked up at the mountain of dirt, down at his clean clothes and then at the pots stacked to his left. He picked up a limp rubber glove with his thumb and index finger. What was worse: putting on the glove or touching the dirt without it on? Yuck. It was like one of those moral dilemmas he’d learnt about in Philosophy 101, but less hygienic.
A young man with a shaggy mane stood at the platform on his right.
‘Marcus, isn’t it?’ the young man said. ‘Remember me?’
Marcus turned and widened his eyes. ‘Rewi! Oh my God. I haven’t seen you since we were kids.’
Marcus scratched around in the recesses of his mind to remember more: Rewi ‒ always dirty, talked a lot about being a fireman when he grew up. That’s right. Fancy seeing him again, here, of all places.
Rewi laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s been ages. Me and Mum moved away back in ’91, and I only came back last year. I still think about your old place – I used to love it there. Your mum was primo.’
Marcus had completely forgotten Rewi existed until a minute ago, but he wasn’t going to tell Rewi that.
‘Yeah,’ Marcus said. ‘Good times.’
Marcus looked Rewi up and down; unlike the others, Rewi wasn’t smeared in dirt, and he wore a T-shirt that even Marcus would wear. Thank goodness, there was another normal person here. Maybe things would be okay after all.
Rewi explained to Marcus what he needed to do to pot the plants, and the work began. After what felt like five hours of potting, Marcus looked at his watch. Only twenty minutes had passed. Was his watch broken?
‘How do you stand this job?’ Marcus asked as he scooped a pile of dirt and put it into the pot. ‘It’s so mundane.’
Rewi shrugged.
‘It’s pretty good,’ he said. ‘After tax, you get sixty bucks a day. Hoppy lets you knock off at three on a Friday too so you can go into town to bank your cheque.’
‘Sixty bucks a day,’ Marcus said. He did his maths: one week to pay for his flights to Dunedin and one more to pay for O-week. That would tide him over until his loan kicked in. Other people’s conversations drifted over to where Marcus stood, but he couldn’t find an opening to join in. ‘Did you see the game?’ ‘Coming to the barbeque on Saturday?’ ‘Who saw Shorty last night?’ ‘Of course I don’t actually watch it, but you know, the missus always has it on. Yours too?’
Marcus stood up straight. He knew about Shortland Street, he could contribute to this conversation. His flatmates watched it all the time; their tastes were less discerning than his. He thought of something his flatmate had said just before the holidays that had struck him as witty.
‘Isn’t it weird how Waverley’s brother is called Stratford?’ Marcus said. ‘Maybe they have another brother called New Plymouth.’
The man who had asked the original question glanced at Marcus, frowned and then turned the conversation back to the barbeque.
Rewi laughed. ‘You’re so random.’
Marcus needed to think of something better to say; he needed to show everyone that he was cool. Besides, when they weren’t talking, the Y2K countdown filled the silence, and Marcus hated that sort of music. Hopefully, next millennium mainstream music would improve.
‘This music is terrible,’ he said to Rewi. ‘Do you ever listen to stuff that’s more worthy?’
Rewi laughed again. ‘Don’t knock it,’ he said. ‘I like this song.’
‘I got my Tupac CD in my bag,’ the man in the Tupac T-shirt called out. ‘You like Tupac, homeboy?’
‘Not really,’ Marcus said. ‘I learnt about Tupac in anthropology, though.’
‘Eh?’ The man wearing the Tupac T-shirt said.
‘It was interesting,’ Marcus said. ‘Tupac sang in a genre that is both empowering and misogynistic. It’s an inherent contradiction.’
The man in the T-shirt threw back his head and laughed. Further down the line, someone snorted. Marcus felt the redness creep up his neck, over his face and to the tips of his ears. He should have known that these people wouldn’t understand.
‘Tupac forever,’ the man in the Tupac T-shirt said.
Rewi turned to Marcus. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t like Tupac either. By the way, how are your parents?’
Of course Rewi didn’t like Tupac; Rewi was normal, like him. Rewi probably agreed with Marcus’s point about rap’s inherent contradictions but was too shy to speak up.
‘Mum’s all right,’ Marcus said. ‘My dad’s a douche though.’
Rewi shot Marcus a sympathetic look. ‘Yeah, I know what that’s like. When did you last see yours?’
Marcus frowned; what an odd question. ‘This morning. He dropped me here.’
Rewi didn’t reply.
They turned back to their plants: one pot, two pots, three pots. Eighty, ninety, one hundred. Marcus’s back creaked and his feet hurt. He should have worn more comfortable shoes. Rewi and the other men bopped along to the music and laughed at the DJ’s inane banter. They talked about ‘the game’ some more without ever explaining what the game was or what the result had been. They argued about what they’d do with one million dollars: someone would go to Vegas – the real one, not Roto-Vegas. Someone else would buy new cars for everyone in his family. Rewi said he’d buy his mum a house. Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t find a gap in the conversation large enough to slide in. Before he knew it, they were talking about ‘the game’ again. Two hundred and sixty, two hundred and seventy – a plant in a pot, then another, then another. The dirt caked Marcus’s gloves, crept up his sleeve and covered his front. Marcus sneezed into his handkerchief and recoiled in disgust; the dirt had even found its way up his nose. That was repulsive.
‘Hope the job’s not too mundane for you, new boy,’ someone said from down the row.
‘Is it what?’ a second man said.
‘That means boring, dumbass. That’s what he said to Rewi before. Didn’t you hear him?’
Marcus pinched his lips and concentrated on his pots. Three hundred, three hundred and one, three hundred and two. These people were just jealous that he was going somewhere and they weren’t. Three hundred and three, three hundred and four. That reminded him – he’d forgotten to ask Rewi what he was doing. He hadn’t seen him around Otago, but there were plenty of other places he could be studying.
‘So, what are you doing at university?’ Marcus said to Rewi. ‘I’m going to be a lawyer.’
Rewi turned ever so slightly away from Marcus. He mustn’t have heard over the terrible music.
‘What are you training to be?’ Marcus said. ‘I might work for government, but I think going private would be better.’
Someone at the other end of the platform laughed. ‘New boy’s talking about privates.’
‘Privates are so mundane,’ someone else said.
Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose, accidentally smearing dirt on his face. What was wrong with these people?
‘What do you study?’ Marcus asked Rewi again.
Rewi turned back to Marcus and smiled although the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m at the school of life.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘I’m not at university,’ Rewi said. ‘I’m not clever enough for that. I never even finished school.’
Marcus widened his eyes. ‘Oh.’
‘School of life forever,’ the man wearing the Tupac T-shirt said.
‘School of life ain’t mundane,’ someone else said.
A third person laughed. ‘Quit with the mundane jokes, you egg.’
Marcus picked up a pot and scooped in a handful of dirt. How could Rewi do this all day, every day? Four hundred and ten, four hundred and eleven. A handful of dirt, a new pot, another handful of dirt. Five hundred.
He turned to Rewi. ‘Don’t you want better than this?’
‘It’s a good gig,’ Rewi said. ‘I’m cut up to be leaving, to be honest. Today’s my last day.’
‘Oh, you’ve got another job?’ Marcus said. ‘Where?’
Rewi ran his hands through his hair. Clumps of dirt sat on his forehead. ‘Not sure yet.’
‘Poor old Rewi’s been cut loose,’ someone said. ‘We’ll miss you, bro.’
‘Someone had to make space for the boy whose dad goes way back with Hoppy,’ someone else said. ‘Last in, first out.’
Marcus concentrated on potting his plants. Six hundred, seven hundred. Seven hundred and fifty.
‘I’ll find something,’ Rewi said. ‘My mate’s cousin might know someone at that big farm over the hill.’
‘It’s not right,’ someone said.
‘It is what it is,’ Rewi said. ‘Anyways, I brought some beers in, you lot better be joining me for a cold one after work.’
‘Rewi forever!’ the man in the Tupac T-shirt said. ‘Of course.’
It was five o’clock. Finally. Marcus peeled off his gloves and threw them in the bin. It was disgusting; his hands would need a good moisturise when he got home. Marcus walked out of the shed, glancing back to see Rewi sitting on a plastic chair, box of beer at his feet. The other men were drawing up chairs around him, and someone had turned up the music. Marcus gave Rewi a small wave, but Rewi didn’t notice; he was too busy laughing at something the man in the Tupac T-shirt had said. Hoppy fell into step beside Marcus as he walked towards the front gate.
‘Good first day, lad?’ Hoppy said. ‘You’re not having a beer with the boys?’
‘Not today,’ Marcus said, ignoring the first part of Hoppy’s question.
Hoppy waved. ‘Give my regards to your father.’
‘I will,’ Marcus said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Marcus waited at the side of the road for Dad to pick him up – his father, the autocratic, oligarchic, dictatorial sadist. Marcus looked down at his dirty clothes. He needed to find something to wear tomorrow so he wouldn’t stand out so much. He should ask Dad to drop him at the Sallies on the way home – either that or Marcus would have to wear his ripped jeans. No one would be able to tell they were actually brand new. Maybe he could borrow something from Dad? Of course he could. Dad had plenty of old clothes filled with holes. What a good idea. There was no point in buying anything new; he’d be gone in a couple of weeks anyway. Sixty dollars a day wasn’t enough to make him want to go to the school of life.
A car pulled up, and the horn beeped. Finally, Dad was here. Marcus slid into the front seat and slammed the door behind him.