Photo Credit: John Reece Cole, 1964
I never wanted to be a good boy. I’ve got myself into a mess I know, but won’t anyone ever understand that? Mother always said, If you take my advice you’ll always be a good boy. How could I tell her I didn’t want to be a good boy?
I was always real sorry for mother and father. They didn’t seem to have any pleasure in life. Father never went out after he’d come home from work. He just sat and read the paper. His stomach was bad too, and made noises, and he kept on saying, Pardon. It used to get on my nerves. I used to watch him and mother when I was supposed to be doing my homework. Sometimes the look on mother’s face gave me the idea that inside she wasn’t properly happy and was wanting pleasure just the same as I was. It used to make me come over all sentimental and I’d have a job to keep myself from crying. She used to say she never had a minute’s rest, and she’d keep on darning socks or something like that right until it was bedtime and she had to go and make father’s cocoa. They were good people, both of them. And they expected me to be good too. And how could I tell them that I didn’t want to be good?
I couldn’t tell them. Instead I pretty often played the wag instead of going to Sunday school and did things like that and they never found out. And when I started going to that billiard saloon I kept that dark too, because father and mother would never have stood for it. It was when I’d left school and could only get odd jobs, and father was making me swot at book-keeping so I could be an accountant instead of just a dry-cleaner like him.
Gee, but I used to have some fun in that billiard saloon. Paddy Evans kept it. He’d been a jockey but he’d pulled a horse and got disqualified. They said it was a crook business right through like they say all racing is. The trainer of the horse and the owner and a bookie were all mixed up in it. You know, crossing and double-crossing each other, but it was Paddy who got it in the neck. Anyhow Paddy was a good sort, even though he did have the hardest dial you ever saw on a man. And so was his wife a good sort too. Of course they weren’t good people like father and mother, they never went to church or anything like that, and it’s a fact that Paddy ran a book, but they were real good fun. I’ll tell you how fat Mrs Evans was. She was so fat she always had to make a split in the top part of her shoes and sew in a little gusset. She was absolutely full of fun, made a joke out of everything, and wintertimes when it was time to close she’d nearly always bring out coffee and toast.
You know I could never see anything much wrong in the billiard saloon. Most of the boys never had enough money to put anything on with Paddy, and billiards is a good game. It takes a boy’s mind off thinking too much about cuddling girls and other things. And with all those angles to think about it’s as hard as trying to work out one of those geometry theorems. Me and the boys were all good cobbers too. They were nearly all boys who worked in shops and motor places, and they used to ask me things like what it means when you put & Coy. on a cheque, and they used to sling off at me when I couldn’t tell them. Well, I don’t believe even a bank-manager can say why you put & Coy. on a cheque. Not properly say. But later on it was like I’ve said, I was just one of the boys. They didn’t sling off at me and we were all good cobbers.
Well, of course father found out. I was a bit too big then for him to give me one of those hidings but gee, the way he and mother talked at me was like nothing on earth. For peace and quietness I had to promise I wouldn’t go to Paddy’s place any more. Father had his knife into Paddy properly. He stuck him up in the street and roused him up hill and down dale, and one day when he happened to see him riding his bike on the footpath he had him fetched up in Court. Oh, hang it all, I didn’t blame father. He and mother are both good people, you can’t deny it. But it wouldn’t have done any good telling them it’s no use trying to make people good if they don’t want to be good.
Another thing, I’d have done anything to please mother at that time because it was just before my little sister was born. I’d noticed it was going to happen, and it sort of got under my skin because there’d been only just the three of us in our family ever since I could remember. At any rate, when it did happen it was lucky for me because it gave father and mother someone else to think about and made it easier for me to get out at night and see the girl that I’ve landed myself in this mess over. She worked in a restaurant and gee, it was fun to sneak round the back and help her wash the dishes.
Oh hell, what’s the use of going on? I thought while they’re keeping me here in clink I’d write the story of my life, then perhaps if my little sister reads it when she’s grown up she might understand that I never wanted to be a good boy. But it’s all no good. What I’ve written so far is all balled up and doesn’t explain what I want it to at all. All I want to explain is that I never wanted to be a good boy, and how can I explain that?
I killed that girl. Yes. It was because she cracked on that I was the only fellow she was going with but I found her out. And what did I do? Did I remember that I never had been a good boy, and never wanted to be a good boy? Did I remember how the boys said Paddy Evans’ wife used to go out with a lawyer who bought her a fur coat, and Paddy just said he wished he’d buy her a muff as well? Did I? No I didn’t. I went all righteous just like father and mother used to go when they caught me or anyone else playing them a dirty trick. Gosh, when I killed the girl I felt better and cleaner than I’ve ever felt in my life. I bet father used to feel just the same as I did then when he used to give me those hidings. I never wanted to be a good boy, but when it came to a sort of test I found I was a good boy after all. I did the right thing. I’ve told the detectives and the lawyers and the doctors and everybody that over and over again, and they won’t believe me. You’d almost believe they think I’m off my block which is just plum ridiculous. I’ve told them I’ve never been a good boy, all except that one time when I did the right thing just like father and mother had always tried to teach me. That was the time I killed the girl.
Oh Christ, won’t anyone ever understand? I’m all balled up, I know, but I’m trying to explain. I never wanted to be a good boy.
Photo Credit: John Reece Cole, 1964
‘A Good Boy’ was most recently published in Frank Sargeson’s Stories (Cape Catley, 2010), and first published in the collection, A Man and His Wife, (Caxton Press, 1940).
Frank Sargeson was influential not only through his writing, but also as a friend and mentor to other writers. Described as one of New Zealand’s greatest literary innovators and mentor to the literary community, Frank Sargeson was a novelist and short story writer who became internationally known as the pioneer who broke from colonial literary traditions to an idiom that expressed the rhythms of New Zealand speech and experience. He qualified as a lawyer before committing himself to full-time writing.