Kāore he putanga/No way out
Assignment three: Imaginative essay.
(c) Gangs are a continuing issue of concern. Imagine you or a persona are a member of a New Zealand gang. Describe an occasion where you take part in gang activity. In your essay, try to show a reader possible reasons why an individual might join a gang, and depict how gang activities in this country are perceived by the majority of citizens.
Write up to 1500 words.
Kāore he putanga/No way out
Rangi had not meant to kill the man. Give him the hell bash, yes, but not murder him.
It was just that things got a bit out of control and they had beaten up the guy pretty bad.
Rangi glanced around from his hiding place. It was getting dark and he could not see much beyond the first few metres. Not helped by the lack of lighting high up in the carpark building where he was crouching behind a large green van. Not even much of a glow from the streetlights nearby. Nothing and no one.
But the sirens were still singing, albeit some distance away. They started soon after he had sprinted away from the scene, biffing the bat as he ran. He still wore the gloves Beverley had given him years ago to ‘do a job.’ Beverley. Rangi semi-smiled as he—fleetingly—thought about her. He wondered where she was nowadays? Probably back on the Coast somewhere with their daughter, who maybe did enrol in te kōhanga reo after all?
The sirens seemed to be a bit closer. He slunk down deeper.
The guy needed a hiding. They all agreed about that. No one could rip them off like he had. The smart-mouthed bastard. Rangi smirked when he recalled how the guy had lied about ‘not having your stash, bro,’ and how Donny had hit him flush in the mouth with the chain. That was their signal, so they all took a turn at whacking the lying prick. Fuck him. Trying to rip us off, who did he think he was?
Didn’t mean to kill him though, especially in such a busy city street. Not like that. We got a bit carried away, eh. Even Donny would have had to accept that. Mind you, Donny was mean and had few if any scruples, especially when it came down to fighting. ‘Utu,’ he called his frequent forays into brawls and bashings, and if the victim or victims were perceived to be arseholes or up themselves, Donny did this mahi without any fuss. Even if the victims were his own whanaunga.
Shit, the cops were close now. Rangi could not see anything new around him, but he did notice what were dim upward-moving lights growing brighter and not too far away. He tried to segue into the taut asphalt of the carpark. No use.
He hadn’t always been in the gang. Back in Australia when he was growing up, he had been OK with running a few jobs here and there for some of the bros who used him to smuggle and sell a constant cache of drugs across Sydney. No harm in that he used to tell himself, although his mum had kept warning him about his so-called mates. ‘Going to get you into trouble, son,’ was her mantra. Rangi had eventually chased her chant out of his head.
He quickly suppressed any further thoughts about his mother, because he could hear the searching sirens closing in as the vehicles wound their ways up the parking building. He was lying as flat as he could, as far under the van as he could, and he tried to stop breathing. Impossible.
It was just that on one of his missions out in Penrith one night, Rangi had been stopped by the cops, who reckoned he fitted the description of somebody or other. They had roughed him up a bit when he told them to fuck off, which was probably a stupid thing to say. And when he punched a constable after the situation got real heated, he was in jail for a few months. No criminal record, well not much of one, but the judge had spewed out crap like, ‘You are a menace to society,’ and that was that. Guess the old bastard didn’t much like his tatts either. Especially the facial ones.
Not too long afterwards Rangi graduated to being a 501 deportee. No pride in that. But no choice either. No family to look to, other than crims like him. Both parents gone, while his own brothers and sister had drifted off in different directions long before.
The police vehicles must have separated somewhere close by the level Rangi was pancaked on. He figured this because the siren sounds were diminishing, and because it sounded like only one motor was still travelling upwards. He figured that they must be doing a floor-by-floor search and he wondered who had told them that he—and maybe some of the others—had run into this carpark tower. He had not seen Donny scarper, so perhaps he had vanished successfully somewhere into the night.
Settling back in New Zealand, or Aotearoa as his mum would stress, had been no fun either. Rangi had no whānau there that he knew well. He had no job. No money. Fuck all prospects of getting either. Shit, he couldn’t even claim a snippet of land there. Bloody Pākehā had ensured there were only ‘perpetual’ leases, so no locals could ever freehold. Only a couple of years with Beverley to be happy about. And then that had ended. Too much easy pipe and piss. He soon nestled back into the routine of drug running and—what was that word Donny always preached? ‘Facilitating,’ yeah, that was it. Donny reckoned the fat boy Pākehā were the main users and that all he and the brothers were doing was to ‘facilitate their illicit pleasures,’ and at the same time ‘scoring us some flush cash, eh.’ Donny had some way with expressions. Might have been because he had a Pākehā father who had sent him to some wank school somewhere. Donny got himself expelled. Didn’t fit in, apparently.
No time to think about damned Donny now though. Ngā Pirihimana had dogs with them and Rangi could hear them growling away in the back of the police van that had landed on his floor. Not so far from where he lay.
He slunk out from his no-longer-a-hiding place and found himself sprinting as fast as he could through the exit door in the wall behind him, down the stairs as best he could with his busted leg, which had never recovered from the smash-up he had one wet drunk Saturday night he still couldn’t remember clearly. One thought did sprint across his brain, however, and that was that he always seemed to be running away from things. Or trying to.
His leg was hurting crazily now and he had slowed to a careful crouching stumble downwards. No sign of any pursuit yet, though. He reckoned he would soon be at about ground level. And what then? Bound to be police everywhere. Probably others who wanted to see what was going on too, even though it was well after midnight. He stopped to breathe better.
For some reason memories of his father now slammed into his brain. His old man had tried to look after Rangi and his brothers and sister, but it had been difficult. Especially back on the Coast. Never enough money. Never enough room in their houses. Never enough time to be a whānau. Even when Pāpā shifted across the Tasman, and brought most of them over later, things had not magically transformed. Pāpā worked in shit jobs at abattoirs and in chilly freezer chambers, while Mum cleaned houses. When his father died way too young, after too much booze and smoke, Rangi had to leave school and find a job. ‘Fuck,’ thought Rangi. ‘Why am I remembering all this shit?’
Everywhere, the sirens had ceased. He slowly opened the door and peered out. Well-lit and noisy. Not just from the traffic still cavorting on the city streets, but from people yakking. Rangi tried to be part of the wall, as he limped and shuffled sideways towards the road. Slow as.
Maybe Donny had managed to get away. He would help. At least that is what he always said to his blood. ‘I’ll be there for you, brothers.’ Donny and his huge fast cars that he had acquired over years of dealing and stealing. Where was he right then? Not a sign of him.
Rangi didn’t get far. The whack of the baton knocked him flat. Next thing, he was pulled back to his feet, his arms roughly pinioned and handcuffed behind his back and someone was calling him a black cunt.
Rangi hazily looked about him. Seemed quite a big crowd was watching his arrest and someone was taking photos. They seemed excited, and several were yelling angrily at him. He shook his head to try to clear it. His whole body was aching. He shook his head once more, this time with another recollection of what his mum used to say.
‘Kāore he putanga,’ she said whenever things got real bad. Which was often. Which were some of the very few kupu Māori that Rangi ever learned, had ever been taught him. Which suddenly ran into his brain again. ‘No way out.’
He’d always known it.
There never had been.
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Assessment
Assignment three: Imaginative essay (C)
Grade: B
Assessor comments:
Dear Hiria,
This is a spirited attempt to portray gang life in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, the mood is consistently grim. Surely, the protagonist in your story—Rangi—has not had such an unrelentingly unfortunate life history? Some contrast, describing positive things happening to him would have served this essay well. More, you make little attempt to depict ways in which such crime and such gang activities are perceived by non-gang members, given that the inevitable arrest of Rangi at the end of the piece will certainly satisfy many readers.
Overall, a more nuanced story would have ensured a higher grade. Thank you.
Peter Winston PhD
HOD English.
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Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa) commutes between homes in Hong Kong, Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Māori and English and his work has been translated into several other tongues. He is the author and editor/co-editor of over 50 books. His latest books, all published during 2025, are Sexual Predation and TEFL (De Gruyter Brill) and the co-edited anthologies Te Moana o Reo/The Ocean of Languages (The Cuba Press), and Te Pūrere/The Exodus (Cold Hub Press).