line of tattooed dots runs across her right temple. She carries a portable tray of her own filled with carrots and sweet potatoes and a quarter of a pumpkin.
‘Thought they were too handsome to be your tamariki tane,’ she says.
She gives August a wink. He smiles back.
‘How many years you been looking after these boys, Lyle?’ Elsie asks.
‘’Bout eight, nine years I’ve known them,’ Lyle says.
Elsie looks at August and me.
‘Eight, nine years?’ she echoes. ‘Whaddya reckon, boys? Reckon it’s fair enough to say you’re his kids now?’
August nods his head. Elsie turns to me for a response.
‘Reckon that’s fair enough,’ I say.
Ezra and the skinny man are engrossed in a movie on TV featuring a hulking bronzed warrior at the head of a great ancient feast.
‘What is best in life?’ says a man on the screen dressed like Genghis Khan.
The bronzed warrior has his legs crossed, muscles like iron, a headband like a crown.
‘Crush your enemies,’ says the bronzed warrior. ‘To see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women.’
August and I are temporarily spellbound by this man.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask.
‘That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, bro,’ Ezra says. ‘Conan the Barbarian.’
Arnold Schwarzenegger is mesmerising.
‘This motherfucker’s gonna be huge,’ Ezra says.
‘What’s it about?’ I ask.
‘It’s about warriors, bro, and wizards and swords and sorcery,’ Ezra says. ‘But most of all it’s about revenge. Conan’s travelling the world trying to find the bastard who fed his dad to dogs and chopped off his mum’s head.’
I spot the video cassette recorder sitting beneath the television.
August and I dive immediately to the carpet to stare at the machine.
‘What’s luminance noise?’ I ask.
‘Fucked if I know,’ Ezra says. ‘That’s what they wrote on the box.’
By the television is a bookshelf filled with black Betamax tapes with white sticky labels marked with movie titles. Hundreds of them. Some titles have been crossed out with blue ballpoint pen and other titles have been scribbled in beside them. Raiders of the Lost Ark. ET the Extra Terrestrial. Rocky III. Time Bandits. Clash of the Titans. August points his finger at one cassette in particular.
‘You got Excalibur?’ I holler.
‘Shit yeah, bro?’ Ezra beams. ‘Helen Mirren, man. Smokin’ hot that crazy witch.’
I nod heartily.
‘Merlin,’ I say.
‘Crazy bastard,’ Ezra rejoices.
I scan the videos. ‘You got all the Star Wars!’
‘What’s the best Star Wars?’ Ezra asks, with a tone that suggests he already knows the answer.
‘Empire,’ I say.
‘Correct,’ he says. ‘Best bit?’
‘Yoda’s cave in Dagobah,’ I say without contemplation.
‘Oh, shit, Lyle, you got a deep one here,’ Ezra says.
Lyle shrugs, rolls a cigarette from a packet of White Ox in his pocket.
‘Dunno the fuck yer talkin’ ’bout,’ he says.
‘Luke finds Vader in the cave and kills him and then the mask blows open and Luke’s looking at himself,’ Ezra says mystically. ‘Strange shit, bro. What’s this one’s name?’
Lyle points at me.
‘That’s Eli,’ he says. Points at August. ‘That’s August.’
‘Hey Eli, what’s up with that cave shit?’ he asks. ‘What’s that shit mean, little bro?’
I keep looking at the video movie titles as I talk.
‘The cave’s the world and it’s like Yoda says, the only thing in the cave is what you take in there with you. I reckon Luke already senses who his old man is. He already knows deep down. He’s shit-scared of meeting his dad because he’s shit-scared of the stuff that’s already inside him, the dark side that’s already in his blood.’
The living room goes quiet for a moment. August shoots me a long look. He nods knowingly, raising his eyebrows.
‘Cool,’ Ezra says.
Lyle places the blue chill box down by Ezra’s chair.
‘Got you boys some beers,’ Lyle says.
Ezra nods his head to the skinny man, which is communication enough to cause the skinny man to hop up from his armchair and open the chill box. He digs his hand deep into the box filled with beer bottles and ice. He pulls out a rectangular block wrapped in a thick black plastic bag. He passes it immediately to Elsie. She screws up her face.
‘You can check it, Rua, for fuck’s sake,’ she says.
The skinny man looks at Ezra for guidance. Ezra is engrossed in the movie but he allows time for one eye to dart towards Elsie, followed by a head nod towards the kitchen. Elsie hops up from the couch in a storm of sharp movements and snatches the