Childhood still.

My other best friend is blonde. He has blue eyes. He is very happy. His Mum and Dad pick him up in their flash car. He has a baby brother, who is blonde and has blue eyes. We are like a pair of salt and pepper shakers (who knew my version of the perfect gay couple would imprint so early).
We're the same height but as blonde as he is, I am dark. I am brown. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Brown skin, especially in summer. In summer I get called 'blacky' instead of 'sissy'. I say "Shut up you vanilla ice cream!" My Mum says they are just jealous cos they can't go brown as easy as us. They just go red, those silly 'pa a palagi'. Pah- lung- hee is Samoan for 'white man'.
When we go to Samoa, my uncle takes us for drives around the island or into town on the back of his white Toyota pick-up. All the kids in the villages we pass, scream, "Palagi!Palagi!" They're screaming at me! Because to them I am white. They don't know that I get called 'blacky'. I am six and completely offended by these dumb Samoans. "Fa a Samoa! Fa a Samoa!" I scream back. I am Samoan. Dumb boongas!
The rest of my family are very proud when I do this. They laugh and giggle. They laugh and giggle some more. Gee they laugh and giggle a lot. I ask my Mum why do they laugh so much. They are happy she says. They have weird jokes. When I ask where somone or something is, my Aunty Janet pulls her lower eyelid down and says laughing, "In there." All my cousins laugh. I think they're dumb, but I am the dumb one. I don't know much Samoan. Mum won't teach me. Samoan won't get me any where in the world, she says.
I only know hello, goodbye, how are you, I love you and eat shit stupid! The last one is my favourite, so I yell it at the kids who call me palagi. "Ai- khiii! Ai-khiii! Pe pell ohh" I yell back.
My uncle and my Mum shush me and tell me not to but they both smile when they say it.
The other word I get to know extremely well is 'fafa- fingeh'. Samoan for poofter I suppose. In New Zealand if your a girly boy like me you're called a poofter. So in my family I get a lot of 'fafa-fingeh'. Even some of my Aunties call me fafa-fingeh. My Mum shushes them too but she doesn't smile when she does it. She just looks worried.
My other best friend got called poofter. Once. I think. Not as much as me, but I think thats because I look more like a girl. I think he got called poofter because he likes Abba. He has Abba everything. Abba pencilcase, Abba lunchbox, Abba bedspread and lots of Abba posters on his wall. I think I'm a little jealous of all his Abba. I wish I was him. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, a baby brother, a Mum and Dad who have a flash car and a new house.
Their house is as beautiful as mine is Ugly!
Their carpet is the colour of clear winter sky, pale almost shiny blue. My family surprised my Mum with brand new carpet when she was away. She was very surprised. Its reddy, browny, burnt orangey, almost florally but not, more carbuncley than carnationy and Mum loves it. She says it great because it won't show the dirt. She loves stuff that doesn't show the dirt. Thats her thing. Thats why we have a brown couch.
Their house is new and smells new. My house is old but smells of Vim. Mum uses Vim on everything, even the carpet. My house is nearly eighty years old. It looks like its had a hard life. All the paint is chipped. Their house is mock brick, with White doors that have ice frosted glass panels on the side. We have glass panels on the side of our door too but its red and green and yellow. My brother told me it was stained. Not even Vim could get that off, apparently.
They have an indoor toilet. To go to our toilet, I have to go out the back door and along the verandah lean too thing my dad built. The toilet door has gaps; a big one at the top and and a small one at the bottom. Thats where my dad goes when he has to see a man about a dog. The man is never there when I go. Neither's the dog.
I don't have a baby brother but I have two brothers and a sister. I'm the youngest. My Mum always says I'm the baby of the family. I will always be my Mother's baby.
My oldest brother works for 'the White Lady'. Its a like a huge white caravan that is parked in the city late at night and makes the best hamburgers and chips and milk shakes. My brother works all night and some times he brings us all hamburgers and milkshakes for breakfast.
When I was three he bought me a little suede fringed vest that I obviously hated at the time. I have the photos to prove it. The look on my face in one, is like someone just made me wear dog poo. My Mum told me my brother was devastated when he put it on me and I cried. He used his first pay packet to buy it for me. Lucky I kept it, because when I was nine I was brave enough to wear it finally. It was a huge hit at school (and a fashion victim - whore was born!). Everyone kept saying how 'cool' it was. Didn't I look 'cool'. I was so 'cool'. I wore it till it almost fell apart and was devastated when it would no longer fit. Mum gave it to my cousin Timmy. I didn't think he looked as 'cool' in it as me but it didn't matter because it still made Timmy feel 'cool' for a long time too.

My brother was my hero even when I didn't know any better, or was too dumb to appreciate it. Always has been. He never called me a sissy. He tried to teach me how to box. I punch like a girl. He tried to show me how to do it properly but I missed and hit him in the balls. He bent down writhing in pain so I hit him in the face. We all laughed. He stopped teaching me when I kept going to hit him in the balls. He said it wasn't good sportsmanship but I thought it was hilarious.
Later when I was getting teased a lot at school and didn't want to go, he gave me a ride to school on his big motorbike. Some of his friends were bikies. They used to play rugby league with him. They were in a gang. None of the gang or his friends ever teased me or said anything nasty about me. I was Tom's 'little bro' and they had a code of honour. As girly as I was, the bikies never said a word. He used to look like a bikie too. He is tall and at the time had long hair, a moustache, a beard and used to wear dirty leather jeans and a motorcycle jacket. His bike was like a chopper and made a fantastic noise. My Mum always said, "Oh Tom," when he wore his bikie gear.
I had to wear a helmet with the straps pulled together hard because my head was too small and I had to hold onto him tightly so I wouldn't fall off. I had to concentrate hard to hold my head on straight because the helmet was heavy and my head kept lolling back and forward. Eventually I just pushed my face into his back. On the back of his bike, motoring along, making sure I leaned into the corners when we went around them, I was completely safe. Nothing could hurt me when I was snuggled into his back that was warm and smelt of grease and leather; hurtling along at a million miles an hour.
When we got to school, I jumped off and said goodbye. He stopped me and said he was going to come too, to see my teacher. OK, I thought not sure why. He made sure I held his hand when we went into school and we had to walk all the way through the playground to get to my classroom. The playground just ground to a halt. It was like a gigantic alien from Mars had landed and was holding my hand. My teacher looked like she had swallowed her chalk when he walked in.
I went out to play and after about twenty minutes he came out with my teacher to say goodbye. My best friend ran away when I said come and say hello to my brother, but my other best friend came and said "Hi." His eyes almost fell out of his head and he couldn't stop smiling up at my brother when my he came over to say goodbye to us.
My teacher was smiling and shook his hand, and she told me later that I was lucky to have such a nice brother. Yeah I was very lucky. I was very lucky to have such a nice brother who looked like a bikie that could make you look like you'd swallowed your chalk.
After he came to school, one mention of my brother would silence the bullies in a flash. It lasted for about a year. A year was better than none.