Born to Fight Read Free

shitload of beatings and what felt like endless days of hunger.
    There was usually some food when Mum was around, but later on she had two jobs, which meant she was never there. Dad cooked sometimes, but when he did it’d be a giant pot of lamb flaps, or something like that, and we’d be eating it for weeks, even after it had gone off.
    There was food when someone in the family died, and we couldn’t wait for that to happen. Unlike a lot of Samoans, we didn’t know our extended family, because most of those who lived in New Zealand were on my mother’s side, and Dad forbade us, Mum included, from being in contact with them. We would only see them when someone died, and none of them meant anything to us except a bus ride to a big feed when they finally fucked off from this life. Of course we couldn’t wait for that to happen.
    There was also food when the Mormons came around. They were the only people who ever came round to that shithole. Those guys from the church used to get to tuck into all kinds of good stuff that our parents would get for them – cake, Milo, chips, Coke, biscuits, all the stuff I would literally have dreams about. When they came we’d poke our heads through the door, salivating, looking at these missionaries with eyes of hatred and jealousy.
    We had to be silent when those dudes came around. This was to be a perfect house in front of the church people, and we were to be perfect children. Sometimes John couldn’t handle that, though. He was the most introverted and introspective of us kids, but if you ever managed to light his fuse, then the explosion would be measured in megatons.
    There was more than one occasion when John couldn’t help but scream at the missionaries, telling them to fuck off out of the house. When that happened, Dad would feign surprise and gently tell off my brother, with John fully knowing that each soft word would correlate to strikes from a fist or implement as soon as the Mormons left.
    John couldn’t help himself. We were as hungry as street dogs, so it was torture watching someone eat, and in our house of starvation no less. It was almost as bad as when we’d catch Mum and Dad in the car, eating fast food, before coming inside and reeking of delicious chips.
    I know it wasn’t the missionaries’ fault we were hungry, and there’s no way they could’ve known they were the only people to get a decent feed at our house. I know that now, anyway.
    When they’d leave, we’d jump onto whatever they didn’t eat like animals on the Serengeti, and more than once an almighty brawl erupted over who would get the lion’s share.We weren’t siblings like you and yours might be, we were desperate competitors, every day fighting a zero-sum game.
    Like a lot of Polynesian people in South Auckland, we were born Mormons, and while I did become a man of faith later I really only remember the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a place where we’d have to sit down for a long time, wearing uncomfortable clothes.
    When I became an adult I realised that the Mormon Church didn’t do us right. Those people didn’t do my sister right. They knew what was going on with my dad and my sister – it was an open secret at the church. Our bishop knew exactly what was going on with Victoria because she went to him and asked for help. All he ever did was tell off anyone who spoke of what was going on, and he certainly didn’t try to help.
    I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I find it weird that no one at the church ever tried to do anything about what was happening to my sister. The church should have been better. Someone should have been stronger. They were meant to be leaders and protectors. They were meant to help their flock when the community needed it – they used to bang on about that. My sister needed it.
    Everyone around the neighbourhood knew what my dad was doing, but we boys closest to it only knew vaguely that something rotten was going on, and we