Kidnapped by a Motorcycle Gang - Lip Service

The author tells a hitch hiking story about a British chef who gets picked up by The Mongrel Mob Motor cycle gang in New Zealand. The Brit is forced to go to a party and perform a... service.

Transcript

                                                    Lip Service

 North Island, New Zealand

Like most Kiwi hostels Backpack Heaven was rudimentary in everything, beds, heating, kitchen, but it more than compensated for it in companionship. 

John was a Brit , on his own, packed a twenty-four hour smile and found it easy to meet people. He stood a good six feet with a solid chest and a head of black shortly cropped hair. 

I had three trout in front of me on the wooden cutting board in the common kitchen.

“Good size” he said as he looked over my shoulder.

“Thanks, just caught them.”

“What you going to do to them?”

“Fry…I suppose.”

He smiled, rubbed his chin, “Fry, huh? I make my living as a chef. If you let me cook them up and add abalone, muscles, potatoes, onions and you do the dishes I’ll split the meal with you.”

To be honest I was going to just use butter, salt and pepper and fry them. Three lovely rainbow trout.  What did I have to lose?

“Deal.” I said as I got out of the way.

“Gimme a minute to get my food stuff.”

“So,” I asked “You heading north or south?”

He laughed, “Oh, for now I’m really happy to just be in a clean hostel. I want to just park me butt.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh… I just had the most amazing ride. Thought I was dead.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Sure.”

Meal – Limey Chowder

Trout, abalone, muscles, potatoes, sweet onions, all in a sauce of coconut cream, lemon grass, and a sprinkling of curry powder

The road cut through the clusters of rolling green hills, like a clean black ribbon of tar. Twenty-six year old John kicked the backpack at his feet and had three thoughts as he rested at the side of the road.  The first – “Wow, New Zealand, been here two months and I still can’t get over the sights.”  The second - “Haven’t been passed by a car in hours, would be nice to at least see one.” And the third – “I’m pretty deep in Maori lands, hope there’re no problems.”

           Hours passed as the red sun set lower and John heard the far-off rumble of a vehicle. The car, small in the distance, would disappear behind one of the hilly dips, reappear on the crest of the next hill and then again disappear. Then, as if teasing, it slowly increased in size as it approached.   

           “This is it.” thought John, “All or nothing.” Perhaps a mile remained between him and his potential ride.  He did all he could do – something he did well.  He smiled from ear to ear and stuck out his left hand with his thumb pointing down the road.  He had already considered his backup plan if no ride materialized – a sleeping bag on the side of the road, and a prayer for no rain.  The thought of rain forced his smile to grow just a fraction wider. 

           The car stopped and John didn’t like what he saw. But he had to smile now. This did not look good.  In the front seat of a rusty four-door vehicle sat two monstrous men, obviously Maoris.  But if the two men in the front seat unsettled him, those in the back seat downright scared him – three more Maoris.  Not one of them showed a glimmer of friendliness, and not an inch of extra space existed anywhere in the car. The window on the front passenger side slowly rolled down.

           “Where ya’ off to?” the passenger asked.

           “Heading north.”

           “Us too, hop in,” laughed the man.  They all laughed at that.  John did too. He felt it necessary, maybe necessary for his basic survival.

           “There doesn’t seem to be much… room.”  John said.

           “You’ll fit,” snarled the driver and again the men laughed.

           The passenger door in the back flew open. A man weighing no less than three-hundred pounds squeezed out, grabbed John’s pack and said, “Get in. Your rucksack is.”           Is this a joke, robbery, worse?  Dear God, I hope this isn’t a fox hunt with ME the fox.  But what could he do?  He felt if he bolted they’d be after him. 

           “O.K., cool, where do I sit?”

           “On us,” chuckled a man of large proportions who held the middle spot in the back seat.  And so it came to pass that John oozed into the back, over the first man, onto the second man, and there he lay on top of the three of them like an ironing board.  An ironing board uncomfortable in both body and soul, wondering where and how all this would end.

           The door slammed shut and he felt much like the last sardine in the can before the lid was sealed – doomed and it was nobody’s fault but his own.  The driver turned, “I’m Tasi. This is Motu,” he pointed to the man seated in the front with him.  Motu turned and beamed – a silver capped front tooth caught John’s attention.  Tasi, the driver, started the car and continued, ”On your left, that’s Rex, Snake is in the middle, and on your right with your rucksack that’s Peni.”

           “Hi, guys. I’m John.”  What else could he say?  SNAKE! John thought to himself, that’s a nice little moniker.

           “SO,” asked Rex, “You a Yank?”

           “Nope. A Brit.”

           “Grrrrrr,“ growled at least three of them in unison.

           “That’s it.  I’m a dead man,” thought John.

           “Don’t like Brits much,” said Snake.

           “What do you do?” asked another. John thought it might have been the man named Peni, but he had been too unnerved by the previous comment to know who asked.

           “I’m a chef.”

           “Oh, that’s good, that’s very good,” said Tasi, but he said it like a man who had a plan.  “Do you have a specialty?”

           “I’m pretty good at everything, but I like to do salads.”

           Snake said, “How about leaf, you good with leaf?”

           The men in the car howled at that.

           “John, you in a hurry to get where you’re going?” asked Tasi.

           “Not… really.”  Again he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say.

           “It just so happens,” continued Tasi, “that we’re going to a party.  A private party and you’re going too!  Ever heard of The Mongrel Mob?”

           Oh, God! John screamed internally, be calm, don’t show fear!  They’ll smell it.  The most vicious gang in New Zealand, drug addicts, murderers, worse. Hell in a hand bag. He squeaked out a calm meek, “Yes.”

            “Guess who you’re riding with?”

           “The Mongrel Mob,” he enunciated clearly so as not to offend.

           “You got that right, Captain Cook,” said Snake. “And don’t forget it.”

           Don’t think I will, EVER!

            For the next twenty minutes a lot of conversation took place, but all in Maori.  John began to sweat and not the sweat from running around in a kitchen.  A cold sweat, a sweat of doom.  What was more, his entire body ached, but he didn’t dare move a muscle or even consider asking any of the gentlemen to accommodate him. 

           The car turned left onto a bumpy dirt road and continued for another thirty minutes.  Finally it ended at a field with a run-down one-story house. A dripping wooden water tank attached to the right side of the house made John think of the Tower of London. That’s a nice thought, he said to himself.  At least fifteen cars sat parked helter-skelter in the front yard, a few with windshields smashed or missing.  Four goats nibbled at grass; a few chickens added to the visuals. But two things stood out. First, no less than a hundred people must have been milling around and not one of them was white.  And second – shoeless children ran around freely. They wouldn’t kill me with kids around… would they?

            Tasi pushed his girth out first, then the rest of the crew followed.  John inched out when he thought it appropriate. Then the herd of kids came to stare.  

           “OI” yelled Tasi. “Hey, OI, you all.” A crowd gathered around the car.  Tasi pulled John closer. “HEY! OI!”

           John had thought Tasi’s words were for him, but he was wrong, he was addressing everyone.  Tasi leaped up on a wooden picnic table and demanded that John follow.

            Hell’s Bells, thought John.

           Tasi addressed the crowd, “This here is John. He’s staying for the party. Anybody got complaints about that arrangement?”

           John said a prayer again. A prayer about no complaints about the arrangement.

           “John here is a chef.” Tasi went on, “A salad chef and he’s gonna’ do some…some leaf for us.”

           The assembled crowd buckled at the knees, some slapped their thighs.  A few pointed at John and shook their heads.

           Tasi turned to John, “Here’s the deal. We have about two hundred pounds of choice weed and we have a lot of people who need to smoke it, but we hate to roll it ourselves. Guess what?”

           John smiled, “The chef gets to roll it?”

           “You got it. You get food and basic needs breaks, but The Mongrel Mob wants a steady supply of rolled joints. No let up.  Think you can do it?”

           “If I have to.”

           “You have to.”

           “Only one little problem,” John said, not really sure if he should bring it up, “I never rolled a joint before.”

           “Get out of here.”

           “I’m telling the truth.”

           “Let’s go in and get started then.”

           Tasi introduced John to anyone interested, brought him and his pack into the house, and sat him down in the kitchen.  A wobbly table had a garbage sized bag on it.  An overpowering sweet smell came from the garbage bag and hovered in the room like a wet London fog.

        Tasi sat next to him. “It’s easy. HEY! EVERYBODY! I want everybody’s papers,“ he yelled.  Packets of thrown rolling papers started to land on the table.  John flinched as more than one hit him. 

         “Know what rolling papers are?” 

          “I can guess.”

           “Good, it’s the same kind of paper you roll cigarettes with. It’s thin, burns well, and has glue on the top side.” He continued, “Let me show you. You pull out a strip of paper from the pack, you sprinkle on some fine, home grown, mountain Maori weed, not too much, not too little, most goes in the middle and less on the ends because you’re going to taper it.  You lick the sticky end of the paper, roll it with both hands and twist the ends.  A couple of the guys in here like doobies – cigar sized monsters.  You’ll be getting plenty of special orders; just do as they say and if anybody messes with you, give me a yell.”

           “Okay.”

           So, through the night and into the morning, John the Englishman, sprinkled, rolled, licked and twisted marijuana joints for the members of the notorious Mongrel Mob gang.  He became a specialist chef of little finger joints, fat joints, skinny joints, and many cigar-sized doobies. 

           In the morning his tongue killed him. His head ached, his fingers stiff as grave stones, and a strange ravenous hunger gnawed at him unlike any he’d experience before. BUT he had produced a continuous supply of Maori smoke-ables. He had passed the test.  A sweet Maori grandmother, a woman who had kept an eye on him all night, made him a huge fried egg breakfast with toast covered in cold spaghetti, and two heavily sugared cups of hot steaming tea which put a small dent in that hole in his stomach.  

           In the end, Snake offered him a ride to the main road.  Neither said a word until Snake stopped the car.

           “John,” he said “we gave ya’ a hell of a time and you stood up to it. There aren’t many whites who come to a Mongrel Mob party and get to talk about it. Here’s your pack.  Good on ya’.  A dollar a pound.” 

           “What?”

           “Oh yeah, if any more Maoris pick you up tell em’ Snake says you’re O.K.”

           “I promise, I’ll do that.”

           And with that, Snake deposited John, on a sunny day, to catch another ride north.

           John hefted his pack.  It felt strange, curious… he opened it.  Inside on the top of his possessions lay a dirty envelope.  He opened it.  A note stuck under a rubber band held a wad of New Zealand dollars. It read - 

           Thanks, good luck with the salads. You licked two hundred pounds –. So ya' got a dollar for every pound licked and a doobie for the road.  Don’t let anyone tell you Maoris aren’t honest. -   Tasi.

           A potential ride rumbled in the distance down the black ribbon of a North Island road.  John put the thick dollar-filled envelope in his jacket pocket and did what he did best - he smiled, and stuck out his thumb.