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Roger Rabbits with |
He’s a little guy with a big following halfway down Cameron Rd.
He runs the Sand Bakery and Café with a wide reputation for its cheap and cheerful grilled breakfasts. It’s a haven for early start tradies and those of us who like to kick start the day with bacon and eggs, and toast and beans, and mushrooms and hashbrowns.
And for the past year, I have known him simply as ‘Jack’.
Not his real name. He’s a New Zealander of Cambodian descent, so he adopted ‘Jack’ to make it easier for other New Zealanders who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, get their heads around a non-Anglo-Saxon name.
Or was it another effort to be included. To be one of us, even though he is. He’s been here 20 years I understand.
And I feel bad about it now because one morning in his café he scrawled his given Cambodian name on a paper serviette and he giggled as I wrestled with the pronunciation. “It’s easy,” he insisted, even though it wasn’t. I think he was tickled I had even tried. It proved one thing – his English is better than my non-existent Khmer. Like most Kiwis, I’m non-existent any other language – a mono-lingual wordsmith and he is a bi-lingual pastry chef. What does that tell you?
Jack
But I conveniently set aside his given name and reverted to ‘Jack’ because it was easier. How lazy. How rude. I could have shown some interest, made more effort, shown some respect. Didn’t seem to bother him though – Jack was happy Jack.
Then in a week the Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith was bragging about violent crime being down 38,000 victims to 147,000, the tally grew by one again. Jack was given a savage and allegedly unprovoked beating in his café shortly after opening.
I saw him just minutes after the attack as he was being interviewed by police. Normally he is dusted with some flour or whatever he’s been working with, today he was bespattered with his own blood. It was a both sickening and sad sight. Just about made me cry. The senselessness of it.
When Jack saw me, he extended his left hand to shake, his face wracked with shock and disbelief.
There’s violence around us all the time - beatings, bashings, assaults, manslaughter and murder – and we’re immune to it. We just switch off. But when violence crashes close, when you see it first-hand, it’s very, very different. It’s deeply unsettling and upsetting for all.
It can sponsor depression, fear, insecurity and hopelessness. I suspect I ticked a few of those boxes.
Outpouring
I wasn’t the only person to feel it. The attack prompted an online outpouring.
First, concern for Jack and his wife Lina – another delightful fixture in the shop, a mobile smile. “Hope you guys are OK!”. “Oh nooo! One of the loveliest people. So kind and friendly. See him most mornings when we walk past with the dogs.” “Such lovely hard-working people. Hope you make a good recovery.” “Oh Lena, hope you are both okay. Thinking of you. Sunshine.”
There was also revulsion at the violence. “Omg. How disgusting.” “Horrendous.” “No excuse for this behaviour.” And the veracity of the statistics was also questioned. “Violent crime is down, or is that more lies.” People don’t hold back.
Chuckle, chuckle
But I wasn’t surprised to see lights on and the doors of the Sand Bakery & Café thrown wide open as usual at five o’clock this morning, just 24 hours after the attack. Of course Jack was there, stitches, bruises, aches and all. He’s there every day. He makes me feel deadest lazy. We would joke about his work ethic. I reckon he’d only take a day off when he dies. Like that Zevon song, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“Of course I have days off,” Jack would assure me. “Christmas Day and Good Friday.” Two days a year. Chuckle, chuckle. He would just about break a smile when he said it.
Anyone walking past, or into the cafe about 5.30 this morning would have happened on a bizarre sight. Six foot of balding, paunchy, reporter and a much shorter, beaten-up Asian in a trademark chef’s bandana locked in a deep, lingering bloke hug. What an advertisement for international diplomacy? Were we just feeling the lerv, or was it PTSD? Either way, it felt the right and only thing to do in the circumstances, and it made us both feel better.
Then out of one hug and into another. A Māori woman sweeps into the café and is immediately consumed in a Cambodian embrace. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I wish I could have been here for you yesterday.” That was after the early-bird rubbish truck had dropped by to share his concern. And after the many phone calls of support and love. And the flowers. Out of bad comes some good.
Kia Kaha Jack.