Little Criminals: The Story of a New Zealand Boys' Home Read Online Free Page A

to these various manifestations. A casually dressed, powerfully built man with a stentorian voice and something of a lumberjack manner, Joe is seldom seen without a cigarette in his hand — a lifelong habit that will eventually catch up with him in the early 2000s when he suffers a stroke — and a five o’clock shadow on his face. A rough diamond, in the view of some of his colleagues, he prides himself on calling a spade a spade rather than chuckling up to people and trying to make sweet; in another, later era, he would have had little time for political correctness, preferring instead to take the most direct route for getting any job done and using the most unvarnished language for explaining why. In short, big Joe has all the desirable attributes that Epuni Boys’ Home looks for and values among its frontline staff.
    Another housemaster keeping an eye on things would be Graeme Stewart — lordly of baritone and gloomy of countenance, with a liability to press the fingers of both his hands together while holding forth like some grand old duke — who, like most of the highly strung employees at this institution with such a notably high staff turnover, is a recent hire. Like most of the others, too, Stewart looks to be in good physical trim. As well he needs to be. A number of the younger housemasters have in the not- too-distant past been hospitalised by their wards, with one of them still bearing the imprint of a towel railing that a freaked-out teenage gang member tore from the wall one morning just this past May and used to nearly throttle him.
    Alas, the same can’t be said for the chief nightwatchman, a hulking Dutchman who calls himself Mr Tjeerd but whose actual name might be Mr DeJhers, the matter being the subject of some confused speculation. To the watchman’s barn-like physique is added the appearance of tobacco-stained fingers and a thick European accent that few here can successfully interpret as he mutters through a large mouth stopped frequently with hand-rolled cigarettes, salaaming and gesticulating as he goes, like some angry mute. Tjeerd oversees the employees who start work around 10 each evening and stay on until the first of the day’s housemasters show up the following morning, and whose role it is to provide a supervisory presence during the night.
    Sometimes they are also required to wake kids to administer medication or escort them to the toilets to provide urine samples for a mandatory medical analysis. This last duty Tjeerd usually effects by entering the chosen room at around midnight, flashing a big torch into the occupant’s eyes and enjoining him to ‘Piss in da jar, half full!’ Still, it’s not as if the incumbent watchman’s lack of English skills is an entirely bad thing. One of Tjeerd’s predecessors used to routinely enter the bedrooms after dark and rummage through the dresser drawers in search of comic books, especially war comics. These he would read in his office (recliner chair, feet on table, cup of instant coffee to the side, spare hand drumming the desktop without rhythm) while passing the hours. So accustomed were some of the boys to his regular nocturnal rummaging that they took to leaving their comic books on their dresser tables before going to bed at night — the comics were duly taken, but always returned before sunrise.
    Rounding out the staffing complement are various operational staff, including a gardener and general maintenance guy and a couple of women with the décolletage of middle-aged barmaids — the last of the red-hot mamas if you’re a hormonally charged13-year-old and care deeply about such mysterious things — who are, you correctly assume, the matron and cook. The much younger woman standing next to them, the one with the beehive hairdo and the frankly inappropriate short skirt? That must be the psych student who recently completed a survey on the boys’ mental states. Joining the others, as well, would be those who work at the on-site