The Blue Logic: Something from the Darker Side of Port Moresby” by Wiri Yakaipoko
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1 FROM the Blue Logic Note:- The following is an extract from the PNG Novel “The Blue Logic: something from the darker side of Port Moresby” by Wiri Yakaipoko The novel was published by UPNG Press and supported by Chevron Niugini. Copies are extremely hard to obtain and the novel has been praised for its originality and realism – so an extract may sit well at www.pngbuai.com "Money has become the law and reason these days and there seems to be no rule of law here, when this piece of paper has become the cornerstone for life in this City.......and this pipe, we can't terminate any human probation off the surface of this land......and this combination is our power". Sunglare confided and flipped a K50.00 note then withdrew his pistol from his pocket and gestured over to Tommy his close associate who was earful to what he was saying but then the beer he was holding must have been very thirst quenching from the way he was drinking it. "Easy life with this is what attracts this populating streets and even those legislators of the law we have in that Hausman at Waigani one way or the other have plotted with this piece of paper to get in there and that action alone has shadowed their integrity to rule to a null and void status morally and this fancy looking piece of paper in my hands has been the cause of all the flooding evil and corruption that is flooding in but again this has gradually become a necessity to survive in this city......a totality that is disintegrating our traditional norms of living like hunting, gathering, where wealth and money could never been a necessity to survive" Sunglare added. He was in his old beer talking mood again after finishing the seventh bottle, he was drinking. "Sssh Sumenda, you want to become the messiah of this country... oh what?... give me that piece of shit and I will add another carton on top of this and stop wasting your precise words on that political crab.....I mean you and I are thieves and some things were done are somehow related and no one is perfect so forget the bullshit and let me enjoy my beer...will you?" Umm..each perfect messiah always tend to lose out at the end,..but what I am saying is that you have many you can drink and enjoy but how to get it is the problem we always face and this problem does have its reason and cause to exist and I am just trying to justify why we have to live this "Sumenda...,you are not drunk are you? "Na" "Well...this bloody richly blessed country is where we belong but were left out in the cold to suffer...right? "Umm"Suglare nodded. "Well there's lot of stealing going on at the higher ground and that has depraved our 2 simple rights to live accordingly and you are not afraid of being a thief, ah?...I mean how will our squad feel to have learned that you have turned a coward after bringing us this far". "Oh no... Lewa you were not listening... I am not backing out... I am talking reasons here Sumenda...just to justify your actions which are perceived as wrong by the people, don't you understand?" Suglare tried to explain. "Yeah,..... now you are talking... carry on" Tommy gibed warmly and toasted the bottle he was holding towards Sunglare. They were the brains behind the Junior Nazi Youths; a gang whose reputation with the police for car thefts and arm robberies were notable in the files of the boys in blue at Waigani and Boroko. They had been lucky that Saturday morning to have deserted a trailing police vehicle after the robbery they made at a popular supermarket at Gerehu and concealed from view and police detection at their hide out at Tokarara where they were celebrating their success with some beer they had bought with the stolen money that aternoon. A risky routine which they often ascribed as a job but was some daring way to earn a living only the brave and hostile in dire straits could perform against all odds and qualify and then become heroes in their respective neighbourhoods but now they had matured in the craft and were idolized by the upcoming young generation of misbegotten within the vicinity. Those were to later acquire the craft of stealing which they were to relay on to them the young ones through indoctrination and through own their kind of discipline. An unorthodox lifestyle only the kind born and bred in Papua New Guinea dire straits could understand and sympathize with. They had just knocked off the remaining two bottles from the twelve pack they had bought and the song from the small radio beside them obstructed their conversation as it belted out a song "money for nothing chicks for free" by the rock group Dire Straits which gripped on Suglare's mind. "Couz that's my favourite song and it's just making this beer sweet down my throat" he muttered. "Yeah....me too... It's that Eli Web's Saturday afternoon Selection I guess" Tommy added. "Umm... she surely knows how to touch people's moods with her selection's, eh?" Suglare added awed by the coinciding music which was later followed by another song "Someday Somewhere, "a hit song by Michael learns to rock. "Hey this lady seems to be playing songs that seems to describe my kind of blues eh?...but its pity ....this isn't the right time to appreciate...come lets go"he said that and rose from where he sat and they hurried back towards Robo's canteen a black market at the end of the street where they had previously bought the beers from. Iduhu street suburb Tokarara where they lived was a safe haven. It was a place stagnated and depraved off feasible improvement and other required maintenance by the City Authorities since it was first constructed as a residential suburbs except the shady mango and rain trees along the street deteriorated by potholes which out grew the heights of those who had planted them. It has turned out to be a place of a kind, where one could admit and relate upon sight, the demeanor of the residents and prowlers there to the 3 slummy conditions to the suburb. And what prompted that kind of factious social air throughout the city was a real nagging concern for the law enforcing agencies and the relevant authorities who tried hard to find solutions but the street was an easy street commonly referred to by gamblers where people without the sense of duty gambled their resourceful time and somebody's hard earned cash away through the deck of cards. A daily routine which occurred at each corner of the street connections. It was also a place where the young and the married women gathered with slobbery savory gossips over later affaris while the married flirted their minds over the young positing themselves up, pretending to be young at heart thus forgetting their down trotting physical dismay. And for the blackmarketeers it turned out to be opportune resort for business without interruptions from the law enforcers and price controller's and health inspectors where they traded and gambled their freedom against the laws of the land to fill their purse only to survive each pressures created by easy living with money in Moresby but for the unlucky lot the street tended to be a place where the passing time and word career" meant something foreign but Iduhu Street was a place where they belonged, where they could grow old and go loco just dreaming the green side of the Port Moresby city blues there. It was one Sunday morning and was still dark and the street was very quiet except for one or two cars passing by at an interval of an hour or two on the above main Koura drive and the darkness seems to be at its extreme consolated appearance. After joing Suglare with few additional drinks late in the evening, Uncl Gibbi was a little bit restless and couldn't sleep due to excessive appetite for more left him unsatisfied and the desire to have a couple more sustained him. He was sitting outside of his door steps waiting to strike luck with those late night, die hard drinking mates who came prowling around the joint looking for familiar black markets. A car drove into his yard gate and Jules got out of the rear door. It was quarter past one. "Aye, Sonny... is that you" he called out. Jules heard him call but attended to the driver with some gratitude for dropping him off then he picked up the left overs from the car. "I've just been dropped off the Boimake". he replied. It was a little night club which oerated 24 hours down town Koki. Well don't come around at this time of the night all the time, it is quite risky these days". Uncle Gibbi advisingly told him. "Uncle we musck makers are night creatures and we kinder opposed to all nature's rules by sleeping in the daytime and work at night" said Jules. And Jules recalling how he got his performance contract cancelled at one of the top hotels in Port Moresby, breathes heavily and sighed. "I can't figure out why but nothing seems to be working out right for me in this part of the world I mean every time I strike out something worthy in my life, it never seems to last long...