Me and Terry the Munter out in the night. Gutter boss Part 2 ( Interlude )
A story from the depths of a black night of badass partying.
When I was an early 17 in 1992 at an arty high school in Auckland NZ, I realised, that If I was to really grow and know myself I would have to force it.
This is harder than it seems when you are so programmed to make correct choices.
It was going to take a bit of headbutting life and a certain amount of focused self-destruction. I went directly to hang out with the baddest kid I could, to find to blaze weed, drink stolen rum, and embrace a total lack of restraint in all things.
Terry the Munter became my guide.
Stank brutally. 17 going on 50. Bad teeth. Raised by a drug addict, alcoholic single mother. Personally a drug addict and alcoholic since 13. Wore a faded ripped Metallica shirt and leather pants covered in marks from stubbed-out cigarettes.
I was taking the crash course.
This story will detail a night out with Terry that got way over our heads.
There’s being badasses and then there is a point where you become so badass that you get killed by actual badass gangsters.
Terry and I crashed a Redneck party. It was a Wedding After party at a church.
It was a ruralish area outside of West Auckland, which was a pretty feral place. Henderson… if you want to be specific.
We got the bus out there… it took an hour…
Churches in New Zealand are cheap to rent and often used for off-the-hook parties.
How he knew it was happening I don’t know, but it had a band and like everything out in feral Henderson it was going to be nuts.
We rocked in - It was a small white church, cars parked haphazardly all over the lawn, people everywhere totally wrecked… you don’t see this kind of stumbling screaming spewing swearing mess these days outside of a few rare areas… it was a special time and place...
We sidled in and chilled out by the wall looking for any unattended booze or anything we could steal. The band played, and people moshed. We were just ignored.
The band played Rage Against the Machine FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!! And people went nuts. It was awesome…
Then the craziest shit happened...
A weird-looking skinny dude fully dressed in white, white jeans, a white jacket, a white shirt, and white cowboy boots, and a big white cowboy hat came out of nowhere and started dancing a weird sexy cowboy dance. Grooving up against any females he could. People were laughing, the girls were laughing and pushing him back… it was just funny to watch…
Then also out of nowhere two hardcore NZ gang members appeared.
This was bad news… they were fully patched members of the Mongrel Mob.
You should do a Google image search of the NZ Mongrel Mob now. So you can get an idea of what this brutalness actually was like.
The back of their leather jackets features a British bulldog wearing a German Stahlhelm.
One was a massive Maori Guy and the other was a shaved head short stocky white guy Both with crude tattoos all over their faces.
The white shaved head guy went right up to the Cowboy guy and kicked him so hard in the arse with a big steel-capped boot he went flying. Then before he could get up he kept kicking him and kicking his butt as the poor screaming guy tried to scramble out of the way.
Kicking him all the way up the middle of the church… never letting him up… hat flying… begging… screaming brutality.
The Maori guy charged into the crowd, smashing people flying, and grabbed one of the church pews. Wielding it in both hands like a huge baton he just spun it about smashing it into people like a total maniac.
They were both obviously out of their minds on booze weed and speed and this was entertainment to them… people were going down left and right and screaming…something wet hit my face… it was someone’s blood… the band had stopped playing and I grabbed Terry and we fled. This was too fucked.
We started walking down the night road and decided to hitchhike back to his place in the city… the shitty concrete apartment he shared with his messed up mum… but his room was a cozy stinky sanctuary with Iron Maiden…and he did have a jug of cheap brandy.
A car was coming and we put out the thumb… it was coming pretty fast… but whatever… It slammed on the brakes and pulled to a stop almost hitting us…
It was a small Toyota Corolla two-door hatchback… The door flew open and the big Maori Mongrel Mob guy got out and clicked the seat forward. “Get in, you’re coming to a party.”
Instead of running, idiot Terry says “Sweet” and gets in.
Instead of running idiot Me just gets in.
And they take off… as fast as it can go…
The radio is up full blast playing some rock radio station through the tiny speakers… It would be have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying … they both held big beer bottles and there was a crate of beer in the back between us with six left. This is how we drank back then. A crate of 12, 750ml bottles of beer. Lion Red… cheap generic.
Kiwi Piss.
“Have a beer guys!” said the skinhead one.. so we each had a big warm beer…
We are roaring along now… all drinking and silent.
The driver seemed to be kind of blacking out … and the car starts dangerously swerving onto the edge of the road…
I decide to say “Bro… look out man… you don’t want to cash your car".”
He says “HAHAHAH, not my car bro I stole it!
I’m sure we are going to die. So I just pound my warm beer hoping that when we all go through the windscreen I will be relaxed.
Terry is having a great time… he starts singing to the songs on the radio…
Spoiler alert… I didn’t die… we drive for about 20 minutes at this insane speed through the dark and then they turn off the road onto a long gravel driveway and up to…
A big gang headquarters shed house party… with dogs everywhere and feral gang woman and motorbikes and blasting music...
It seems like they were heading to this party and just stopped in at the church on the way to smash shit up…
They got out and rolled in… forgetting us.
We sat in the car.
Terry gets up and looks like he’s entertaining the idea of going to the party….he said “Lets…
and I cut him off with “FUCK NO.”
“Ok then but I’m stealing these beers.”
And so we grabbed the last four beers and snuck out of the car. The only thing that watched us go was a mangy dog… the party was in full swing but no one saw us…
We snuck down the road and I started jogging and then running.
We got to the main road and the relief was like nothing I have ever experienced.
We laughed and walked and drank our massive warm bottles of Lion Red.
Anytime a car came we rolled off into the ditch and lay down flat in case they were coming back to grab us.
We walked for about an hour along that rural road. Finally, we were so tired and drunk that we just lay in the grass by a bus stop at the first point of civilization, and waited for the 5:30 a.m. bus to the city.
That was my last foray with maniac Terry, bless his heart. No idea what happened to the guy. I have a fondness for total fucking maniacs. As you have read.
There is a reason for this.
No matter how bad shit got. No matter how insane I went. No matter how demented the scene… I still knew I wasn’t as bad as them.
I could always hang onto that last rung and while I might be in the gutter … they were in the drain under that metal grill thing where IT lives, looking up at me and telling me to come down into the drain and play.
And Play I did :) My mentor taught a rule to live by…
“Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.