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CHAPTER 1
Are You Sure About This ...?
MACHETE: So, we're doing this book then?
GHOST: Well, we signed the contract and they gave us a deadline and everything, so I guess yes, we're doing the book.
M: Even after what the lawyer dude said?
G: The lawyer dude said we'd be okay if we stuck to the truth. And didn't mention actual names. And changed the dates and places and who witnessed what with some of the stuff that happened. But especially it's probably cool if we tell the truth. Or as much of the truth as we remember.
M: The truth about everything?
G: I guess. Is that a problem, you think?
M: Okay, for example, you know that scar above my left eye that you can still see?
G: The one you got at intermediate when that Tongan kid took out all those years of rivalry and bitterness between Tonga and Samoa on you by punching you in a ruck?
M: My little sister actually did it.
G:Purity did that?
M: With a butter knife. Our best butter knife. I don't want to put that in the book.
G: Why not? You were a kid — it's not embarrassing that your crazy little sister stabbed you.
M: No, I don't want Purity to know I told the world! She was the one who made me make up the Tongan story so my olds wouldn't get mad at her. And she said she'd stab me again if I ever told anyone!
G: She's still in prison, right?
M: Two more years before she's next eligible for parole.
G: So, assuming she'll actually get out this time, by then the book will have been out for ages and she'll have calmed down. You know she only reacts violently when she first encounters stuff. She'll be sweet by the time she gets out — you'll see.
M: You're only saying that because you've got a crush on her.
G: Back when we were kids. And, actually, she was the one who had a crush on me.
M: Can we get them to bury that story way down the back of the book? She probably won't read that far.
G: Sure — I mean it's our book, right? They do what we tell them.
M: Okay, but if she comes at me with a butter knife again, I'm using you as a human shield.
G: It would be my honour to shield you from Purity's rage, uso.
M: So, I guess we're doing this book, then.
G: We sure as hell are.
M: Do we actually have to write any of it ourselves?
G: Nah, we just talk into the microphone and tell our stories and the two writer fellas turn it into chapters and stuff. They're called ghost-writers.
M: What? So, they only write your story?
G: Nah, that's just what they're called. Although it is pretty cool having a ghost-writer when you're The Ghost, eh?
M: If you say so. So where do we start this book?
G: At the beginning.
M: Man, you really are the smart one in our relationship.
G: Is that what we have? A relationship?
M: After all these years, we sure as shit have something.
G: So, we might as well start from the beginning of that something. Do you remember the day you were born?
M: No. Of course not. Does anyone? I mean I know I was born at the hospital inMoto'otua in Apia. Not the new one the Chinese built. The old one. But I was a bit busy being born to actually remember being born.
G: Weird how that works, eh?
M: Not really.
G: So, what do you remember from being a kid?
M: I remember when I came to New Zealand as a kid.
G: Then maybe we should start sometime round then.
CHAPTER 2
Making a Machete
This is very difficult for me to write. Or for me to talk about and the writer guys to write for me. I know it is okay for a man to cry these days — but there's crying and then there's a level of tears where it just becomes embarrassing. I think I am pushing the limits of that.
My tears must have a high salt content, because they sting my eyes. I think this is due to my favourite food being corned beef and rice. I know that this dish is not entirely what you would call a 'sensible dietary choice' for a high-performance athlete and it was always the reason I turned up to pre-season training overweight and failed my skin-fold tests. But corned beef and rice was my favourite dish as a kid and it was my guilty pleasure as a player and it's even more my favourite dish now that I am retired from proper footie and am cashing in over here in France.
It's not just the delightful combination of fluffy, perfect, made-in-a-pot, steamed long-grain rice mixed with the comforting texture of corned beef which, either from the can or from the pan, is just as perfect. And I don't mean the flash corned silverside stuff that Ghost finds over here in France to cook for me when I'm feeling homesick — I mean the really crappy, fatty stuff that somehow became a staple food on the Islands.
I love corned beef and rice to this day, because it reminds me of my old man and my old lady, aka my parents, aka my mum and dad, aka Leilei and Faye Leilei. Hence the tears. Double hence, I can't eat corned beef and rice without tears streaming down my face, which is a problem because it just adds salt to a dish that is already too salty.
It must be a very odd sight to see me crying into my childhood go-to meal. It has even turned up in a few of my old teammates' books over the years, when they write some of the oddest sights they've seen on tour. In Beany's book, The Flying Hun, he writes: 'People sometimes ask me what are some of the oddest sights I've seen over the years while on tour. One of them would have to be Mach eating corned beef and rice and crying when we were in Samoa to play Samoa in the test when I got my coccyx broken. We all knew not to approach him and ask what was wrong, and that he would eventually harden up if we ignored him enough. Of course, in these modern times, we know now, that's the worst thing we could have done.'
Yeah, well, too late now, Beany! The damage has been done!
I didn't even want to talk about my parents, but Warren our editor said that Ghost would have at least one chapter where he talked about his parents and the freak show that was him growing up, therefore I had to as well, otherwise he would seem more complete than I was, on the page. I told him that I don't always do something just because Ghost did it. Warren reminded me of the last 25 years of my life, and so here we are today, talking about my parents.
Anyway, looking back on my childhood, I always thought corned beef and rice was a treat because that's how Dad used to act when Mum served it up. Those days felt like Christmas because of the happiness associated with that meal. But now that I'm a grown man and have kids of my own, scattered in various parts of the world (shout-outs to all of my sons and daughter), I know corned beef and rice was when there was nothing else to eat and back then your family's last five bucks was enough to ensure there was at least something for dinner. At least that's how my mum explained it to me after Dad died and she confessed to me how much she hated cooking corned beef and rice because it stunk out the house.
It breaks my heart a little bit to think how the old man and old lady may have been struggling a bit, but making out to us kids that they were happy and that everything was all good. Triple hence, I'm grateful that rugby has given me a living so that I could buy my mum a house, as well as maintain my child-support payments so that those sons, and my daughter, are fed and clothed. (Love you kids! Daddy will call you at Christmas.)
Dad
My father, Leilei Leilei Senior, passed away in 2016, triggering the worst year of my career. We all know that was one of the worst years in the history of the country's national rugby team. New Zealand tends to go into a state of panic when the ABs lose even one game. That year we lost three — two of them in a row. Our team that year is still mockingly referred to as 'the Indefensibles' because our defence was crap. In the press and on TV and on Twitter and Facebook and even on Instagram, no one could defend how awful we were perceived to be. And it's also a well-known part of this country's rugby folklore that all of those losses happened because of something that I did or didn't do — like tackle the people who scored the tries that beat us because my head was elsewhere, clouded with grief at my father's passing.
I don't want to get too into the detail of that painful time. It has been cruelly written about enough in a few of my ex-teammates' books over the years. Like how Bus Stop writes in his book, I'll Take the High Road, 'I often get asked what have been the worst times in my time in the black jersey. I don't want to name names because that's not our way, to blame teammates for a loss. We win together, we lose together, but in 2016 we lost those three games because of one player and his real name rhymes with Belei Belei Bunior, or something to that effect.'
You're such a bitch, Bus Stop! You wait 'til my French club gets promoted and plays your French club! I'm going to humiliate you so bad, at some stage, probably in the second half so you have time to wait for it coming, in front of all those French people.
Anyway, back to my parents, it's not just that I miss my dad. It's that it wasn't until he'd died that I realised how much I didn't do with him while he was alive.
My dad was the sort of guy who didn't say much, and who tended to spend most of his time working. If it wasn't at his job, it was in his beloved garden. But when we were little, he used to have a few vices. Things like a punt at the TAB and a beer with his mates at the pub. But as there were more mouths to feed, and money became scarce, our mum eventually got through to him that he would need to sacrifice those few simple pleasures. Especially when his time at the pub with the boys would be followed by a big fight with Mum, one that sometimes the whole street could hear.
Dad did give up those things, and managed to get us a real decent upbringing, where we didn't notice how little we had because we always had just enough. But we never used to talk, him and I, unless he was telling me off for getting up to no good. The rest of the time, our conversations would be as brief as the time you've got to decide whether to pass or to go for the gap. In other words, virtually non-existent. In fact, looking back, as you do in a book like this, the only real times when Dad would talk to any of us was when he was still drinking, and he would get home from the pub happy and drunk. Then he was a hilarious comedian and one of the best storytellers ever.
His favourite story he liked to tell was of when he represented Manu Samoa at rugby. He would go on for hours about the one time in the eighties when he was in a team that toured the regions of New Zealand.
It was the first time he had been out of his village and he couldn't believe what a big place New Zealand was. That was, he told us, when he made a vow to return one day with a family and bring them up here.
But raising a family meant he had to give up his rugby career. He used to say there was a national day of mourning in Samoa when he hung up his boots. In the list of countries that are crazy about their rugby, put Samoa at the top. And Dad always would tell us that to his countrymen, he was like if Jesus played for the team. Which is a blasphemous thing to say in Samoa. But he maintained it was true.
Dad would go on and on about how everyone on the island begged him to stay, to forego having a family, so that he could keep representing the country on the rugby field. But he'd already knocked Mum up, and he saw in New Zealand opportunities he may not have in his beloved island.
When I was old enough to check for myself, I found out there is no official record of my dad ever playing for Manu Samoa, let alone being the hero he claimed to be. He told us that everyone called him the Destroyer of Men. But none of the actual Manu Samoa players I talked to remembered anyone with that nickname. Although they all did agree it was a pretty cool nickname.
Consequently, I wrote off what my dad said as the drunken ramblings of a man trying to instil in his son the dream to play rugby for Samoa. Sure, most of me acknowledged that inventing a fictitious rugby career was a weird motivational tool, but part of me admired him for being crazy like a fox, and getting me on the road to my rugby career.
Thus it was, that when Dad died, it was like my sky had caved in. Rugby ceased to mean anything, and looking back, I really should have stood myself down until I got over it. But everyone was obsessed with getting ready for the World Cup the following year, so I did what men do and I pretended everything was alright.
But in the real world, I was like a zombie at training, and after training would get into the lemonades like there was no tomorrow. Ghost would say, 'Whoa, Machete, that's enough lemonades!' But do you think I'd listen? Of course not. I'd have so many lemonades that I would black out, and wake up the next morning in all sorts of strange situations, having no memory of how I got there.
But that's how gutted I was when the old man died. I was gutted that I wouldn't be able to have the conversations I should have had with him when he was alive; that we had let so many years go by barely speaking; that I never appreciated how much he had to do, just for us to be able to live.
Near the end of that horrible year of 2016, a few months after the old man died, I was stumbling out of the holding cells in central Auckland, trying to escape from the news crews who were filming yet another aftermath of a night of shame. I jumped in a taxi and told the driver to just get me out of there. To my shame, he was Samoan. It was bad enough thinking I had let down my community again, without having to be reminded of that by a disapproving older Samoan guy.
The driver recognised me, of course, and I wanted the taxi to swallow me whole, but instead he told me about how he'd known my old man and he was a big fan.
I was astounded as he told me story after story which mirrored exactly what the old man had been telling us when he used to get home from the pub wasted. Even that his nickname was the Destroyer of Men. Tears ran down my eyes in the back of the taxi and I left an extra 50-dollar tip as a soiling fee.
By the time the kind driver dropped me home, I was feeling better than I had felt in a long time. If you look at the shots of me avoiding news crews from that day, I'm looking heaps more together.
Of course, I wish the old man was still here, so I could lie to him that I always believed him. Or, at least to tell him that I'm sorry I thought they were stories he was making up because he was wasted.
My father, who gave me his name because he couldn't think of a better one, is why, after every try I score, I point to the sky and pretend to be eating corned beef and rice and then I cry.
Love you, Dad.
Mum
I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if I had grown up being boys with Daniel LaRusso from The Karate Kid instead of Ghost. Don't get me wrong, Ghost is a brother, he is a part of me now like a rib, one that can occasionally become sore and annoying, but is mostly all good.
But if Daniel LaRusso and I had been boys, I could have done karate lessons with him from the friendly old Japanese caretaker who looks after the apartment building. I would have had Daniel's back and he wouldn't have got such a savage beating from those Cobra Kai eggs, until Mr Miyagi stepped in and single-handedly defeated the five attackers with ease.
I could have been alongside Daniel as he trained for the All Valley Karate Championships to take on the arrogant Johnny Lawrence. I would have been able to tell Daniel not to get mad at Mr Miyagi when his training began with menial chores. It wasn't that Mr Miyagi was making him his slave but, rather, that Mr Miyagi was getting him to do repetitive movements that would become muscle memory.
Of course, Daniel did eventually go on to make it to the final of the All Valley Karate Championships, and when he looked down and beaten, somehow miraculously managed to do the crane and beat Johnny. But I could have got him there earlier and Daniel could have avoided all the angst, despair and insecurity he went through. Ghost often points out to me that this is a film and not real life, therefore I couldn't have been boys with Daniel LaRusso. But he's just jealous.
Ghost likes to point out that if I had helped Daniel in that way, the film would have lost about 40 minutes in running time. And, to be honest, The Karate Kid might have benefitted from being 40 minutes shorter. I watch it for inspiration most nights when we are on the road, and there are times when I have to fast-forward bits so I can go to sleep on time.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Machete and the Ghost"
by .
Copyright © 2019 James Griffin and Oscar Kightley.
Excerpted by permission of Upstart Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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