My friend Andy

Andy was about 5/5 or 5/6 and had come from a military family so joined the NZ Army after school and one of the early exercises involved camping out and having the SAS infiltrate the camp and pretend to cut peoples throats in their beds and other tomfoolery.

Andy was the first to organise counterattacks which was the purpose of the exercise, to find leaders. But he refused promotion and stayed in the minimum leaving after a few years.

He went to Indonesia and studied Pencak Silat or Kuntao under some village Guru for a couple of years. Then he went to Papua New Guinea where he was a doorman in a country where most doormen carried submachine guns. He was a small white guy surrounded by big natives but he had presence.

Something indescribably violent happened and he ran away, took a boat and eventually made it to the north of Australia where he trekked through harsh places until he found a road, eventually making it to Sydney then back to Auckland where he crashed at his mums, who fed him because he was very thin after his wee walk.

He stayed in bed and let his mum feed him until he got fat like a baby. Once recovered he decided what he wanted to do next. He wanted a couple of thousand a week, a boat, and a woman 5 foot 2 with eyes of blue. Within a week he had those things.

Where other people might feel fear he felt curiosity.
I was walking round Sweetwaters with him and we must have strayed into a bikers compound. This 6+ foot dude walked up and told us bluntly to fuck off. I spun on my heels as instructed but Andy just kept walking, I saw him about an hour later, he’d had a nice chat he said.

One afternoon at the performance cafe, it was closed but the door unlocked, 8 Maori martial artists filed in and formed a wide circle around him on the floor. I was witness to this. They said they had heard he was good. He stood surrounded and said nothing. They then asked “May we?” He barely nodded.
One attacked and he simply wasn’t where he should have been and the energy moved past him and was spent on nothing. It was a bit embarrassing for the dude concerned.
The next attack was a ground level leg sweep from about 5 o’clock.
It took Andys legs out but it was like he was made of compressed rubber because he bounced back to his stance instantaneously only now there was a slight edge of malevolence to his calmness.

It ended there, they nodded and filed out.