In recent months one of the Auckland demo companies was contracted to demolish a burnt out Housing NZ home. It was a routine job and the demo boss was to meet a HNZ official on site at 8am the day the work was due to begin.
The demo boss arrived early and took the chance to look around the site of the old state house home with the usual interest of looking at something about to be destroyed and which had once been a family home filled with a million memories. Out the back was a shed that supported a lean to with the only open side shut by a canvass sheet of sorts. The demo boss, casually opened the canvass curtain to find a young man (we'll call him Adam) sleeping on a pile of stacked firewood.
Not surprisingly, the demo boss had what he described as an almost premature bowel motion in his pants. Adam was equally surprised. 'You'll have to get out of here mate,' said the demo boss. 'The bloody digger will be here and it'll curtains for you,' he said by way of explanation. 'And what are you doing here anyway?'
Adam explained that his was his home, and since it had burnt down he had no where to sleep. Said that his father had gone off to stay at his sister's place but Adam couldn't go there because she 'hated his guts.' The demo boss explained that Adam would still have to go because he, the boss, had orders to rip down the rest of the house and out buildings and the digger would be there soon. By then Adam was standing up, having climbed off the wood where he'd been sleeping without a blanket in the bitter cold.
The demo boss an old front rower and miner, judging that Adam could probably do a good day's work asked him he wanted a job. 'I can't work,' said Adam, 'because of the problems I've got.' The demo boss, experienced with working with all sorts of people in many different countries, knew giving a bloke a job who admitted he had problems up front and who was sleeping rough was both a risky and potential time-absorbing quandary. About then he heard the HNZ inspector arrive and shot off to tell him the story.
The inspector, also of mature years and life experience, asked Adam for his name and all his details, writing them down in a little black book of the type that proves ominous for most fringe-living folk. He said he was going to sort it out, something which the demo boss couldn't quite follow, so he repeated 'the digger will be here a minute,' to press the point. Adam had no possessions that the demo boss could see, but there were a few old bags and sacks on the ground that might have been all he had left after the fire. 'Here take this,' he told Adam, passing over $50. 'Get a feed.'
Later that day, he took a call from the housing inspector who told him that they'd found Adam a place to stay. I could be facetious here and point out that had it been in another city Adam might have got an elbow in the head, because he had problems, then thrown in gaol for stealing firewood, trespassing or something similar for hanging out near his life-long home even after it had been reduced to a burnt out shell, but really this story tells itself.
I have little doubt had he been unfortunate enough to be living in
ReplyDelete> that distant southern city his discovery would have met with a
> different fate.
> Especially if the shed had power or an unusual light fitting
>