In Sydney, I heard about a community started by James Baxter, a New Zealand poet. It was located in Jerusalem, New Zealand. Baxter saw this place as a canoe, a lifeboat for the drowning. I expected a hippy commune but found ex-thieves, ex-addicts, ex-gamblers, even an ex-killer who had done his time. I didn’t know what I was an ex of. Some clung to the sides of the canoe, others sat steady inside, and some rowed and steered. They were changing their lives with prayer and community, guided by Baxter’s poems and the Bible. The native Maori lived nearby, sharing their land and mixing with those on the canoe.
I arrived, in 1973, after a 20-mile walk and found out James Baxter had died the year before. They gave me a bed on the verandah, a few feet from his grave. At night, the moonlight cast shadows of the mound onto the wet grass.
The man who gave me a Bible had left the Hell’s Angels, Auckland Chapter (A chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club was formed in Auckland in 1961, the first Hells Angels chapter outside the US) because he fell in love with a born-again Christian. He took a liking to me and took me goat hunting. It was my first hunt. I helped kill, skin, and butcher the goat. He saw me squirm when we gutted it.
One day, while we were having a piss, he said, “Hey, look at my dick.”
I didn’t know what to do.
“Look at it,” he insisted. “I’m no homo, look at it.”
I glanced down. He laid his flaccid dick on his palm. The word “FISH” was tattooed on it.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why have you got FISH tattooed on your dick?”
He laughed as he put it away. “That’s for women who don’t eat meat on Fridays,” he said, then burst into a belly laugh.
I laughed along, thinking he got his penis inked for a joke.
He was a carpenter and wanted an apprentice. I just wanted to visit the community, float on the canoe for a bit, and then move on.
A photo of the Bible the Hell’s Angel gave me.
Welcome — I’m glad you’re here.
Journeys and Star Gazing 