My brother had had a baby girl. He lived in Christchurch. I decided to go stay with him for a bit, get to know my new niece. I laid low for a while. We jammed some video games and got stoned. It was good not working for a bit. I found it hard to look for work in a city I didnt know. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I ended up on the benefit for the first time in  my life. It was pretty shit. I wasn’t fond of this city. There was a little bit of tension between us all so I decided to move back to Queenstown as it would be easier to find work there.
 

Two weeks later was the Christchurch earthquake, I had missed it by that much. My brother and his family were fine. Their house was fine. Mum had moved back from Singapore so I moved into the family home again with her. I found work pretty quick. I took up the slacks and worked at Noel Leeming, a technology retail store. I knew a bit about technology, this wouldn’t be too hard. It was commission based. It was pretty stressful. It was at this time that I started to smoke legal highs.
 

I couldn’t find weed, and I had heard about legal highs. So I brought a brand called Kronic. It was pretty cheap comparedto weed. I packed a bowl and took a rip. It tasted like shit! I choked on it. It was god damn awful. I wanted to get high, so I smoked some more. I was wasted. I couldn’t believe it, getting high from the shop = FUCKING AWESOME! That was me, on it. I got used to the taste.  It was heaven. You could smoke it anywhere, buy it almost anywhere. I was hanging out with an old mate Shane Hartigan one of the boys from Invercargll JPs cousin. He had some drums set up, so I moved my amps in and we were jamming. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t terrible. It was fun to finish work, have a beer, bong, and jam.
 

Ting had moved back to Queenstown, so my boy was here! She had brought a Café called the Tin Goose. She brought it because she is so vain, that if u move the G from Goose to the end of Tin, you get Ting. She went halves on it with her new partner, and it turns out she’s pregnant again.
 

It was good seeing my boy again, we did heaps of things together. He was shy at first but it didn’t last long, we were back together again! It was tough for him at school with the language barrier. I wish he had just grown up here. He had a mate Jayden that was the son of a friend of mine Jodie. Whenever I told him we were going to see Jayden, his eyes would light up and he’d be all excited, running out the door. I was happy to see him happy. He was well looked after.
 

I didn’t like her new man. He used to be a border security officer. That striked me as someone I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want him around my son. It was around this time that I started feeling something was wrong with me. I felt like I was excited at times, and down others. Someone at work had mentioned their sister having bipolar, and I saw Charlie Sheen talking about it on the TV. I started thinking about my life , relating it to the disorder. I thought I was onto something, but I didn’t do anything about it. Things would go on as normal, I managed to cope. I was quite stressed working at Noel Leeming. One day a guy came in with a Shipleys top on. I talked to him, told him I used to work there, asked him for a job, and he accepted. So I handed in my resignation, and was back in the audiovisual game.

 

It was a good change of pace. I actually contracted to two differnet audiovisual companies, but it didn’t last long though, due to an incident on the walkie talkies, they didn’t want me and another bloke there anymore. It was all good, I had a back up plan. A man by the name of Mike Brettell was my boss at Shipley’s years ago. He was now running a labour hire company called Allied Work Force. He signed me up and off I was, to slave labour.
 

Some of the work was pretty rough, I toughed it out though. Some of it was mind boggling boring, such as road safety. The pay was shit. Still I had a job. It was good being outdoors. My legal high smoking was pretty rampant. I’d smoke it at work if I could. Usually wake up and have a bong or two, go to work. It took away the boredom and I felt it made me work harder. I moved around a few flats, got back into my guitar. I had put a stop on Tyler from leaving the country without my permission. I didn’t want Ting taking him away again. It gets to the end of the school year and she applies to the court for permission to take him overseas. They agree if she has set return dates and pay’s a $5000 bond to the court. She seemed low risk with her owning a cafe and house here. It was a shame he was going away, but we had earlier agreed to shared custody times and who gets him for the holidays etc…I thought this would be fine, nothing to worry about, right?
 

 

We get a call from Ting close to their return date. She says she has to keep Tyler in China a bit longer for immunizations on his birthday. This sounds dodgy. He is a Kiwi. He should be getting his shots in New Zealand. His birthday comes and there’s no word from her. I don’t know what to do. She’s not answering her phone. I’m worried. I talk to my lawyer, and he offers no answers. I was shocked, surely there was something we could do. But there wasn’t. If the lawyer said there was nothing we could do, there wasn’t. I was devastated, again. What a sneaky bitch. The cost of ones son, $5000, and a lifetime of heartache. I tried to move on. I turned into a wreck. I was smoking a lot of legal highs. My job helped keep me going. The varied work was good, I met some good people. There were some good yarns, some laughs.
 

One day I’m working away and I get a call. I answer and no one talks back. I listen for bit and I hear what sounds like Ting talking. I hang up and call the number straight back. Sure enough it’s her. Now I just lose it. I start yelling at her “Where is Tyler, where the fuck is he”. She doesn’t have much to say, or I can’t remember what she said, I was screaming and seeing red. I hang up the phone and the boss tells me to take off, so I jump in my car and head for her café. I pull up outside, and see her at the till. I do a small burnout and lap aroudn the cafe. I climb out of the car and start yelling at her “You have one month to bring him back or you’re going to hell”. I jump back in my car and take off with the wheels spinning, screeching around the parking lot twice before heading home. I was absolutely fuming. I get home, light up a smoke, and the cops show up. I tell them my side of the story, I can’t remember if they arrested me of not. I don’t think so. I went down for reckless driving. I lost my license; there were a few hours of community work. They had sympathy for me, but had to sentence me nonetheless. Now that Tings back in the country, we must be able to get Tyler back.
 

It took a while for an answer, and it took a friend who had recently studied law asking her boss for an answer. Turns out our lawyer isn’t very good. We told him what he had to do, and Tings passport was surrendered to the police. In court Ting begged that she be able to go back and get Tyler, as she didn’t want him on the plane by himself. The judge didn’t buy it. He set a date for Tyler to be returned and that was that. It looked promising. But what happened next absolutely disgusts me. Absolute filth. She applies to the high court for a case review. Then, without there being a defence present or me even knowing this is going on, they give her passport back to her and send her packing. Really, what the fuck! They didn’t even tell me she was going back to China. I waited and waited, and there was no sign of him. I knew this was going to happen. We contacted our lawyer; he said that because China hadn’t signed the Hauge Convention, we had no legal rights to fly him back here. What a bloody joke. I was gutted. It was over, again. Failed by the justice system.
 

Things were getting pretty tense at home with my legal high addiction. I was stealing off my parents, it's all I could think about. I moved around a few flats and played guitar to keep my mind off of things. I was smoking lots of legal highs. I was pretty depressed. I started having weird thoughts, extreme thoughts. I didn’t think much of it. I lived at Jodies in her play house out in the backyard. Her son Jayden and mine used to play together. It was good fun hanging out with him. We’d bounce on the tramp and play with monster trucks. It was cool being a big mate, but it didn’t replace my son. I kept having crazy thoughts; I was living off legal highs. I wanted to hijack a plane and fly to China, bring Tyler back. I wanted to start a war! I started having thoughts about moving people back into the country life, re-educating them for a new future. I had seen an episode of the TV show called The Vote. A majority of Aucklanders wanted to live somewhere more rural. I wanted to make TV channels and have programming that helped people adjust to a new lifestyle, a more self sufficient lifestyle. I wanted my own land. I wanted my own animals. I needed this for my son. I needed this for me.
 

I moved back into my parents house. Work wasn’t full time, and I was pawning my music gear to get high. I was getting angry at Mum about money and drugs, I’d never been like this before. The legal highs had a firm hold on me, I was hooked. It wasn’t like this with weed. Weed was easier to give up, it can be hard, but it’s doable. Legal highs just sunk their hooks in and dragged you off your feet. Why was this shit legal, and weed illegal? There is nothing else to say in the matter. It turned to winter and I lost my license due to drink driving, and lost my job also because of it. I was unemployed, and had to give the shit up. It wasn’t too bad. I took it pretty well. What choice did I have in the matter? One day I decided to walk into town and do a few errands. As I walk there’s these two buskers, and they sound great! Ones on a guitar and the other has a violin. I’ve never heard music like this before. I sit beside them at the café Vudu and listen in. They tell me it’s Gypsy Jazz music. I was jamming! The guitar and violin sounded so beautiful together.
 

I chatted to them between songs. They were happy to have an audience. They had a sign which asked for various things as tips, one of which was firewood. I offered to take him to get some driftwood. He accepted. They played for another hour, I did my errands. One of the guys had to take of, so we walked up to mine to get the car. He had a licence, I had the wheels. His name was Sylvan and he was from France. He dressed pretty funny, he said it was a common French outfit. We hung out that afternoon it; they had some jams, it was awesome! I’ve made some new friends, and they’re pretty fucking cool! A couple days later dad tells me I’ve got to come up with $100 for rent or he’s kicking me out. I’m bloody unemployed for fucks sake. I quickly think to busking, why not give it a go. I needed the money. I was getting pretty good at the guitar. I was pretty nervous and I couldn’t sing. Still I had to do what I had to do, I had nothing to lose.
 

I walked into town that night, brought myself a beer and set up on a corner. I strummed a few tunes. A few coins went in the bag. This wasn’t too bad. Some people just talked to me for a bit, some would request songs which I couldn’t do. I was making a fait bit of money, how cool is this! There were no nerves once I had started playing, just got in the groove of it and rock and rolled. I made a little over $100 in two and a half hours. This was sweet! Rent sorted! I couldn’t believe it, chuffed. When I handed the money to dad he couldn’t believe it either. I got to tell you, if you put your mind to it you can pull things off. So I became a busker. The hours were pretty sweet. I’d practice in the morning, hang out with mates during the day, and busk at night. There was a pretty good circle of musicians hanging out. I was having the time of my life. They knew everyone. Socialites.
 

I had some good nights busking. My best was $320 in three hours. That’s pretty darn good. I was amazed. My parents couldn’t believe it. I was making more doing this than full time work! What a score, and all because I had bumped into two guys in the street. I started singing a bit. I did Wonderwall a lot because everyone knew the words, so we’d all sing along. I had about 20 people all signing it once, it was truly awesome. Queenstown nightlife was off the hook. It was winter, and skiing was going hard. The Aussies seemed like the best tippers. I had a four individual  hundred dollar tips, which I never could believe were real. They quickly went in my pocket. One guy came up to me and asked if I was a kiwi, then gave me $60 to tell me about how his Aussie mates had ditched him, and Aussies were a bunch of wankers. He tells me I was a good bloke, and he went and got another $60 out of the ATM for me. These Aussies aye, rich buggers I tell ya. I liked them! I thinkit was the wooly jumper and beanie that I wore that made them tip me, feeling bad for the poor kiwi fellow.
 

It was a good winter. I needed it. I stayed off the legal highs until everyone left for other ventures, then I slipt back into bad habits. A friend of mine wanted to hang out. He came over and was getting high. I partook, no thoughts about it. I was bored. All my mates were gone. I had been smoking a bit of weed, but now I was back on the junk. Me and the parents fly up to Auckland to stay with Grandma for Christmas. At the airport I get a call. It’s from BCITO, a company that deals with apprentiships. I had applied for a job as a builders apprentice through them, and they had found me a job. I was stoked. This was a good opportunity, it was a good Christmas present. I return back home with a bounce in my step, ready for a new future.
 

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