Desperado Pt. III

Maaka tells me he's a legend. He's a boilermaker-welder-fitter. A jack of all trades who works with his hands, metal, and heavy machinery bathed in the sweat, grime, and dust of the underground. He's got a tattoo to show his tribal affiliation, a tattoo to show the mourning he holds for lost family, and a tattoo to commemorate the man that he has killed. He's Maori from a small village in New Zealand. When the violence got to be too much he left, learned his trade by working for next to nothing in an informal apprenticeship and went on to service Australian tanks and submarines and lay tracks on the railroads before moving to Western Australia to make his name in the mining trade. He works in one of the most dangerous mineshafts in the region where he has survived five cave-ins. He thrives on the fear of dying. He even wrote a song about it-- and played it for me on his harmonica.