Hits and Memories: Chopper 2 (4 page)

And most men would betray their own grannies to save their own stringy necks.

It is the ultimate battle, to know who to trust and who to watch. The words of an old Sicilian bandit still haunt me. ‘My enemies I fear not, but heaven protect me from my friends.’

I lost a few so-called mates after the first book because they got upset about things I wrote, or felt that I didn’t give them glowing-enough mentions, which surprises me as I would have thought half of them couldn’t read anyway.

It has been an interesting exercise as I have learnt a lot about some of the people I thought would remain staunch to me. I have been the victim of acts of treachery and betrayal that have astounded me, but many of the old crew have remained loyal and stay in touch.

Joe ‘The Boss’ Ditroia still writes from his cell in Adelaide, the Hoddle Street killer, Julian Knight, writes to my dad and, of course, Craig ‘Slim’ Minogue and Frankie Waghorn stay as solid as ever. Frankie’s mother is a sweet old dear. I envy Frankie having such a lovely mum.

There are others on the outside who have been loyal. Dave The Jew, of course, Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley, Bobby Lochrie. Sammy Hutchinson and Mad Micky Marlow have all stuck.

There are too many to call, but I must mention my lovely lawyer, Anita Betts, who has done the right thing for me. Margaret, who has been through so much, has remained loyal and I will always remain in her debt.

It seems that a bloke like me brings the worst out in human nature. People are either really bad to me or show me great kindness. I guess that despite all the treachery, life’s not that bad really.

*

CRIMINALS who do not use drugs and do not deal in them are considered to be straight criminals involved in straight crime.

I am one of the few who can stand up and say that I am an old fashioned crook who has steered well away from selling drugs. I have always had the paranoid fear that I would one day be set up by my many and various enemies, or even some police who might like to see me out of the way.

All they would have to do would be plant drugs in my car or home, or get some stupid junkie who was desperate to get out of trouble to invent a story and give evidence against me.

I have never had the hint of drugs or drug charges against me and I am very proud of that. I am totally clean in that area and for a crim to say that after 20 years in the underworld is a proud boast indeed.

It is a fear that I have that instead of trying to kill me, they will try to set me up. I would rather be set up and shot than set up with a drug charge.

Am I paranoid? I don’t know. It stands to reason that sooner or later my enemies will consider this. Let me put it another way. If I was Chopper Read’s blood enemy, that’s how I would do it.

SENSE OF HUMOR

The mail came today,
One letter had a lot to say.
Tearful crying across the page,
A message of puzzled rage,
What, where, how and why,
Great concern that he would die,
Asking me if I was the offender,
Or the victim of a false pretender.
An angry young lady writing a letter,
It seems someone got hit with a 9mm Beretta.
I never replied. What’s to be said?
No sense of humor, nobody’s dead.

Chapter 4

Behind bars in Van Demons’ Land

‘A bloke with no ears hardly gets a second look down here.’

I HAVE spent about 20 years in different Victorian prisons and boys’ homes and I thought I had a fair idea of how jails worked – and don’t work – but things in Tassie are different, let me tell you.

The oddest thing about Risdon Jail is that it’s a little bit like a boy scout jamboree. They don’t have Divisions, they have Yards. I have spent my time in the Remand Yard, or H Yard. The child killers, sex offenders, police informers and protection cases are kept in E Yard. But here is the giggle . . . E Yard has a footy team and they play the rest of the jail.

These vermin walk freely in the jail without any fear of violence. Why? Because, if you can believe it, it is against the rules. If one of these human mice is hurt on the football field the other prisoners say ‘come on, play fair.’ There is not a great deal of dash shown by the inmates of Risdon Jail. No wonder it’s known as the ‘Pink Palace.’

There would be about 250 inmates in the Tasmanian prison system and about 220 of them are assorted dogs, hillbilly retards and child sex offenders. There would be about 30 solid crims in the system and about that many on the outside.

But I suppose the same can be said about crims on the mainland. I feel that win, lose or draw, someone like me is out of place wherever I go.

*

ONE bloke in here had a very attractive girlfriend. When the Navy arrived in town she couldn’t keep her pants on. She was keen to show some Tassie goodwill to our brave fighting boys. So, the Tassie boyfriend broke her leg and said, ‘go on, hop down to the docks now and have a good time.’

I nearly fell over when he told me that his grandfather used to wander about a little so they would tie his leg to a 20-foot length of rope attached to the cherry tree so he wouldn’t get lost.

Another bloke here lived in a town that had two pubs and he was barred from both. When Margaret and I met him he was standing outside one of the pubs asking people going in if they would mind buying him a stubbie and bringing it out for him.

When he wanted a counter meal he would write out an order on a bit of paper and would send in the order and his money with a passerby. They would then serve him his meal on a table, outside the pub. No-one minded serving him food and grog, as long as he didn’t come inside.

Sometimes he would wait an hour until someone passed the pub who would get him a drink. Poor bugger: only two pubs and barred from both.

Some blokes in Tassie are as tough as anything you’ll find on the mainland. One of them, Spratty, a former SAS veteran from Vietnam, who now works in the timber industry, hit himself in the head with his own chainsaw and lived to tell the story. Another bloke cut his thumbs off for the accident insurance. It leaves me in the shade. I can tell you . . . a bloke with no ears hardly gets a second look down here.

One half-mad bastard left his young child on the edge of the washing machine, when he came back he found the child had fallen in and drowned. Two days later his second child died of cot death. His father gave him the money for two headstones for two little graves. He thanked his dad and then blew the money at a greyhound meeting.

In its own way. Tassie is a hard state with hard men, and I don’t mind the place. But as far as the local crim population is concerned, they have never been taught correct underworld etiquette.

The average Tasmanian involved in crime simply cannot be trusted inside a police station. They seem to leave their guts at the front door and turn into crying little schoolgirls.

I have been told by the senior prison officers here that they know I am writing a book and they are not happy.

It would appear they want to sabotage my literary efforts. I am amazed that they are so opposed to good writing. One would have thought it was a better way to pass the time than indulging in violence or helping others making escape plans.

As I sit here in cell 27 I can hear another inmate singing, ‘On top of old smoky, all covered in red, one in the heart and one in the head.’

The same guy made up a song for me.

‘Chopper went to Risdon in the year of 92.
They had him on a charge he really didn’t do.
And when he gets out.
He’ll find the lying dogs all gone.
North, to the mainland,
North, the rush is on.’

*

I AM sitting here in my cell in Risdon writing a letter to Margaret, when a light bulb falls out of the ceiling and hits me on the head. I don’t know if I should take it as an omen of some sort. It has never happened to me in jail before.

Risdon prison, the big boys’ home, is the coldest prison south of the equator. But apart from the cold, it is totally harmless. If I go back to crime, it will be somewhere warm where at least I can work on my tan.

I have taught the boys in the remand yard the song, ‘I don’t care if it rains or freezes, as long as I’ve got my plastic Jesus on the dashboard of my car.’

The police have taken my whole gun collection. I am heart broken. That leaves me with a mere 30 guns hidden away that they didn’t get. I will be unable to defend myself, ha ha.

I am afraid that guns have always been my weakness. I still have a collection buried in Melbourne. Four Eskies wrapped in chamois leather and gun oil. I may lose the argument, but I will never lose the war.

*

ONE prisoner here at Risdon is a minister of religion who knows my Dad and has been very kind to me. He is doing time for receiving stolen goods and tickling the offering plate. He swore that the stolen television sets found in the back of his church in Launceston were gifts to the church, but the court disagreed. He is a grumpy old coot but he keeps me supplied in smokes and chocolates.

Another character here is the disgraced accountant, Colin Room, the fellow who refused parole because of work commitments inside the prison. He is a happy and bright personality who flutters around the prison, busily managing the affairs of the jail. He is involved in everything from the budget of the canteen to the debating team’s program.

Colin is another mate of Mad Micky Marlow. He is a likeable enough fellow who is always smiling. If I had his money, I’d be smiling too. He is not any sort of real criminal, more a colorful character with a taste for creative book keeping. Some like him got invited to the Lodge; he just got invited to the slammer.

Colin is writing a book on the ‘history of Tasmania.’ I am sure there will be an overwhelming demand for a book on the history of Tasmania. Ha ha, I am sure it will sell well.

*

RAY Sheehan is an old-time bank robber, payroll bandit and general ‘stick ’em up merchant.’ He is from the old school, one of the dying breed who don’t believe in giving people up in a police station.

I have known Ray for 20 years. He is now in his 50s and doing it easy here in Risdon jail. It is like a little retirement village for Melbourne crims. Ray was originally a Tassie boy who went to Melbourne to do some robberies. But when he returned to the state of his birth – yes, you guessed it – he succumbed to the temptation to do another stick up. The bloke is totally hopeless.

I am sure that in time to come, news reports will tell of a 100-year-old man with a gun in one hand and a walking stick in the other, hobbling off down the road after robbing a bank. When they catch him, his name will be Ray Sheehan. He may not be Jockey Smith, Mad Dog Cox or Ray Chuck, and he never will be, but one thing is for sure, the old boy’s done more stick ups than Ned Kelly.

*

ON September 24 the boredom of Risdon prison life was broken when I was told I had a visitor. I don’t get many visits here so I went up to find a bloke I had never seen before. He was a young man named Mark, which isn’t a bad name, at that. He told me he was from South Australia and was in Tassie on his honeymoon. He told me that he and his young bride were having a wonderful time in Tassie. Then he produced a copy of my first book from under his arm and asked if I minded autographing it for his brother.

Now this was not the Myer book department and we weren’t at some literary lunch, but the screws said they didn’t mind, so I autographed it. The visit lasted only about five minutes and then he was on his way, happy with the world.

He left me standing there, totally amazed. The screws were a bit shocked as well. I wouldn’t mind if I could find another eleven like that. They would make a great jury.

THE BALLAD OF RISDON JAIL

So here I sit,
So here I dwell,
Yet again I sit,
In a prison cell.
Harsh, cold, cruel and callous,
The jail they call the Pink Palace,
It’s not the prison that makes me sad,
My life is a prison of its own,
As for the Palace, what can I say,
Freezing, bloody cold, night and day,
The wind, the rain, the frost and hail,
That’s the ballad of Risdon Jail.

Chapter 5

The meaning of life, with remissions for good behavior

‘I seriously considered killing my own dad and burying his body.’

ONE of my favorite songs is
The Great Pretender
by The Platters. As far as emotions and emotional matters are concerned, I guess I do pretend to a great extent.

Not many people will believe this, particularly those that I have bashed, or had their feet warmed with the gas blowtorch, but I don’t feel hate. I just don’t know what it feels like. I mean, I can pretend to hate, but the most I can feel is to be a little cross with someone.

Love is another emotion I can’t really understand, or truly feel. While I say that I love this one or that one, it isn’t an emotion that truly touches my soul.

‘Love’ and ‘hate’ are words I simply use, because they are words that I have been taught to use like lots of others. My violence, even taking a life, has nothing to do with hate. Business is business and that is what it is for me.

Love? Well, I love Margaret and I love my dog, the famous Mr Nibbles. I love my dear old dad and I have loved various friends, but it is an emotion I can’t come to terms with. I guess if I trust someone, then I love that person, and I trust dear little Margaret most of all.

The doctors have called my feelings in relation to love psychopathic, but I don’t know so much about that. Doctors seem to have a tag or a label for us all.

I do know that I pretend to have feelings and emotions that other people seem to have. For example, I have no real sense of fear, not because I am truly brave, but I simply can’t see the danger. Fear is just a word to me. Hunger and thirst I can feel, but hate and love I can only imagine.

I can get an angry feeling when someone has offended against me and a warm kind of feeling toward a person who has shown me warmth and kindness. I think many people are confused about love.

I never loved or felt love for my mother. After all, I was in a home as a baby, and if you haven’t felt that emotion as a child, it is a bit late to try and develop it, or grow it, in later life.

I know that little Margaret loves me, and I know that I can trust her, but I know that I am a bit of an emotional mystery to her, as I am to myself. Feelings are things that I have to pretend to feel in order to be seen as normal by other, so-called normal people.

When I kill someone, I feel nothing except ‘I hope no-one is watching’, and that isn’t an emotion, it is a concern. In other circumstances, I feel lust. But that isn’t an emotion; it is a physical feeling.

I think I am a very empty person inside as I don’t seem to be able to feel all these normal things that others say they feel. I can really like someone or something, or I can really dislike someone or something, but that is a little different to hate and love.

Once in the 1970s during one of my many battles my dad was threatened by my enemies. The threat was worse than death; it was that they would put him in a wheelchair.

I seriously considered killing my own dad and burying his body. I had two reasons. I didn’t want my enemies to have a victory over me and also I felt I could do it quickly and painlessly, thus saving the old fellow any suffering. I guess in a way that is a kind of love, isn’t it?

I still use the words love and hate, but that is because I can’t find other words to express what I am feeling. I am a pretender. Trust is the most important thing to have, and if I can say to myself that I trust a person, then, in my own way, I love that person.

The whole emotional question is a bloody confusing mystery to me. The older I get, the less I feel inside about anything or anyone. I know some fantastic people, who I trust and who are loyal to me and who I would kill for without a blink of an eye. I have enemies who will be my enemies until either they or I die.

But true love and hate, what is it all about? I really don’t know. These are matters I don’t think about much, because when I do I get confused. As you can see, psychopaths aren’t meant to feel anything. But as you can see, I feel a great many things. My only problem is that I don’t know what I am feeling.

Well, dear reader, that is a small insight into the inner mind and heart of Mark Brandon Read, leaving you with the question: is he the sanest man in the world, or mad as a hatter? Personally, I have no idea. After all, what’s mad and what’s sane? Life is like a merry-go-round, so instead of asking what and why, we should just enjoy the ride, because thinking too much can strain the brain.

Questioning every element of life is man’s greatest curse. So much for the heavy-thinking Chopper. For goodness sake, pass the Panadol, I have a headache. Mark Brandon Read, the thinking man’s psychopath.

Some men ask why. Some ask why not. I say, bugger it all, who gives a shit. Play on, the umpy hasn’t blown the whistle.

Yet.

*

WHILE I have never tried to blame anyone for the way my life has gone. I have always skipped over my childhood and the horrors of my early days.

Many crooks lie on their shrink’s couch and cry about their past. They love to blame others for what they have become.

I am the first to say that I am what I am. But I would be stupid to suggest that my past did not help contribute to what I have become.

My childhood helped for the attitudes and opinions that I now hold. So, without pointing the finger of blame, I will say that I am, in part, a product of my past. We are all victims of what we have been through.

So, to all the parents of the world, remember you may be responsible for moulding the next great world leader, or the next mass killer. Be careful, it is in your hands.

A child’s mother and father can be the salvation or destruction of the youngster. The American mass murderer David ‘Son of Sam’ Berkowitz, had such a lovely mother. And, yes, so did Chopper Read. When a child is driven to thoughts of killing his mother, he may grow up to kill his brother many times over.

*

MY little sister Debbie wrote to tell me that I am not welcome in her home because I am a sinner and a murderer. Thank goodness that’s all she was worried about . . . I thought it may have been because I had poor table manners.

Religion has been the curse of our family for generations, and Debbie has inherited her share, and mine too, from our strict Seventh Day Adventist mother. But what these ‘true believers’ forget is that more people have died and have been murdered in the name of religion than anything else. Even Jesus Christ was murdered, nailed to the cross, because of religion.

Nothing much hurts me, but to be called a murderer by my own sister and to be barred from her home hits pretty hard. I will never be able to see my young niece and nephews. That hurts me more than I can say.

I have never considered myself a murderer. I’ve put a few bastards off, but so what. Since when has swatting flies been murder?

People must know that taking a human life is a contradiction. If you kill 10 men you are a bloody murderer, but if you kill 10,000 you are a politician. That is Irish logic if I have ever heard it.

*

POPULARITY seems to be the pot of gold many people spend their whole lives searching for. I have never bothered to try and look for popularity. Being hated, being unpopular, is safer ground. If you seek popularity, you will generally fail, ending up a pathetic figure of scorn and ridicule. You can even destroy yourself in the process. But men who are hated can actually gain a following of loyal admirers, while some who seek popularity end up being disliked and hated. These are people who won’t stand up for what they believe in, but act only to be liked by others. People end up seeing through them.

It is a confusing psychological topic. It is strange because I have received mail from people who reckon I’m great, because I’m the biggest arsehole they have ever heard of. So you figure it out.

*

I KNOW that in reading what I have written people could become confused, because they don’t understand the rules under which I live. That is perfectly understandable, because there aren’t any. There is no real black and white, no 100 per cent right and wrong. Good and evil can be very confusing. Everything in life, including most people, is built on contradictions.

I haven’t written a book to get people to understand Mark Brandon Read. I mean, who really cares? The book is a look inside a dirty world most of you have never seen, will never see and wouldn’t want to see close-up.

Maybe it is a little bit of peek-a-boo into my mind and heart. If it is, then it is only a brief glimpse. But people should also look at themselves. Everyone interprets what is right and wrong, good and evil in their own way.

The criminal and the honest man have fought each other since the beginning of time. Some say that good always wins but evil is not truly beaten. Does one side need the other. Does one man need the other? I sometime wonder myself.

If bastards and bad men are so hated, why do good men love to read about them?

People love to watch movies about bad guys. They are fascinated by the other side. Is it a mirror of themselves? This is certainly heavy thinking. I must stop it before I get a headache.

We are all in search of the Holy Grail, the ultimate truth, the meaning of life. If God came down to earth and we all sat at his feet and asked. ‘Lord, tell us the answer.’ he would say, ‘Piss off, I’m trying to find where I came from.’

So why bother searching. Don’t worry, be happy. It is a good story, so read it, and don’t worry about what makes the author tick.

After all I don’t know. Why should you?

*

I KNOW I am hated in the criminal world, and seen by many criminals as some kind of psychotic monster, a freak.

I have never been accepted as a member of the mainstream criminal culture, nor would I want to be. I have always been considered to some kind of vulture, a shark in a tank filled with guppies. A mental case psychopath who doesn’t follow their rules, but makes them up as he goes along.

I am, or was, a headhunter, and a lot of what they say is true. But to the criminal world, that is what I will always remain. I am rejected by them through fear and that is the way I want it.

But the straight world is filled with square heads who are frightened of me. They have no idea how to talk to me and few, if any of them, have any idea how to approach me or treat me. And few, if any, relish the idea of mixing with me socially. So I am an outcast from both worlds. I am not welcome on either side of the fence. I am left in limbo, a creature from neither world. I am neither wanted nor trusted.

I have friends in the criminal world and friends who are honest, but most of the people who have stuck with me are social outcasts like myself.

It is little wonder that even though I have given crime away, I always have to be on guard. I am ill at ease, and can never really relax. I guess that is my lot in life. I am my own creation, and now I have to wear it.

It is difficult to live, knowing that most people see you as a freak, but that is the way it is.

One thing I want to make very clear, as a criminal I am in a class that is no threat whatsoever to Mr and Mrs Average. The normal honest person has nothing to fear from me. Chopper Read won’t break into your home, he won’t pinch your TV, video or purse. He won’t rape your daughter, wife, sister or granny. He won’t pinch your car, rob your bank, milk bar or bottle shop.

No, I am not in an area of crime which would personally touch the lives of the ordinary individual. I am not even in an area of crime that will touch the ordinary criminal. I am, or was, in a league alone, working is a specialized area of crime that the ordinary type of criminal only comes into contact with in his worst nightmares. I must say that I no longer even enter that world. I am out of it, and no longer a threat to anybody.

Admittedly, I am still a violent person — but only if pushed. And the normal straight person will not push me, so where is the threat?

I was the rattle snake that ate the spiders and left the wood ducks and rabbits alone.

In Australia I am seen as a bloody monster but in Northern Ireland they have been doing it for years.

*

I AM aware that a great many people have a love-hate relationship when my name is mentioned. Some love me, bless their twisted hearts, and a great many more hate me.

But the fact remains, that in the criminal history of Australia, 100 years from now, three names will stand out as unique characters: Ned Kelly, Squizzy Taylor, and that mad bastard with no ears. Chopper Read.

When Mark Brandon Read is dead he will still be the topic of bar room conversation long alter the names of his enemies are long forgotten. In a world as ego-driven as the criminal scene, that is no small boast. As possibly the biggest ego maniac in the underworld, I think that is quite funny.

If everyone who hates me was to buy a copy of this book, I could die a wealthy man. If that isn’t the last laugh, then I don’t know what is.

*

TO quote the Irish comedian, Dave Allen, ‘As I was going up the stair, I met a man who was not there, he was not there again today, I wish that man would go away.’

I am constantly meeting men who are not there, I guess all men at times show one face in public and another face in private. Weak men pretend to be strong, cowards pretend to be brave, losers pretend to be winners, perverts pretend to be normal, mad men pretend to be sane, criminals pretend to be honest, and liars pretend to be truthful.

Junkies pretend that they don’t have a problem and whores pretend to be good girls. For better or for worse most people have two sides, the side they show and the side they hide.

But there are other people where what you see is what you get. Funny, isn’t it, that the up-front person is generally criticised. I’ve never been two faced. If I had two faces, I’d certainly wear the other one. At least then I would have a pair of ears.