Chopper Unchopped (213 page)

The background to this is that I’ve been having a comic running battle with McCreadie to have the firearms prohibition order on myself lifted. I always remember when Bob Hawke got in as Prime Minister, they sang a song in Labor Party hotels: ‘The working class can kiss his arse, Bob’s got the foreman’s job at last.’

In talking to Deputy Premier I thought to myself, ‘So this is the new face of Labor.’ But both sides of the political fence were represented at the opening, which is the fair and balanced thing to do. There were the new true believers and also a large collection of young Liberals in attendance, led by a lawyer turned political whatever called Andrew Gregson.

Young Gregson was a worthy opponent of mine when the university visited Risdon Prison to debate the prison’s Spartan Debating Team. He represented the university, in case you wondered. I was with the Spartans.

I noticed not a great deal of difference between the Labor and Liberal gathering. Neither group wanted to talk politics. Politicians rarely do after hours, as they may be asked a question for which they can’t find the right answer.

I have always wondered why, with the American ships visiting Hobart regularly and such a wild nightlife, the economy is going down the toilet.

This is a great place and should be the biggest tourist spot in Australia. The average Tasmanian public servant and or politician couldn’t organise a piss-up in a Cascade brewery. (Please note product placement: that should be good for a few slabs of stubbies.) The whole state is bankrupt, which means that the only economy that works is the black economy. The whole state is a political cripple being carried along by a kind-hearted nation.

The population of the state shouldn’t even warrant a state government or the title of state. As for the politicians already in the office, if they all shot themselves in the head tomorrow no-one would even notice. The businessmen of this state run the state. The politicians should go interstate before we are all die intestate.

In Tasmania the business community provide the organ grinders and the politicians are the monkeys. That’s why, whenever a politician is invited to any function in Tasmania, peanuts are always served with the drinks.

Personally, I reckon Charles Touber and Shane Farmer and my good self could run the whole state with a pocket calculator and a mobile phone.

We would make it the vice capital of the world. We would get rid of grog and cigarette taxes. We would introduce strip joints on every street corner, then get rid of death taxes.

Then we would start a massive international ad campaign to lure tourists and rich old settlers.

Something like … ‘Come and bury yourself in the map of Tassie.’

Could just work.

I PUT the phone down. As often happens, I’m left in total disbelief. I was talking to my friend, ‘The Italian’, asking about the welfare of the three young surfer boys. ‘They went swimming and drowned, Chopper,’ he said. ‘Hey, did you hear that Reggie Kray died?’ The first part of news was stunning, to say the least. The three young hitmen, who went to make up the wave that knocked roughly 15 Melbourne criminal identities off their feet, had just been ‘vanished’ in one short sentence.

Before I could ask for more detail I was hit with a second bit of news, which for sentimental reasons vastly outweighed the first bit of gossip. Reggie Kray, the last remaining brother of the Kray brothers family and the firm that ruled the London underworld, was dead. They were my boyhood heroes.

First went Ronnie, Reggie’s twin brother, then Charlie the elder of the brothers and then Reggie, just 35 days after getting out of prison. He was put away in 1969 for murder. Bladder cancer – they couldn’t take the piss out of him, even at the end.

What a way to go. I rang another friend for any sort of news regarding the Beach Boys. The Jew answered the phone, ‘Did ya hear the news?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘Reggie Kray died’.

‘No’ I answered, ‘the Beach Boys’.

‘Fuck those junkies, Chopper, who cares?’ He was always a sympathetic type.

‘I do,’ I said, ‘I’m writing a book.’ I was also the sympathetic type, as it happens.

‘Jesus, you and your fucking books,’ said my Jewish mate.

‘What happened?’

‘Reggie Kray is dead and all you can talk about is three dead faggot surfer boys’ said the Jew.

‘What happened?’ I asked again.

‘Do you remember that old World War II Jap auto handgun your old man gave me for my twenty-first birthday.’ My Dad was a sympathetic type, too, but something didn’t add up.

I thought for a moment. I did recall an old Japanese handgun that went missing from under my dad’s bed around the time of the Jew’s twenty-first birthday. At the time, the Jew denied any knowledge of the theft and my dad blamed me for taking the old war relic.

After the flashback I said to The Jew that I sort of remembered the ‘gift’.

‘Well’, said the Jew, ‘I don’t have it no more.’ He didn’t have to say any more. For the Jew to give up a gun could mean only one thing. A bullet in a body could link you to murder – if the gun could be found.

I told the Jew, ‘I’m going to have a death notice put in the London
Times
newspaper for Reggie Kray.’

‘Do they still have a London
Times?’
he asked.

‘Why? What happened to it?’ I asked

‘I don’t know,’ said the Jew. ‘I think Rupert Murdoch bought it.’

‘My dad’s old gun?’ I said.

‘No, the London
Times
newspaper,’ replied the Jew. ‘What the fuck are you on about, Chop?’

‘The Beach Boys’, I answered.

‘Reggie Kray just died and all you want to talk about is them wombats. Fuck you.’

With that, he hung up. Just my luck, I thought to myself. Just when the biggest bit of criminal news hits, and me in the middle of my tenth book fucking desperate for details, Reggie Kray up and dies on me.

Bloody lovely. So what do I do now? Write a post mortem on Reggie Kray? Meanwhile, three young hitmen who would have killed more people in a month than the Kray Brothers killed in a lifetime have gone on the missing list. And yet their death rated little more than a throwaway sentence in the face of the news of the great Reggie Kray’s death.

This goes to show that it’s not how many you’ve killed that counts, it’s how famous you are for doing it that matters. Ronnie and Reggie killed one man each. The Kray Brothers firm killed three men, four at the most, and wrote themselves into international criminal history.

The Beach Boys killed God only knows how many and died nameless, totally unknown outside of a small crew of men who not only created them but destroyed them.

Generals have statues made after them. When soldiers die they go into a lime-filled pit and are lucky if they get a white cross on the bare dirt.

I wondered why things had been a bit quiet in Melbourne of late. Oh well, anyway. Rest in Peace, Reggie.

Very often in the criminal world, news that should be of importance and the main topic of conversation is cast aside and a murder that happened half an hour before is forgotten because Collingwood was just beaten by the Bulldogs by seven goals.

Such a loss is, of course, a totally shattering blow for all concerned – resulting in the dear departed, who had just been placed in the boot of the car along with a pick and a garden spade, being driven to a hotel and remaining in the boot in the car park while all concerned drink in the pub and talk about the football game.

At the end of the night all parties pissed, taxi called to avoid driving point .05, because that would be illegal, then homeward for a good night’s sleep and, upon awakening, all parties very much hung over, and not remembering where they had been drinking in one of several pubs in Collingwood, Carlton, Fitzroy or St Kilda.

They cruised around the inner suburbs until the car was found. You wouldn’t want to leave it there too long before it would get a bit gamey.

Now get this, upon finding the car they discovered it was parked in a private parking area near the pub and had been wheel clamped, so the body had to be transferred from one car boot to another. Then, travelling across the Westgate Bridge, they got a flat tyre.

Imagine getting the spare out of the boot, then the jack and various tools, while not allowing blocked traffic and passers-by to notice a body, plus a pick and a garden spade in the boot.

Luckily, it was the front driver’s side wheel, so the two police who pulled up to find out what was going on stood up front while the car was lowered and flat tyre, jack and tools were replaced in the boot.

That evening in the hotel, after the body had been burnt in an industrial furnace, meaning the pick and spade were not needed, the topic of conversation was still on Collingwood’s disgraceful defeat at the hands of Footscray. Believe it or not, it is a true story. I’m sure that if Mad Charlie was alive today he would be able to confirm the details.

When writing stories one must include the odd photo. From time to time I’ve been asked to submit a short story for various magazines and I’ve done so and included photos. The stories never saw the light of day and the photos were lost forever until recently, when a letter arrived from Miss Libby Noble, editor of Australian
Penthouse
magazine.

She had been going through old files belonging to the previous editor and come across a story and an old photo I thought had been lost forever, and she was kind enough to return the photo. I had planned way back to dedicate a book to my three late uncles Ronnie, Ray and Roy Read, but without the old family photo it wasn’t a lot of use.

They were Collingwood boys from the old Collingwood push and the photo, believe it or not, was taken at the bar at Luna Park, St Kilda, before World War 2.

Ray is the bloke in the middle, Ronnie to his right, Roy to the left. The Japs cut Ray’s head off at a place called Toll Plantation. The details are sketchy and my dad’s memory isn’t what it once was. He told me it was called the Toll Plantation massacre. The Japs murdered eleven men, mostly Dutch plantation owners and some AIF men. The Aussies then massacred 300 Japanese prisoners of war in retaliation, a secret not mentioned in dispatches. Funny, that. The Japs tied Ray’s hands with string and fishhooks, a few loops around the wrists and a fishhook at each end. If the prisoner tried to break free he would rip his own flesh. A neat little trick and a much used one, a cheap and easy way to restrain a prisoner.

Evidently it was an honour to be beheaded. Lesser men were simply shot, but my uncle had strangled several Japanese officers to death while trying to escape. The Japanese were most angry about this, yet very impressed at the damage one man could cause. He had buried the body of a Japanese major in the sand and would not tell the Japs where it was. He couldn’t, as he had killed the major at night and buried him at low tide on the beach. During the day it was high tide and Ray couldn’t tell them where the body was even if he had wanted to.

They mistook his dumb silence for sheer bravery and, according to the Samurai code of Bushido, they gave Uncle Ray a fitting send off. Apart from the way he ended it, Uncle Ray had led a pretty uneventful life. Ronnie returned from the war with his right leg missing and would win foot races at the Collingwood Christmas sports events by running flat out then taking his false leg off and tossing it over the finishing line. It was his party trick.

According to the rules, it was the first foot across the line that won. The RSL and the Collingwood Football Club sponsored most of these running events and were reluctant not to award Ronnie with the trophy and ten bob prize money, given the way he had lost his leg.

In the end, they had to change the rules to include the word ‘man’ across the finish line and remove the word ‘foot’. So much for Uncle Ronnie. However, it was shy old Uncle Roy who was my favourite. He was the youngest of the three brothers, and he survived the Japanese prison camps by telling them he was a dentist.

The Japs all had bad teeth and no dentist and Roy had a pair of stainless steel pliers he had pinched somewhere. He was sent from prison camp to prison camp pulling out the teeth of Japanese.

In the end he became quite good at it and returned to Collingwood and set himself up as a backyard dentist. Ah yeah, he’d say, it’s no use drilling that tooth, it will just have to come out, and that would be that. Please pay at the door.

You see, all Roy could do was pull teeth. He thought plaque was something you stuck on the wall. In the end, he had to shut up shop after an accident with a bottle of chloroform that dropped off the mantelpiece in the kitchen and burnt the house down when it hit the wood stove.

At sixpence a tooth and between ten and 20 a day – it was a nice little earner while it lasted.

He had a running battle with the Commonwealth Police and the Army because he was listed as a deserter until his dying day, He never marched in an ANZAC parade.

To be taken prisoner, then listed as a deserter in spite of the fact that he was finally found in a prison camp on the infamous Burma railway. This never sat well with Uncle Roy. Although he never pulled the teeth of any Aussie soldier, he would pull out teeth for any British officer. He was quite feared among the Japanese, who never showed their fear. The Japs could take pain and would say no to any form of pain killer – not that there was much to hand. In spite of blinding pain they would not utter a cry, mutter or murmur.

Uncle Roy learned that a dentist was a much-feared fellow. He quite enjoyed pretending to be a dentist and would always state his occupation as ‘dentist’ to the end. The funny thing was, he died of blood poisoning from a mouth full of rotten teeth that went septic.

Having seen the pain he inflicted on others he never went near a dentist himself. Not much of a story but they are almost forgotten uncles and there is only one photo to remember them by. So thanks, Libby Noble, for returning it.

EVERY book I write is my last. As I have mentioned before, my publishers and I share a comic remark that when you jump on the horse you flog her till she drops. The old horse has stumbled a good many times and tossed us off many times more. But we can get back on and keep on going. Now we jest that the poor old girl only has three legs and no rider but she is still charging up the hill. But soon she will be out of sight, and so this really will be my last. I think.

Anyway, because of this I am digging up old family history to get it down on paper. My son, Charlie Vincent, may read this one day and so I feel I must tell you of my Great Uncle Eammon Euon Read whose claim to fame was shooting his CO during the famous 1916 Easter uprising in Dublin, Ireland.

Rubin Read, Eammon’s elder brother, was a hero who fought with the great Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera, but Eammon, whose name was spelt incorrectly by the drunken doctor who delivered him, was one of the greatest cowards the IRA ever had.

He was famous for shooting both British troops and his own men while escaping any tight situation. When Great Uncle Eammon finally left the IRA, Michael Collins put a price on his head. However, it was believed that cunning old Eammon got in first and outlived Collins.

Sounds like me and poor fat Alphonse.

You see, the Reads belonged to a small group of Protestants who fought along with the Catholics against the British for a free Ireland before it turned into a religious issue.

Uncle Eammon went on to become an informer for the hated black and tans who fought against the IRA, and then De Valera put a price on Uncle Eammon’s head himself.

After three failed attempts to shoot De Valera, Uncle Eammon shot four black and tan soldiers in an attempt to frame his nemesis for murder. He went on to become a communist and is believed, according to the family legend, along with Rial Regan and Tommy Taylor, to be one of the original founders of the Irish National Liberation Army, the feared and shadowy INLA.

After acting as a hired gun for the INLA and renegade breakaway units of the IRA, he was still informing for the British, the Ulstermen and the armed unit of the Orange Lodge.

Mind you, Great Uncle Eammon changed his name and joined the British Army only to desert them in the face of African enemies. He changed his name again and fled to America and was shot to death when he was caught cheating in a poker game.

During his 44 years, legend has it, he married nine women, divorced none of them, escaped 18 times from three different prisons and assorted police and military lock ups.

You could say that Eammon was a VD-ridden alcoholic, lying, cheating, thieving, murdering, coward and ladies man as well as a woman basher. And those were his good points.

As family history has it, he was the man who shot and nearly killed his elder brother Rubin after the British Army put a one hundred-pound reward out on Rubin Read. After all, business is business. No wonder I didn’t have a brother. Can you imagine two Reads trying to shoot each other.