Chopper Unchopped (46 page)

IT was the 16th of November, 1972, the day before my 18th birthday. I felt a sense of great expectation. It had the promise of being a grand day indeed.

We met at the Try Boys' Youth Club in Surrey Road, Prahran. Terry the Tank arrived late, as always, and I gave him a dirty look as I sat in the old barber's chair in our headquarters underneath the stage. There was a large cubby room under the stage which dated back to when the building had been a theatre, before being turned into an indoor basketball court for the youth club.

The room was less than seven feet high, but about 20 feet long and 10 wide. It was nearly dark, with only one small light globe. There was a window but we kept it covered. It was our own little patch.

It was here that we held court and completed our pre-battle meetings. Me sitting in the barber's chair, Cowboy Johnny Harris to my left, sitting on a stool, and Dave the Jew pacing the length of the room, eager for combat and complaining that these pre-battle meetings were just a waste of time. Terry the Tank would just sit there, a little worried about what the hell I was up to.

Dave the Jew had a World War 1, British-made Scott and Webley handgun, which was a lovely bit of work. I had a sawn-off, double-barrelled shotgun. The Cowboy had two steel bars about 12 inches long and Terry the Tank had a claw hammer. I also had a World War 1 British Army bayonet. We weren't boy scouts, but we always liked to be prepared.

The four of us were waiting for Solly the Jew and a bloke nicknamed Reggie the Rat, for on this particular day we needed extra combat troops.

Solly and Reggie arrived. Solly had a beautifully-made petrol bomb, and the Rat had a lovely set of meat cleavers. It had all the signs of a wonderful day out.

We were all set for a bit of action because the Cowboy had bashed the uncle and father of a tough gang leader from St Kilda named Taffy, and the St Kilda boys had vowed to take revenge. They had even come over to Prahran and started a fight in the bar of the South Yarra Arms Hotel, looking for him. We were all in the bar of the Bush Inn Hotel at the time, and when we heard of the fight, we went to the home of Taffy and spoke severely to his father, brother and uncle, putting all three in hospital. The Jew wanted to shoot Taffy's mother, but I put a halt to that. It wasn't good manners to shoot mothers, even in St Kilda.

Messengers went back and forth and the result was that the Surrey Road Gang had been challenged to blood combat. We were to meet behind the St Kilda Football Oval. But I changed the plans, saying that as they had challenged us, we would fight on our home turf, on the railway tracks running between the Hawksburn and South Yarra railway stations.

It was going to be a bloodbath. Needless to say, I looked forward to it, and expected everybody in the gang to do likewise.

We had promised that it would be a fist fight and there would be no weapons. What a joke. I had always held the view that anyone who didn't bring a gun to a fist fight was a poof, or at least a fool.

Taffy had a friend from Preston, a famous streetfighter named Sugar Davis. He is now dead, but in 1972, the name Sugar Davis was known and feared. He was a streetfighting legend.

Taffy had also promised to bring some of the other toughest streetfighters in town to back him. Most of them didn't turn up because, even as a 17-year-old, I'm proud to say that in the gangs of Melbourne I had a reputation as a cheat who couldn't be trusted in a fight, and they all feared a foul ambush. They somehow suspected that I had no intention of fighting on the railway tracks and would have had some dirty tricks planned.

Well, what happened that night, even I couldn't have planned. The six of us walked out of the Try Boys' Youth Club and headed up Surrey Road. We were under the railway bridge, just past the council depot and garbage incinerator, when three cars headed towards us and screamed to a halt.

It was Taffy, his dad, uncle and brother, Sugar Davis, a bloke called Snakes, and two other blokes I didn't know, nor liked the look of.

Solly the Jew turned and ran, Terry the Tank froze in his tracks, and Reggie the Rat took one look and headed off after Solly. Which left just me, Dave and the Cowboy to face the onslaught.

Taffy had a baseball bat, and all the others appeared to holding lengths of iron pipes.

Sugar Davis stepped up and said: ‘Right, which one is Chopper'. When I said it was me, he said: ‘Well, let's see how good you are.'

‘Pig's arse,' I said. ‘Dave, shoot the bastard.' Bang, bang, bang. The Jew let three bullets go, all missed Sugar Davis, but one of them hit Taffy.

Terry the Tank unfroze and ran in screaming, swinging his claw hammer fast and hard. Snakes and Taffy's brother fell to the ground, pissing blood. Taffy's dad and uncle were next. Terry was going crazy, Cowboy was bashing Taffy while he lay on the road with a bullet in his arm. He was beating him with two steel bars. Cowboy might not have been a heavy thinker, but he was a heavy street-fighter.

I pulled out the sawn-off shotgun and aimed it at the head of Sugar Davis. He said: ‘Go on, shoot me, you weak rat.' Sugar was a tough bastard. The Jew yelled out, ‘I will', and put a bullet in his leg. I then stepped in and bashed Davis around the head and face with the shotgun.

The two other tough guys who came with Taffy's crew just stood there and watched it all like stale bottles of piss.

The four of us then ran off up the road, having won the day in grand fashion.

No-one gave anyone up so the law didn't get involved. Ah, the fun-filled days of youth. It was a great day indeed … apart from a small matter of cowardice under fire. Our next job was to decide on punishment for Solly the Jew and Reggie the Rat.

In gang wars, like any war, you have to have discipline from the troops. Two of our people had cut and run before the battle had even started. In a war they would have been executed, but we were only kids and wouldn't go that far. And, after all, they were friends, and I have always been known for my compassion.

We let Solly off with a fine – and a sound flogging. We broke nearly every rib in his body with a cricket bat. The fine was $1000. He came from a wealthy family so he could afford it. As it turned out, Solly was never a great one for physical violence. He was a rather meek fellow, but he still ended up making his mark in the underworld. A scorch mark, to be precise.

Although Solly later became quite successful in the rag trade, he always had a healthy ‘sidelight' to his main business. He was the master of the Jewish Bonfire. In other words, he was an expert torch, who helped people to collect on their fire insurance. As Dave said, Solly was the best at organising the Jewish Fire Sale. He became the Chopper Read of arson.

Dave and I once watched a fire in a factory in South Yarra and Dave laughed and said: ‘Good golly, it's Solly'. Sure enough, there was little Solly asking the firemen questions as they were trying to put out the fire in his grandfather's factory. God bless him.

Anyway, back to the story. Reggie the Rat still needed to be punished. He had a pet fox terrier, so we caught it, killed it, cut it up and cooked it on Reggie's barbecue in his own backyard, with Reggie standing there in tears.

Then came the master stroke. We made Reggie eat his own fox terrier. But it wasn't all bad. We had garlic salt, cooking oil, salt and pepper, plus American mustard. After all, we weren't savages.

The rest of us had two dozen cans for the feed. Dave thought it was the height of high comedy. Poor Reggie was bawling like a baby as we forced him to eat his own pet.

I told him: ‘You acted like a weak dog, so maybe eating your own dog might give you a little courage'. You are what you eat, they say.

I did not partake in the feed, but the Cowboy did, and he pronounced the foxy quite tasty. The Cowboy would have eaten dirt if you let him.

Two weeks after the puppy picnic, Reggie and two of the Richmond boys attacked me as I drank in the Morning Star Hotel. Dave the Jew and Cowboy Johnny Harris were across the road getting take away food while I was being kicked to bits in the pub. They returned to find me looking like a busted open watermelon. On my recovery, we went to Reggie's home while he was out and killed all his pigeons, about 60 of them. One way and another, poor Reggie didn't seem to have much luck with pets.

The next night Reggie the Rat and the same two Richmond nitwits, Johnny the Wog and a giant Greek we didn't know, attacked me again in the bar of the Bush Inn Hotel. But this time I was waiting. The three of them were beaten into the street by the Cowboy, Terry the Tank and the Jew. I took my physical exercise that night by breaking ribs with an iron bar.

Reggie the Rat died in a car accident in 1974, and the Surrey Road gang went to the funeral and wake. They were great days. I miss them.

Incidentally, Old Taffy had a long memory. In late 1974, he was still keen to even the score. He and his gang attacked me in the car park of the Croydon Hotel, which is a long way from St Kilda. I was being kicked near to death, but I had managed to drop one of my attackers with a broken beer bottle to the face, when Bobby Lochrie, one of the best streetfighters in Melbourne and a top bloke, backed up by his crew, came to my rescue. The fight then got under way on a much more even keel.

I've told the story before about how police from all over were called to break it up and they, too, got involved. It was a great battle, with all of us fighting together. Me and Loxy escaped back into the bar, where we drank and watched the whole car park get arrested and tossed into the back of assorted divvy vans. A big police sergeant walked up behind us as we watched all the fuss through the bar room window and said: ‘You two bastards were involved in that'. We turned to look at him, with our faces covered in blood, and Loxy said: ‘No, Sarge, we were in another fight in the lounge'.

The sergeant said: ‘Well, no more fighting'. The truth was that the police didn't have enough cop cars and divvy vans to arrest us all.

In fact, there had been a fight in the lounge. Four of our mates had nearly wrecked the joint. We went back into the lounge where Loxy started another punch-up. He was always a sucker for a good time. When the police came again, the fight was over, the lounge bar was a mess of broken and bleeding men, and there was broken glass and windows everywhere. The same big sergeant came up to me and Loxy and said: ‘You two were involved in this one'. Loxy just said: ‘No, we were in the blue in the car park'.

Well, the cops had had enough for one night. They closed the lounge bar and kicked us out of the pub. But we weren't arrested.

Police in those days had a far more balanced attitude to youthful frolics in pubs and car parks. They knew not to take these matters too seriously.

After all, a good time was had by all.

SADLY, I have to say that the woman I love and I have split up. Margaret stuck with me for more than 10 years, and in that time I was on the outside for all of 13 months.

It seems that all I was able to give her was torment, pain and tears.

I loved her, yet all I managed to do was hurt her. I would have rather died than put her through the agony that she had to endure. It was just part of my life. It seems that if you get close to me, you get hurt. I can’t explain it.

My cards were marked long before I met Margaret and in the end, it was too much for her to bear.

I am sad, and I will always love her, but my life is a sinking ship, and I cannot ask someone I love to drown with me. To do so would be to turn on the very love that brought us together. I don’t want to lose her, yet I know I must.

To hold on in the face of the nightmare of a life is self-centred and cruel.

Margaret has stuck with me when I have done stupid things. She has stuck when people wanted to kill me. She stuck when I was inside. There is no-one as loyal as little Margaret. If most of the two-bit crims had her dash, guts and courage, they would never tell tales out of school in police stations. She has more guts than most gunmen, more loyalty than a blood relative.

Margaret has been a part of me for so long that it is like losing part of myself. But to try to hold on to the love under the circumstances would be to poison it in the end.

Even if I win my legal battles, there is no promise that things will ever change for me. This is not the life for a woman like Margaret. She has so much to offer and is so full of life that she shouldn’t waste it on a legal loser like me.

She bullied and nagged me and gave me hell, all because she could see the truth about other people and how they were using me. She was so frustrated that I couldn’t see that some of my so-called friends were out to take advantage. If I had only listened to her then perhaps I wouldn’t be sitting in Risdon Prison now. I’ve had a lot of time to think about that lately.

We had a new start when I left Victoria. We had some money and the chance to settle down. We could have lived the quiet and contented life in Launceston. But I ended up with some people who tried to manipulate me and live off me. It was Margaret who saw through them but I was too much of a fool to listen. She put her whole life into trying to make my life better, but it never worked.

In return, I only hurt the one I love.

I now know that if there was a next time it would probably only be more of the same, so it is time to end it, no matter how much it hurts. Margaret has gone back to Melbourne and taken our dog, Mr Nibbles.

I’ve lost my girl and my dog. Now if that ain’t pain then I don’t know what is. She told me once that I was the man of her dreams, but all I ever gave her was a nightmare.

Sorry, darling. I will always love you, but it was doomed from the start.