Chopper Unchopped (90 page)

At the moment I'm in hospital so I can't send a photo in this letter. Probably in the next one. I don't know about you but I hate photos and so I smile crappily for photos. Photos are not my thing. But I'll send it next letter O.K. Thanks for the photos. I'll definitely treasure them for ever. Believe me, I'm not laughing at the shorts or what's in the shorts. There's more to you than meets the eye. Somehow I can't see you looking after those roses though, I can see you saying ‘Oh, these roses ain't got enough flowers, out you go' or something like that. No, leave the looking after the flowers to the bum chums.

At this moment we're having a wet tissue fight in the room. Shit, what a laugh. There are these two guys and me in the room throwing these things at each other. I wish I was a better shot. I missed the Goddamn pricks and they got me all the time. It's not fair. Bugger'em. Who were your friends in the photos – say hello! Does anyone look at the letters before you? Hello to those arseholes!

That's Alana, she's seven and is in hospital too. She's a sweetie. I've got some more jokes! Equally as polite as the last set (of course)
.

What's Michael Jackson have in common with a bottle of whisky? They both come in little tots
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Hi Mark (Chopper) Read, I have heard a lot about you on
A Current Affair
, about what you have done. I am glad what you are trying to do for our country and the children's future. Good luck in the future. From
Shane
, your new pal.

That's Shane, he's 16
.

Hi, I have heard a lot about you Mr Chopper, I liked your joke, I have some jokes, anyway got to go –
Mitchell.

Hi, Mr Chopper, how are you? Hope ya good. As you've probably guessed I'm in hospital too! I'm 13. What do you do all day? If it is like here, ya' just sit on ya' arse all day doing nothing. It sux. I hope ya' fine. –
Anna.

So there you go. You've got a fan club in hospital. You should have seen Brad's (a nurse) face when he saw the photos of you. He went ghost white when he saw ya'. Shane goes to him, ‘Seen him before?' and Brad goes ‘Who hasn't?'

Take it as an compliment. Do tattoos hurt? Everyone likes the joke even Brad laughed. We (Shane, Mitch and me) had a coughing fit all through the joke. We were in hysterics whenever we thought of the head just sitting on the pillow and the nurse saying ‘You'll have to speak up, he's deaf. I just about pissed myself. Know any others? Do tell. Would it offend you if I showed my friends your letters? What's the food like in there? If it's anything like hospital food I feel sorry for ya! Hospital food tastes like shit. I don't know anyone who likes it.

In hospital there's not much to do but sit on your arse or watch TV. We go to school for a few hours everyday, but it's basically a bludge. Same there? Apart from the fact that when I get better I can leave and you can't (yet) hospital is a jail. I am stuck here at their mercy to let me go. Here's Anna.

Hi Chopper! How are you again. Katrina just told me this is the same letter and guess when and where she's writing it? 11.40am at school. Shane's giving us a geography lesson and is acting like a real dickhead. School sux as usual, school teacher's coming. I gotta go. Good luck.
Anna.

The work is so boring so I'm just saying I don't have any books so I can't do it.

Hi again, we have to wait for the teacher and I'm getting bored. Do you know that Katrina has cystic fibrosis. I'll let her tell you about it herself. I have five diseases. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibro myalga, irritable bowel syndrome, heartburn, asthma. CFS makes you tired all the time and you sleep your life away. It makes your muscles tired so sometimes it's hard to move. Fibro myalga makes your brain send the wrong messages to your muscles which twist them, it really hurts. When I get them in my head I scream. It gives me migraines that make you spew and affects your colon (large intestine) so you get really bad stomach aches. Other symptoms are dizziness, headaches, loss of being able to concentrate, wreck your eye muscles and all the other muscles, so I may get my own wheel chair. I could die, but I won't (I hope).

Irritable bowel syndrome – things go straight through me.

Reflux – makes me spew.

School finishes in five mins! Sleeptime. I might write again later. Take care.

Sorry I have no ‘bum view' g-string poses for you or even a tattoo of your book's cover on my back, but being a 15-year-old schoolgirl makes it a little illegal (and besides I don't really want to).

You've (by the sound of it) heard ‘Chopper you've got a great little book here' a million times but I'm going to say it again. Your book's content and style of writing are both great. I think you have a wonderful way with words.

Did you do well in English at school?.

You make violence humorous (which scares me a little). Did you have much trouble getting a lot of your books content published?

I've no idea what gave me the courage to write this letter. I guess telling friends and family how great a book is just doesn't have the same effect as telling the author the same thing.

I am fascinated by your life, as you have lived such a vivacious and fulfilling life (so it seems) and I'd like to do the same with my life (without all the weapons, violence, whores, pimps, AIDS and Italians wearing slip-on shoes) … all the friends you've made make it sound so ace (except for Sid).

I wish you well and hope that you find the time to write back to me. PS. You have no idea how many Telecom bitches it took to get your address.

PSS. I think you were a cute baby with cute ears.

Do you get many letters from people you don't know? Or do you get letters from people you WISH you didn't know? I hope this one doesn't fall into either of those categories!

I hear you're a bit of a writer Mark, that's a real gift. I'm afraid my writing talent is non-existent, but I felt urged to write you a few lines.

You and I are pretty much the same you know. Does that sound unbelievable especially as I know next to nothing about you? Yet I can say it confidently! However, there is one difference. Ah, here it comes, I hear you say. Is it because I'm out here and you are in there? Or … I'm sure you can think of a dozen or two differences between us but I can only see one that really matters for all time – my sins are forgiven. So what!

Let me tell you a story before you throw this across the room. There were two beggars. One wandered off and a while later came back to his mate saying ‘I've found bread! I want to share it with you so come on and
I'll
show you how to find it!'.

‘No way' says his mate, ‘you just think you're better than me because you've got bread now'.

‘You're wrong,' says the beggar. ‘I'm not any better than you – but I am better off than you because I have found what I've been looking for.'

So Mark, I'm not better than you in God's sight – all sin is black, no matter what, but through Jesus I've found forgiveness, peace and a new life. Won't you follow me to the bread of life and like me, you'll never be hungry again. You're captive but so was I. Now I'm free and you can be too! Jesus says ‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free'. (John 8 verse 32) and ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me'. (John 14 verse 6).

If I am wrong, Mark, what have I lost. I'll have lived a fulfilled life. But if you are wrong you'll have lost your eternal life. I know I'm not wrong Mark, trust me and him who sent me.

Thank you for allowing me into your life Mark to share my joy with you.

THE General Manager of Corrective Services, Mr Ben Marris, sent me a letter telling me not to write a book. So much for free speech. This is what it said:

Dear Mr Read, ‘
I refer to your letters of 7.1.94 and 19.1.94, in which you request permission to write a book. It is in the policy of this department that a prisoner should not, while under sentence, profit in any way from his crime. I am advised that your previous books have been concerned with crime and it would seen probable that any future book that you wrote would attempt to capitalise upon such notoriety as you have achieved through crime. For this reason permission to write a book is refused.’
– Yours sincerely, Ben Marris.

The letter was headed Department of Justice, Corrective Services Division. Well, I guess that calls a halt to my literary career. Oh well, I will put the matter to my lawyers, but to be quite honest I’m getting a bit sick of banging my head up against a brick wall.

I’ve got too much on my mind to cope with this shit at the moment.

What really got up my nose is when he said he was advised that my previous books had been about crime. It would have been nice if he had popped down the road and bought a couple. I could do with the royalties. I have a hungry family of lawyers to feed.

This book has been put together under great difficulty, letter by letter, page by page, under the nose of prison security.

They have banned me from writing a book. No doubt I will be punished when this comes out. I think the chances of getting the prison governor to launch this particular volume are very skinny. The authorities have told me they have banned me from writing because they think it is not right for me to ‘profit from crime’. Here am I, trying to clear my name, using some of the country’s highest paid lawyers and the state is banning me from paying my way.

If I had sat on my arse, watching the soapies on the TV and doing nothing, I could have got legal aid and the taxpayers would have had to pay my legal bills.

But I have paid every cent, myself, from my book royalties. I am now broke, and the government wants to stop me doing the only thing I can to make an honest dollar. They condemn me when I shorten the shoe size of drug-dealing vermin, yet they stop me from writing.

I work in the prison laundry for a few bucks a month. A lawyer would tip a waiter more than I get paid in jail each week, yet the authorities stop me from trying to earn enough to pay lawyers instead of being a drain on the public purse.

I am told I could fight the decision to stop me writing by going to the international court in the United Nations. But what would be the point. No-one wants to fight for the rights of a former headhunter who wants to write for a living. The truth is that people like to read what I write. Modesty forbids me from saying that my first three books have all been bestsellers. Why should a few prison guards and Government shinybums stop me from doing what I do second best?

They have always told me that the pen is mightier than the sword, and at last I’m getting the idea. So instead of fighting them in the courts I have had to use other, sneakier, less costly methods.

Letters have been sent to various addresses and then forwarded on to my publishers. Every letter I write and send out has been held up by prison security, and read and re-read to decide if that particular letter could be used for a book. It was my writing letters in relation to Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson that finally convinced prison staff that my mail was just harmless stuff not meant for any book. And I know that because one particular security officer – who is in no danger of becoming a brain surgeon – said to me, ‘I am getting a bit sick of reading your bloody mail, Chopper. If it’s not about Henry Lawson you are on about Banjo Paterson, but at least we can see that you are not trying to write a book.’ Everyone’s a critic, hey? Ha ha.

I must confess that some of my letters and a lot of photos have gone out of the jail in a covert manner. Once the fourth book is published I doubt I will ever be able to get away with a fifth while I am still in jail. So, dear reader, if this fourth effort appears somewhat insanely put together, please forgive me and remember that it has been written by the only writer in Australia today who has been prohibited from writing books, by the light of a television set late at night.

In saying goodbye may I quote the immortal words of Bob Dylan:

Mama put my guns in the ground, I can’t shoot them any more
,

That long black cloud keeps coming down
,

I feel I’m knocking on heaven’s door
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