Working Class Boy (23 page)

A couple of bikies had just got off their bikes as he walked by. They made the fatal mistake of commenting on his clothes. ‘Hey poof. Where do you think you're going?'

John stopped and turned towards them. He didn't react, he just started a conversation with them. Pretty soon they were laughing and chatting along with him. I told you he was charming. After a little while John started commenting on their bikes.

‘Wow, they look good. Did you paint them yourselves?' he asked, sounding really interested. ‘Really good job, guys.'

Soon these poor bikies were completely sucked in. They were so proud of their bikes. Then John said, ‘I noticed that your helmets are painted really well. Could I have a look at them?'

They, by this point, thought he was a funny guy who posed no threat to two big blokes like them and without hesitation handed over their helmets.

As soon as John got the helmets in his hands he proceeded to beat the shit out of these guys with their own helmets. He didn't stop until they were on the ground bleeding and pleading for mercy.

John then kicked over both bikes and spat on them. As quickly as he had turned, he regained his composure and straightened his
tie. ‘Get some fucking manners, boys. And sharpen up your dress sense a bit while you're at it.'

Then he just walked away and on to the wedding. Myself and a few mates were sitting maybe twenty yards away on the steps of the pool hall, watching the whole thing and we couldn't believe it. It was like a scene from a movie. John was my hero again.

Mum and Reg got to the point where they never left anything to drink around the house because one of the kids would take it, which was fine for them because they hardly drank at all. But Mum always had something hidden somewhere in the house, saving up for Hogmanay, and John knew it. So John used to work out inventive ways to make them get out the alcohol. Some of these cons were very funny.

One night he came home at about two in the morning with a few mates and what appeared to be a very nice girl, called Sally. He woke up Mum and Reg and most of the household. ‘Mum. This is Sally and we're gettin' married. I know I've just met her but I love her.'

Mum was ecstatic and immediately went to her cupboard. ‘Oh my God, that's great. This calls for a wee celebration. Get the other kids up.' She then produced a few bottles of nice whisky she was saving for Hogmanay and we had a party.

‘Alan, you move into the girls' room and Jim you'll have tae sleep on the couch tae gie the lovebirds some privacy,' Mum shouted after a few drinks.

The next day Mum got up and asked John, ‘Where's Sally, son?'

John looked at her with bloodshot, glassy eyes and said, ‘Who are you talking about?'

He had forgotten her name. It was only then that Mum realised she had been conned.

John had met this girl at closing time and told her, ‘Hi, darling, do you fancy a wee drink when the pub shuts? I've got nice things to drink at home if you want to come with me.' It was only when she got to our place that she worked out what role she would be playing in this elaborate hoax.

Luckily for John she was a good actress and loved to drink. The two of them had a great night all round. We never saw her again. Mum cleaned up the mess and never said another word about it.

The pool hall was a meeting place. Most nights started out there. The girls would be there with the older guys, and all of our younger gang would be hanging out there too, hoping the girls noticed us.

The smoke hung heavy over the tables. The whole place smelled like an ashtray. One guy ran the place at night. He was a hard-looking bloke who wore a sort of butcher's apron. In the front pocket of the apron he kept his money that he collected from the tables, the keys to the office and to the pinball machines. He regularly had to open up the machines to free the balls that had become jammed from one of us banging and shoving the machines around.

‘Hey you. If you bang that machine again I'm going to toss you out of here on your arse. Okay?'

‘Yeah, yeah. It was an accident, mate. I fell on it.'

‘Well, don't fall on it again or my fist will fall on your face. Understand?'

‘Yeah mate, I understand. Can I get some change? This machine is a rip-off.'

The front of the hall was where the younger guys hung out. Playing pinball and watching to see who was coming in and out of the place. Towards the back, where the light was dim, the real pool players hung out.

On the weekends, as it got late, groups of people would drift off to the pubs or to parties. Some of us had nowhere to go and we would wait in the pool hall. Waiting to find out where there was a place to go. Us younger ones would get one of our mates who looked old enough to go to the bottle shop and buy us booze so we could get drunk and act like the older guys. Someone would turn up with an address of a party that none of us were invited to and the place would empty. These parties always ended up as bloodbaths.

Fights often broke out in the pool hall too. Money was usually the reason for fighting but sometimes it was over one of the girls who would be standing around in short tight skirts. Most of the blokes played better when the girls were there. Letting them take a shot or two as everyone watched as the girl leaned over the tables, struggling to keep their dresses below their waists. The girls weren't there for the pool. They would smoke cigarettes and laugh as they waited for the real party to get started later on in the pub or in the back of someone's car.

The police would visit the hall some nights and the place would suddenly go dead quiet. Everyone would stop playing at once. The bells on the machines would go silent and all eyes would be on the cops as they walked through the place trying to get their eyes to adjust to the light, squinting to see the faces in the darkness. Blokes would be running to the back door or lying down under the tables in the dark, waiting for them to leave. Sometimes someone would be dragged out swearing and kicking to the cheers of their friends. The cops knew that if they needed to find any troublemakers, this was the first place to look.

I began hanging out at the pool hall more and more and became a pretty good pool player myself. I tried to make a bit of money, beating the odd sucker who came into the place after work.

Kelly pool was the game of choice. Each player pulled a marble out of a bag. This marble had a number on it. Each number corresponded to a number on one of the pool balls. The idea was to place your small ball on the side of the table, not letting anyone else see what number was yours, along with a sum of money, whatever you'd all decided to play for. You had to pocket as many balls as you could until you got the chance to pot your own. But if someone else potted your number you rolled the small ball over and you were out of the game and had lost your money. The first person to pot his own ball took all the money.

Before too long I owned my own pool cue, which was kept behind the counter with the real pool players' things. Some nights I could hustle enough money to buy drinks. One of us always found some money for drinks.

One day I did lose but not to another pool player, to my mum. I took my pool cue home for some reason and had it sitting in my bedroom. That day I had a fight with my mum over something unrelated and I was giving her a bit of lip. Mum came into my room to have a swing at me and I made some smartarse comment. Now Mum wasn't afraid to grab herself a weapon when she was ready to fight and she looked around the room for something to belt me with. She spotted my prize possession, my pool cue, and she grabbed it and swung it towards me.

‘You gie me any more o' yer lip and I'll murder you.'

Bang!
She broke the cue over my head, smashing it into pieces.

I just laughed. ‘Do you think that hurt me? It didn't. You can't hurt me.'

She was crying her eyes out because she couldn't hurt me. I was a bit unhappy because she had broken my pool cue. And as she ran from the room crying, I kept laughing. I had worked
out a few years earlier that if Mum was really trying to hit you hard, all you had to do was laugh at her and she would fall apart. It was a bit cruel but so was life and she didn't have to smash my cue. I never bought another one and my career as a pool hustler was over.

I
t sounds clichéd but the booze led us straight to harder things and we were soon chasing any drugs we could get our hands on, just like the big guys we looked up to. The older guys became noticeably more dangerous as harder drugs came into the picture. And so did we.

All my mates started out as potheads, happy to smoke weed and sit around and laugh at each other, but that didn't work for me. I was watching the older guys taking cheap speed and acid and I noticed some of them doing smack.

I wasn't a fan of weed as it made me too laidback and a bit more introverted, which was the last thing I needed in Elizabeth, so I started swallowing handfuls of cheap speed tablets, washing them down with beer or spirits.

I found that I could drink all day and night if I took these pills and as drinking was our main pastime this suited me down to the ground. Instead of getting drunk and sloppy, I would get drunk and aggressive, which was a dangerous thing for anybody who messed with me. We all started doing this, which led to us getting into fights with any strangers who walked near the shopping centre.

* * *

The gang would grab girls and some booze and head up to Uley Road Cemetery, an old place up in the hills above Elizabeth Downs. Now, Uley Road had a few benefits. It was out of the way of anything or anyone, and it was a bit scary so it was a good place to take girls because they wouldn't leave your side. We would sit up there and take drugs and drink and tell stories and make out with chicks.

A lot of the guys used to tell the girls to put out or walk home but I thought this was all wrong. I didn't want the blokes to think I was soft so I would pretend to do the same but let the girl know what was going on. We seemed to get away with it. I never really liked going up there for that reason and I thought that it was fucked up to have parties on people's graves, but I quite often ended up there. It was one of the few places we could go without being hassled or having to fight anyone. Sometimes we ended up fighting each other but not often and only when we were very drunk.

I don't think that any of us were that comfortable there, but in a group we were all much braver. Occasionally one of us would walk through the cemetery with one of the girls. It's funny how brave we were when girls were involved.

Uley Road had one road in, and one road out. I liked a place that was well lit and easy to get away from. I wouldn't go anywhere without an escape plan. Even at clubs or parties you would always find me with my back to the wall and in clear view of an exit. No one was going to sneak up on me.

I progressed from speed to acid, LSD. A lot of my friends were spending thirty dollars on a bag of weed. I thought that was a waste of time and money, so I would buy six tabs of acid and take
them over the course of the next four or five days. Half a tablet on the Thursday, a whole one on the Friday, a couple on the Saturday and anything I had left on the Sunday. Then more of my mates started doing the same and things changed. Most people I had heard of who took hard drugs like this sat and listened to music and contemplated the universe, but not us, we wanted a challenge – and doing anything on acid was a challenge.

There were guys who hung around the gang who could do incredible things while they were wasted. One friend of ours played first division football for Elizabeth City and he used to take acid and play the games. So we would all take acid too and go and watch him play. We would all be amazed at how he did it, but he not only did it, he played really well. Meanwhile we were having trouble sitting in the car drinking beer, just watching him.

He was amazing. He was the team captain and the main striker, so it was not like he could avoid the play. He was right in the middle of it. He told me later it was like the whole game was in slow motion, and he had so much time to make his decisions and get himself into the right position. I don't know if I could have done it but, in saying that, many years later I used to take acid and go on stage with Cold Chisel and not tell them. They never noticed but I know it was incredibly hard to concentrate.

We would still get into fights, even on acid. We did other stupid things too. Here's the sort of smart thing we would do: we used to wait until the drugs kicked in, and we were hallucinating, then walk over to the local police station and ask directions to places that didn't exist. Just to see if they noticed that we were tripping.

‘What can I do for you . . . Hey, you . . . Over here. What can I do for you? Over here, mate.'

‘Sorry, er. Yeah, I'm looking for a place to watch er . . . movies.'

‘You mean a theatre. Is that what you want? Look at me when you're talking to me, son.'

‘Er, yeah a theatre. I want to see a movie.'

‘There isn't a movie theatre here, son. This is a police station in case you didn't notice. How old are you? I think I've seen you before, haven't I? Just stay there while I come around from behind the counter and see if I can help you. Have you been drinking or something?'

‘Er . . . No. Er . . . Bye, sorry mate, I'd better go.'

‘Take it easy, son. I want to talk to you a minute so just hold on there.'

‘Bye, got to go, thanks mate.'

Out the door I went, running as fast as I could out of the car park and back to the safety of the shops.

The boys would be waiting, glassy-eyed and laughing. ‘That's so cool. What did you say?'

‘What? Er . . . I don't know but it was funny. Your turn.'

That progressed to some of the guys actually trying to get arrested to see how they coped being locked up while they were tripping. That still wasn't enough though; we kept pushing it further. A couple of our friends who were particularly crazy decided that they would not only get arrested but see how long it would take for them to escape.

The local police had a lot to deal with, as you can imagine, and they were known for their heavy-handed tactics. Looking back I can see why they had to be that way. A lot of the boys would fight with the cops at any chance they were given and this led to our next game. The idea was to take the acid and wait until you were peaking, hallucinating so much you hardly knew where you were, then you had to get yourself arrested. Now as I said, the police were a tad violent, so they were easily provoked. What you had to do, once they locked you in the cell, was scream and yell at them until they decided to shut you up.

They had a system whereby if someone was a difficult detainee they would take them out the back of the cells and beat them. At this point our guys would turn on them and smash them to bits. You've got to remember that these mates of ours were very hard guys and they were on very heavy drugs, so they had incredible strength and no fear. After they belted the cops they would jump the back wall of the station and run back to the shops where we were waiting. Of course, we were timing them and it became a competition to see who could do this the quickest.

The police would turn up minutes later looking for them but they would be gone, off with some girl or hidden in the boot of the car, anywhere the cops couldn't find them. This kept us amused on the odd night but more often we would go out to start trouble somewhere else, where the cops didn't know us.

I started hanging out with a guy called Mick. As we both knew loads of girls, we spent most nights getting drunk or fucked up and chatting up chicks.

Both Mick and myself were different from the other guys around the area. We were smarter. We didn't want to fight and get chased by the cops all night; we preferred to cruise around getting wasted and listening to music, singing along to the radio and pretending we were singers in bands. We both fancied the idea of getting into a band but it was Mick who was most likely to do it. He had better clothes than me and he knew more songs than me and he was more outgoing than me. He had the front to chat up the girls and win them over, but he was pushy, where I was just easygoing. He made it clear to girls what he wanted where I was just out for some fun. So a lot of the time I ended up with the girls, which suited me fine and drove Mick mad.

* * *

Night after night Mick and I would drive around looking for chicks. Talking shit and getting smashed.

‘Come on, sing along. This is great.'

‘I don't want to sing along with that.'

‘But it's huge, Jim. This band has sold a shitload of records. It's one of the biggest selling records in history I reckon.'

‘Yeah I know, but it's hippie shit. I don't mind listening to it when I'm out of it but I don't want to sing along with it.'

‘Why not? It's cool.'

‘If I wanted to be in a band like that I'd smoke pot.'

‘You do smoke pot.'

‘Just drive the car and shut up.'

‘You love pot.'

‘You smoke pot. I just have to drive around in the fucking car with you while you do it.'

‘I hear Led Zeppelin smoke pot.'

‘Just fucking look at the state of them. Hey, watch the road, would you.'

‘What? I'm watching the road. Now that sounds cool.'

‘No it doesn't. I like music to fucking smash you in the face. I don't want to go see a band and sit around and watch the light show. Fuck that. I want music you can fight to. Like The Who or Jerry Lee Lewis. Not Pink Floyd.'

‘You like Pink Floyd.'

‘I know I do, but that's not the point.'

‘Hang on, man, try to look cool. And act like you're enjoying yourself for a minute.'

‘Yeah, yeah.'

‘Hey girls, what's happening? Are you looking for a party to go to? We got one going in the car here. Why don't you jump in?'

‘Nice car. Maybe we will. Hey, cool music.'

‘Shit.'

* * *

It seemed that everyone our age in and around the north of Adelaide had nothing better to do than fight. Not only in the north – there were stabbings and even shootings at the clubs and pubs around Adelaide – but it always seemed to be traced back to Elizabeth. Whether it was gangs like us from the north heading to town to start trouble or motorbike gangs based in the north fighting in the clubs, the police ended up looking for culprits in Elizabeth and most of the time they were right.

The gang would change from night to night. Some nights there were thirty or more, mostly young guys who had nothing better to do. They couldn't or didn't want to stay home. We all went out looking for something we couldn't find anywhere else, especially at home – ourselves. Sometimes it was easier to find yourself in the eyes of someone else. A young girl who saw you the way you really wanted to be. Soft, caring and even, God forbid, sensitive. Or sometimes you saw yourself in the eyes of one of your mates. Cold, angry and rebellious, ready to smash anyone that came within swinging distance. There were a few of us who were always there. We were the ones who never stayed home. We had nothing to stay home for.

Jeff was about six foot two and English and as hard as nails. But the same guy could tell if you felt alone or worried and would reach out and say things to you like, ‘Jim, you don't look like the same old you tonight. Is something wrong?'

‘Yeah, mate, I'm in trouble. Things aren't going well at home and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. It's all going down the drain.'

‘No, mate, you're fine. You just need to shake it off.'

‘But I can't, Jeff. I've got myself into huge trouble and I can't see any way out of it.'

‘Well, I'm here if you want to talk about it.'

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘If you don't want to talk about it we could always go over to the shops and bash someone's head in. That'll cheer you up.'

Mick, on the other hand, was more like me in a lot of ways. He liked music and didn't want to fight all the time like the other guys. But he was so wounded he was even more alone. He needed no one. He could be warm one minute, then selfish and cold the next.

‘Hey Jim, I thought we'd go out tonight and find a few chicks and have a good time.'

‘That'd be great. Where did you want to go?'

‘I don't care. How much money have you got for petrol?'

‘I'm broke, but I'll get some tomorrow and slip you a bit for gas.'

‘Na, fuck it, Billy's got money, I'm going to see him instead. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘Thanks, mate, that's nice of you.'

‘Fuck it. I'm not running a taxi service here.'

‘Yeah, fuck you too.'

It seemed the more of us that got together the more trouble we got ourselves into. The size of the gathering fed the need to be violent – with each other and anyone else. One or two of us could have a laugh or see a movie but any more than one or two and we would only want to drink and fight. Young blokes, driven by fear and testosterone with no morals and no sense of decency. It was frightening how quickly things could change. From laughing to leering; from friends to fighting. It all turned on its arse in a matter of seconds.

I have been sitting in a car laughing while everyone smoked pot and drank beer one minute and the next someone they didn't know or didn't like walked by and it became a near-death experience for one of them.

Most of the guys didn't seem to care if they really hurt someone or not. We all wore R.M. Williams riding boots with Cuban heels. I wore them because I thought they looked cool but my mates wore them because they did more damage when you jumped up and down on people's heads. Pounding them into the ground and smashing them into the gutter on the end of their boots. Leaving people bleeding and gasping for air while they laughed out loud and shouted for one another to come and join in. It was frightening.

These fights were not just about knocking people down, they were about hurting people as much as you could. Somehow that was meant to make you feel good about yourself, but it didn't make sense to me.