Chopper Unchopped (77 page)

He then ran off to say goodbye to half the population of F Yard and D Yard, leaving many broken hearts behind him. I am proud to say that the boys in C Yard, my yard, did not rate a goodbye, as the little fairy never hit our yard.

Bucky said we were the only yard in the jail that could hold heads high on that small point. Of course, now that the offending item has left the prison, everyone seems to be in denial mode, but I have got a long memory of how the little poofter won quite a few hearts while he was here. The names of each guilty party is on my blackmail, or should I say brownmail, list.

It is probably a good thing he got out when he did as Rocky Devine, a confirmed poof hater, threatened to flush him down the toilet in F Yard, so he went to D Yard. Micky Chatters wanted to kill him had he come to C Yard. And Bucky was going to break his jaw. So, to put it politely, he was wearing out his welcome in spite of the comic value.

The prisoners who were fond of Michael suffered a guilt complex and would not defend his honor, and in my opinion within another month someone would have hurt him badly or some bad trouble would have come of him.

As I have said before, when poofters run free in a prison they either get themselves killed or get someone else killed. Nevertheless, in spite of my own personal phobias and hostile attitudes and old ingrained hatreds, I have to admit young Michael had a happy cheerful nature and good comic value. He had a disarming way about him. His attitude was ‘Yes, I am homosexual. I do not hate you, why do you hate me?' In my 20s I would have kicked the guts out of him, but as I shade 40 I don't mind the little ratbag.

It doesn't make me pro-homosexual, but I guess you could say that I have reached the ‘live and let live' way of thinking towards them and for me that is an ultra-radical change of thinking.

I still think that homosexuality is an act against God and nature, but mankind itself has become one giant collective act against God and nature.

With the entire human race dancing on the edge of its own grave, who gives a rat's about a few bottom bandits.

TO mention the name of one woman and to tell the whole truth about her presents me with the problem of offending other women, and this has been a headache throughout the writing of all my books.

My previous three books have been more ‘Kill and Tell’ than ‘Kiss and Tell’, but I think now is the time to set the record straight. How to name a women and retell a story in a way that won’t hurt the woman I am with or the man she is with.

As far as females are concerned I am totally schizophrenic. It is like being in a giant lolly shop. There I am happily munching away on a Pollywaffle then someone hands me a Snickers funsize. ‘Oh goodie,’ I say. I am halfway through that when someone tosses me a Mars Bar and I am into that. And the next thing you know I am into the licorice allsorts. Then come the Tim Tams, when all of a sudden I spy the deluxe selection of fruit-flavoured soft-centred assortments. Whacko! I am just about to make a pig of myself when along comes a sales lady with – yes, you guessed it – an all-day sucker.

It’s like heaven and hell and I am lost in my own indulgence. When I am running around on the outside, even though my heart may belong to one lady, I can’t help sampling whatever’s on offer. I also realise that the axe can fall on me at any moment and the ‘eat, drink and be merry – for tomorrow I die’ mentality takes hold.

A lot of ladies I have mentioned previously and have mentioned in this book are bloody good people who believe in me and my innocence, and have taken my side with letters of protest and support, and I hold them very dear. Ladies like Ally Grant, Jenny Cox, Mandy Maggio, Samantha Hough, Karen Hankey, Desiree Dack, Jackie Watson, Tan Whitby, Raychell McBain, Gloria Kermond, Kelly Russell, Tashliene Howard, Tauree Cleaver, Kerry Griffiths, Margaret Hamilton and Nicole Sutorius. They are but a handful of the ladies who have taken my side, and it’s a pity I cannot name them all.

Some of the lovely and loyal ladies on my side are just that – nothing more than loyal pen pals. And some others are chicks I have known for years. But sometimes in the past when I felt that I needed to mention the name of a particular lady, I have had to tone it down a bit for reasons that you might guess. That is, a few have insisted on dropping their knickers for the Chopper in the interests of getting to know me better.

I have not lied, but as a gentleman, I have omitted certain facts which could leave some of my lady friends a tad red-faced. It must be remembered that I have spent a good deal of my adult life inside jail. When one is released from the confines of Her Majesty’s Prisons one is somewhat sexually tense.

Have you ever seen the
Dambusters
movie when the German dams get broken and become a raging torrent? Let me just say, I know how it feels. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that if I was to reveal my relationship with one woman it was more than likely to get me stabbed in the neck with a broken fizzy drink bottle at the hands of another.

The small white lies in relation to females started in the first book due to the fact that the love of my life at that time, Maltese Margaret, would read it. These tactful little omissions continued in the second book, as I did not want to hurt her feelings. I also knew that with her famous Maltese temper I well could have ended up like that American bloke Bobbit, who had his old fella cut off in the middle of the night by his missus.

Now I don’t mind that I had my ears hacked off, but the dickie bird stays where it is, if you don’t mind. I made that particular point nice and clear back when the late Gary David started taking the Gillette to his private parts in Pentridge.

As well as protecting myself, I must also look after the fairer sex. I have a situation where ladies I would like to mention in relation to particular yarns, have left their wild pasts behind and are now happily married.

They have gone from acting like Linda Lovelace to playing Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music
. I am sure their loving husbands would not like to be reminded that they once were rather close to the old Chop Chop.

I am unable to retell the full facts of our many adventures for fear of their husbands kicking the shit out of them. I mean, it may not go down too well with me telling the world that so-and-so is a great girl and a wonderful friend, and that in fact the two of us used to do the horizontal rumba together.

I could have told some fantastic true tales of blood and guts and wild adventure, but was unable to do so as a particular lady vital to the story is married and would be tossed out a six-storey window by an irate husband if it became known that she once ran around in company that included my good self. This is the trouble with telling true stories about real people. If you don’t like the bastards you can go for your life, but if you do like them and list them among your friends you have to keep a low profile when it comes to the full facts.

It has taken me three books before I could mention the name Margaret Hamilton. She has recently ended matters with her third husband and it’s now okay to make mention of her. This is the sort of problem I have had to endure.

Quite a few readers have written to me suggesting that they suspected there was more to this story or that story than I was willing to tell. They are an astute lot. It is true that a fair few of the ladies in my life have at one time or another removed their knickers to accommodate my good self purely in the name of friendship. But so what … if you can’t hump your mates who can you hump?

I have had this problem with females I have mentioned in my first and second and third books. Men seem to have no problem talking about their male friends yet pretend they have no female friends at all, as talking about ladies in their life would offend the lady they are with at the time.

A man’s life is made up of a great many adventures, and involves chicks he looks upon as his mates. However, if any man is asked to sit down and retell his adventures in writing it would be full of his friends and enemies of the male gender with one or two molls tossed in for good luck, but the real women in his past would vanish from the story as if they never existed, as to do so would embarrass him or them.

I find this, in its way, quite sad. Some of my best mates are women. Sure, I may have plonked a few of them along the way, but they are essentially good mates. They have remained rock solid when a few of the so-called tough guys of the underworld have caved in as soon as the cops have said ‘boo’.

I have had to describe some old mates as pen pals so as not to embarrass them in the eyes of their husbands and family. It is all part of the web you are forced to weave in talking or writing about real people. It is not so much a case of lying but more of not relating the full facts.

Writing about real people and telling true stories means the whole truth cannot always be told. Fiction writers have the luxury of going the whole hog, as their characters are not real people and their books hurt no one.

I notice when other writers shit-can my books or are asked to act as critics in relation to my books, they are always fiction authors. These people see true life crime as a threat. Maybe because fact is stranger than fiction – sometimes so strange that it is downright hard to believe – they shout and laugh at reality. Or maybe truth is a bit humdrum and ordinary for them. The fiction writer can turn a bullet in the guts into an epic thriller, whereas in reality a slug in the guts is not worth more than a page.

An act of violence, whether a broken glass in the neck, or a bullet in a body, is over in the blink of an eye, and to write about it should not take more than a page or so. That is why I will never be accepted as a proper writer by other writers. I tell it how it is … bang, bang, no bullshit, then on to the next story. I have been there, I have done it and for mine you cannot turn a ten-second stabbing into a ten chapter epic. Not unless you are a fiction writer, that is. And I’m a fighter, not a writer. I know about verbals, not verbs. Guns, not grammar.

I AM receiving mail from very hurt and tearful ladies of the night who have all loved reading my books, but were greatly hurt and injured at my remarks in my third book about my feelings towards prostitutes.

I wrote that falling in lust with them was fine but falling in love was foolish, and that should you be unlucky enough to fall in love with a cracker then stab yourself in the back because if you don’t ‘then little Miss Tragic Magic will do it for you’.

All I can say is this: If something happens nine out of ten times then it becomes the accepted general rule of thumb. And in my own personal experience I’ve found a slag will betray you nine out of ten times. That is because lies, false pretence and treachery is the rule of law in their world. A prostitute and a coin-in-the-slot public toilet have a lot in common. It’s just that the crackers charge a bit more. However, in fairness, there are walking contradictions and exceptions to every rule and I would be the first to agree that nine out of ten means that this rather severe attitude of mine does not apply to ten per cent of the working girl population.

I have an even lower opinion of junkies but I guess in fairness the same nine out of ten rule applies to them as well. Some of the chicks who wrote to me were deeply hurt and for that I am sorry. However, what I originally wrote in my third book stands. Most of them will let you down. Every now and again you will find a working girl who not only sits on a goldmine, but has a heart of gold as well, but she’s a rare beast.

It is hard to trust a girl who loves everyone and kisses each man’s heart with a different lie on her lips. My problem is that in my youth I had the misfortune to fall under the spell of several ladies of the night and found myself betrayed.

Lies were on the menu for breakfast, lunch and tea. Yet I have known a handful of working girls who were as solid as a rock and stuck staunch, and showed me great loyalty, but in doing so had to betray the men they loved in the name of friendship towards me.

While these same ladies and myself were never at any time romantically involved, it all gets back to exceptions and contradictions. I will say one rather odd thing in relation to the ladies of the oldest profession – they are the only chicks I’ve met who will betray the men they love to repay a debt of friendship or kindness.

All in all, it is a confusing and complex psychological question, and one thing is for sure: I’ve never met a prostitute who was not a very, very confused individual.

Receiving mail from heart-broken whores has been the only time that I have sat and had a big think about something that I have written, and it reminded me that there were some Suzie Wongs in my life. Whores who would bend over backwards to show me great kindness and loyalty in the name of friendship, and risk their necks in the process. But even they would be the first to admit they would not trust nine out of ten of their own workmates.

MY old friend Polish Suzie, the girl I spoke of in my last book, wrote to inform me that she has lost two and a half stone, divorced her second husband, sold the massage parlour and everything else and is moving herself and her two daughters to the sunny shores of Spain. As you may recall, Suzie was once a shy little Seventh Day Adventist girl. After she got married she found out about sex and her reaction was ‘How long’s this been going on?’ Suzie loved it. She went from a Seventh Day Adventist to a Six Times A Nightist.

She made assorted sardonic remarks about my literary ability and went on to accuse my publishers and editors of being drunk in charge of limited intelligence. Ha ha.

She did, however, jog my memory in telling me that May, the half-Chinese, half-Indian cracker who, with Bangkok Tina, used to entertain me years ago, is now working in the fair town of Kalgoorlie. She said Bangkok Tina died of a heroin overdose in Amsterdam.

Polish Suzie plans to live the life of Riley with her Norwegian boyfriend, ten years her junior, in some place called Marbella, Spain. Well, good luck to her.

My adopted little sister, Nicole, the mad little stripper who used to work as a cage dancer at Bojangles Nightclub, until I found out she was only 14 and I put my foot up her backside and sent her home, wrote to tell me she is getting married.

She’s a good kid. She used to be as mad as a rabbit but is a fully fledged yuppie now, so that is nice news to hear. I was playing Russian roulette at a party at Nick the Greek’s place one night and I was using a .44 magnum revolver. Scottish Steve had his .38 calibre automatic hand gun on the table and little Nicole said, ‘Can I play too,’ and picked up Scottish Steve’s automatic, put it to her head and pulled the trigger.

As you would understand, an automatic is not like a revolver. If it has a bullet in the clip then it will fire if you pull the trigger. But Nicole was lucky. Nothing happened because it wasn’t cocked, but it’s only dumb luck that she is alive today. She nearly got the ultimate head job. She looked 18 years old with a top body and was a wild little miss, and I must say it was a big shock and a wee bit embarrassing to find out that our pet stripper was a 14-year-old runaway.