Remember Ronald Ryan (13 page)

His eyes that were vaudeville ones somehow and made us girls giggle all the time

Except for when I stared into the school locker and listened to the transistor radio in it

With my dad in it somehow or other like witchcraft in the evil airwaves

Now I can see someone coming for me

It is my friend Officer Ken Lennard

I heard his mother died the other day and I told him how saddened I was about that

And Ken said I think you have enough to worry about for one day Ronald Old Bean!

He is looking kind at me now at ten to eight on the knocker

And ties up my continuously untied black gymnasium runner shoelace

Which is precisely like its owner

A hopeless case and will not come to heel no matter what anyone in authority does

He ties it up in preparation for my hanging at eight on the dot

I should have RSVPed

I don't know what's wrong with my decorum

Ken is frigging around with a little gas primus stove and frying me slices of fried apple from his garden where he rents in Fawkner

And two slices of black pudding

Can you possibly believe it!

And two fresh-cracked eggs definitely not prison issue

Because unlike prison they ate golden yolk like the un-yoked sun in Sydney Road

He squats next to me because he wants to be near someone he likes and trusts

He says like a child, ‘Enjoy your last breakfast dear Ronald. God knows you'll need something in you to go through what's coming to you in a minute on them gallows!'

I said he should hop into it

I said you need it more than me dear boy of jail

Let's face it I'm for the lime pit.

He ate the black pudding and cried for me as he did so

Then the other big officers lifted me up, they were very rough with me dare I say they hated me

They hated that which they didn't know

They hated me like the Romans hated Christ my redeemer

Who stuffed up the Romans by forgiving them

I'm not that good nor that altruistic or nice

They were just so rough with me and tore off all my prison clothing which is rags not fit for rats

They weighed me buck naked and shoved rough linen on my face it was a shirt to die for

They put on me two thick pair of special-issue underpants to collect my blood in

Because you lose your blood when they hang you

Then when all that calamity was over I asked them if it was alright to put oil in my hair

And they refused me thrice since I asked them thrice

I wanted to look good when I went through the trap

But they wouldn't allow the hair oil which we at prison call the Herald

Call it a play on words

The Hair Oiled

It's not funny but you make up silly little epithets out here to stay sane

Now they are weighing me again and entering all the details in a book, a register of hangings

Now I am ready and Father John Brosnan is speaking to thin air like Everyman

He is going to convert me back to a Catholic

Which is what Governor Ian Grindlay is

I asked for it and Ian said, ‘It's like re-registering a car, Ronald, think of all the unnecessary paperwork you're putting me to!'

I nearly laughed at that joke and I know it was a bit rude of me not to do so

I suppose I'm preoccupied

I suppose I'm a mortal ghost in D Division

I suppose everyone in the State hates me

Except those in the street singing for me the holy songs of hope and more hope

I know you were frightened when they shot you dear Georgie Porgie!

The guards shot you and two of the poor frightened things committed suicide because they did it

I want to pace and I want to sit

Sit or pace which is it?

See you again my mother in Balranald where the river made sense

And the magpies knew my name and my friend's nicknames by the un-minding river there at night

Where I was taught how to cut rivergums down and cut them into railway sleepers

And at night I rewarded my fellow toilers by cheating them at poker by the camp fire

I'm bad

And they deserve to murder a sinner like me for being bad

And cheating drunkards in pubs of their hard-thieved income

Father John likes me because I make him laugh and usually it's only whiskey that does that

He walked my old mum all the way up Bourke Street to visit Henry Bolte our Premier

In an effort to spare the rope and me

But they cancelled them both and they had to accept that as their due

I never met a Liberal Premier I didn't like

Now it is now as opposed to modern history and modern punishment

And I am strangely like a child as Patrick Tennison writes for the
Herald

I keep seeing our escape vehicle that Walker intellectually hot-wired

We didn't know each other but somehow got over the big wall together

Trying to hopelessly flag down a lift in Sydney Road together

Joined at the point of horror together like twin monsters

And A Greek guy driving a Mr Whippy van trying hard to run us over

And shots ringing out and then George pointing his waddy at me

‘Give it away Ryan you haven't got a chance in hell!'

Well Georgie now I'm there alright

I'm sorry George can you ever really forgive me?

I never even shot you

I always liked you and wanted to have a beer with you in the next life if there is one

Now the press are shown through and RSVP like gentlemen do in times like these

And the television journalists from Channel Nine are dead drunk I can see that right away

Kevin Sanders is tanked but trying to do shorthand of it but fumbles his notebook and biro

The ABC are there so their descriptions ought to be elegant even eulogies or epitaphs

Standing there the twelve honest men

My disciples

My redeemers

But Christ is with them although standing a trifle apart for judgement reasons

I have always loved Christ

And I know in my cups He has always loved me even on the gallows

Especially on them because He was always on them in the old days

I bought a limousine off Kevin Dennis after we escaped Coburg

A brand new limo in which to hit Sydney Town!

Me and Peter hit Sydney big-time

I stole an MG sports car the minute we lobbed

As a sign of allegiance

And we had ourselves photographed as bank robbers—Bonnie and Clyde!

With a few local molls to give it panache

Back in Melbourne the Government put out a big bounty of me

The edict was shoot to kill

Not that I cared about anything at that stage of the game

The public thought I was the worst murderer who ever lived

Which was the Police's intention

I lie here in the Condemned Cell and review all that's gone before

I lie here and am still capable of peace

I lie here and beg Jesus Christ to pardon me because the cops won't

I lie here and remember the taste of thieved fruit as a boy in the bush

I lie here and wish I'd never pinched a sultana grape let alone cash

I lie here on the skinny bunk and wish you were here with me my mother

I lie here and Christ Almighty allows that to happen to me

I lie here and the restlessness is done

I lie here and my mother is singing to me in the remarkable countryside of Balranald

I lie here and she is cooking something delicious like scones from damper

I lie here and it never happened

I never killed anyone and we're all in the old shack like nothing bad ever happened

And the singing birds forgive me and George forgives me and my mother forgives me

But the night itself never forgives me

Last night never did and I dreamt George was alive and there was no trouble

He and I laughed together and he bragged about how the officers were going to make grog

So each of them had a big keg of it and they all got wasted together looking after us

Which was why I went over the wall on the nineteenth of December the way I done

And ran into that Salvo Hewitt whom I was supposed to assault with the rifle

I never did and he just got hurt somehow like I tripped and hit him accidentally

But the
Herald
played it up big as if I were heartless and a violent criminal

I lie here and know that I'm not violent like the Cabinet of the Liberal Party are

Who demand my death by hanging as they break bread with their children and their own priest

I sat up all last night my last one

I listened to the Christians and trade unionists down there in Champ Street

Singing their splendid verses and sacrosanct tunes of hope

Singing so all who hear can hope for my life still beating in this cell like this

I cut myself deliberate so I see my wrists bleed but only to see the red of it happen

Not for suicide but to check out the man-alive pulse of a man

I am the pulse and I am the last life

And still they sang and murmured hope for me whom they don't even know at all

I am a symbol of something inviolate and unviolated therefore

I am an enlightenment

I am the Holy Ghost of D Division itself of itself and for itself which is Love of God

I lie here and am terrified

I can hear the coffin organisers screw the lid on made of despair and oiled with havoc

Oiled with vengeance to win the next State election by a landslide at least

I'm just a man who has three daughters and I miss them more than the noose can say

I have three sisters I miss more than the fear of never seeing them which is Love of God

My father shot through on me so I despise him for his cowardice and slovenliness

He couldn't be bothered and you must be

He got wasted in a filthy fruit picker's shack and hated his body

He thought it was funny to live and it isn't

My beating pulse I can hear it no matter the spirited and strenuous singing of the unions

The unions that don't want the death penalty back

I'm just a symbol of what the unions don't want

None of those singing so angelic would like me if they bumped into me in a dark lane

My God I laughed

I laughed at what I said

I'm still amusing a minute to go

My mother she came in a different time ago

She sat on the kapok bunk and said something that really hurt me

She said, ‘Just think my darling you'll be no more bother for Mr Grindlay the Governor!

Thanks a lot Mum!

It felt good looking in her eyes of wisdom and bright cobalt blue

With no sandy blight in

She was so utterly relaxed it was as though we were two old jailbirds!

Pecking at the seeds of all the days left on Earth

Dear is the Earth

Dear is the face of my mother who invented the original of love and not the copy

I am the copy of original sin

I sinned by shooting someone at least they made me believe I did!

They got me in a room and beat me up for nothing believing I did it George!

They hit me all the day with an open phone book

And then had me photographed looking slightly resentful

Every wanted poster had that hate look in it

Because they got the look they wanted

I need to hold one of my young daughters immediately

I need to hold my father's head and kick it into the Murray

I need my mother with me when they put me on stage in a minute

I can look into her unjudging eyes

She knows how innocent I am

She knows the wind off Bass Strait

She knows Jesus personally on a first name basis

Christ she knows Him well!

I can hear them coming for me now on the bluestone warped-by-time steps

The Governor has been crying for me as well as praying for me

His wife Audrey has been crying and praying because we know each other well

And have joked over dinner and laughed and wept together in the shared past of Communion

The Condemned Cell door it opens and smiles like a dreadful grin

The Roman Catholic priest says goodbye Ron

He sits patiently under the gallows with the holy gel to put in my nostrils and what have you

To stop my soul from entering hell

The heat is so hot I feel like fainting let along hanging like some exhibit for people to gawk at

The heat is hotter than when we broke out Peter Walker!

That incredible heatwave when we got out of here—remember it do you?

With all that junk we tied together like dressing-gown cords and bits of wire

And scrambled out like two very natty rats with our hair oiled in a glossy way!

Now we are on the stage together like ordinary actors

Except it's real

That's the difference Peter it's real alright me old!

Now I can see the press and the photographers gawking at me

I can smell the pong of wine on them all!

They wrongly think it's going to be
Our Boys Own Annual!

It's dreary and it's macabre and it's me

The Hanging Man tugs me so roughly, so roughly I lose my poise

That's all you have—poise!

He tugs me so toughly and insensitively I lose all propriety

I say, ‘For God's sake make it quick!' and he shoves the hood on my head in a second

I've seen him before you know—he comes from WA.

Now he works for the Department of Treasury, I'm not joking!

I didn't shoot you George you know that

I didn't do the things the press made out—none of them!

I remember everything

Everything that ever occurred

The births of my three daughters in the bush

Me and my wife on either end of a bush saw together cutting up weatherboard planks