Working Class Boy (22 page)

* * *

Linda always had wild people around as well. Sometimes they were dangerous and other times they were just crazy.

She had a friend who was a little older than her. This girl was cute with a bob haircut and big teeth. She was maybe twenty years old. She would stay at our house and when everyone had gone to bed she would come into my room and go down on me, right there in the house. Or she'd wake me up in the middle of the night.

‘Hey, Jim, psst Jim! Wake up and come with me. I've got a little present for you,' she'd laugh.

Then she'd take me out to the backyard and fuck me. This became more and more frequent, even getting to the point where it was affecting my schoolwork. I didn't mind but I was getting very little sleep and couldn't think about anything else at all.

She spent more time with us every week and she seemed to find more time where we could get away. At the time I thought that this was great, being a young lad. But it was wearing me down. The more she stayed with us, the more I wanted to fuck her. I was becoming just like her.

She hung around for a long time and she started to get angry with me when my interest in her dwindled. I wanted to chase after the girls at the centre with my mates. Things turned nasty towards the end and I had to keep away from the house as much as I could.

Around that time, Mum opened the door to the Mormons, who door-knocked in short-sleeved white shirts, riding pushbikes. No sooner were they in the door than Mum wanted us all to get baptised and join the faithful. She was an easy touch for anybody with a story and the Mormons were very good talkers. At least
these guys never meant us too much harm. In fact, sometimes I think Mum was trying to make up for all the shit we had been through by saving our souls. Lord knows they needed saving by this time.

It seemed that every day the house was full of these Mormon guys and the coffee table was overflowing with pamphlets that none of us wanted to read. We had no need for the coffee table anymore anyway, as Mormons didn't drink coffee or tea, much to the dismay of Reg. Tea was his only vice and Mum had seen to it that that particular avenue of pleasure was cut off.

‘Reg, if we're going tae be proper Mormons then aw the coffee and tea must be oot the hoose. I don't need it and neither do you.'

‘All right, love, whatever you say.' Once again, Reg went along with anything Mum wanted. But he was becoming more and more miserable. He already felt close to his God without a bunch of American lost souls trying to ram their faith down his throat. I think he secretly wanted to kill those Mormons. How dare they take away his tea?

The family were invited to barbecues at the homes of other Mormons. And we were expected to hang around and play with the little Mormons. But by this point we didn't want to play with anyone or anybody. We were delinquents. But Dot and Linda, like my mum, were easy touches and so Mum, Reg, Dot, Linda, Alan and Lisa all agreed to get baptised into the Mormon faith. Well, Mum did and the others didn't have a choice. John and I just told them to leave us alone. I don't think those were the exact words we used but they certainly got the message quickly.

The ceremony involved all of them being laid back into a swimming pool until they were submerged completely. Apparently this was the way to let the Holy Spirit in. He would only come in if you were saturated. Lisa told me later that her long, thick hair wouldn't go under the water and they had to keep
trying to get her completely submerged, dunking her head under the water quite a few times. She was worried she was going to drown, but apparently God won't talk to you if your hair doesn't go under the water. He's very fussy. He hates dry hair.

They were all successfully baptised but after about a week of Mormon life my mum got bored and made all the family quit the faith. We were heathens again and happy about it. Of course the rest of us, including Reg, had seen this coming right from the start. The Mormons stopped trying to save our souls and Mum started swearing at us again. Things got back to normal very quickly, and Mum never mentioned the Mormons again unless it was, ‘Those fuckin' Mormons.'

Reg got to have his tea in peace. ‘Put the kettle on, love.'

We did whatever we were doing before Mum saw God.

Linda found new and more interesting people to hang around and it wasn't long until she invited me into the fold.

One guy Linda took a shine to looked like another conman to me. I was fifteen by then and I'd seen enough conmen to pick one when I saw one. There was definitely something wrong with this guy but Linda liked him and they ran away to Melbourne.

After fighting with Mum one too many times, I decided to go and join her. So I hitchhiked to Melbourne. Linda was living in an apartment in St Kilda by this point. I turned up on her doorstep late one night and said, ‘I'm here, where's my room?'

No one looked up. They were all drunk. So I made myself at home. I could see piles of things stacked around the room. There were televisions and stereos with the leads all wound up neatly lying on the floor. Between what I was seeing and what was being said in the flat I soon worked out what the guy was up to. He was a thief. He had been making all his money breaking into homes and robbing people.

Now I never wanted anything from anybody but I was wild and wanted to do anything that was illegal by this point. I could climb anything and had no fear at all. So he recruited me as a cat burglar. I didn't steal anything, all I would do was shimmy up poles two or three storeys high and break into apartments. Then I would open the door and walk away. He didn't mind that I wasn't interested in taking things, he just wanted me to help him get into places.

I could see in my heart that this was wrong. But I did it. I still feel guilty about that time in my life. Just what I needed – one more thing to regret. But back then I tried not to think. I could have died, climbing up five storeys on the outside of an apartment building in the rain. But I didn't care about dying either.

I didn't die, and every day I would wake up, and there I'd be, ashamed, afraid and guilt-ridden, waiting for the world to catch on to me. I'd tell myself, ‘I'm not doing this ever again.'

But the next day, off I would go. The world was a fucked up place and it was never going to get any better.

I only lasted in Melbourne for about two or three weeks before I wanted to go back to Adelaide. The guy had a Dodge Phoenix, a big American gas guzzler. That's the car, not him. He said he had an offer for me. I got the feeling he wanted to get rid of me.

‘I'll drive you to Adelaide, but you've got to help me steal the petrol first.'

I agreed and off we went, the guy and me. We pulled into a car park, stopped the Yank tank next to a nice-looking car and jumped out.

‘You start siphoning the petrol and I'll keep watch.'

‘Why do I have to do the work?'

‘It's my car, mate.'

I seemed to be getting the bad end of the deal here.

When I finished filling the can, and spitting the petrol out of my mouth, he came and took the can off me and left the hose in the other car's tank. Then he started filling his car with a funnel.

Suddenly we heard a noise. The guy he was stealing the petrol from was walking back to his car with his girl. We hid quietly, a little way away.

‘Shit,' Linda's friend whispered. We had left the hose hanging out of the other guy's car and the funnel in ours.

‘What the fuck is going on here?' The guy scowled and turned to his girl.

It didn't take long before he worked it out. He looked around but couldn't see us. So he started siphoning the petrol out of our car to put back into his. As he was in the middle of it, the police drove into the car park.

Like a bullet, Linda's mate shot up and called out, ‘Help, these bastards are stealing my petrol.' He was screaming hysterically, at the top of his voice.

Now, if you had just got there, that's exactly what it looked like. The police grabbed the poor guy who had done nothing and let us go. Linda's friend was a very good talker. He gave a false address and we left. The car must have been stolen too so they could never trace it back to us.

With a nearly full tank of gas we headed back to the flat to get Linda before driving to Adelaide. I had the feeling she didn't want to be there anymore either.

By the time we got to Adelaide the shine had well and truly worn off this guy. Linda didn't like him anymore. He was dull; the only thing he had going was that he was a smooth talker and we had heard everything he had to say. So Linda gave him the flick, much to his disappointment.

He pleaded with her to let him stay. ‘Come on, Linda, come back to Melbourne with me. This town's a hole.'

Linda was a needy girl but she'd had enough. She didn't need him anymore. The last thing we saw of him, he was driving at high speed down a little laneway in Elizabeth, screaming ‘Fuck you,' at the top of his voice.

Linda had something similar to say to him, but I don't think he heard it. She moved back in with Mum and so did I. All was forgiven. Mum was just happy to have us all home again and not locked up in jail.

I went back to school and tried to study but all I really wanted to do was chase girls. The biggest problem was, I kept catching them. Girls liked me. I was different from the other guys we hung round with. I was softer and not as violent. I liked to hang with them and not the guys. I was running around and had different girls for every day of the week.

I started taking time off school and going to different girls' houses during the day while their parents were working. We would drink and have sex all day and I loved it. One day the parents of one of the girls came home early and I had to hide under their bed until I could escape. They were in the room, telling off the girl for skipping school. She must have looked very dishevelled but they never worked out I was in their room, under their bed. Her dad would have killed me. He went out about twenty minutes later and I lived another day.

O
ne day I came home and there living in our house was a guy named Davey. He had a huge scar across his face where someone had sliced him with an open razor. It made him look very scary.

Later I heard he had killed someone in Glasgow and he had to get on a ship before the cops could arrest him. The boat brought him to Australia and Davey jumped ship because his brother had moved here a few years earlier. He was in Australia without a passport or any papers. He could not go back to Scotland without going to jail for life. Apparently he couldn't live with his brother because his brother's wife didn't want him near the kids – and so he ended up living in a room with me.

To this day I don't know why he ended up at our house. It troubled Reg as he didn't really want strangers living with us but he had no choice. He was always too nice to stand up for his rights; my mum walked all over him. It made me sad to see him treated with so little respect. But he did warm to Davey. He might have been a murderer but he was a good bloke. He came from a place where the straight blade ruled and he had to use one
to survive. It was the same place that I had come from, so God knows if I had stayed there I might have been like him. He still carried an open razor with him everywhere he went, except of course when my mum would search him. I used to see her frisk him before he went out on a Saturday night.

‘Right Davey, before you go anywhere, let me gie you a wee pat doon. I might search you too. Ha ha ha.'

He would always have a razor or a diving knife strapped to his leg.

‘Come on son, give that to me. There's naebody trying to kill ye here,' she'd say as she was checking him head to toe.

‘Are ye sure o' that, Dot? I think that I heard a couple of lassies saying they wanted ma body.'

‘Come on,' she'd say again.

‘Aye aw right, I'll gie ye the knife 'cause you're so good lookin'. But naebody else is gettin' it from me.'

He was always respectful of Mum. She took the knife from him but I got the feeling he carried another one somewhere. Just for security. He never liked to be unarmed. He was terrified all the time, like me. This made me think about how frightening parts of Glasgow must have been.

He loved the family though; he was like a big brother. Davey eventually got a job and met a girl and wanted to move in with her. Life was starting to look good for the first time for old Davey.

‘Well, Mr and Mrs B, I know you all loved having me here and you're gonnae be heartbroken when I leave. But I've got tae go and spread the love. Ye cannae keep a good man like me all tae yersels.'

He had even reconciled with his brother and his wife. They were all out at the shopping centre one day, buying some tools to hang pictures for his new house, when out of the blue a policeman came up to him in the coffee shop. The policeman didn't want him. He was only going to ask a simple question but
Davey panicked, thinking that his past had caught up with him. He wasn't going to be arrested and sent back home. He started swinging. Things quickly escalated and before he could stop himself he had hit the policeman over the head with the hammer he had just bought. It was over in seconds.

‘My fuckin' god. What've I done?'

He ended up in jail for life and maybe was sent back to Scotland to serve out his sentence. This was the one thing he had been running from for years. But life always catches up with you eventually. I think I would rather have been in jail in Australia than Glasgow but by then I'm sure it didn't matter. He was alone and his life was over. Poor bastard never stood a chance.

By this time all the years of fear and abuse had pushed me beyond the point of no return. I was bad and everything I was doing now was a result of my own choices. Choices that were all wrong and only getting worse. I came close to getting locked up quite a few times while I was at Elizabeth High School.

I had started drinking every weekend with my new friends. We were getting ourselves into a lot of trouble. Lots of fighting and generally getting on the wrong side of the law. We were stealing things from the shopping centre and we had no respect for anyone or anything.

Every kid at the school stole from the shopping centre – stupid stuff they didn't need. I learned to steal things that I needed: clothes and food and music. I learned how to steal records from the department store and this allowed me to hear records that I couldn't afford. But I didn't like the idea of doing this. I had been involved with people who stole before, in Melbourne, and I felt bad about it then. Shoplifting was not as bad as what was happening then but there was something about taking something that didn't belong to me or I hadn't earned that didn't sit right
with me. It still doesn't and I regret any involvement I ever had in that sort of thing. So my career as a shoplifter didn't last very long. I felt bad whenever I did it – not because I was taking someone's royalties, I wouldn't find out about that until much later – but because I knew that it was wrong. I knew right from wrong and this was something I had to deal with while I was going out of control. I tried to be like all the other guys and it made me feel even worse about myself. I already felt worthless so this just made things more unbearable. I was a loser, and I was behaving like one, more and more. I couldn't live with myself so I would just numb myself as much as I could, whenever I could.

One night while I was sitting in the coffee shop at the shopping centre waiting for the rest of the gang, I saw a group of guys beating up this young guy I knew. I ran to help him. I immediately hit the ringleader of the group as hard as I could, knocking him to the ground. His friends scattered like rats. I then proceeded to give him a beating and left him whimpering in a pool of blood.

As luck would have it, the guy I hit was the son of a local magistrate and I ended up in court charged with assault. My life was unravelling.

Mum screamed and yelled at me. It all went in one ear and out the other. Reg was once again disappointed in me and as much as I shrugged this off, it did make me feel ashamed. But I would get over it.

Luckily other people had seen what had happened and the guy had a very bad reputation, even worse than mine. Although I was found guilty, I was let off with a caution. I was still a minor and no charges were put on my record, but I would have more run-ins with the law as I got older.

* * *

I was in trouble quite a lot and my folks were starting to crack down on me. Well, they were trying to crack down on me. I didn't respond well to being kept in line.

‘You're grounded, boy,' Reg would say and I would walk straight out of the door. ‘Your mother is going to give you a good belting when you get home.' This was desperation on Reg's behalf. He didn't like violence and I knew he wouldn't even tell her.

‘Yeah, Dad, I love you too,' I would say as the door slammed behind me. At times like this I felt funny calling Reg ‘Dad'. He had been a real father to me for quite a while now and I loved him, but treating him with so little respect made me think about how little my family really cared for one another. We always said we loved each other and that we would never do the wrong thing by one another. Then we just did whatever we liked. This wasn't the way you spoke to someone you loved. I would never have spoken to my real dad that way – not because of respect or love but because of fear, being afraid he would knock me out. Mum tried to threaten us like that but it never worked. Reg would never really threaten me. Families are very confusing.

Anyway, I was fighting with them all the time, but they were used to it, as all the kids fought with them. They were fighting a losing battle as far as we could see. We were wearing them down.

At that time, in 1971, Myponga Festival was staged on the Australia Day long weekend. Black Sabbath were the big headliners and I was desperate to see them. I was a huge fan, along with most of the teenage guys in Australia at the time. My brother was going and my sisters told me they were going, so I presumed I would go along with them and their mates. Not a problem, they said, so all I had to do was run it past my mum.

‘Mum, there's a little rock show on this weekend. I'm going to go with John and Dot and Linda, okay?'

Mum was dead against it. ‘You're goin' nowhere. You're grounded. You're stayin' here wi' me.'

I had been a little wild at the time and probably needed to stay home but I wasn't going to make it easy. ‘This is the only chance I'll have to see this show. I'm going.'

The house was quiet except for the sound of Mum's fuse burning down. ‘You're goin' nowhere.'

Mum sat in the corner. Her lips had disappeared and she was waiting to strike out at me. I continued to push my luck.

The fuse had burned to the end and Mum exploded. She screamed and tried to grab me so she could give me the slapping I deserved.

I was out of the door before she could get to me. ‘I'm going and you can't stop me.'

I was gone down the street. I had already planned to meet Linda and her mates later that night. I would climb out the window.

I came home after a while, having left enough time for Mum to cool off. She was sitting in the lounge room saying nothing so I went to my bedroom. I put on John's best clothes and I had one leg out of the window when suddenly Mum was standing there, waiting for me. She must have been getting wise to me running away by that time.

‘Get intae that hoose, right now!' she shrieked.

I could see Linda's friend's car speed away into the night. I knew I'd be going nowhere. I was shattered. This was one of the bands I really liked and I wanted to see them live. But there was no way I could talk her into letting me go without a physical fight. I decided for once that it was better to be cool and do what she said rather than just fuck off and cause trouble for everyone, including Reg.

My sisters came home after the festival absolutely raving about this band. I didn't want to hear about it. ‘Yeah, I know. Black Sabbath are great.'

But it wasn't Black Sabbath they were talking about. It was an Australian band called Daddy Cool. They were raving about
this singer. ‘He danced around with a fox tail attached to his arse and a guitar player who had a propeller on his head. It was the best.'

Sounded weird but I guessed you had to be there. They said Daddy Cool was the best band they had ever seen. I was so pissed off that I had missed this chance to check out a new band. I'll never forgive my mum for making me miss that festival.

I soon found out I had some advantages over the other guys, one in particular, which had helped me earlier in school – my brother John. Like I've said, John was wild, but by this point in his life he was absolutely out of control. We all were, but he was wilder than anyone I knew.

All the older guys hung around at the Elizabeth shopping centre, fighting blokes and shagging chicks. Anybody our age who went there would be roughed up and sent packing, but John was one of the craziest and most violent members of the gang and this, I soon worked out, meant that I could do almost anything I wanted. No one wanted to touch me or hit me because they knew that John would kill them.

John was one of those guys you could never win against, even if you beat the shit out of him. He would wait. It didn't matter if he had to wait months. He would wait until you least expected it. Maybe one night, six months later, you'd be getting home late at night and there would be John behind a bush holding a lump of wood with your name on it. You had to kill him to beat him. My dad taught us that. Never give in.

I found out later that John was even more frightened than I was. This is what made him such a very dangerous person. If he was cornered, he would take on anyone. To top this off he was also drinking a lot by then and taking copious amounts of drugs, and that made him very unpredictable. No one messed with him.
Even the most vicious guys in Elizabeth thought twice before they would go up against John.

Around that time, I fell in love with an Irish girl from Elizabeth High. She was beautiful. She had black, black hair and green eyes and wore the shortest miniskirts and the highest shoes I'd ever seen. Her legs seemed to go on forever; she was breathtaking. I used to look at her shoes and work my way up. I could only dream about her. She was the same age as me but used to go out with the much older guys in the area.

But I was lucky. I was always hanging around with John's friends. I was a part of the older guys' gang. Every night around the pool hall I would hang out with them. Slowly but surely some of my younger friends joined me, so it became more normal for us to be included in the things they got up to. We would tag along to their parties and even get involved in their fights.

She was always there and I was always watching her. She would smile at me and talk to me whenever we had the chance. I knew she liked me but I was too young. I didn't have a car and I wasn't allowed into the pubs yet. So that love affair didn't last long but I felt a lot for her and I thought of her all the time. I would see her in the back of some idiot's car with his hands all over her and it would break my heart, but I never let anyone see it. She saw me looking at her a few times and I could see she was hurting too but we could never talk about it. It was over for us before it started.

As we got older and my mates got cars, we began to hang around the centre more often with the other guys, but if the word came that John had left the pub, my mates would scatter, terrified that he would see them and slap them around just to keep them in line.

He was frightening but he never hit me at all. Never in my life did John even raise his hands to me. He was always there to protect me. He made me feel safe when he was around even when he was totally out of control. For many years I wanted to be just like him.

I remember one night at the shopping centre, John was walking through the car park on his way to a mate's wedding. This car park had been the scene of many a savage beating. He was dressed up in a suit and looked very sharp, but no one dressed like that around the shops, not even John, without getting some sort of attention.