Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  And I could see where Steve’s encouragement would land Chris, who was in some ways very much like him – not in the cruel ways – and always wanted his father to like him, wanted his approval. And Steve played up to that, pushing the kids to do stupid things, taking them out on trips to steal and things like that.

  I blame Steve a lot.

  He rejected Barry because Barry wasn’t like him; Barry didn’t find all this adventurous. Barry is more conscientious where Chris wasn’t, and anything went with Chris in those days. But Barry was conscientious and Chris was Steve’s favourite son. He would always say to Barry, ‘Ah, Barry, Barry, Barry, you’re skinny,’ because Barry didn’t have the broad shoulders – he took more after me in build. Somehow he failed Steve because he wasn’t made all broad shouldered. In those days he was just a normal child and Steve had no idea of genetics or anything like that, how some children take after different parents or relatives.

  Steve liked Chris more because Chris was built like him: solid, broad shoulders and more daring, so he favoured Chris. Barry felt that too in his growing up years: Chris got all the presents and Barry got all the promises.

  I tried to explain to Steve but we were on two different planets – I just couldn’t get through to him. He just didn’t grasp it – that this was wrong. That’s where we clashed; he always used to say to me, ‘You’re too smart.’ Too smart – more or less that I am trying to be smarter than him. I was just trying to explain, ‘Don’t do these things,’ but I just got abused for it.

  Years later, around the time Chris was in St Vincent’s from the stabbing, when Steve was so sick from heart failure that he could only take a few steps before turning blue, he’d tell me that he still loved me and he wanted me to come back. When I dropped him home he tried to lure me in to go into the bedroom, wheezing as he said that it would be fun.

  ‘Get out of the car,’ I said, and drove off.

  He was dying. I ended up doing his washing because his mother was also very sick.

  In the end he could barely walk but he was still hitting on me.

  12. JUST TOO MUCH

  1982:

  TURANA

  Annette Binse on why she went to court to have Chris declared uncontrollable.

  ANNETTE:

  I was continuously raided. Chris was getting into trouble virtually on a weekly basis.

  I also had my mother to look after, and my [much younger] sister, and I’d just lost my home after my [second] marriage had broken up.

  I was under so much stress and I was constantly at police stations, sitting up there sometimes for six hours at a time. It was such a regular thing. And then I’d sit for hours in court.

  Chris would be quiet in court, just listening. His parole officer was a friend, Jack Wilson, who was a taxation agent. He’d take time off work to be at court and we’d get out and Chris would laugh – ha ha ha ha – and say, ‘We got the coppers,’ because he knew Jack wouldn’t be very strict.

  And it would happen again and again. Chris just wouldn’t stop getting into trouble. It was too much.

  And as well as the police there were just endless stupid things, like when he changed schools to Williamstown Tech, I went and bought him a whole new school uniform – jumpers and trousers and everything.

  At his new school the kids can see he’s a bit of a daredevil and they dared him to flash the teacher. So when she has her back to the class he exposes himself.

  She can hear them laughing, Chris gets expelled and I give those clothes away. And we didn’t have any money.

  I just couldn’t cope with him, along with everything else going on, so we went to court and I asked the judge to make him a ward of the state.

  I just couldn’t handle him.

  But the raids kept happening mainly because he was on the run or because of the escapes. He escaped from Turana so they put him into Poplar House, the maximum-security section.

  He escaped from there twice. When they did maintenance work there some guy left a plank against the wall and Chris scaled it. Simple as that. Took off.

  The Royal Park mental hospital where my mother used to be was very close by, so he ran into the grounds, pinched some supervisor’s bike, and pedalled all the way from Royal Park to Seddon.

  That day I went to one of his female friends, to pick up his clothing because he sometimes stayed there. Chris comes running in, all breathless from pedalling the bike, and here’s me in her kitchen.

  I’m standing there absolutely dumbfounded, in shock, and I realised he’d escaped again. Here’s me thinking he’s in Turana and here he is out of Turana.

  Just unbelievable.

  So that was my life. I didn’t know what to expect from one day to the next.

  *

  Chris was in court with me when I asked the judge to make him a ward.

  He didn’t say much of anything. I don’t really know what was going through his mind.

  But it was just too much. I was in court practically every month, police stations practically every week, and with my mother the way she was it was just too much.

  REVOLVING DOOR MOTHERS

  I met a lot of mothers in the same situation at Turana. When you come in regularly you get to know each other especially when it’s years and years and years of coming backwards and forwards.

  I found out recently that one woman’s son is dead of a heroin overdose. Her son was the same as Chris, through the revolving door all the time.

  The other mothers were like me – frustrated with their kids. We just didn’t know what to do because they were always in trouble, in and out of jail all the time. They came visiting their sons and supporting them but couldn’t do anything with them.

  The personalities are too set. And there’s a genetic factor, too, if you have a look at the father’s background. I couldn’t change Chris – I tried, but mission impossible. He just didn’t listen. Just would not listen.

  Barry is a different kettle of fish, a different character altogether, different personality. He wasn’t the person that craved attention and notoriety. Barry was more a loner type, whereas Chris was flamboyant, liked to dress up flashy. Barry was just Barry and never one that craved attention and being a big shot.

  13. FREEWAY HORSE THIEF

  1983:

  OUT OF TOWN

  BARRY:

  Dad was a subcontractor cladding houses with imitation brick and he took us sometimes to help him work, and stuff.

  When Chris was about fifteen, we were out in the country doing a job. I think it was near the town of Stawell, which is a couple of hundred kilometres from Melbourne.

  Chris and Dad had a falling out because he thought Dad short-changed him, so Chris got dirty on him and took off to a train station to get back to Melbourne.

  But he didn’t realise country trains don’t come very often. One a day maybe. Two perhaps. Nothing was happening. So he stole a horse and rode for Melbourne.

  It was too far, of course, so after a couple of hours he dumped it.

  CHRIS:

  I do remember that. Ha ha ha ha ha.

  I took it from a big paddock where the local horse-riding school put their horses. I just jumped on a horse with no bridle or nothing, just fucking bareback like Tarzan or something, like an Injun. And just rode off.

  14. GOLF COURSE

  1984:

  SPOTSWOOD

  Annette’s mother, Sophia, lived a short walk from Spotswood golf course. Annette and the boys had stayed with Sophia when they were down on their luck, so Chris knew the area well and as a boy had turned his entrepreneurial ways to making some cash at the course.

  CHRIS:

  We used to sometimes collect golf balls along the creek there. Some dollars for me as a kid, you know – that’s how I used to get the pocket money.

  The creek would be so deep sometimes. And you’d see the balls buried in the mud. The golfers couldn’t be fucked chasing them, so we’d do all right at times, you know.

  Then I come up wit
h a better idea: I thought – get a snorkel. So I had a snorkel and I had a face mask and I went under the water and I was cleaning them up, too. Not bad money for a kid but bloody cold and dirty work.

  Then I realised, hold on, wait a minute, there’s more balls in the golf buggy bags than there are in the creek, and after putting, they all park their golf buggies unattended, just off the car park, and go to the lounge.

  So the money picked up and the conditions improved.

  *

  Later, when Chris was about sixteen and on release from Turana, he returned to his old haunt. The golf course. On a motorcycle. During play.

  CHRIS:

  I was doing doughnuts and shit, fucking burning up the grass, just being a hoon, you know, doing burnouts, putting tyre marks in the grass. The golfers were chasing me and teeing off at me.

  I knew that creek off by heart and the way it jutted out. I was looking over my shoulder and giving them the thumbs up and the bird, fuck you, and this and that, but by the time I looked in front of me the pace I was going was too quick and I couldn’t manoeuvre around it.

  Because I was riding along the creek bed, I thought, ‘Fuck! If I put the brakes on I’ll just slide.’ So instead I geared down and gunned it. I thought if I get enough speed maybe I’ll make it.

  I didn’t make it.

  I needed a ramp.

  I was unconscious.

  Having a broken neck was just awkward. I didn’t like being fucking held down and restricted to the bed. It was pissing me off. I’m very full of beans, you know. I didn’t like just sitting in bed all day and when I had me visitors I’d get them to fucking tie me into a wheelchair. We’d try to escape, like: ‘Get me out of here!’

  I didn’t realise how serious it was. I had a broken vertebrae in my neck and three fractures in my back.

  *

  Annette was still very much part of Chris’ life, despite having had him declared uncontrollable and admitted to the boys’ home a few years earlier. She hasn’t forgotten the time he broke his neck and back, and fills in details from when he was knocked out, such as the fact that two of the first golfers chasing him to reach the scene of the crash were a priest and a doctor. Unfortunately, the priest was a nip ahead, grabbing hold of the unconscious teenager and hoisting him up, doing god knows how much more damage to his spinal injuries.

  ANNETTE:

  I had my 2-year-old, Wayne, with me on my first date with a guy called Bill. It was a warm day and we went for a drive to have a picnic.

  We were sitting on an embankment with a blanket and didn’t see Wayne climb in the car. We don’t know what he did but I was just sitting with my legs straight in front of me and the car rolled over my right leg.

  I thought my leg was broken and I kept passing out. This was my first date and I had white slacks on and, being in shock, I wet myself. The most embarrassing thing for a first date.

  Poor Bill rushed me off to Ferntree Gully Hospital when I realised my handbag was still on the embankment so he had to turn around and come back and pick up my handbag.

  My leg wasn’t broken but I had to go on crutches. The next day I was home when Chris’ friends came up to me and said that Chris had an accident but that he was fine: that he was in Footscray hospital and fine and it wasn’t too serious.

  Only to learn that he had a broken neck, and two days later they found three fractures in his back. His chest just came out like this! You’ve got no idea. The doctors said by rights he should have been dead or quadriplegic.

  With an injury like that you’re not supposed to move and here is a priest hauling him up on his legs. He just collapsed and they got an ambulance.

  The day I went to see Chris in hospital Bill ended up in hospital with appendicitis. So it was one day my leg, next day was Chris’ neck, and then Bill’s appendicitis. I didn’t know which hospital to go to.

  That was one hell of a weekend, I tell you what.

  When I got in to see Chris, he was lying flat with weight behind his neck. Traction.

  I went to see the doctor and he told me he had a broken neck and I completely spun right out. Then Chris was complaining of a sore back. It wasn’t until about three or four days later that they x-rayed it and found out he had three fractures as well.

  Crushed vertebrae. The sixth vertebrae. Any piece of that crushed vertebrae could have lodged in his spinal cord and caused instant death or paralysis. So it was pretty scary.

  Of course Chris, being the active type, couldn’t lay there quietly so his mates came to see him and he got them to undo the traction and help him get into a wheelchair.

  He was going to leave the hospital with a broken neck – he felt it inconvenienced him.

  This is the very next day, mind you. But then he froze; he couldn’t move except to push the emergency button.

  He got very severely reprimanded.

  Then along comes father, of course, visiting his son, bringing him pizzas and junk food.

  Because Chris couldn’t eat properly laying down the father undoes the traction and helps him get into a sitting position to have his pizza.

  I said to Steve, ‘You don’t do that! This is very dangerous what you’re doing.’

  ‘Shut up you bloody bitch.’

  This is what I was getting all the time. So I went straight to the doctor. The doctor came in and he really took Steve to task. Steve didn’t realise just how serious it was.

  Chris had the same attitude, of course. I remember visiting him once and he’s rolling up the hallway behind the nurses, going, ‘Yeah!!!!!!’, trying to run them down – the little horror.

  He was in hospital for six weeks, and then came out with a brace which he had to wear for three months.

  I didn’t know but he was taking it off, hiding it, and going on another motorbike while still recuperating from his broken neck.

  So he didn’t learn anything.

  And meanwhile, there was me, barely able to walk, on crutches, painful.

  15. TEARDROP EXPLODES

  1986:

  MOURNING BABA

  The death of Chris’ grandmother.

  ANNETTE:

  I found my mother dead in her bedroom. On the floor. And I went into shock.

  She died of a heart attack. She had heart trouble and she had minor heart attacks but this was a massive one and she died.

  Chris and Mum got on well. He’d do little jobs for her: help her with shopping or other things. It never bothered him how she acted with the schizophrenia, because I explained it to the kids, unlike my father who never said a word to us about it. And because even if Chris is sick, even if he is twisted, even if he is deluded, inside him there is a loving heart.

  So he’d ride his bike up to the shops for her and do her banking or pick up something she needed. And she’d tell me, ‘Chris is a good boy.’

  She didn’t want to hear about the trouble he got up to. You couldn’t say anything like that about my kids. My mother was all love: ‘Oh, Chris is a good boy,’ she’d say. ‘I love him.’

  And that was her answer to any ranting and raving I did. I’d say, ‘Oh he did this, he did that.’

  And it was always, ‘Oh Chris is a good boy. I love him.’ Which meant, ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear it.’

  We lived with my mother on and off after I left Hans and our house was seized by the bank. We had no place to go so we moved back into Mum’s house.

  She had a two-bedroom house where she lived with my little sister and I came with three kids so we were really cramped. It was awkward. Mum, Chris and I shared a double bed, Barry was on a couch, my sister in a single bed and Wayne in a cot.

  I did all the cooking, Mum didn’t cook because she was too ill. And I had to always watch my mother around the kids.

  Because when I was a teenager I lived with Mum because of her needs. I wasn’t married then. I had lots of friends and they all came to Mum’s place.

  And one time there were about five of them over, male and female, and my dear moth
er’s walking out naked in front of them.

  She had a picture of the Last Supper on the lounge room wall and she’s kneeling down and praying to it.

  I was highly embarrassed. I took her firmly by the hand and led her back into the bedroom and then she did it time and time again and I ended up sitting near the glass door from the lounge room to the hallway watching for any movement.

  The war caused all this. It was brought on by the trauma of the war. She wasn’t born that way.

  So when she died Chris had a little teardrop tattooed. I said, ‘My god what have you done to your face?’

  He said, ‘Mum, I couldn’t cry so that’s the tear I never shed for Baba. It’s there now permanently.’

  CHRIS:

  My grandmother: I was crushed.

  When I was a kid I used to ride great distances on a BMX to visit her, to do deliveries. My mum would cook up food and stuff for her and I’d be the delivery boy on a pushbike and do her errands.

  When she died I hadn’t realised how close she was to me. I couldn’t even cry at the grave, at her funeral, so I had a tattoo done when I came to jail – one of my first jail tattoos: a teardrop under my left eye.

  I went to jail again because after her death I escaped from Poplar House again and went on a month-long, drug-fuelled crime spree until being arrested and sent to Pentridge. That was when I was seventeen.

  Then, when I got released I was at a pedestrian crossing at Footscray Mall and I’m waiting to walk across the road. I see an older lady out doing her shopping and she’s looked at me and double-looked at me again, looked at the tattoo on my face and then brought her bag to her chest and clutched it with both hands. I thought, ‘What the fuck?’