Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  On 11 February, following Mr Binse’s release from custody at the end of a 13-year term, Ms Lee Rhiannon accompanied him to the Parliament’s media room for the purposes of holding a press conference to expound and support his claims.

  Let me make it quite clear that I will not employ Mr Binse in any capacity, let alone to advise on rehabilitation.

  Before any member of this House decides to push the agenda of individuals such as Mr Binse they ought to know with whom they are dealing.

  The correctional system tries to give all offenders opportunities to address their offending behaviour, but in some instances it is dealing with very difficult material.

  I will edify the House about the sort of person Mr Binse was, to confirm the Parole Board’s wisdom in denying him parole on four occasions and ensuring that he served the whole 13-year term before he was released.

  This is a man who describes himself as ‘Badness’. He was described in a publication entitled Tough: 101 Australian Gangsters in regard to offences including armed robbery, kidnapping and using a firearm in public. He had previous convictions in Victoria for escape, attempted escape, threatening life, assault police and illegally possessing and using a pistol. After he committed an armed robbery in Melbourne he took out an advertisement in the Melbourne Herald Sun, which stated ‘Badness is back’. He bought a Queensland property with armed robbery money and named it Badlands.

  The reason he gave as to why he enjoyed committing armed robberies was: For the excitement, the rush … you’re in control, your blood starts rushing … it’s an addiction.

  In 1993 he was the leader of a plan to free up to 30 of Victoria’s most dangerous prisoners, including double murderers, drug traffickers and escape experts, from Pentridge Prison. His plans involved taking hostage prison guards and other selected inmates to be killed as a payback.

  That is just one of the reasons that while he was imprisoned in Victoria he was the only prisoner to be shackled in leg-irons and handcuffs for 23 hours a day.

  As I said, the Parole Board is to be commended for its wisdom in denying him parole, not only on the basis of that history, but also because his record in custody was frankly appalling, including assault, possession of contraband, fighting and refusing to provide urine samples.

  He claims he was denied opportunities to reform his offending behaviour. I can advise the House that he was offered, and refused to complete, a violence prevention program at Long Bay Correctional Complex—a program which, bearing in mind his prison and previous record, one would think was one of the most important programs for him to undertake.

  I advise Ms Lee Rhiannon to use her position in this House a little bit more responsibly, and not support the twisted agenda of people such as Mr Binse. I wish him well on his return into the community, but I am certainly not going to provide him with any platform to rehabilitate anyone in the prison system.

  62. ROAD TO FATHERHOOD

  AROUND MARCH 2005: GOLD COAST

  CHRIS:

  After four days going hard on the media campaign, blitzing the airwaves and papers and going to fucking Parliament House twice, I’m fucking overloaded – drained out.

  Once I have achieved what we had to do and the initial straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth public awareness mission is complete, it’s time to let it settle and let things take their course.

  So I say, ‘Listen fellas, I’ve gotta go but I’ll come back in a couple of weeks, time to allow the momentum to gain – catching up with academics, professors, this and that, community groups, victims of crime, and all this sort of stuff.’

  I’m planning to head to Melbourne to meet a juvenile justice worker from Turana. We’ve had lengthy discussions about making a pilot program together to scare the young boys straight with firsthand accounts of the perils of crime. He’d even presented his superiors at Turana with a paper on it. I would be unpaid and we’d both supervise it.

  But word comes that it’s rejected by head office. Apparently, I’m unsuitable for such programs. I’m gutted.

  What the fuck. How worthless am I?

  *

  Man, I don’t know what to do; I’m overwhelmed. I just hide behind a haze of pot, except when I pop up through it with the aid of an eggie. And then come down and keep on smoking.

  Society and me are at odds. I don’t fit in it. I don’t in jail, either. Nowhere.

  *

  Time for R&R. I haven’t even caught up with a sheila – that’s the first thing a bloke wants to do: get out there and have a fuck!

  Some mates are staying at the Gold Coast and tell me to get up there so with the campaign finished I decide to head north.

  I’m met at the airport and they take me back to all the fucking strippers, you know, especially at Hollywood, because they have friends there, they know people there – these are underworld figures, too, you know, and they have a little bit of influence.

  What happens is I haven’t seen pussy in thirteen years – except for half an hour with a prostitute in the Cross when the media blitz was winding up. Now I’m seeing that much skin and flesh of naked women, I am overloaded. I am just overloaded. Every sheila, every worker, every girl that was there, me mates make sure: ‘Here, we’ll just pay you this – take him in for half an hour.’

  I’ve got so much pussy in me face it’s like, what the fuck? By the end of it I can’t even get a fat I am so overloaded with pussy, you know. Some of them two or three times. They are going out of their way for me, you know: ‘You’re with us, you’re part of our crew. We’ll look after you, you haven’t seen pussy.’ Bang! Overloaded!

  My group of mates have a timeshare penthouse apartment. They’re heading back to Melbourne but they leave me the pad to stay in for a bit. I can just kick back and relax in the sun and catch up on life. The extended group gives me a large stack of cash donations to help me out and get me on my feet. So from the shithole of Goulburn, now I have free accommodation across from the beach, the weather is great, there’s cash in my pocket: life is good.

  I ring up a sheila friend of mine. I say, ‘Listen, you got any girlfriends?’

  She goes, ‘Yeah, Kylie. You’d like her. She’s a bit of a wild party girl and she’d be up for it – she’d love you.’

  I say, ‘Yeah, really? I’m not after a relationship.’

  She goes, ‘Nah, she’s sweet for that, you know.’

  The sheila takes my mobile number to pass on to her friend.

  Kylie calls soon afterwards; it turns out she’s living in a penthouse apartment not even 50 metres from where I’m staying. Four of ’em, they rent out a penthouse in Broadbeach for twelve months, spend three months each on the rent or whatever. It is cheaper for them than a motel and they have more privacy. And she’s working doing cleaning in a couple of the units.

  She knows I’ve just got out from jail after serving thirteen years but this doesn’t scare her off at all. It excites her.

  She’s rapt because she comes from a criminal dynasty – I’m like a trophy to her. She wants to impress: ‘Oh, you’ve got to meet my mum.’ Because her mum was a gangster moll in her day, too. Still is. Kylie’s stepdad was Laurie Prendergast, one of the Great Bookie Robbery crew from 1976. He disappeared in 1985, presumed murdered and probably put through meat processing to turn him into pig food. But anyway, Kylie’s excited by me.

  I take her out to dinner, have a bottle of wine; we return to the apartment and go to my room to smoke some joints. She wants to go to the beach for sex instead of doing it in the room, so we walk down and she’s talking about the underworld in Victoria, big-noting herself like it somehow matters in gaining my acceptance.

  But then under the stars on that beach I’m fucking her, you know? And that’s all it is. I say to her, ‘Look, I’m not after relationships or anything like that.’

  She says, ‘Yeah, I’m fine with that.’

  We spend about two weeks, you know, and she’s not much to look at – I’ll be the first to tell you – but she is warm, woman
and wet. And she’s willing. I have a joint, a glass of wine or an E or something and I just close my eyes while she’s sucking my dick. It’s nothing serious, you know?

  After two weeks I leave, go back to Victoria and catch up with friends and family and all that sort of stuff and then it’s back to Sydney and then back up to Surfers where I catch up with her again.

  And where she deliberately falls pregnant.

  She deliberately falls pregnant because she wants to be a permanent fixture in my life. That’s what she tells me, and that’s what her mum tells me.

  All the time I say to her, ‘I’m not ready for this, I don’t know where my life is at this point in time. I’ve got to get grounded first myself.’

  It puts so much pressure on me. I don’t want to be a father yet. I’m not ready for it. I’m not even in a relationship with her – what the fuck? If you’re going to have a child you’re going to have a child with someone you love, someone you’re committed to, that you want to be with, that you’re living under the same roof together – not just a party moll.

  She’s clucky; she really wants a kid and for her it’s the genes: me. To have a child born from me. She knows that I haven’t had any other kids and she wants to be the one that basically has the trophy: ‘I have his child.’ Because of the criminal fucking underworld fucking ideality that she got brought up in. I have a reputation – I’m crazy – which a lot of people respect!

  So: ‘I’ve got his child.’ And that’s how she parades herself.

  I say to her: ‘Listen, we’re not in a relationship. I’ll be the best father I can but I have my own independence. I’m a bachelor, okay? I’ll try to be the best, but I don’t come with the kid.’

  She knows – I never hide it – that I’m seeing five different sheilas at the time. I am fucking them. No word of a lie: when I say I’m catching up, I’m catching up, mate. I’m a playboy, a player, and I never hide them.

  One is a lesbian and I get her back on track, then I have the bi ones – whatever craving I have for the day I catch up with that sheila, you know. If some of them just love arse I’ll catch up with that one for the day. Or I’ll catch up with two or three on the same day. It just depends how I am going.

  There’s a following, man. If you’ve got a bit of a reputation they all thrive on it. Tattoos, bald heads, stuff like that – it excites ’em. They like that naughty thing, you know. I don’t know why but they’re drawn to that.

  But I never hide the fact, and they all know that they’re not the only ones: ‘Listen, we’re buddies. If you’re not comfortable with that – listen, I see other people and I encourage you, if you want to see other people, mate, please don’t let me hold you back. Don’t think that I’m exclusively yours or you’re exclusively mine; it’s not like that – no.’

  While Kylie’s pregnant she’s living in Queensland. She comes back down for a little bit and tries to spend more time with me but she realises I’m not interested.

  63. DEBT COLLECTOR

  2005: MELBOURNE

  CHRIS:

  Gotta make a living, right – one that doesn’t involve jumping counters.

  So, having weighed up the lessons learned in prison and what abilities I have, I become a debt collector.

  Now I’m working with people who the community might see as not quite so decent: the way this gig operates is that Person A owes a stack to Person B but Person B isn’t really in a position to do what has to be done to collect, so they sell that debt at a markdown to Person C who then hires Person D, being me, to collect as close to the full amount as possible, thereby delivering a payday to Persons C and D.

  It’s not what you’d send your kids to university for, but then again I wouldn’t be surprised if the whiz-kids at the banks operate their own version of this.

  With a child on the way and all, I’m serious about making a good fist of entrepreneurialism and I print a run of business cards.

  My trading name is MAYHEM INCORPORATED, with the company motto: ‘Let’s Get Hectic’. Cheeky, no doubt, but true to my can-do spirit.

  Yet someone’s going to be calling in the collectors on me if I keep hitting the drugs this hard. It’s not just pot and some eggies, either. I’m pressing the pedal to the metal with the cocaine. It plugs straight into where I’m at: when I shake my jowls after a good snort it’s like I’m shaking off all the shit pulling at me, all the black shadows coming in, all the pressure, all that fucking need to sort shit out in the most direct way possible. It calms me up to absurd heights, if that makes any sense.

  *

  You should see my dog, Runty. He’s the fucking best. I tell all the women in my life that.

  *

  And man do I need a line when a debt recovery comes up that requires dropping in on a bloke who is not the type to get pushed around: Amad ‘Jay’ Malkoun.

  Malkoun spends a fair amount of his time at the Spearmint Rhino strip club on King Street in Melbourne; it’s his lair. Sometimes it pays to have the element of surprise and other times it’s best if everybody knows what’s happening in advance. For this mission, it’s best there are no surprises.

  Call me old-fashioned but I like chasing that white streak down a mirror. Either that or off a ticklish sheila’s backside.

  Duly fired up again, I call the Rhino and spell out to some clown how it’s going to work.

  I tool up with my trusty .32, fire up again for the road, fire up a bit more, and fucking hit the club.

  NOVEMBER, 2005

  It doesn’t go well. No one knows what I’m talking about or will tell me where Jay is, and the fucking massive dumb prick of a bouncer tries to get hostile, tries to engage, so I produce the weapon and point it at both of ’em. ‘Wanna die, cunt?’ I ask the bouncer. ‘Wanna fucking die? I’ll fucking shoot ya.’ The receptionist is practically peeing her panties, and still no one has a fucking clue. ‘Which fuckhead here was I talking to before, hey? What the fuck! Where’s Jay?’ Placing a bullet on the counter, I say this is for Jay and storm out. Only to fucking realise that in no way did I hide my identity and it’s probably all been videoed so I go back in and fucking play it again, Sam, with the poor bastards. Once again I tell the petrified sheila behind the counter that one word to the fucking coppers and I’ll find her – I’ll fucking find her. I’ll shoot her.

  Now I’m storming out again. Jesus, what a debacle; what a fucking putrid grub I am. And I’m going to be a father. What the fuck, you know.

  What were those fucking songs we used to drive Chopper Read up the wall with a lifetime ago in the yard at Pentridge? Seal’s ‘Crazy’ and Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’.

  Well I’m both, yet again. Triple-A fucking dickhead. Snorting fucking blind rhino I am. De-fuckin’-ranged.

  Warrants are soon out for my arrest. I’m indeed hot again.

  *

  ‘Hey, Runty,’ I’m saying as I ruffle the fur of my beautiful dog, my Argentine Dogo pup. He’s riding shotgun as we cross the city.

  Such a good dog. I love my little furry solja.

  Fuck we’re cut off. Here we fucking go. Fucking SOG.

  64. THE FATHER

  JANUARY 2006: ‘ARRESTED’

  CHRIS:

  Shot straight into isolation in the Charlotte punishment unit of Port Phillip Prison. I fucking demand to be placed in mainstream but they’re not even fucking listening; they won’t explain why I’m in management, why I’m in isolation. It’s a bullshit abuse of power. It’s persecution. And Kylie’s going to have my baby. They won’t even let me have a contact visit. Can’t even hold her. Just stare through perspex. And she’s going to have my baby. My child. Where’s fucking dad, hey? And Runty’s on a destruction order. I can’t take this shit. I can’t take it. Can’t take it. Pacing the cell. What are they fucking doing? Why are they doing this? Headbutting the fucking door. Why are they doing this? What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck. Let me the fuck out. Round and round. Gonna be a daddy. Where’s daddy? He’s in a tiny room. Where
are you? Out there. In Kylie. Where am I? In a tiny room. The belly of the beast. I’m a beast and I swallow myself. I swallow hope. But the prisons, man. What is this shit? Where’s Runty? They’re going to kill him. Where’s daddy? He’s in a tiny room going fucking insane. Why doesn’t he come and feel me kicking? ’Cos he’s a total fuck up. He’s nothing. He’s total rubbish. Let me the fuck out. Get me the fuck out. I need to hold my people. I need to hold my dog. I need to protect everybody. I need to stop the destruction. I’m sorry. Fuck you. It’s about time everyone else fucking stepped up. It’s about time these fucking walls fell down. I need more room. I can’t keep pacing here. It’s too small. I’m sorry. I want to die but I’m going to be a dad. Dads don’t die. Mine did, but only after he handed the instrument of liberation to his eldest son. Blow the fucking trumpets. Knock the fucking walls down.

  *

  So I’m medicated. I’ve taken the weak way out to cope and to blur all this shit out. Last time I accepted their zombie pills was, I think, eighteen years ago in Geelong Prison. That jail’s long gone – shut down. But I’m still stumbling around.

  They tip me to Barwon. Hello Barwon – I’m even in the fucking Banksia Unit again – remember me? I remember you. I remember having you fucking whipped. I remember sawing my way out and having the ladders that could have been stilts to walk like a giant over your walls and into the fog of a winter’s night on Corio Bay. But it was Johnny’s call and call it he did.

  In April Kylie has my baby. She brings my daughter into the world.