‘When I met John again, he was no longer Jesus Christ … He told me he was the reincarnation of Sir Robert Menzies’
IF Jesus, the son of God, came down to earth in the 20th Century and walked the streets of Melbourne or Sydney, blessing people, healing the sick and turning water into wine, he would be arrested immediately and declared a crackpot.
It was in Royal Park Mental Hospital that I met the Lord. He walked up and introduced himself as Jesus Christ. It was obvious to me that this version of old JC had been turning water into metho and then partaking of the product in no uncertain manner, and it had got the better of him.
He gave his name to one and all as Jesus Christ. However, in deeper moments, he did tell me that the first time he realised that he was different was in Vietnam in 1967. It was during a gun battle and he threw his gun down and walked away, he told me. It was a noble gesture except he headed in the wrong direction, and instead of heading to safety, walked smack bang into the line of fire.
After telling me this he lifted his shirt to show me a hole in his stomach the size of a fist and a massive scar and hole in his lower back about the same size.
He told me that while he was lying on the wet Vietnamese earth, convinced he was dying, the thought that he was Jesus Christ seized him.
I will simply call this man John. Some years after I first met John in the Royal Park Mental Hospital, I met him again in G Division, Pentridge. It was the area kept in jail for the mentally unwell. I had obviously been put there by mistake, ha ha. I was actually sent there after I mislaid my ears. Obviously, those in power thought this was not the act of a well unit.
When I met John again, he was no longer Jesus Christ. However, he walked around the division with a bible in his hand and was very Christ-like in his speech. He told me he was the reincarnation of former Liberal Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. Thank goodness he was not English and decided he was Margaret Thatcher. I don’t think her beehive haircut would have gone down too well in the boob.
John told me that all the cell numbers were wrong: 22 should have been 23, 23 should have been 24, and so on. Now our jailhouse version of Bobby Menzies was a doer, not a talker, so he got a small paint brush and changed all the numbers in the division.
In one of John’s past lives when he was in the army, someone had taught him either unarmed combat or karate. For the rest of us, this was not good. A clearly deranged man who was also very handy with his hands and feet was not that comforting to have around. John was a nasty fellow when he was put out, and he would sometimes jump high in the air and throw a kick that would put Bruce Lee to shame.
He decided that a drinking fountain in the exercise yard was possessed by the Devil and no-one was to drink from it. John, or should I say, Sir Robert, stood guard each day when he was let out of his cell. For nearly two weeks Sir Robert stood guard at the water tap, threatening anyone who came near him with the wrath of God.
I was more than 18 stone at the time with 18-1/2 inch arms and a neck to match. I had got into body building and weight work in jail in a big way. I was bench pressing 330 pounds in sets of 21, 21 times a day. I was pretty strong. On one particular day I was trying to bench press 400 pounds when John walked past. He snatched the bar bell with the 400 pound weight, picked it up over his head and tossed it against the wall. He was as skinny as a rake and not a physically-well man, but with blazing eyes and a mind that truly believed he was some sort of messenger from God.
He may have been mad but his mind was his strength.
John was in his element in G Division as all the inmates and half the staff were mad. Another prisoner in G Division pulled his own eye out with his fingers. They would slash themselves with razor blades and run around the yard bleeding like taps.
I learnt amongst that madness that everything counts on the mind … the mind controls all. No swordsmanship, however just, can stand secure against a madman’s thrust.
I ran that division like the King of England, because I became an expert in dealing with the mad. They believed me to be some sort of God and I did not go out of my way to persuade them that they were wrong. Even some of the crazies who felt they were God acknowledged me as a God as well. In the end there were so many ‘Gods’ in G Division it was like a religious convention.
I used to steal all the maddies’ tobacco and other assorted goodies, then lend it back to them. The whole Division was deep in debt to me. I was the G Division Benevolent Dictator.
There was one chap there who had killed his mother and then taken her to bed. No sex, mind you, just a cuddle. That’s how police found him two days later, cuddling his mother in the cot.
He would walk past me in jail and say: ‘Chopper, it was never like this in Mt Beauty’, whatever that meant. This fellow was also a homosexual. I took a dislike to him and I let Sir Robert know that this little mother-killer was not only a messenger from Satan, but a communist homosexual and that I had heard him speak ill of Dame Pattie, Sir Robert’s beloved wife.
Naturally, while Sir Robert would have forgiven all the problems of the guy, the insults against Dame Pattie could not be left unanswered. Sir Robert got a bucket and went to the G Division kitchen, filled it with boiling water, then wandered the division until he found the Mummy’s boy and, splash, Sir Robert gave him the boiling bath.
It was a painful thing to watch. When Mummy’s boy came back from hospital he glared at me, but I told Sir Robert to keep a close eye on him. I also had a mob of mentally-ill inmates who were proud to be in Chopper’s Army. I knew I was safe. While the Mummy’s boy was no physical threat to me, he would kill you as quick as look at you. In the world of life and death how big and strong you are or how well you can fight plays no role whatsoever.
About a week after the return of Mummy’s boy, I was having a shower alone, having dismissed my whacked-out crew of bodyguards, when I saw the mad killer approaching. He had taken me by surprise. I thought the shower area had been locked off. He pulled out a butcher’s knife from under his coat and walked slowly towards me with a confused look on his face. This looked like being the remake of the shower scene from Psycho. He was angry and frightened, and that is a bad combination in an enemy.
I had no place to run. He had me cornered, so I just said to him: ‘You were never like this in Mt Beauty,’ and he stopped dead and said: ‘No, no, it was never like this in Mt Beauty’.
I then said: ‘Is that your knife?’
He said: ‘No’. I said: ‘Is that for me?’ and he said: ‘Yes’. I put my hand out and said ‘give it to me then.’ He handed it to me and I thanked him. I then said: ‘This is not my knife, this looks like your mother’s knife.’ He started to cry and I said: ‘Here, you take this and give it to your mother’. He said that he didn’t know where his mother was and I said: ‘Mt Beauty’.
He then slashed his own arm with the butcher’s knife in front of me, screamed and fell to the ground. Sir Robert Menzies rushed in to the shower area to see what was wrong and on seeing Mummy’s boy on the shower block floor, bleeding and crying, Sir Robert pointed at him and screamed: ‘You will not be forgiven’ and proceeded to kick the writhing form on the ground.
I said to Sir Robert: ‘He was never like this in Mt Beauty’. Sir Robert replied: ‘I’ll give the bastard Mt Beauty’.
By this time, the screws had arrived and I wrapped a towel around me and walked out, leaving them all to it.
There is a skill in dealing with the mentally ill, and I have always had a natural flair in this regard. But I don’t know whether that is a compliment or an insult.
I still haven’t lost the ability. I will give you an example. There was a young bloke in the remand yard here in Risdon who was running around Launceston, Devonport and later, Hobart, telling people he was my son. He just seemed to have this thing about me. I have always drawn nutters like a magnet. He came to jail for insanity rather than crime, a real lost and hopeless case.
He would walk up to me and say: ‘Chopper, can I have a smoke?’ I’d say: ‘No, piss off, go away from me.’ He would go away, sit down and cry. About 10 minutes later I would soften, call him over and give him a smoke, then I would say: ‘Now piss off, you bloody numb nut.’ He would walk away beaming like a smiling machine.
Keep a mad person confused on a tight rope between anger and kindness and you keep them fascinated. I could have given the ratbag a knife and told him to kill the Governor and he would have done it, because he feared and loved me at the same time.
The way you train a whacko is the way you train a dog, easy as pie. Although, to tell the truth, I have found there is not that much difference between the mentally ill and the so-called normal world.
People generally respond better to kindness after you have scared the shit out of them. People and puppies are a lot alike.
A puppy really appreciates a pat and a cuddle after a swift kick.
Why do some women insist on staying with men who bash the shit out of them? When the man shows kindness, they come back. Crazy isn’t it?
Of course, every walking individual is different and there are contradictions to every rule and everyone is a walking contradiction. The only rule which has stood the test of time for me is that all people are slightly mad and the more people I meet, the more I am convinced of this fact.
There is no such thing as total sanity. We are all slightly insane; it is just that some of us hide it better than others. The ones we consider are mad are really just slightly madder than the rest of the world, and that is just a judgment call.
Talk to a psychiatrist or psychologist and you will see what I mean. These two groups of people are proof positive that the mentally ill can masquerade as totally normal and get away with it.
It is all in the mind, whatever that is.