Free Chopper Unchopped by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read Page B

Division.’
    I was the head of the Overcoat Gang and we were at war with virtually the rest of the jail at the time and they didn’t want me in the mainstream of the jail.
    I told them, ‘I will be leaving H Division, tomorrow.’ They said, ‘No you won’t’ and I said I would. So I went back and got Kevin to cut my bloody ears off. You reckon I didn’t leave H Division straight away? The classo board nearly came down and carried me out themselves.
    The first time it happened it was big news, then everyone started doing it, nothing to do with me. Then all the nut cases in here thought there was something to be gained out of this. I was the president of the Van Gogh club until Garry David cut his penis off. I wrote to him ‘you can take over’. When the dicky birds start hitting the pavement I thought it was time to resign.
    Enduring a bit of pain is one thing, but that’s a bit much.
    FAST EDDY
    Fast Eddy got grabbed on a Friday night,
    He died on Sunday lunch,
    I didn’t use much violence,
    I didn’t kick or punch,
    But we had some fun before he died,
    Yes we had some fun,
    Played a game called knee cap,
    Knee cap nail gun,
    I had to keep Eddy fresh,
    He spent five days in a fridge,
    Until I could arrange his funeral,
    Under West Gate Bridge,
    Fast Eddy had a heap of gold,
    And every ounce of it I sold,
    Eddy had a heap of dash,
    But not enough to keep his cash,
    He made it all from selling dope,
    But in the end, he had no hope,
    His mother wonders where Eddy is,
    She cries and feels blue,
    But don’t cry dear, this is just a poem,
    And poems are rarely true.
    Ha Ha.

Chapter 8
Life on the inside
    ‘It appears that the murder, rape and abduction of children has become the Australian national past-time … the hangman, and only the hangman, can end this foul practice’.
    YOU will notice that I have not written about the horrors of prison life, or the conditions, hardships, treatment and so forth, because men reading this book who have been to jail will be bored to tears and people who haven’t been to jail can bloody well come in here and find out for themselves.
    I may have had a niggle here and there along the way but I haven’t gone into vivid detail. Most of the time it is a very boring place. Some prisoners like to waffle on about the dark and lonely solitude of their damp and lonely cell and how they never forgot the sound of the cell door slamming for the first time. What a load of crap. One cell is the same as any other. When you have heard one cell door slam you have heard them all. Jail life can be summed up in two words: petty and boring.
    The day-to-day regulations are petty and drawn up by head office nit wits. After the years that I have done inside I would write 1000 pages on jail life. But men who have done it, lived it, bled it, cried and nearly died in it, couldn’t be bothered.
    I’ll leave that all to one-month wonders, who can write a gripping thriller based on their blood-chilling adventures in Her Majesty’s Motel. Who mentioned Derryn Hinch? Most of the men who have written about prisons would be frightened by a day trip to the Old Melbourne Jail and most of the people who write about crime and punishment wouldn’t recognise a criminal if they got shot in the arse by Ned Kelly.
    Some of these so-called experts make me laugh. They are a veritable font of knowledge. They wouldn’t know what they are talking about. They wouldn’t know a crook if they woke up to find Marlon Brando trying to put a horse’s head in their bed.
    I suspect that the only knowledge one of them has is that he has read every crime book that has ever been published and he knows Bob Bottom on a first name basis. Another one once spoke to Julian Knight. Well, let me tell you, I’ve also spoken to Julian and it is not one of the great insights into the criminal mind.
    God save us from all the experts.
    *
    Just because a man is sent to prison does not end his interests in the crime world. Certain drug kingpins