Four of us got out of the gaol and were sent to South Head army base at the same time, 3 of us getting out of the army and one waiting to get sent somewhere else. There was gonna be a big conference at North Head at the Artillery base called The Quadraparteid Conference. Four nations, Aus. NZ, Britain and Canada, with all these generals and shit getting together to discuss the military budgets and weapons etc, for the coming years. Really heavy security was gonna be there, MPs everywhere, really heavy shit.
All four of us were to work with the MPs providing security for the conference. I was like, what the fuck, all four of us fresh out of the gaol, 3 of us hate the army with a passion and your’e making us security?. Get fkn real! Weird as. Anyway, we go there for ten days or so and who are the chief MPs?. The dudes from Townsville who hate my gutz and are achin to kill me, fk it. The whole time there the chief MP is glaring daggers at me and warns me that he’s after my skin eh. I’m getting out of the army so I don’t give a rats arse and give him mouth all the time.
The dude I’m mostly hangin with is a raging alchoholic that I met in prison. His name was Bill Radley. Really bad alcho at only 20, I mean really bad eh. Had an awesome sense of humour tho. He would go to the Watsons Bay Hotel down from SouthHead, his first beer for the day would always be a seven ounce beer in a fifteen ounce glass, cos if he had a normal beer in a glass his hand would be shakin so much the beer would go everywhere. His shaking in the morning was amazing, one day he took off his tie, tied it to his wrist holding the beer, had it going round his neck to his other hand and would pull on the tie to pull the other hand up to his mouth with the beer in it. Otherwise it would shake so much the beer would go everywhere, serious problem lol.
At the conference we would do shit like put out all the drink glasses, water jugs, paperwork etc on the conference tables every morning, and pack it up at night. Every night all the paperwork would be secured in these combination lock security safes. Anyway, one morning the MPs were in a spin cos the main MP had lost and forgotten the combination and the conference was about to start. They were getting in a panic so I told em that Bill used to crack safes and rob shit before he was in the Army. They were getting desperate so told me to go get him. Bill thought it was pretty funny and went along with the safecracker story.
We turn up in the security room and Bill says, right then, I need sandpaper, a nail file and a pair of gloves. (been watchin too many movies lol) The main MP dude asks why he needed sandpaper, and he says its to remove his fingerprints. How come you need gloves, and Bill says, I never touch a safe without gloves. It was hard keeping a straight face. ( he’d never touched a safe in his life of course, lol) I’m like the nurse in an operating theatre and he’s the doctor, wer’e really serious like and he says “sandpaper”, I pass it to him, “gloves”, I pass them to him, “file” etc, fkn funny as, and tryin not to crack up.
He makes a great show of giving his finger tips a sand, putting on the gloves etc, then kneels down with his head against the combination, twirling it around listening intently. The MPs are hovering, shitting themselves cos the limos and generals are arriving and their paperwork isn’t there lol.
Theyr’e really nervous and sweating on me and Bill getting the safe open. Suddenly Bill just stands up and says, Nuh, it’s got me fucked! We can’t help it and crack up laughing spontaneously. The fkn main Mp turns red in the face, and fkn explodes and says, you two are fucked and they lunge at us. We tear off out of the room, and I grab a pick handle on the way out which is the standard club that MPs used to carry with them. These two dudes chase us full belt along a walkway till we come to a dead end, and they are telling us how we are dead meat etc. Bill grabs this big copper and brass nozzle off a firefighting hose on the wall and we are just standing there. The MPs both got pick handles and are comin for us.
I was just out of gaol, been court martialled, was getting out of the Army etc, this fkn MP had set me up bigtime, chased me from Townsville to Adelaide, handcuffed me to himself on the flight to Sydney etc etc. I fkn hated him, and by this time I thought fk it, I aint taken this shit no more, I got nuthin to lose, so I was like, fkn bring it asshole. We turned the tables and started up this big roar and fkn went for it. They freaked out and bolted, ha ha. Was a bit tense getting thru the rest of the conference workin with these turkeys for a few more days yet lol. Had a few nasty moments with the dropkicks.
More about Bill.
Back at SouthHead and the nudist beach. The beach was at the bottom of a cliff, the last 10 -15 metres of which was a vertical concrete wall as a giant retaining wall to hold back the soil etc. There was a big steel ladder going down to the sand. Most visitors walk there along the coastal paths but some ppl and the army guys would all go down the ladder to get to the beach. One night we are all pretty shtfaced and going for a walk down to the beach. Bill is totally wrecked, pissed as, and walking a fair way in front of us drinking from a can of beer and raving on about sht. It’s pretty dark and we are getting near the ladder, when suddenly Bill simply walks straight off the edge.
We totally freak out and sprint to the cliff edge and look down expecting to see Bill spreadeagled unconscious in the sand. There is no difference whatsoever, he’s walking along the sand sipping from his can and raving on about shit. Absolutely incredible, we couldn’t fkn believe it! It must have been because he was all pissed and floppy or something. When we got down there and quizzed him, he said that he had wondered what happened, he thought he’d just fallen over. He was fine somehow, but the next day he woke up covered in bruises and could barely walk for a few days. It really was one of those amazing things.
Bill had been in and out of the Army gaols all the time, being such an alcho meant he was always getting into beer related problems of course. At Southhead he went down to the Watsons Bay pub and had a five day bender at one stage. He was in Army uniform and got as pissed as a newt every day. Instead of just going back up the hill to camp, he would go out to the beer garden and curl up under the huge brick bar b que to go to sleep cos it would still be warm. This would mean being awol of course. Every day and night for 5 nights he did this, he was a wreck, covered in crap and black sht from the barby . He was picked up after a while and given 7 days in the camp gaol as his punishment
He was freakin out bigtime with no booze of course, so we would take beer and whiskey to him every night, and come back later to pick up the empties. This was just a little block of two cells on the edge of camp, just a little weatherboard building, with bush on one side. Sometimes an MP was in a little building beside it, sometimes not. No real security at all. One night we took tools up there, took off the bolts and shit, took Bill down to the pub and got him absolutely totalled. Took him back to his cell and put it all back together. MP decided to check on Bill, late at night and found him pissed as. Funny.
2008-12-06, 03:00