Chopper Unchopped by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read
Authors: Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read
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forgive an enemy is after you have seen him die’.
He loves to quote the Irish author Brendan Behan who said ‘The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis’.
He also quoted him as saying, ‘A general bit of shooting makes you forget your troubles and takes the mind off the cost of living’. I have a feeling he may be planning a little bit of a comedy of his own in the future because he has quoted Israeli General Moshe Dayan as saying during the six day war, ‘If we lose this war I’ll start another one in my wife’s name’.
I think that might mean he has plans to reopen an old war and I think I know who with. The Jew hates unfinished business.
I’ll miss the Jew. I’ve told him he can come to Tassie for a visit. I’ll take him fishing, a stick of ‘gellie’ in the river and bang, we’ll be knee deep in trout. I’ve never had the patience for rod and reel.
THE JEW
He wants no glory, he wants no fame,
Very few men have heard his name.
But as a hunter, he’s the best I know,
Non-stop dash, non-stop go,
He sets to work, without a care,
The smell of burning flesh in the air,
He loves to hunt the big deal prankster,
The nightclub flashy gangster,
He plants them in the ground,
Never to be seen,
Safe and sound,
And before they die, they sometimes ask,
Please tell me who are you,
And with a toothless grin, he looks down and says,
Just call me Dave the Jew.
Chapter 5
Cowboy Johnny
‘Another kick and I’d have been dead … Johnny charged in, bayonet in hand, and gave his life to save mine.’
COWBOY Johnny Harris was the bastard son of a well-known Prahran prostitute. He used to stand watch in laneways in Prahran, Windsor and St Kilda when he was 10 years old, looking out for police while his Mum took care of customers in the laneway.
He could neither read nor write. I met him when I was about 15 and he was 20 or so, but he was quite childlike in the mind and I never felt younger than him. He was five foot nine inches tall, about eleven stone seven, had a slightly hunched back, a 19-inch neck, cauliflower ears and battered facial features. He was an evil-looking bloke.
The Cowboy was born in a brothel in Port Melbourne in the late 1940s. No doctor was called, no birth certificate issued. He was never christened or baptised. He never knew his father — and neither did his mother. ‘Harris’ was just a name his mother told him to use. His Mum died in a mental hospital in the late 1960s — suicide. He had no living relatives at the time of his death. Prahran was full of Johnny’s ‘uncles’ — in other words, blokes who knew his mother.
He spent his first few years in the brothel, was tormented and teased at school because he was a bastard, and left when he was 10 years old. He learned to fight early, and it became about the only thing he could do better than most.
When I was only 16 or 17, Johnny and I would enter the illegal bare knuckle fights. You could earn $100 if you won and $50 if you lost — but you also made money on the tips and side bets. It was a blood bath. For little or no money, you’d get your head beaten in. Old men betting on young boys to punch themselves half to death for chicken feed.
As a kid, Johnny also boxed in Sharman’s tent show. He boxed in the tent every year at the Royal Melbourne Show under the name ‘Cowboy Johnny’.
The tent fighters were a violent and bloody group. I remember once we were walking up Toorak Road in South Yarra, and a gentleman hopped out of a Rolls Royce motor car, went around to the footpath side to let out a lovely young woman, all dressed nice to step into a fine South Yarra restaurant. As we passed them the Cowboy stepped in and crashed the gent with a left hook to the point of the jaw. He fell and didn’t get up. I kept walking — faster, I might add. When Johnny caught up we turned a corner and both ran. When we stopped I said: ‘For God’s sake, Johnny. What was that all about?’
He said to me: ‘I had my last dinner
He loves to quote the Irish author Brendan Behan who said ‘The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis’.
He also quoted him as saying, ‘A general bit of shooting makes you forget your troubles and takes the mind off the cost of living’. I have a feeling he may be planning a little bit of a comedy of his own in the future because he has quoted Israeli General Moshe Dayan as saying during the six day war, ‘If we lose this war I’ll start another one in my wife’s name’.
I think that might mean he has plans to reopen an old war and I think I know who with. The Jew hates unfinished business.
I’ll miss the Jew. I’ve told him he can come to Tassie for a visit. I’ll take him fishing, a stick of ‘gellie’ in the river and bang, we’ll be knee deep in trout. I’ve never had the patience for rod and reel.
THE JEW
He wants no glory, he wants no fame,
Very few men have heard his name.
But as a hunter, he’s the best I know,
Non-stop dash, non-stop go,
He sets to work, without a care,
The smell of burning flesh in the air,
He loves to hunt the big deal prankster,
The nightclub flashy gangster,
He plants them in the ground,
Never to be seen,
Safe and sound,
And before they die, they sometimes ask,
Please tell me who are you,
And with a toothless grin, he looks down and says,
Just call me Dave the Jew.
Chapter 5
Cowboy Johnny
‘Another kick and I’d have been dead … Johnny charged in, bayonet in hand, and gave his life to save mine.’
COWBOY Johnny Harris was the bastard son of a well-known Prahran prostitute. He used to stand watch in laneways in Prahran, Windsor and St Kilda when he was 10 years old, looking out for police while his Mum took care of customers in the laneway.
He could neither read nor write. I met him when I was about 15 and he was 20 or so, but he was quite childlike in the mind and I never felt younger than him. He was five foot nine inches tall, about eleven stone seven, had a slightly hunched back, a 19-inch neck, cauliflower ears and battered facial features. He was an evil-looking bloke.
The Cowboy was born in a brothel in Port Melbourne in the late 1940s. No doctor was called, no birth certificate issued. He was never christened or baptised. He never knew his father — and neither did his mother. ‘Harris’ was just a name his mother told him to use. His Mum died in a mental hospital in the late 1960s — suicide. He had no living relatives at the time of his death. Prahran was full of Johnny’s ‘uncles’ — in other words, blokes who knew his mother.
He spent his first few years in the brothel, was tormented and teased at school because he was a bastard, and left when he was 10 years old. He learned to fight early, and it became about the only thing he could do better than most.
When I was only 16 or 17, Johnny and I would enter the illegal bare knuckle fights. You could earn $100 if you won and $50 if you lost — but you also made money on the tips and side bets. It was a blood bath. For little or no money, you’d get your head beaten in. Old men betting on young boys to punch themselves half to death for chicken feed.
As a kid, Johnny also boxed in Sharman’s tent show. He boxed in the tent every year at the Royal Melbourne Show under the name ‘Cowboy Johnny’.
The tent fighters were a violent and bloody group. I remember once we were walking up Toorak Road in South Yarra, and a gentleman hopped out of a Rolls Royce motor car, went around to the footpath side to let out a lovely young woman, all dressed nice to step into a fine South Yarra restaurant. As we passed them the Cowboy stepped in and crashed the gent with a left hook to the point of the jaw. He fell and didn’t get up. I kept walking — faster, I might add. When Johnny caught up we turned a corner and both ran. When we stopped I said: ‘For God’s sake, Johnny. What was that all about?’
He said to me: ‘I had my last dinner
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