The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison Read Online Free PDF

nose seemed to fly across my cheek as I watched him pull his fist back again. I don’t know if he meant to hit me again, but he stopped when he saw how much blood was spewing from my face after that first punch. My face blew up and changed colour. The others crawled out of their hiding places to stare in fascination at my almost unrecognisable features. As usual we were all drunk and stoned, so there was a lot of, ‘Wow man, your face is awesome,’ comments, as opposed to someone rushing me to the nearest ER.
    Would you believe that Simon and I went on to have a deep meaningful discussion that evening after things quietened down? He was very upset by what he had done to me and was a little in shock. We talked about life and where we were going. We both admitted to feeling lost in general. I don’t remember the conversation in great detail but I do know that I counselled him for hours, trying to help him find some direction in his life. It was the start of a life-time of having men confide their innermost thoughts and fears to me. We also needed to concoct a credible story for my parents. I wasn’t very imaginative and told them that my purple and blue face was the result of me running full-speed into a door post.
    My own 14th birthday was a few days later, and I spent it with masking tape over my nose, barely able to see out of my swollen eyes. To celebrate, two of my closest friends and I went to the cinema to see Frankenstein’s Bride —I think I received more gasps of horror than the film did. Once again I enjoyed shocking people with my looks. Several hospital visits followed and I had to have my face re-set. Later on I needed Simon’s help. Because Johnny and Simon were no longer talking, their mutual friends were out to get me since, once again, it was all my fault. They were hoodlums who had nothing better to do with their time. One of his friends informed Simon that he would kill me for my insult to him. There was nothing that Simon could say to placate the situation, so he did the next best thing. He got me a revolver and some bullets. He loaded the gun for me and I didn’t dwell on the fact that I hadn’t the slightest idea how to use it. I carried it around in my Indian hippie bag; I was a loved up hippie with a ‘piece’, instead of peace! After a few days I returned it to him. I decided that I would prefer to be killed than kill someone. I didn’t take the threat lightly and only realised how scared I was when the next door neighbour woke me up late one night. I slept at the back of our house and he drove his motorbike down his driveway past my window. I jumped up screaming, thinking I was going to die.
    The threats disappeared over time. Six months later Karma hit Simon hard when he had his own face and nose broken by a gang of skinheads armed with pool cues. Witnesses said he was whimpering under a pool table as they beat him repeatedly. A few years later I attended the funeral of the guy who had wanted to kill me. He had died in a freak car accident.

    When the hippie fashion started to fade we all became ‘Sharpies’. There were different groups of Sharpies, depending on where you came from or who you hung out with. I shaved my hair to a buzz cut but left a long tail of blonde hair falling from the skinhead. We looked like Natalie Portman in V For Vendetta and got a lot of stares in the street, which I revelled in. The costume was mostly jeans, cool cardigans (yes, there are such a thing!) and big boots with a chisel toe and a Cuban heel; we wanted to look like bikers. We also wore very militant-style jackets and probably more successfully resembled Hitler’s Youth! I recently found a web site devoted to Sharpies—I never realised that I was part of Melbourne’s folklore; Sharpies were unique to Melbourne because it had nothing to do with outside influences. We weren’t—for once—following either an American or English style, and our music was restricted to Melbourne bands.
    I sort of