Name: James Michelle Meyer
Age: 56 years old
Sex: Male
Rigour: beginning to set in.
Length: 1.18 m
Weight: 120 kg
Hair: Brown/Grey
Circumcised: Yes
Body Heat: Refrigerated.
TOXICOLOGIC STUDIES
Blood ethanol - 0.06
Blood drug screen - Cocaine, Oxycodone & Valium.
Personal Effect:
Sunglasses-Raybands classic wayfarers.
Singlet
Shorts
Thongs
Wallet-expired New South Wales driving license, $30 in cash, Credit cards and photograph (wife).
Car keys
Wedding band/Gold.
Oxycodone & Valium tablets (16 pills, in packaging).
Cocaine (in plastic).
Skull-Unremarkable. Noted: Oversized, thick-boned & box-like. The cranium and mandible forming a sturdy outer shell resembling a Norseman's battle helmet. Almost militarised in construction, with narrow turrets where the eyes reside. Minor damage is evident, presumably brought about by past head injuries. This damage is evident in the facial bones and the mandible. The condition of his teeth (upper and lower) is good albeit with extensive prosthetic work, including a number of implants. Here was a man who seldom smiled but when he did, there were usually repercussions.
Sinuses-evidence of past nasal fractures in several places resulting in a minor lack of alignment in the cartilage. A general deterioration of the sinus lining indicates the habitual use of cocaine or some other such stimulant. This happened in later years, once adherence to physical training had slackened off and the subject (James) went on to live a less disciplined lifestyle in Bali. It can only be speculated that the use of these substances and stress combined with other contributing lifestyle factors are linked to the early stages of angina and hypertension in the body.
Eyes-Blue. Intensely so. At 56, James prided himself on the fact that he still had 20/20 vision and didn't need to wear corrective lenses like some of his contemporaries in the expat community. The truth was James had travelled to Thailand for corrective surgery. In his mind, wearing glasses was an outwards sign of weakness, certainly a concession of his age and something his vanity would not permit. In later years, after he’d consumed on average five alcoholic drinks in one sitting, James was known to have cryptically said things like (....yeah mate, these eyes have seen a lot eh? I can't tell ya the specifics but….yeah, a lot of heavy shit…..) not realising that perhaps that this kind of thing, coming from an aged-ex-gangster type, might be perceived as exactly the kind of self-aggrandising, tall tale bullshit you’d expect from someone who spent the majority of their time propping up a bar in a hot, cheap country. Someone, unconsciously or otherwise attempting to cultivate a Ronnie Biggs image. The kind of hyperbolic horseshit resulting from a generally unreliable memory, perhaps even the appropriation of other people’s stories (unwittingly or otherwise) and from watching too many Ray Winstone movies. The truth was James had seen and perpetrated some truly crazy shit when he was a younger man. He did have these grizzly and twisted tales bottled up inside. That is to say, when he was younger, during those times when James had entered into an antagonist situation of his own making or otherwise, he was able and willing to default to stone cold psycho combat mode. In these situations, his blue eyes would go blank and hard as little blue pebbles, indicating that a moral disconnect had occurred. As such, James was able to ‘throw a switch’ and bypass the self-regulatory mechanisms which govern most of us. When self-interest kicked in, he was capable of reframing his behaviour outside of the accepted moral standards. And more often than not, if you got in his way, great scenes of violence would ensue. Lights out. Good night.
Ears-unremarkable. If anything, they bring to mind an Australian farmer's ears in that they were large pink disks, fleshy trophy handles, jutting out, perfect for catching far off remote sounds. In terms of his features, his ears were the one and only feature which did not conform to the bullet-like, almost militarised contours of his skull. His ears had let him down in several fight situations, allowing opponents to really get a good grip. Something which only severed to make James angrier.
Brain-Intact & unremarkable. (1400 g) ‘Normal’....aside from psychotic tendencies (see blue eyes) when challenged or threatened. This organ is shaped and hounded by memories of a broken childhood. Memories which, over time, became the engine of violence and the cause of an arguably distorted and paranoid sense of self-preservation. In terms of having a conscious, the compound interest on action taken against his enemies and friends alike has, over the years, always been manageable in James’s mind although his behaviour did exact a long-term price in regards to his mounting sense of fatalism. The question of how much one human being could get away with over the course of his life troubled James, especially when he began practising Buddhism at his wife request. This may have been the reason for some of the private philanthropic gestures he made in the last decade of his life. In his own words, he wanted to (......right the scales a bit, eh?)
The brain is a healthy organ naturally adept at formulating money making schemes, a skill which first manifested itself significantly in the formation of his security company in 1994. Initially, little more that a rented room in an office building in Bankstown with a few Islanders on the payroll, James's business quickly grew and became a successful legal/illegal organisation in NSW. An organisation which focused on illegal 'security contracts'. The company’s formation (…..all those years spent on the doors of clubs in the Cross, working security....it gave me plenty of time think, eh? The thing is…standing in the one spot….you meet all types. They come to you. For me, that times was basically an education, a time for studying humanity…..you know? Figuring out how it all work….Coming to the conclusion that only about 4 percent of the population is really worth listening to. The rest?.......sheep and wannabes. I’ll tell you one thing for sure. I knew I wasn't gonna spend my entire life out in the cold, standing on the door of some club. I knew that I needed to do something. Some of the older guys….still showing night after night, strapping on their ID badges….I mean, some of these guys were approaching 50 mate. Still putting up with drunken fools all night long.... Not for me. Naw….I knew there had to be something else. I knew….).
James also came to understand that there are many different types of security required in a major urban centre like Sydney. People, art, drugs, money, vehicles, property, animals, information....there are many different types of high and low-end commodities that need to be guarded for different reasons. Basically, it all came down to reliable muscle and secure facilities. Trustworthy people. That was what James had to offer and that was the business model which he developed and expanded out to take root, working in collusion with the other criminal groups in the city. There was money circulating around the CBD and suburbs of Sydney in the form of alcohol and gaming profits, narcotics, sex workers, loansharking, extortion, the re-consignment of seized goods and resources from dirty cops and customs officials…and there was no reason why James couldn't have a piece of this. So James studied not only the people but also the patterns of illicit commerce. And the more he understood, the stronger his convictions grew. Why shouldn't the big silent guy working the club's door have a piece of this action? After all, did James not play a vital role in facilitating the flow of this money through the veins of the city? Yes, he did. Were not some of the main players above him, the men James had studied, individuals of less resolve and self-discipline? Yes, in some cases, they were. Besides, there was always a weakness. In the city of Oz, most people were missing something. A heart, a brain, courage......something…There was always a deficiency.
As James began to map out the various entwined power structures, the knotted family trees, he determined who held power and why. In doing so, he began to understand who he could push, who he could depose and who he needed to leave in place. James started up his own firm, albeit cautiously at first, feeling his way into the nooks and crannies of the existing hierarchy, feeling out his niche, defining his share of the market, avoiding stepping on any significant player's toes (that would come later).
The brain contains deposits of DCLR (didactic criminal language rifts). James’s main reason for success in NSW was that he kept everything airtight and confidential. From an early age, he understood that most criminals or at least the associates they relied on are usually defeated by stupidity or because they have an Achilles heel like drug addiction or some other kind of uncontrollable urge. Rule number one: be vigilant about how you control information. Delegate but always compartmentalise. James determined that his organisation should be like a submarine insomuch as it was always moving silently beneath the surface of conventional society and that it would be constantly under great external pressure in the form of the Law. Be covert. Keep a low profile. Know that, if your organisation springs a leak and compartmentalisation is not implemented, well….there is a very good chance that the whole enterprise might collapse and become scuttled on the floor of the ocean. This 'best practice approach' served James well over the years however it did not account for the fact that his ego required some form of validation. And sometimes it went beyond the ego. Sometimes his approach put into question his subjective experience. If so much of a person's life was a secret, did it actually happen? The tree falling in the forest….you get the idea. Besides, James had seen Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction. As we all are, he was affected by the culture he was a part of. And when he looked back, when he thought about some of the things he'd done, his memories took on the fragmented, hyper-masculine and highly romanticised aspects employed by the directors of these films. In retrospect, James tended to forget the tedium of waiting around and all the banal conversations he’d had with his employees. James’s associates were not method actors backed by a cool and ironic soundtrack. These were people with bad breath, bad tattoos and in some cases, bad ideas. They sat around bad pubs and backed bad horses. They were sloppy in their personal lives and they had bad habits. They were predictable. The point is, staying out of jail meant there were certain things James could never, ever tell another human being. The tree may or may not have fallen in the forest. He was the sole witness to his life. In retrospect, as James told and retold himself his own past, his activities naturally became compressed and therefore more fluid and romanticised in the telling because the dull bits had been removed. Nostalgic reframing tended to gloss over even the most squalid moments.
The subject’s brain is a warehouse facility which contained his personal mythology based on these events and other events which constitute his life. A mythology which grew over time and with his increasing financial success. A mythology which permeated into the bedrock of the general criminal community. Fear me, said the Myth. Know who I am by the stories which surround me. The verified stories and stories which are implied. Also stored in this warehouse, in a far dusty corner, is an empty cardboard box which contains James's collection of ideas relating to all things metaphysical. (…….I'll tell you.....youse snuff another human life out with your bare hands…..or a hammer. Or a tyre jack. The point is…..over the years you snuff out several lives, in lonely, remote places…..just you and the cunt you are dealing with…..the so-called moment of truth in the car headlights….well, you do these things and afterwards, when you look at the stars overhead, you might think, 'What does any of this mean?' It’s funny, eh? It's all so....fleeting, eh?)
Brain: the organ is structurally intact. It is the house of bad dreams. (Slasher movies which play in the subconscious on a regular basis. The past restaged, shot and edited and re-edited through the distorted lens of memory. All the unspeakable moments. The people wide-eyed in the headlights while crickets chirp out in the bush. Self-inflicted PTSD. Fear of the future. Fear of the losing battle with gravity and time. The battle James is fully engaged in now. Fear brought about by the knowledge that his body was breaking down and that fate is a silent tsunami and that no matter how hard he swims out to meet it, James will simply not be able to crest the dark wave rushing towards him. The certainty that I, the Forensic Pathologist assigned to this case file, have been patiently waiting to meet James in this silent, tiled room, on this very day in 2015. Waiting patiently with my powdered latex gloves, my anonymous face and my unfinished soy latte. Waiting to open James up with the usual 'Y' shaped incision as I begin rummaging around inside, looking for answers.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves....The brain is intact but after a decade spent retired in the tropics, on his return to Sydney on that red eye full of gastro-challenged tourists, James’s brain was ill-equipped to deal with the newly established criminal codes and practices in New South Wales. He was out of touch. As the plane banked over the harbour, James understood that new mobs and crews would have moved in and taken control of his old stopping ground. Of course, they had. This is what happens when you leave and create a vacuum. Many of his previous associates were, at that point, in jail or had gone legit or they had simply aged out the game with or without a nest egg. Buried deep inside the folds of James’s brain, a clock was ticking, striking off the seconds and minutes from the moment his plane touched down at Sydney airport. A large analogue type clock which I have placed to one side on a stainless steel pan (......Given the choice, I'd have never come back, eh?.....the only reason I returned to Sydney was to help my brother Eric. I had to. I couldn't see any other option. Sydney was the only place I could feasibly make some cash. Look, the last time I'd seen Eric was in the visiting room of a Thai jail. A shithole on the outskirts of Bangkok. This was only the week before.....Eric had been put away for a minor infringement and the thing was, the Australian Government was attempting to extradite him on more serious trafficking charges. So yeah….money was required to begin setting up the legal defence. Get me out of this, said Eric....and he’s my brother, isn’t he? So it’s not like I could leave him there. I remember that room they had him in....there was a moth trapped up near the extraction fan in the ceiling….and I could hear the drone of street noises outside. All I needed to do was get up and leave but Eric? Eric was stuck in that shithole. He looked undernourished. Tired....I had to get him out. I had to do everything I could. And maybe I could have made some money back in Bali.....I don’t know….borrowed some cash here and there, but it won’t have been enough. Besides, what you don’t do is….you don’t shit where you live. And since I certainly didn't live in Sydney anymore…..well…….)
The brain is intact. Old pathways began to light up. Raw schemes and strategies to generate money. The first and most obvious of which being to visit their mother who resides in Coogee and whom Eric had (…..God knows why….I wouldn’t trust her with…..) entrusted with an accumulating stash of money (…..Eric told me that he had been funnelling money back into Australia from Thailand for three years now. Dribs and drabs. Every time Mum or some other mate or girlfriend came out to Thailand for a visit, Eric would send them back with a bit of money. Other people as well. Always ten thousand or less.....He was attempting to build his own nest egg, eh? Buy a few houses, that kind of thing. By his estimation, our Mum should have around the $400,000 Au…….) After collecting this money, the next part of the plan was to contact remaining associates and get some business opportunities up and running. Anything would suffice at that point, even if it meant moving in on someone weaker. Someone vulnerable. Whatever. Even though it wasn’t his preferred method of business, maybe he could just deal coke for awhile? Find some product, set up a few low-level dealers, that kind of thing. He wasn't sure. Anyway, the point was to get back in the food chain and make some cash. As James went through customs at Sydney Airport, returning to what he considered the bland reality of his native soil (…..for me that airport perfectly set the tone of the country waiting for me beyond the barricade: the excessive rules, the petty bureaucratic figures and uninspired public spaces…..all that), he found himself angry again that Eric put him in this position. In years gone by James could have easily have helped Eric out but things were different now. James had the bar in Kuta, sure enough. And that provided a steady, trickling income but the rest of his money had been sucked into his wife's new development project up near Ubud. A proposed upmarket clinic where wealthy tourists could have their teeth and assholes bleached while they did yoga and detoxed. That kind of thing. (….people these days need their sense of individual specialness dialled up to eleven, right? Not that I’m complaining. If they’re willing to pay….). The whole thing was supposed to be a sure bet. Slowly bouncing back from the worldwide recession, Bali had recently begun to prosper and gentrify. Everything was going upmarket. But the problem was James projects was cursed from the start. They just couldn't seem to get the bloody thing up out of the ground. There had been delays upon delays. Major headaches in the form of a shortage of building materials, unreliable contractors and a landslide brought about by heavy wet season. Adding to this, one of his co-investors got cold feet and pulled out, leaving James and his wife Annisa high and dry. (Or more appropriately put: high and wet). So what they had, after nine months of struggle, was a muddy construction site on the side of a mountain, scored over many times by caterpillar treads and little fluorescent flags, as they waited helplessly for work to begin.
The brain is intact, however, maintaining a clear chronological understanding of when events occurred in the past is challenging. During the terminal event (which will be covered later in this report), everything that had occurred in James’s life seems to have happened at the same time. In a flash. This is otherwise known as your life flashing before your eyes. And this ‘revision’ was experienced by James instantaneously as if time had suddenly collapsed in on itself. It was also incredibly rich in detail. If James has survived, he would have talked about the experience of simultaneously gaining access to all the events which had come to be stored in his living memory. He might have explained that this experience was like looking over your shoulder and seeing every moment telescoped into the one before it. And not only that: James would have been able to see scenes and events from different angles. He would have noticed all the things he'd missed the first time around. He would have had access to everything, reaching right back to the first viscous point of consciousness. During the terminal event, while this neurological lightning storm had occurred and, as Timothy Leary had hoped, this experience had seemed infinite. In other words, subjected to great temporal fluidity, James was able to move back and forward in time, tracking events, both large and small, as they unfolded over the days and the years of his life.
Thoracic cavity/Tricia/lungs. Unremarkable and kept in relatively good condition for a man his age, due to dedication to cardiovascular exercise which, up until five years ago including high altitude training. ie. Running five mornings a week on a treadmill while wearing a rubber mask to restrict his breathing. His lungs are healthy.
Lymphatic System-unremarkable for a male of his age.
Heart-(340 g) Some damage brought about by the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids in his youth. The left ventricle bears the brunt of this damage. Apart from a prolonged and cartoonish exaggeration to muscle mass, on top of his already mastodonic form, the psychological side effects included psychosis, mania, bouts of extreme and unpredictable violence. A period his close associates would often refer to as ‘the psycho days'. This was a period when James was completely unpredictable and prone to disproportionate bouts of aggression. This, in turn, led to an intensification of extreme criminal behaviour which had a resulting effect of converting a number of his associates, those who remained active and 'above ground', into his enemies. The common complaint during this time period among his associates was that ‘day-to-day....hour to hour.....you never knew what you were gonna get with James.’ and that ‘He would turn on you. For nothing. You never knew how or why youse were gonna to piss him off, eh?’.
Heart-(340 g) In better times, his colleagues often characterised James as having a 'big heart’ or ‘having heart’, referring to his ability to live by his own rules and to act in a fair manner. Or at least according to the rules he had established. When talking about this code he lived by, James often referred to the samurai tattooed on his left bicep, likening his philosophical approach to criminal life to that of an 18th-century Samurai Warrior's methods of maintaining feudal control. Among other texts, James had read the Art of War and had memorised several quotes from Sun Tzu's Book. These quotes would oftentimes come up in his conversations with others, especially when James was faced with a leadership dilemma or insubordination. James felt that, quoting Tzu make him sound 'spookily introspective'. That it added a dimension of ambiguity to his persona. (......it true, eh? We fear what is alien to us, right? Fear is a crucial tool when it comes to maintaining control of others. This being the case, I figured it was best to be clear yes, but always slightly ambiguous....if that makes sense? You never want to be 100 percent predictable, do ya? That leads to trouble, eh? You keep people on their toes, they won't get complacent of too comfortable. I'll tell you, being......). This approach was only amplified when he was taking steroids. Behind his back, operating in the currents of rumour and gossip, especially during those pumped up, hyper-aggressive steroid years, his associates became wary of him. They feared him and dearly wished he would go on the mood stabilising medication as his first wife has suggested.
Heart-(340 g) James often complained of a 'broken heart' or 'hardened heart' brought about by his relationship with his mother. He often described is childhood as a rootless period, living in some of the rougher neighbourhoods of Sydney. His main complaint was that he and his brother Eric had to get by without a father figure. His mother had a number of partners all of whom James characterised as abusive drunks or drug addicts. This made for a very unstable home environment. James is on record as saying that he first hospitalised one of his mother's boyfriends when he was only 14 years old. (.....he came at me again and I just thought, right.....that's it. Last time. And we got stuck in. He was bigger than me but slow. When I.......) The household itself was typically understocked in terms of food, with piles of dirty laundry everywhere. Education was never a priority. James and his brother had to fend for themselves. At other times James expressed a perverse gratitude towards his mother because her lack of parental guidance meant he’d grown-up quickly, understanding the only person he could rely on was himself. This quality of being self-made or almost self-generated was something that James referred to throughout his life. In this way, he considered himself to be a closed circuit. His brother Eric had a stronger connection with their mother. (.....Eric was.....well, he was the baby, wasn't he? I mean, he was five years younger than me so he didn't remember some of the truly shit times. When our mother was going through what she described as postpartum depression...me? I had no illusions. I know we were just getting in the way of her good times. We had.....) An allegiance or bond which ultimately did not pay off because when James turned up at the house in Coogee to collect Eric’s money, after some evasion, the truth came out. James discovered (....I could have fucking told you this before I even walked in the front door. Just the look in her eyes.....) that she has spent most of this money. With her new partner Roger cowering in the corner, she had screeched at James “You don't know what it's like…..to grow old in this country. The cost of living. You don't even know son. And after all I’ve done for both of you. Don’t I deserve something back? I mean…it’s alright for you, init James? Up there is Bali where everything is cheap and you're being waited on, hand and foot....”
Without being told, James knew exactly where the money had gone. A cruise, a new tattoo, cosmetic surgery, a new high definition flat screen TV, shit jewellery bought online.....but mostly on the daily diet of drinking, cigarettes and gambling. (.....understand that my mother was used to living the high life. She never worked day in her life, yet she expected all the perks. All the rewards. She was by nature a taker. She felt the good life was her birthright......) During the confrontation in his mother's kitchen, while she berated him and tried to shift blame, James determined that there was no point in putting Roger’s head through the wall or interrogating his mother any further. It had been this way since day one. Heavy-hearted but not showing it, James understood that his mother’s complete self-interest still had the power to wound him. (.....you never really escape where you come from, eh? You move forward, doing this and that.....doing what you do, but 'it'......whatever bullshit 'it' is......well, 'it's' always there, eh? No matter how far or wide you travel. Once, this friend of mine back home got me to watch this movie. This movie called Citizen Kane, right? Basically, it turns out to be this fairly boring black-and-white flick about this American guy who becomes successful in business and politics. It was slow, to say the least. Too slow for me. Basically, it was your classic American rise and fall kind of a story. The American dream and all that shit....personally, I couldn't see why this movie was such a big deal. I mean it was supposed to be the best movie ever made, eh? According to most critics. Okay, one thing I did take away from this movie was 'Rosebud'.....yeah?......On his death bed, after all the bullshit this guy has gone through.....all the business dealings, the wives, his political career....all the ups and downs....the one thing he thinks about is 'Rosebud'. This little sledge he had when he was a kid back in the orphanage. Well, for me.......) James collected the remainder of Eric's cash and left, his mother berating him from the open front door as he walked past the graveyard to the end of the street.
With a heavy, mawkish heart, especially when weighed down after a few days drinking, James would often reminisce about this deep seeded damage, while his cronies in Bali or whatever tourists happen to have stopped by his bar to watch the AFL, listened on. And this was usually the point when his wife Annsia would get up and go shopping. Because she heard it all before.
Heart-(340 g) James’s heart worked as best it could, banging out oxygenated blood to the far-flung regions of James's extremities. It was an organ which also housed a secret fear that one day in his ever diminishing future, his luck would run out, as it had with his brother. James feared that his escape from his criminal life in Australia a decade and a half prior had only been a layover, a false reprieve, from the predestined fate which was waiting to scoop him up in its arms. He could not shake the karmic suspicion that punishment for all dirty deeds, done dirt cheap were intrinsically linked and as such, would occur in the space of a single lifetime.
Gastrointestinal system-Liver-Unremarkable. For an Australian male which basically means a lot of proud damage had been inflicted as a result of alcohol over-indulgence. The liver and kidneys house the ghosts of Australian beer ads, which depict blonde haired, zink-nosed Aussies enjoying the spoils the Lucky Country. These ads hark back to the 1960s and often depict the old tiled pubs and the sun flooded beaches around Sydney. Or the ocker tones of the fly-blown outback. Or barmaids with the kind of loose and generous racks a bloke could clock with impunity. Meat pies, AFL, cricket, muscle cars and barbecues in the back garden. This was the birthright which James inherited and which established his attitudes towards alcohol. Under this older regime, the brain was actually a dormant organ and not at all required in public life. The human body was simply a mechanism for dealing with the poisonous river of piss which was required to run through it. A filtration system issued at birth, to cope with the Lucky Country's hard earned thirst.
Stomach/intestines. A bag of anxiety. The stomping ground of various bad food choices. Especially when you're on the go in a town like Sydney with its endless chicken shops and schnitzel outlets. And the anxiety? The stress? Christ, during that time of uncertainty it was palatable. Anxiety about time getting away as the clock ticked away and time marched on. The mounting anxiety as James tried and failed to track down various people from his past. Andrew, Mike, Roland, Fetu, Losefa, Lagi and Mags. Basically, the entire crew was gone, out of commission. James was in contact with some of them via email but that didn't help. Toni was still in Sydney but had gotten older and changed career. Toni was now a private nurse working, ironically, for a retired New South Wales Judge in Potts Point, a once prominent member of the legal establishment. This was the same Toni who used to break people in half without batting an eye, and now he was, feeding this invalid, giving this Judge sponge baths and listening to his endless stories about a life spent on the right side of the law. This is the same Toni who James (........lay out three hard men, eh? Effortlessly. It was a work of art. We had been just chilling, you know? Hanging out in the Cross having a coffee and this van screeched up at the kerb. This all had something to do with some confusion over money I owed or didn't owe to someone else. I can’t recall exact details. Anyway, these four large boys jump out of the van and run across the street, heading our way. I recognised one of them right of the bat. It was Lester's little brother Vince. The next thing I knew Toni is on his feet and, after a very brief face off, it's straight into it. The first thing I hear is the sound of Toni cracking open the first man’s nose. The impact sends this guy backwards, all floppy and cross-eyed like a puppet which has just had its strings cut. Mate! It was lights out for that boy as he flops backwards over the bonnet of a parked car. Like he'd been hit in the face by a train. Next Toni breaks his mate's leg. And the wet-cracking sound is so sickening, the third guy involuntarily puked on the road. I don't know...maybe this cunt had a weak stomach? Or butterflies? Like I say, they were big boys, strong, healthy but as far as I was concerned, they looked like they were lacking in experience....obviously, they were. Anyway, after that Toni sets to work on the third man. And it was even worse for him. All told, Toni laid out three of them in quick succession, while I was still dealing with the fourth, which turned out to be a pretty decent punch on. By the time I found my stride and connected hard enough to put this guy down, Toni was done and dusted with the other three. And he didn't even break a sweat. All that was left, once we'd finished, was a pile of groaning and unconscious bodies. Looked like a fucking high-speed car wreck minus the actual car wreckage. Anyway, Toni and I decided to take their vehicle. Why not? It was just sitting there, the engine running. We drove around for awhile until we got bored and then left it down by the beach....). Alexander the Russian was still out in Summer Hill, nestled in a private warehouse full of pokie machines and other amusements. Although he had grown old, Alexander still chain smoking king sized Benson & Hedges. He looked sickly, shrunken, frozen in time sitting behind his giant desk, the same faded 1970's poster of the girl scratching her bare bum on a tennis court hanging on the wall behind him. How many times had James seen that poster over the years? The dream of '80's affluence and easy sex in the sunshine. Alexander had once been a valuable asset in James's world, translating various goods into cash money and vice versa. Laundering cash. Now Alexander was unwilling to take those kinds of chances anymore. He was nervous about associating with people from the past. Age makes your remaining time precious. Alexander was concentrating on selling off the remainder of his squirrelled away assets. He estimated that he had enough superannuation, in the form of stored away merchandise, to take him right to the very end. And then maybe to provide something for his wife and two children.
In any cases, James's anxiety and frustration came from following these dead ends. Uncertainty and stress caused from operating, or at least attempting to operate, in an environment which was at once familiar but now seemed alien. Alien in the sense that there were new codes and new customs. New faces. New dialects. It was humiliating for James to start at the bottom of the ladder again. (.....I felt like some old geezer sitting around in a pub, talking up his glory days....for the first couple of weeks, I didn't know anyone. I had nothing. No resources and no game. It was like my hometown had become a foreign country to me. I mean there were some of the old faces still hanging about but I honestly didn't know who I could trust anymore...... And the practicalities of getting established time. I got myself an apartment in Bondi through Demitri's daughter. She was doing well in real estate......Fuck, anyone involved in Sydney's housing market must have been doing alright. Anyway, I had a home base. A one bedroom flat. I had to get ahold of a vehicle as well. I found this piece of shit van which was actually turned out to be a good thing because I blended in with the backpackers and beach people down there at Bondi. Next, I found myself a line on some coke and some ketamine. And some stuff which I was told was GBH, although I don't know enough about this current generation of party drugs. Anyway, there was a demand for it so whatever.....then, I found a couple of kids to flog it. I'll tell you, it was slow going at first. A lot of running around. These fucking millennials and their work ethic, eh? These two kids I had working for me had no clue. They seemed more interested in staring at their bloody phones than actually moving product....It was very frustrating. Building back up from.....). Compounding this feeling of anxiety brought about by a lack of connection, each time James turns on the computer, there is another cheerful email from the lawyer reminding him that the clock ticking down.
Genitalia/Penis/Testicles. Here was an organ of average size, weight and girth. An organ which had seen some good innings. In the early days, before the community's fear had gathered around him, having a bulked out, tough-guy appeal, James had his fair share of female attention. There was a time when, in order to subsidise his doorman's income, he'd had a go at being a male escort. This involved making appointments and turning up at different locations around Edgecliff, Randwick and the Cross, meeting up with a range of women. Ultimately the experience turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Although getting paid to be sexually commodified did engorge his ego, James wasn't so enamoured with the time spent sitting around, waiting for these meetings to take place. Another issue was, he was a fighter, not a lover. So his ability to listen and relate, or at least appear like he was being attentive to the women he dealt with, was limited. His first marriage lasted only a couple of years. Resigning himself to get the whole 'wife thing' out of the way, James had entered into this marriage without much consideration. He would go on to describe his first wife as (.....she was a very explosive person, eh?....emotionally speaking that is. I mean....she seemed to constantly need to rehash things. Over and over again. Generally speaking, I'm a happy person, right? I mean....I might not show it on the outside but I am generally content. And who doesn't wanna be happy, eh? But at the time you don't know these things, do you? You just don't know......Basically, we're all just following our dicks, right? It comes down to that. And then later on, once things began to unravel a bit, once the truth is revealed, then you know the full story of the person you're married to eh? At first, it's just biology, right? And men generally need to be built this way. With that initial spark.....otherwise, nothing in nature would ever get accomplished. That's my theory.....anyway, in the long run, what I learnt later was that my first wife was scared of change......right?......of her life becoming something bigger, something unexpected and therefore more exciting than it already was. She wanted....). For many years James took care of his sexual needs by using a steady flow of prostitutes. He appreciated the emotional disconnect of these arrangements (.....yeah well, a lot of what happens in a relationship between a man and woman involves ongoing negotiation with a female. To the point of near exhaustion, eh? While I was concentrating on building my business up, I chose to avoid all that static by getting what I needed in a different way.....the problem is, of course.....in the long run.....you start to miss out on certain things like real companionship....it's okay for the younger man, isn't? But then you get older and things change....priorities. You start to wonder, is this it? Will it be insincere pillow talk from here on in? And sure....you start to feel a little bit pathetic carrying on with these young girls. At this point, I just decided......). James decided that he would settle on one woman. From his experiences on holiday, he came to the conclusion that he would like to have a Thai wife but it didn't work out that way. He met and married Annisa. And ultimately that lead to his life in Bali. He was emotionally loyal to his wife throughout the years, but this did not stop his occasional dalliance with the odd massage girl here and there, an activity to which his wife generally turned a blind eye.
Musculoskeletal system/Skeleton. Abnormal in the sense that is it neanderthal in size. A titanium post and screws are evident (in the lower right tibia) where James broke his ankle chasing a police informant through the back streets of King's Cross. This was in the past. When he was younger. He landed with all his weight at an awkward angle and 'snap!'. The left scapula is chipped from an old bullet wound to his shoulder when James was twenty-nine years old. The slug was removed by a medical student who was in debt (gambling) to James and his cohort. James kept this slug as a souvenir. Eventually, he returned it to the man who’d pulled the trigger and shot him in a grizzly piece of gangster torture theatre staged in an empty house in Randwick and involving various unconventional tools of pain.
The spine column is mainly healthy. All upper vertebrae are intact. On the lower section of the spine, there is evidence of an old compression fracture affecting Th 10 & Th 9. This caused extensive discomfort during those times when James was immobilised. For example, when James was in a seated position for long period of time on a flight or driving a car with poor suspension (see his recent arrive and activities in Sydney). This injury haunted him throughout his late 40s and his early 50s, right up until his death, for which it was indirectly responsible. It was a hindrance during the robbery he performed on the Rose Bay residence. During this home robbery, which James would concede was farcical and a lapse in judgment (.....I was getting desperate for cash at that point man......The lawyers up my ass every day. And it didn’t help that the painkillers were clouding my judgement.....), James was required to deadlift and carry a small but heavy safe to his van which was waiting in the driveway. This extension served to exasperate the existing injury and cause James immense pain over the last couple of weeks leading up to his death. Further contributing to this injury, James tried to gain access to the contents of the safe once he had returned to his parking garage. This required him to stooped over, to strain his back using a mini-sledge hammer along with a number of different power tools, further exasperating his injuries. It is understood that once he managed to open the safe door, for his efforts, he was rewarded with little more than what could only be described as soft-core pornographic material and a love letter. In essence, photographs of the Rose Bay residents, a well-heeled couple, a blonde woman and her husband (.....getting it on.... probably after a little too much vino and a few bumps of charlie....this just goes to prove my point.....B&E was never my 'thing'….I always looked down on that shit. It was low. Look, as I say, by that point I was starting to get desperate. I mean, it was a safe, right? So naturally, I thought….there's gotta be something of value in there. Something….cash maybe? Kept away from the tax man. Krugerrands? Jewellery?….something worth hocking? Something Alexander would take off my hands......These fucking people.....they lived in that giant, million dollar shrine to modernism with all the cantilever staircases and glass balustrades….yeah?….the kind of tasteful architectural statement that says, oh, look at me....look how humble I am....living in my a non-materialistic modernist Zen shrine....stands to reason they would have some readily available cash somewhere.......right? Like in the fucking safe for example!!?....I don't know....maybe I am completely out of step these days. Do these people even use cash any.....). The love letter was written in a carefully formed cursive lettering and full of the usual flowery declarations. In essence, James had boosted photographic evidence of sexual congress and the emotional cementing of this couple's union through highjacked poetry. (.....believe this shit? I found a brick of heroin in a safe once, yeah? A live hand grenade. Fat stacks of cash buried in the wall of a house.....These items and several others I can think of would have helped me with my predicament.....a handful of tasteful nudie pics? And a love letter.....not so much, eh?)
Body fat Index-James has a BFI of 27%. Because of his frame, he wears this suit of fat fairly well. When he looked in the mirror, in his villa back in Bali or more recently in some of the rooms he found himself temporarily occupying in Sydney, running the whole gamut from dingy to luxurious, James had become increasingly dismayed at the changes his body had undergone over time. Fat, piling up and stacking on. This is what he saw. Perhaps this was because he'd returned to a previous context and therefore comparisons to a previous, more vital version of himself were inevitable. His pectoral muscles were drooping, his buttocks had sagged. Stretch marks were evident everywhere. He was shrinking in size yet his belly had grown, encroaching on his daily inspection of his lower extremities. In his mind, more and more, James was coming to resemble a pregnant woman. He had attempted to remedy this a year ago, actually two years ago now, by hiring a personal trainer, a Canadian expat permanently dressed in active wear. She had managed to motivate him for several months but then the Bintangs and the expensive restaurants around Seminyak became too alluring. So the onslaught of calories continued. As did the zero calorie burning activities of loafing poolside and around his bar, day after day, holding court with his cronies. Having been well muscled his entire life, this decline in his physique caused James to begin boycotting his reflection completely.
Right hand: scarred and calloused in several places. Known to cause significant damage to other people in the years spent working the clubs and then later, in private altercations involving extortion and general enforcement of the law (the law according to James). The same hand which shook the hands of many other men and always exerted greater pressure, unconsciously or otherwise, to establish dominance. This hand had also crushed the windpipes several of these men when those business deals (illegal or otherwise) had 'gone cactus'.
The right-hand completes all transactions involving money. After his arrival back in Australia, having exhausted all available options and once he had fully comprehended that 'getting back in the food chain' was going to be more difficult than he had initially thought, James began to explore other, more desperate money-making ventures. One afternoon his right hand had snatched up his cell phone and sent a text (.....where the fuck are you?). James had been waiting for a customs officer in a skimpy bar out near the Port of Botany. The customs officer was supposed to show up with a recently confiscated consignment of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride which James intended to pass on to a group of people who wanted to cook up some Meths. Or maybe Ice? Anyway, it was supposed to be a quick, painless middleman type of transaction. The only problem was, the customs officer showed up. So James just sat there, angry that his time was being wasted, annoyed that people were so unreliable these days, as freight trucks rumbling past on the main road outside and two disinterested, half naked girls wandered through the tables of punters (.......you just can't rely on people these days, eh? Anyway, I was sitting there and just as one door closed and another one opened. I ran into Arnie. Arnie is an electrician who used to be a thief back in the day....I never liked him much....always sniffing around....but he saw me so it was catch up time, I suppose. He joins me for a drink, to reminisce....like we're old mate. And he starts telling me he was doing this job out at Rose Bay. An alarm system on this big house. And, like all his jobs, Arnie reflexively had started scoping this place out, assessing it for the purposes of knocking it over, eh? Once a thief, always a thief, right? Anyway, he still gets a thrill out of this kind of thinking, you know? Reminds him of the old days. He tells me all about it. In detail.....the heavy duty American safe in the walk-in and all that original artwork up on the walls. Expensive stuff. After a few more beers and a little encouragement, I have all I need. The family was heading off to Europe soon. Hence the maintenance check on the alarm system. Like I say, at that point, I was finding it challenging to come up with the daily expenses for myself let alone the cash I needed to feed the lawyers.....so after that, all I needed to do was keep an eye on the place for a day or two, make sure the maid or the gardener or whoever wasn't going to show up and....)
Right hand: James would use the right to hand punch out a glass panel in the french doors of the Rose Bay residence, the doors facing the tiled pool area, before locating the alarm pad in the front entrance alcove.
Left hand: One scar on the webbing between forefinger and thumb. A wedding band. This hand is, of course, the less coordinated, co-conspirator of the other. The dumb bully brother. In the past, James used Mr Left to hold opponents down by the throat while Mr Right would grapple, strangle, slap, beat, gouge, punch human beings into various forms of submissions. On the day of the robbery, working in collusion with the right hand, Mr Left helped cut abstract paintings, the works of prominent Australia artists, out of their frames with a Stanley knife, roll them up and then place them in the garage to be transferred into the van. He did a quick check of the house, moving room to room, opening draws and cupboards. He found nothing much of value. Sporting equipment. Technology. Finally, Mr Left helped deadlift and carry the stout little safe out of the master walk-in closet, back through the kitchen and out to the van. Crunching across the gravel driveway in the hot, mid-day sun, James felt the first serious twang of pain in his lower back like a sour guitar note. Regardless, he had to keep moving forward. After the job was complete. After driving away on sagging suspension, the arse end of the van practically dragging across town with the weight of his booty, James manhandled the safe out of the back and into his garage in Bondi. A cramped brick space with a busted roll-up door. After this, James spent a total of three days trying to break the safe open. First, after some cursory online research, he attempted to drill out the locking mechanism using a pneumatic drill. And when that didn't work (.....the problem was this little metal cube, this easter egg from hell, turned out to be tougher than your conventional domestic or even hotel safe, right?......So I was getting nowhere. The hardened drill bits just spun in place, creating a few tiny blemishes in the door and some white smoke.......and that's about it. And the grinder didn't do much better either......Basically, all I was doing, was producing a lot of noise, fucking up the door, before eventually burning out the motor of these cheap tools.....and I thought it was gonna be so easy. The research made it look simple enough. 'Weak point drilling' is what they call it. I was simply going to punch a hole through the door then, bypassing the rotary lock system, manipulate locking mechanism directly. But it didn't go that way. The tools weren't up to the job. So that meant going back to the hardware store to pick up more drill bits and yet another one of those useless, cheap Chinese grinders. And now, adding to my woes, it becomes apparent that I have well and truly fucked up my back. I am talking about debilitating pain, right? It's getting to the point I can't even bend over.....I can’t twist my torso from side to side to get in the van. Everything hurts. I can barely apply the brakes without a jolt of pain. But this safe...I can’t shake the certainty that there is something of value inside it. So after taking a break and consulting the great oracle Google once again (where would we be without bloody Google?), I decide it's time to go with plan B. So, now I go to work on the hinges with the grinder, sending a shower of sparks off into the dark corners of the little garage. More noise which equals more attention. And every time I come outside, to get some air, I spot people in the surrounding apartment complex. Old people and the chronically unemployed, eh? Out on their balconies, clutching their chests as they cough out pale cigarette smoke. People clawing at themselves, sinking in the mediocrity of their own lives. And I can well imagine one of these cunts picking up the phone and calling the cops. Or the council. Making a complaint because there is nothing else going on in the long slow horror of their day except maybe daytime tv. And I'm, thinking....).
(A helping hand). And in the middle of all this, James made another error of judgement. He thought that perhaps, if he could just get his hands on a decent grinder or even better, an oxyacetylene torch, he could finish the job. The only person he knew with access to industrial grade tools was Rob, his ex-wife's de facto husband. With this in mind (.....so I go to Kath's house, which is situated on a small side street in the Junction. I park, get out and hobble across the street cause I'm in fucking agony. She answers the door. Her Highness. After all these years she looks about the same. Same sour face. I dodged a bullet on that one, didn't I? Here was another Aussie bird who expected the world handed to her on a silver platter. All sweetness and light until the marriage was finalised at which point she would set to work, making the male's life a slow hell....just like her mother and her mother before had done. Self-involved to the point.....)
Anyway, James was not there to see his ex-wife or be encouraged to expand on his misogynistic theories relating to problems of modern marriage to someone from his own culture. He was there for some tools. He smiled and exchanged a few pleasantries with Kath. 'He's in the back, she said, miserable as ever. The house was in a state, with piles of lumber stacked up and running along the main corridor. Holes punched in the walls and electrical wiring dangling. An entire room had been turned into an aviary with chicken wire stretched over the doorway. As soon as James walked past this room small parrots, a cockie and two 28’s began screeching and flapping in agitation. Rob was in the back garden, assembling or disassembling a bike engine, his tools on the ground, the radio playing. James began to (.......I started talking to Rob about laying hands on something industrial to get into that box, yeah? And not being too specific about it because Rob is and always has been a greasy individual.....I never knew exactly how far I could trust him. And predictably, instead of providing a simple solution, Rob opens up a whole series of addition complications, embarking on verbal tangents that only the truly drugged fucked can generate. And no matter how I tried, I couldn't get him to focus on the central issue......As we talked, already I could feel his oily tendrils reaching out into my business....then into the community. In my imagination, I can already hear Rob gabbing away at the pub....guess who dropped by the other day?
I felt instantly tired and defeated by the whole thing. These people and their quicksand lives. It seemed.....) At that moment, James felt himself become trapped in a seemingly endless fractile pattern of events, one thing mindlessly shooting off and leading onto another. What had he originally set out to do here? Simple: James had set out to make some money. But now the train was out of control and he was on some other track. How had this happened? When he backtracked, he could map out the cause and effect with little difficulty: the Eric situation, the money, the customs officer, a safe, the plan, the pain sustained from his back injury, endless trips to Bunnings, neighbours clocking his activities, his sour ex-wife and now her drug-addled husband.
It all seemed to make sense in the moment but, standing back, it was obvious to James that the whole thing had become a squirming, tentacular mess. And James, being a goal orientated individual, was not at all comfortable with this lack of control, this octopus with multiplying arms. So, in the end, he cut his losses and got out of there. Never mind, he said, forget it.
Naw....what do you need mate? said Rob, his rotten teeth still hanging in there, a weary yellowed smile.
Nothing man, said James. Look I made a mistake, eh? Actually....wait a minute....I do need some pain killers. Did you have anything? Strong?
This seemed like a good diversion. A plausible reason for his visit. At least it satisfied Robs's curiosity.
Yeah, said Rob. I got something. And he went in the house.
Right and left foot-unremarkable. Usually dressed in thongs or designer running wear, there is evidence of previous fractures which have mended over time in a normal way but have left minor callus formations where the bones have knitted back together. In this life, it's one foot in front of the other to get anything done. Simple as that. This had always been James's philosophy. Be methodical, take everything one stage at a time. Great temples are built one stone placed carefully on top of the next. (.......I finally managed to bust that fucking thing open and what do I find? Jewellery? Cash? No. I reach in and....I find a handful of photographs. Not a flash drive mind you.....I'm talking about printed photos of this blond woman posing coyly on a bed and then some more poses on a sofa.....In other words, the softest of porn. Not even porn. Erotica. A sweet record of a body before children and gravity doled out their damage. This is the same woman I noticed it all photographs scattered around the house.....The mother and wife. The lady of the house.....And I'm thinking seriously?........I check again, reaching back further into the safe and that is when I find the letter. An old-fashioned love letter for fuck-sake. Will you be mine forever and ever? This is from the husband, his words scratched out on three pieces of paper of semi-translucent paper. There is nothing else in the safe. I mean, I do appreciate that we all have our personal treasures, right? Mementoes or whatever. But as an objective party, I think to myself....was it really necessary to keep these items under lock and key? If I'd come across them in a draw, I wouldn't have given them a second thought. I'd have moved on. I'd have respected the inner workings of your relationship. Now, as it stands, I want to go back to your house with a can of petrol and burn it done. And when I straighten up, my head grazing the bare lightbulb again, frustration sets in and I grab the crowbar and swing it at the safe. Apparently, the safe.....) The safe had not quite finished inflicting its physical punishment on James because as a result of whacked it with the crowbar, the impact sent a deep and humming vibration through his bones like a tuning fork and also put a long, clean needle of sound straight through his ear drums.
The third metatarsal shows signs of (.........but wasn't over yet because I still had to get the fucking thing out of my garage and dispose of it. So I back the van up and try to lift the fucking thing off the ground but I can't. So I am forced to lump the metal box across the concrete and then somehow, with one last lift, I manage to get the cunt in the back of the van, feeling that terrible wrenching pain in my lower back again. And after that, I drive the safe out to this building site near the airport. Every time one of these I've-been-living-here-for-twenty-five-years-yet-somehow-I-still-drive-like-I'm-manoeuvring-through-the-Third-World taxi driver decides to 'merge' into my lane, I'm forced to pump the breaks and my spine transmits yet another signal of pain out along my nervous system. But I make it, pulling up at the building site. By now it's getting dark so the van's headlights are pushing out into the gloom, illuminating dirt, piles of busted concrete and weeds. I lump the safe out of the back of the van and stumble off into the weeds, muscles in my neck and lower back going into spasms. Overhead, a bright threat of vapour trails out of a commercial airliners asshole as it gains altitude above CBD. For a moment, all I want is to be on a flight heading home. Free of this obligation. I get out into the weeds and drop that cunt, letting gravity take it out of my hands as it falls to the earth with a dull, subterranean thump. And then I stagger back to the van, covered in sweat and breathing hard. I carefully fold myself back in behind the wheel and then drive back to the city, slowly and methodically, trying to moderate the pain, pushing yet another pill out of the bubble packaging and swallowing it. I head to a place I know in the Junction. I park on a back street and by the time I get out of the car, I'm almost crawling. I dispose of the photographs and letter unceremoniously in a bin. This place is on the corner. It has little Christmas lights in the window and a Buddhist shrine in the lobby. One of the girls takes me out into the back room. She gets me stripped down and oiled up. It takes some convincing but I am truly only interested in a deep tissue massage. No happy ending for you? She asks.
Darling, the way things having been going for me recently....it doesn't look likely, I say, closing my eyes. She goes to work on my back, her strong little hands providing relief. And I.....)
Report Summary (.....happy endings....): It is this pathologist's opinion that the terminal event was cerebral hypoxia caused by a lethal mixture of pharmaceutical drugs. Basically, it comes down to poor pain management. Judgement may have been hampered by a number of factors outlined in this report. In the last couple of days of his life, it is assumed that in all likelihood, James would have entered into a period of overmedicating which led to (.....well, that'll teach me, won't it? You think you have every bloody angle covered. You imagine some enemy from the past, someone you screwed over, eh?......coming at you from the peripheral. A bullet in the brain while you're sitting at a red light maybe?.....A creeper in the dark with a machete? Naw....basically, with chemical assistance, I did myself in. A pill here and a pill there, and I just drifted off in my sleep. Un-fucking-believable. And how topical as well, right? I mean...Prince? Heath Ledger? All these famous people snuffing themselves out through poorly regulated pain medication. Anyway, it turns out, I am my own worst enemy. The annoying thing is, all those years of worry were for nought. But you don't know this......do you? If you knew ahead of time, if you had the year of your demise, at least you could make all the other years count.....right? And fuck you John Lennon.....'Life happens when you're busy making other plans'.....what about death eh? John? Eh? What about death? That also happens when you're busy making other plans. I bet you didn't feel so plastic fantastic when Chapman popped up out of nowhere....did ya? Yeah...so wise beyond all of us lesser mortals....
Ah....I don't know. Look. I'm sorry. John, I'm sorry mate. I really shouldn't be taking this out on you. That is completely uncalled for. It's not his fault, is it? I'm still a bit mystified by the whole thing...the lack of resolution. The anticlimax. Generally speaking, people say they want a peaceful end but when it happens to you...it's very unsatisfying.
And believe me, I had plans. I planned to make a movie based on my life. That's right....a movie.....and why not? I had the stories. Back home, I had started talking to this kid......this writer type.....who was travelling around, looking for good stories to kick-start his career.....as young writers are want to do. After I got to know him a little bit better, after I had him over to the house a few times to meet the wife, we decided to collaborate. I would provide the raw material and he would fix everything up, put my life into words. Of course, I was gonna change all the names and all that....keep things legal. This kid....he was smart. He had the script writing knowledge, eh? He knew all that shit about plot, character and sparkling dialogue. One thing was for certain: we decided this wasn't gonna be your usual Australian film industry let down, eh?....all character and no fucking action....like.....what was that one called? The Animal Kingdom? Saw that on DVD. What a snooze fest.
Naw....we were drawing on films like 'Chopper', 'Sexy Beast', 'Pulp Fiction'...In fact, that is exactly what the elevator pitch would have been....imagine 'Sexy Beast' meets 'Chopper' with just a dash of 'Pulp Fiction' thrown in, yeah? Oh, I could clearly see myself as the protagonist, forced back into action after years of retirement because of my brother's predicament.....And this is exactly what you need. Clear character motivation, yeah?
And man did we have a really good opening sequence. I'm telling you. Picture this: the visiting room of the jail in Thailand, the conversation with my brother. Followed by the interior of the plane tilting as we come into to land at Sydney.....the music kicking in....jump cut to me (played by Ray Winstone) moving through Sydney airport, the luggage carousels, getting grilled by immigration and customs....then the taxi ride through the streets of Sydney....all of this seen strictly in the reflected mirror lenses of my sunglasses while my face remains impassive.....yeah? Yeah?
We were going to play with time as well....tell the story slightly out of sequence.....I don't know? Maybe tell the same story from a number of different angles. This kid.....my writing partner, as I may have mentioned, he got me to watch a lot of old movies. 'The Killing', 'Elevator to the Gallows' and this old Japanese flick called 'Rashomon'. Some of that French New Wave stuff.....he really got me to appreciate that you don't need to tell the story in a conventional way. Don't get me wrong, you need to be careful you're not making yet another Pulp Fiction knock-off but.....this is not to say, you have to tell a story beginning, middle and end. Be creative. Be bold. Mess with the audience a bit. Keep them on their toes.
So yeah....we were going to play with time. Jump around a bit. Absolutely. I did put my foot down when it came to a lot of the Meta wank he wanted to include.....Look, I don't mind breaking the fourth wall every now and again, explaining things, but I'm not gonna walk around telling people that my life is a dramatic construct....Nor should the character playing me in the film based my life behave in this way. I find that kind of shit irritating, to say the least. Cheap film school antics. At a certain point, you have to commit to telling a story, eh?
Anyway, I had all this in the pipeline......before.....well, the 'terminal event' or the 'happy ending' or whatever you want to call it.....I certainly wouldn't have had me, the protagonists, buying it in the final reel because of a piddly drug overdose....I'm thinking that a blaze of glory type situation would have been more in order. Maybe Rob or one of my other associates lurking in the wings? Think Daniel Craig in 'Layer Cake' or Al Pacino in 'Carlito's Way'. The protagonist just missing his objective by a hair. A bullet in the belly as he drives off, heading towards a tomorrow he will never reach. Karma baby. Karma of the overlooked detail, eh?
Anyway....all that won't happen now. Six minutes is about how long the brain can survive without oxygen. A lot can happen in that six minutes let me tell you....your life can flicker before your eyes like an epic movie. All the scenes cut together in no particular order yet still making sense. A kaleidoscope of images and sounds.
All I know is, one minute I was feeling tired and I just decided to have a lie-down....just a nice little afternoon nap, a momentary rest, the sea breeze coming through the blinds of my apartment, my eyelids getting heavier, closing as I began to drift....).
End of report.
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