probably the least violent in my life at that point, I did get belted the day I got in there. It was a screw who hit me, while I was drawing on my arm in a lame attempt to look like the rest of the real men with real tattoos
‘You cut that shit out, kid,’ he barked with a finger in my face. I did.
It occurred to me then that this dude had the ultimate level of control over me. I was getting pretty big, so not even Dad had that level of control over me anymore. This guy, though, he could do whatever he wanted to do to me in this place.
A few hours after that, another level of prison control revealed itself when I got into gen-pop. I was talking tothis Pakeha dude – shaved head, gothic tatts and also fresh to Waikeria – and out of the blue, one of the prisoners walking past just launched at him. The stranger took him off the bench, onto the ground and just started whaling into him with punches.
It wasn’t like that outside. Outside there’d usually be words or stares before the fists came. Here it was just a storm from blue skies.
‘Why were you talking to that guy?’ the puncher asked me after he’d finished with his prey. I said I didn’t know. He was just a guy.
‘Well fucking don’t, kid. Stick with your own.’
There were new rules, and one of those was that a coconut like me wasn’t going to be talking to any skinheads. The guy who was doing the punching was named Jinx, and he was one of the alpha males in the joint. I was going to be following his lead. That was going to work for me.
Like most prisons around the world, the gangs ran Waikeria, and if they decided to mess with you, then prison wasn’t going to be much fun. Thankfully, the gangs didn’t mess with me, and I quickly learned all the rules of the place. Things were especially easy for me perhaps because I was at the bottom of the heap – I was a kid after all. There really wasn’t much point in fucking me up.
I ended up having a pretty good time in prison. It felt like a holiday. There were three square meals a day – that was my favourite part – and work at the nearby dairy farm, and weights, and ‘crash’, which was a jail version of rugby league played on cement and sometimes – in my case, anyway – barefoot.
I was one of the better crash players in prison, and that gave me some social currency among the inmates. More came when Josh Mataulfati, a gang leader and one of the prison’s toughest guys, took me on as a sort of personal assistant and training lackey. Mataulfati was a kickboxer, and gave me the job of organising his gear and holding the bag for him while he trained.
I’d always loved my kung fu films, but this was the first time I’d seen martial arts for real. Josh was a good kickboxer: his strikes were precise, deliberate and well thought out. I appreciated the artistry and power of his punches, and I loved the
boom
when a good kick landed on the bag.
You might be thinking it was here that I saw a future in those martial arts for myself. You might also be thinking that I saw a future in crime, but in both cases you’d be mistaken. I never threw one punch in prison, not in anger, nor on a bag or pad. I wasn’t thinking about any future inprison at all, I was just enjoying a break from the chaos my life had been.
One day after he finished training, Josh asked me if I wanted to ‘nom up’ (start the nomination process) for his gang the Mongrel Mob. Up to that point I’d never thought about what I wanted out of life, but this offer forced me to think ahead. Nomming up was committing to a certain life, and a certain code.
‘Nah, I’m right.’ That’s what I told Josh.
Even though I’d be coming out of jail a sixteen-year-old, uneducated, penniless, convicted criminal, I felt like I could get more out of this life than crime, gangs and prisons. I eventually ended up being right, but man, for a while there it was a close-run thing.
Chapter 3
SOUTH AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
1992
There were only a few
‘You cut that shit out, kid,’ he barked with a finger in my face. I did.
It occurred to me then that this dude had the ultimate level of control over me. I was getting pretty big, so not even Dad had that level of control over me anymore. This guy, though, he could do whatever he wanted to do to me in this place.
A few hours after that, another level of prison control revealed itself when I got into gen-pop. I was talking tothis Pakeha dude – shaved head, gothic tatts and also fresh to Waikeria – and out of the blue, one of the prisoners walking past just launched at him. The stranger took him off the bench, onto the ground and just started whaling into him with punches.
It wasn’t like that outside. Outside there’d usually be words or stares before the fists came. Here it was just a storm from blue skies.
‘Why were you talking to that guy?’ the puncher asked me after he’d finished with his prey. I said I didn’t know. He was just a guy.
‘Well fucking don’t, kid. Stick with your own.’
There were new rules, and one of those was that a coconut like me wasn’t going to be talking to any skinheads. The guy who was doing the punching was named Jinx, and he was one of the alpha males in the joint. I was going to be following his lead. That was going to work for me.
Like most prisons around the world, the gangs ran Waikeria, and if they decided to mess with you, then prison wasn’t going to be much fun. Thankfully, the gangs didn’t mess with me, and I quickly learned all the rules of the place. Things were especially easy for me perhaps because I was at the bottom of the heap – I was a kid after all. There really wasn’t much point in fucking me up.
I ended up having a pretty good time in prison. It felt like a holiday. There were three square meals a day – that was my favourite part – and work at the nearby dairy farm, and weights, and ‘crash’, which was a jail version of rugby league played on cement and sometimes – in my case, anyway – barefoot.
I was one of the better crash players in prison, and that gave me some social currency among the inmates. More came when Josh Mataulfati, a gang leader and one of the prison’s toughest guys, took me on as a sort of personal assistant and training lackey. Mataulfati was a kickboxer, and gave me the job of organising his gear and holding the bag for him while he trained.
I’d always loved my kung fu films, but this was the first time I’d seen martial arts for real. Josh was a good kickboxer: his strikes were precise, deliberate and well thought out. I appreciated the artistry and power of his punches, and I loved the
boom
when a good kick landed on the bag.
You might be thinking it was here that I saw a future in those martial arts for myself. You might also be thinking that I saw a future in crime, but in both cases you’d be mistaken. I never threw one punch in prison, not in anger, nor on a bag or pad. I wasn’t thinking about any future inprison at all, I was just enjoying a break from the chaos my life had been.
One day after he finished training, Josh asked me if I wanted to ‘nom up’ (start the nomination process) for his gang the Mongrel Mob. Up to that point I’d never thought about what I wanted out of life, but this offer forced me to think ahead. Nomming up was committing to a certain life, and a certain code.
‘Nah, I’m right.’ That’s what I told Josh.
Even though I’d be coming out of jail a sixteen-year-old, uneducated, penniless, convicted criminal, I felt like I could get more out of this life than crime, gangs and prisons. I eventually ended up being right, but man, for a while there it was a close-run thing.
Chapter 3
SOUTH AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
1992
There were only a few
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