No Defence: One Man’s Fight for Truth

Prologue

Sunday evening – 5 August 1973

I stand there looking at my feet and something starts to resolve deep within me. The colours I hate are staring back at me. A red and brown, pulpy mass mixed with what looks like old tea leaves lies pathetically around my feet. So much of it this time. More than ever before. I feel weak and faint and for a moment fear that I may die. The hot water from the shower runs over my body and brings me some comfort as it always does. I slide down the wall and while doubled over on the floor vomit violently. I get up on my hands and knees to sweep the contents of my stomach and my own body fluids and filth into the drain. I desperately push liquid and lumps of all colour into the small holes as fast as I can. No one can ever see this shameful mess. I scrub and scrub every bit of me using the familiar green Solyptol soap. The strong medical smell pervades my nostrils but, unlike before, it does nothing to soothe me or make me feel clean. The hot water from the shower faucet hits my upturned face at close range, washing away my tears and in return brings me sudden clarity. I look up and see beyond the grimy ceiling of the amenities. God is looking down at me. In my mind, our eyes meet and we both just know. I let out a big sigh, nod my head and turn off the water. I watch, momentarily transfixed as the last of the water swirls around the base of the shower and finds its way down the drain. Filthy water, gone forever. I pick up my towel laid neatly over my clothes as my mind begins to plan.

Strangely, when rock bottom comes, it’s undeniable. It is absolute, definitive, full of defiance and it’s powerful. Oh my God – it’s powerful. The power brings me a feeling of euphoria and agency. Finally, I am back in control. I will end this nightmare tonight. After feeling so powerless for so long, for the moment I feel whole again – happy even. It’s going to end. A bubble of joy mixed strongly with relief rises in my throat. The fact that I know I will be paying for this power with my life is of no real consequence. After all, my life is worthless to me. I feel peacefully at ease with my decision. Rock bottom has made my options null and void. Only one resolution remains and suddenly it is ridiculously simple. There is no other way out. And I am ready.

I continue to dry myself methodically with my towel and I dress carefully while keeping a vigilant eye on the door. I check my pockets pleased to discover some loose change. On the way back to my room, I buy a can of Pepsi from the vending machine. I now have what I need, and it shouldn’t be too difficult. In fact, this will probably be the easiest thing I have ever done in my whole, entire life. And finally, I win. So, fuck off cunts – all of you! At the end of the day, it’s my life. I call the shots – with my body, my heart, my spirit, my soul. You can’t touch me ever again.

The tablets slide down easily. Four or five at a time with a sip of Pepsi. Pepsi was always such a treat. Birthday parties and special occasions suddenly come to mind. I actually used to get excited at the thought of a fizzy drink. Still do in fact. Although Southern Comfort at $6.72 a bottle has become my latest ally. More Pepsi, four or five more tablets. More tablets and more Pepsi. I keep this easy rhythm going until all three Valium bottles are empty.

I lay down on my bed and softly say my goodbyes to those that I love. To my mum, my brother, my sisters and my girlfriend – I am sorry.

I am feeling a warm buzz from the inside out and the outside in. For a moment, I think I am back in the shower, under the hot water and it feels delicious. I laugh … Down the drain. Filthy water, gone forever. Down, down, down. I feel so relaxed, so tired, so warm. Might close my eyes for a bit. Might close my eyes forever – but not yet. Laying on my bed, I start to smile. I can see the stars in the sky, and they are twinkling and beckoning me. The Milky Way appears. It is so beautiful and it’s so close. I feel myself being drawn towards the largest star of all. It is my star – the star of Kenny. But I’m not a star – I am a rock, turning into an unreachable island. I can hear the Currawongs singing. They are flying high tonight. I continue to smile as I think about the night I started running away. That feeling of freedom. I can see myself running towards the boom gate. Wait! This time I’m coming too. My eyelids are so heavy. I close my eyes again and the pull is suddenly undeniable. I am coming! I sink lower and lower into absolute oblivion. I see an angel and her arms are open wide. Freedom is calling and finally, finally, finally … I feel safe.

Part One:

Sins of the Father

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls: the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Khalil Gibran

1

I Am a Rock

10.15 pm. Dad was home from the pub, crunching up the gravel driveway. I flinched and tightened my foetal position, making my five-year-old body as small as I could. Maybe he wouldn’t notice me. Holding my breath and waiting while the tension inside my gut mounted, I listened to Dad’s boots on the outside stairs, then his fumbling of the handle. The door banged as it swung open with clumsy force, hitting the wall on the inside of the house. The hole in the gyprock, created by the door handle, had become progressively bigger over the years.

More loud footsteps and then the cursing – loud and angry. If I was lucky, Dad would walk past my bedroom door and go straight to the kitchen where an argument would immediately begin as though it had been going all night but suddenly the volume had just been turned up. My mother would not be so lucky those nights. The arguments were always disturbing and violent. I’d cover my ears and burrow my head under my pillow and blankets. But menace and violence seeped deep into my soul as the muffled yelling still pervaded my senses. My mum took the hits, the pushes and the verbal abuse with little fuss. It was the 1950s and the term ‘Domestic Violence’ had not been invented yet. This was her lot in life and she would bear it. If Dad was hitting her then at least he wasn’t hitting me.

Being the first-born son, I was named after my father. We shared the same name and a certain degree of artistic ability but that was all. Ken senior was a big, six-foot tall, heavy-set man, his beer gut testimony to his love of beer. Drinking and lawn bowls were what he lived for. He was loud, he was charming, he was a womaniser. He was also evil.

A few years after I was born the family moved from Inverell to Warwick, a country town of 25,000 people in Southern Queensland. My dad’s brother, Snow, already lived there and our family bought a nearby property. There were two little boys in the family now that my baby brother, David, had arrived. Our family of four lived in a large shed while Dad built a house on the land. A humble, innocuous-looking, three-bedroom, brick house became our family home. To anyone else, our home looked like any other around Warwick at that time. But for me, as far back as I can remember, my house was the House of Horrors. A house where fear met you at the door and pervaded every space and corner. A house that contained air so thick with tension, like wading through quicksand, you seemed to move slower as you entered it. A house that held a black and heavy energy, where no sounds of laughter were ever heard within its walls. A house that hid not only fear but also the pain, anguish and violence of constant abuse.

Most nights, I wasn’t lucky, and my dad’s loud, clumsy footsteps would stop at my bedroom door. The air, cold and vindictive, invaded my room, causing my muscles to contract even tighter as my door flung open with force. Often when this happened, my bladder would betray me and release. I’d feel the warmth of my shameful weakness over my legs and know it was going to be so much worse now. I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t. Despite being tucked up small and hidden under the covers in my bed, Dad always noticed I was there. He would drag me out of bed by my arm or hair and make me stand before him, trembling in my blue and white striped cotton pyjamas that did nothing to hide the warm and ever-increasing wetness running down my legs. My father would look at me with withering disgust and demand I account for my chores and how I spent my afternoon. Any deviation from the schedule, resulted in a flogging. A wet bed, resulted in a flogging. Not speaking loud enough, resulted in a flogging. Not answering quickly enough, resulted in a flogging. Doing everything as asked, resulted in a flogging. But wetting myself while standing wide-eyed and terrified before my father, resulted in an even worse flogging as it was the ultimate provocation proving beyond doubt what my father already knew of me, ‘Kenny is pathetically weak – an embarrassment.’

Dad was fond of using the electrical cord as a means of whipping me across the back of my legs. The lashes would leave red, angry welts and blisters, which wouldn’t get a chance to heal before the next flogging was dealt. Sometimes, it was simply a punch to the ribs or a knock to the floor. Once it was a thrashing with rose stems, the thorns leaving gaping holes in the back of my legs. So many swift and powerful backhanders across the left side of my head burst my left eardrum repeatedly. My right ear copped its fair share too. Ribs broke, skin bled, bruises covered my body. I truly can’t remember how my father broke my collarbone; I just know he did. When it would get really bad, I would run to Uncle Snow’s place, as soon as I could. Uncle Snow gave me refuge and compassion, wiping away the blood, applying a bandage or two, before sending me back home again. There was no escape.

Night after night, I lay in trepidation – my flight-or-fight adrenaline response on high alert. As my stomach churned and knots built, I desperately tried to defy sleep while my right ear intently listened for the sound of gravel under car tyres. Sometimes I would accidentally fall asleep and have nightmares about hearing Dad’s car arrive, which always brought that warm, wet feeling that first soothed and then, with greater consciousness, brought panic and fear. I would pay for that.

The beatings and bullying ate away at my confidence, my strength and then my soul – bit by bit, by bit. Any sense of agency I’d ever felt eroded as the abuse continued. It dehumanised me and made me constantly question my worth.

***

To deal with the chaos of my young life, I needed something to believe in. So I talked to God and asked for his help. He gave me just enough at just the right time to keep going, like on Friday and Saturday nights when despite the pub closing at its usual 10 pm, the regular customers (none more so than Dad), were allowed access to a back room where the drinking continued for another hour or two.

Dad usually came home after midnight on those nights, so drunk he didn’t have the capacity to bother anyone. Instead, he dragged himself in and passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow, or the lounge, or the floor – whatever came first. On these nights, life gave me a reprieve to etch some happy childhood memories, as if God’s angels were stepping in to give me moments of respite, to keep my spirit alive and my soul intact.

Dad was a painter and sign-writer. He had a ute filled with ladders and planks of wood to make platforms. When I was sure Dad was safely passed out, I would sneak out of the house and venture down to his ute. Climbing onto the ute’s tray, I’d lay down on one of the planks of wood and gaze up into the night sky. I’d look among the stars for the Saucepan and the Milky Way and wish I could fly away into space. I often wondered what life would be like on another planet and dreamt of living on a star. Falling stars delighted me, and upon these, I made a million wishes. For hours, I stargazed, dreamt and wondered at the vastness of the universe. It soothed me and fed my soul.

Currawongs singing in the trees around my house always made me smile. Maybe these were His angels bringing me nourishment. Having so few happy childhood memories meant that the good ones became wonderful and stuck firmly in my mind, in coloured detail forever.

Another gift the angels gave me to sustain my soul was music. In 1966, when I was eleven, the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘I am a rock’ was released. The first time I heard this song played on the radio, it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. I truly believed this song was written just for me. The lyrics gave voice to the metaphorical fortress I had built. I was that island, and no one could get to me – that is, the part of me that really mattered. Finally, I had words to express what I was feeling. I was no longer alone. Someone understood. I committed every word to memory and constantly sang it in my head. I gathered great strength from the lyrics and was left with a yearning for more of this thing that made me feel better from the inside out.

Being a working-class family meant we didn’t have much spare money and certainly none to buy a radio for me. My only option was to make one. From bits and pieces I found at the local tip, and from Dad’s shed, I constructed a crystal radio. When I finally got it to work, I frantically fiddled with the dial to tune into a station. Lots of crackle gave way to music, and my heart lifted as I immediately recognised what I was hearing: Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘I am a rock’, in all its glory. I knew right then music would always be my friend. A friend to lean on, a friend to gain strength from, a friend to express myself through. This gift was mine from that day on and no one could ever take it from me.

As soon as I was able to, I earnt pocket money doing odd jobs. I worked for Peters Ice Cream, Goodyear Tyres and the local grocery store. The owner of the store, Tommy Stabler, was a kind and compassionate man who was good to me and my family. He used to let my mum, Nola, pay off her groceries when she didn’t have the money. I saved hard and was soon able to buy myself a small, black transistor radio. I kept it hidden from Dad, and when I wasn’t using it, kept it in its original packaging. This little radio became my most valuable possession.

I gained strength and inspiration from many songs, but still, ‘I am a rock’ was the song that remained supreme to all others. It gave me just what I needed – the resilience to carry on. This song not only expressed my pain and heartache, it somehow reached inside me and held my heart in firm and loving hands. This song became my saviour and lifeline during my darkest days and nights.

***

By the time I was in the later years of primary school, I realised I was quite smart. I had a natural ability for spatial concepts, patterns and numbers. I loved to read and be creative and artistic. Dad called me ‘the thinker’, and it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Perhaps my intellectual ability intimidated him, because he treated David, who was younger by eighteen months, differently. As brothers, we were never close.

Dad often drove with David and I to the bowling club, where he would leave us in the Valiant for eight hours at a time while he drank and played bowls. He occasionally brought us a pink lemonade and a few packets of chips to last throughout the long and boring day. We made up games to play, but it usually didn’t take long before we would get annoyed with each other and an argument broke out. The stony silence that followed eventually led to one us breaking the tension with a fart, or a shoulder nudge, leading to more playful interaction, a new game, then a new argument. This cycle went on all day, punctuated only by the excitement of getting our drinks and chips.

After the sun had long gone down, Dad finally staggered back to the car, often with a beer in hand, which he spilled as he tried to down it while opening the car door. Then he threw the empty glass over his shoulder as he clumsily manoeuvred his body into the driver’s seat. Dad wasn’t just drunk. He was blind drunk. Drink-driving as a crime hadn’t been invented yet, and somehow, with or without headlights on, we always made it the few kilometres home.

These nights never ended well for me. David whinged about me to Dad, who only too happily believed every word, his big chest heaving in anger the more David spoke, giving his alcoholic-fuelled fury a convenient avenue for release. And of course, I copped it.

But I wasn’t alone in copping Dad’s abuse. My two sisters, Wendy and Elizabeth, arrived several years after David and I were born, and again, one was adored and one despised. While Elizabeth was favoured and loved, Wendy was made to pay for whatever it was that alienated her from Dad. And boy did she pay. We understand each other and are close because of our shared history and volatile relationship with our dad. We know how it felt. She is now sixty and riddled with cancer and has had to endure many challenges in her life – but she is a survivor.

***

While the nightly beatings, arguments and weekend reprieves continued throughout my childhood, and home was a place of terror, primary school was a place of great security and comfort. It was my safe haven, and I loved everything about it. I loved to learn, and I did well. During lunch, I read maths books in the library. But the better I did at school, the more Dad seemed to despise me – ‘the thinker’.

At about age eleven I started smoking. I smoked on the way to school, enjoying a sense of cool, defiance. On my route, I passed what we local kids believed to be a witch’s house. All the children walking to school would cross to the other side of the road, rather than pass the witch’s house and risk becoming her next meal, bubbling away in her cauldron. What better place to hide my packet of cigarettes while I was in class? I stashed them under the witch’s mailbox. A great idea! Until it rained.

At home, I kept my stash in a suitcase under my bed, along with all of my most dear and special possessions, including my beloved transistor radio and a new camera – when I was ten, I’d entered a drawing of a kookaburra into an art competition and won first place. I was awarded a Kodak camera, but as I couldn’t afford to buy film, let alone the cost of developing photos, I’d never used it. Dad hated cigarettes and this hidden rebellion, this private part of me, gave me some power, but I dreaded him finding my stash while he was in a drunken rage.

One morning, I went to my suitcase and found that five cigarettes were missing. Strange. But I couldn’t say anything for fear of Dad finding out. The next morning, another five were gone, then two days later, a few more. Perplexed and annoyed, as I didn’t have money for another packet just yet, I thought maybe Dad was playing a spiteful mind game with me. But the next morning, when I went to my case, there lay a brand-new, unopened packet! So, it wasn’t Dad.

In that moment, I truly believed the fairies had provided them. The universe was surely on my side, knowing how much I needed this secret power over Dad.

Sometime later, I was in the kitchen with Mum and still feeling encouraged by my secret ‘miracle’, I decided to confess my smoking habit. She leant towards me and whispered, ‘I hope they were the right brand. I couldn’t remember what was on the packet when I was out buying them.’

What? Mum didn’t smoke! But it seemed I wasn’t the only one who needed to regain some power over the bastard. With no job and no driver’s licence, Mum felt powerless and at the mercy of her husband. Although we would pay for our defiance if we were caught, we shared a sense of empowerment and camaraderie over our subterfuge.

***

My high school was nearly 3 km away. With so many chores to do once I was home, I needed a quicker way to travel than by foot. So, I made myself a push bike. Again, using the tools and bits and pieces I found in Dad’s garage and the local tip, I fashioned myself a bike that actually worked. Dad made a point of timing the trip to school so he would know exactly what time I was due home to start my chores. They were many and varied but always included feeding the chooks and poddy calves, chopping wood and doing my homework. The trip took thirteen minutes by bike. So, every afternoon, exactly thirteen minutes after the school dismissal bell rang, Dad rang home to make sure I was there and starting my chores. There were no excuses for not having everything done before dinner, as instructed. Or else!

Every Saturday, my job was to burn out Dad’s paint pots, ready for new paint and a new week of work. This was a job I didn’t mind at all. It involved rags, turps, fire and painting. Lighting a fire to set the pots alight was certainly the best part, and I enjoyed the power and thrill of creating fire. It was cathartic, and as I watched the old paint burn away, I wished I could burn away parts of myself just as easily, ready for a new week of life. When all the paint was burnt and the pots had cooled down, I sanded them clean, then painted them using varnish and turps. Once they were dry, I stacked the pots in the back of Dad’s ute.

Most weekends and school holidays, I also had to help Dad with sign writing. Since he’d become aware of my adept fine motor skills and artistic ability in winning the art competition, he thought he’d put me to good use. This work took place in the shed where framework had been built to hold the large highway signs steady while we painted them with words and pictures. Dad also employed several full-time apprentices and employees. I worked alongside them and efficiently completed work of a better standard, which even Dad acknowledged – verbally only – the measly two dollars he paid me for a full week’s work evidence of where I featured in his affections.

Helping Dad prepare a chicken for dinner was also a weekend job. I had to run around the yard like crazy to catch the squawking chicken and, after Dad had chopped its head off, place it in boiling water. Then I plucked the feathers, one by one, before bracing myself for the yucky part – gutting the chook. Warm heart and gizzards oozing from my fingers, I carefully placed them to one side before washing and drying the chicken to take upstairs to Mum. It could have been a true bonding time – Dad and son spending time in the yard together, helping prepare a hearty family meal for Sunday lunch.

I sometimes imagined our family sitting around a carefully laid dinner table, perhaps in front of a fire in winter, with the homely aroma of roast chicken in the air …

Except, it was nothing like that. Egg shells lay on our floor instead of carpet and there was always a distinct chill in the air.

My family didn’t smile much. Our photos show sad, serious, forlorn faces almost daring the camera to notice our plight. On Sundays, there were the usual chores to do before Dad, impatient, hands shaking, left for the pub. Immediate relief followed as the household collectively took a breath and relaxed … somewhat. But as the day wore on, familiar anxiety and tension grew exponentially. That damn chicken was certainly cooked, but we ate it quickly and silently with sides of boiled potatoes, frozen carrots, corn and peas and powdered gravy, and without Dad. His meal was left in the fridge ready for reheating in a hopeful but futile attempt to appease him when he arrived home later, frustrated from being three hours short of total oblivion – the pub closed early on Sundays. These nights, he could still function, his awareness allowing him to see himself far too clearly for his own liking.

The mood of each day, each moment, was dictated by the amount of alcohol Dad consumed.

None: Watch out. Don’t get in his way.

Too much: Relief and respite. Take a breath.

Quite a bit but in need of more: Run for your lives, nowhere to hide: Pray to God.

Sunday evenings, we all prayed to God.

***

When Dad was out, sometimes David and I went down to Dad’s huge shed and played a game called ‘find the bottle’. It was like hide-and-seek, only it was bottles of beer that were hidden and ‘seeked’. The empties didn’t count because they were everywhere in plain sight. Only the full bottles counted. I won the game one day, finding fourteen large King Brown pilsners. To us young boys, it was an amusing game, and we never really questioned the implications of our findings. It was simply funny, and we couldn’t understand why Dad hid them everywhere, as it was his shed and no one would ever dare take his beer anyway.

Several years later, while Dad and I were working on a highway sign in the shed, he suddenly leant to one side and pulled out a bottle of beer from behind the framework. Despite the beer having been sitting in the hot shed for days, if not weeks, and being the temperature of hot tea, he took the cap off and drank it down in one, long gulp. After that, his hand became steadier as he continued his work. I was quietly repulsed as my understanding of what it meant to be an alcoholic broadened.

The worst part of Dad’s drinking was the waiting. I hated it. You can never rely on an alcoholic, and Dad was always drunk, and always late. So, we were always late. To everything. With Mum not having a licence we had to rely on Dad to drive us everywhere.

Once there was a fancy-dress function to be held at our school. I had never been to a fancy-dress party before, and the whole family was going. I spent weeks planning and making my costume. When the day finally arrived, I was full of excitement, but even fuller of trepidation. Dad would have to drive us after he had been to the pub.

We all got ready early – youthful hope. I sat there in the loungeroom in my black panther costume … and waited. For the first time, I actually wanted to hear the sound of tyres on gravel. All my friends were going to be at the party, and I just wanted to feel normal and do something without a fuss. 6 pm starting time came and went. The party had started without us. We waited. As 6.30 pm approached, we removed the more uncomfortable parts of our outfits. Disappointed and sad, we waited … and waited. My youngest sister started to cry. Around 7 pm, Dad finally arrived home, drunk. By the time we got to the function, the prizes had been awarded and most of the food eaten.

One night after my usual sharp intake of breath and gut-wrenching clench at the sound of gravel under tyres, my drunk father bypassed my room. ‘Thank God,’ I muttered as the stale breath of fear was finally allowed to pass my lips. The laboured footsteps continued on to the kitchen where Mum stoically held her position of presenting her husband with a plate of dinner that was both