The Old Aboriginal Hospital
in Red Hill!
Isn't it terrific. Right on the ridge overlooking the entire city, and spectacular at night, it's now an upmarket family home but back then it contained four narrow flats each three floors high and, when we lived there, inhabiting each of these flats were - from left to right - prostitutes from the brothel next door, a biker gang, a lesbian separatist commune, and finally, ummmm, we university students!
The stories I could tell you!!! Mmmmph! No, better not! Oh, why not! It was 30 years ago, and I'm sure the statute of limitations on various illegal activities means no one can get into trouble for it.
So, check out that most-respectable-looking house to the left of the Old Hospital! That was the brothel where our prossies worked. And it's particularly interesting because it's the very infamous brothel where, as the Fitzgerald Inquiry finally let the entire country know, the Evil and Corrupt Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen set up those peepholes and cameras et al so he could get compromising photographic evidence of the wrong-doings of all his political enemies. Nasty business indeed!
And we were living right there too, right next door, while all that was going down! And I had a number of private chats with the prossies involved, all of whom knew ALL about these illegal activities and willingly shared everything they knew. Names! What actually went down! How they honey-pot snared 'em. Boasting about how clever they were, I guess, and therein putting me, a mere university student, in my place.
Can't say I liked these girls. Endlessly stupid in every imaginable way, and it really got to me was how they all thought they were soooo clever and that they were being really smart compromising all these important people! And, you know, they never considered themselves victims in all this; more like active participants and kinda like "undercover operatives" and, yes, simply LOVED the huge sums they got for doing it.
But I'll tell you something I learned from my brief time knowing these lassies! Stay away from anyone who uses the phrase "I'm a survivor! I do whatever it takes!" because it means they've already rationalised and justified whatever ugly plot they've hatched to take you down. I promise you that phrase is a warning, so take it seriously and GET OUT OF THERE.
But, yes, we were still living there during the political downfall of The Nationals, Joh, and the highly corrupt Head of Police Russ Hinze, but, sadly, had moved out by the time the police investigations into what actually went on in that brothel went down, so I have no insider story about any of that!
However, this is about our house, so ... next door to the prossies was the biker gang, but they were scary-creepy and in the big league for running drugs - and possibly guns - so I never ever wanted to know them. But I have to tell you that, when they sampled their own merchandise, got high and began their screaming rants down the ridge to the houses - and the "worker ants" who lived in them - below, I was perpetually annoyed at the shallowness of their thinking and kept putting together reading-lists in my head for what they really needed to know to give genuine power, depth and meaning to their anti-bourgeois tirades!
Then next-door to the bikers were the lesbian separatists who refused to have anything to do with MEN, but who all caught a particularly nasty form of venereal disease from Max-The-Junkie who would, almost every night, creep along that second floor roof and in through the windows. And not once did these girls scream or carry-on about a strange man coming into their bedrooms, seeing it like "A Visit from My Dark Prince!" and welcoming him with open arms!
I think we can blame all those Kate Bush songs they listened to, with all that dark imagery and those sinister romantic figures slinking through the night, for that particular lapse of taste and wisdom.
However, there was much screaming next door when these lassies discovered their disease! And that household dissolved very quickly after that, as you'd expect! Imagine EVERYONE in your commune secretly selling out the cause!
And the next flat along was where Keith was living when I first met him ... on the day The Dingo Took the Baby! ... and I eventually moved off campus and in with him. And for this little girl from the islands, it was definitely an eye-opener! DEFINITELY! However, I wish I could tell you I was shocked by it all, but I can't because I wasn't. For me, it felt like I was finally living.
We were the student household. Nominally university students that is, since just about everyone else had long-ago lost any interest in their half-finished PhDs and only spent enough time at uni to maintain their life-style at Government expense. I, on the other hand, was still a sad little undergraduate and so not remotely cool and disinterested in learning and knowledge and all that entails.
Best story from living at that house? Mmm, most are definitely not "tellable" although ... OK, I'll mention those police raids.
Yeah, we had lots of police raids. It seemed most illogical to me that two doors down we had blokes doing serious drug-running, yet still the police chose to pick us! At first, I thought they had the wrong address but then I noticed just how young most of the police were and guessed we must have been a Masterclass down at the local Police Academy: Drug Raid 101.
We got to be so blase about it all, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee as all around us these little-boys-and-girls-in-police-uniforms ransacked and tossed our house, guided by the jaundiced eye of the same chunky-chesty-old-copper, barking instructions and making suggestions and glaring at us like we were evil incarnate, especially if we made any jokes.
But mostly it was good natured and frequently they'd even clean up afterward if we asked, so we were forever saying things like "Can you bang those books together before you restack those shelves? They're very dusty." or "Before you push back that wardrobe, can you retrieve the shoe I dropped back there?" and if you threw in the odd "Pretty please?" and "Thank you!" they'd give you a little embarrassed smile and do it willingly and apologetically.
Except for this one occasion! I've never told anyone this before, but there was this one night when I got a bad vibe off one of the young coppers, so when he went into the bathroom and shut the door, I stood outside to eavesdrop and very definitely heard him move the lid of the cistern, and so, as soon as he came out, I went in to check and, yes, there was a little baggie of white powder in there. I thought maybe I should go out and hand it back to him saying "I think you forgot this!" but I had second thoughts since I could see that one ending very badly ... and so I flushed it!
It really shook me up, that did! You're forever hearing about police planting evidence but to actually know it's true. That those things are really done, and not just in films, books, urban legends and long-time-junkie-stories! Shocking! And also very bad sportsmanship! We all knew Max-the-Junkie may have had his stash hidden someplace but it was up to the police to find it, and if they didn't - and they never once did - that was the nature of the game. The police had LOST and they should have just worn it!
But to plant something ... and in a communal area too ... which meant we ALL would have gone down for it? That's just wrong! And it's unsporting and unjust too!
Anyway, I never mentioned it to anyone on the off-chance that this was indeed Max's stash, thinking that if Max started screaming about it being missing, we'd know he'd broken a very fundamental house-rule - "Keep your stash in your own private area! We will NOT go to prison for your habit!" but neither he or anyone else in the house ever mentioned it, so ...
But that isn't a happy story! Let's end with a happy story from those days!
Ah ha! I'll tell you about a particularly terrific party: The Kiss Concert Night! Because the house on the ridge at Red Hill overlooked the Football Stadium where the Brisbane Kiss Concert was being held, each of these four flats individually and without consulting each other, threw a "Come Over and See Kiss for Free" party.
So all four households and hundreds of guests sat right there on that second-storey roof, watching Kiss below and a friendlier and happier occasion could not be imagined. There's nothing like the chance of slipping and falling to your death, or indeed bringing a roof crashing down, to bring out the best in people. Sure, I never was a Kiss fan but I owe them a debt of gratitude for what was definitely a wildly funny and fun night.
So that was one house I used to live in. The house I meant to show you, I assure you, was a lot more innocent and sweet! Although, yes, Max did stay with us for a short while after his long-suffering girlfriend, Julie, finally threw him out ... but then, when the police raids started on this house too - and we'd moved particularly to get away from those - we did ask him to leave because we weren't THAT SORT OF HOUSE!
And we weren't either! Honestly!
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