Coffin Cheaters

“My name is Gregory Thomas Watts. I was born in 1950 in a small Australian town called Narra, and I’ll be 76 in November. I lived my young life in Australia as a shit person. I’ve always hated everybody. I was in a real demanding scenario and spent a number of times in jail. I was shot and stabbed. I was a member of a motorcycle club called the Coffin Cheaters. We were selling drugs, shooting people, extortion, running the bloody brothels and shit like that. I shot my brother-in-law. That’s what they got me for. My name in the gang was ANIMAL. I don’t regret it.
For some stupid reason I met a bloody woman. I think I’m a sucker for women. She became pregnant while I was in jail. We got married in jail. I’ve never seen or known anything about it myself—this is just what I’ve been told.

She moved to New Zealand before me. My parents supplied the money for her to set up a house. When I was 25 I got out of jail and moved to New Zealand. I had a strange, strange life. I never worked before I came here. In New Zealand I’ve worked my fucking heart out. That’s probably all I fucking did without going to the fucking pub. It was one of those things where you went to work, you went to the pub, and you came home ten minutes before you had to go back to work to make sure everything was right at home. That was how it was. The reason it actually stayed together in my head was because the second child we had was born without oxygen. So that’s what kept the marriage going. And the marriage is still going. I’m trying to fucking get rid of it now, but nothing seems to go down the right channels. Lawyers are shit. I got one, but I don’t know—they’re just so slow to move.
I was very lucky here. As I said, I worked really hard and got paid really well. I worked twelve-hour shifts, four on and four off. In my time on the four days off I ran two businesses: a bloody carpet-cleaning business in winter and a chimney-sweeping business in summer.

For some reason in my life I had some real bad luck. I had an accident. I fell off a motorised barstool which was made up at Puhoi for mates around the pub, and myself. I was 64 years and nine months of age. I almost died. A helicopter took me to the hospital. And the next period of my life, because the accident caused so much brain damage, I don’t know where I was. And I still don’t know now where I was. I’ve just been told that I had to learn to walk, to talk, to eat. I’m still learning those problems, those systems or whatever you call them, even today.
I got the spider-web tattoos on my face from when I got all locked up. I’ve got them on my knees and my arms as well, and door hinges on my elbows. When they’re open the doors to let you out.
I hated my parents. I didn’t want to live with them, and they didn’t want to live with me. They were the ones who sent me here to New Zealand. All my family is dead, but I never saw them. I never went back to Australia to see them. I didn’t even know where they were or anything like that. I don’t know when they died or anything. I was just told by someone else, like you’re told probably the right way: eight months after they died, the funeral’s gone, they’re gone.

I was always the kingpin. I don’t know how long I spent in hospital. My fucking family here. They took one of those powers of attorney over me. So they then had all control over me. I had to go to court three times while I was in hospital to get that taken away. They had control over me.
I had four houses, a number of cars, a number of motorcycles. All from my hard work. I got the tattoos on my face so that my wife would get rid of me. The face is only a hatred sign, whatever the word is, to put her off. That was the major reason I had the tattoos done. And still she was there. The attorney said all these things fucking over me and she wouldn’t kick me out of the house. We just had a beautiful house, which she’s still living in. So the only thing that I thought would get rid of her was putting the cobweb tattoo on my face.”