Sunshine & Shadow

by Larry Writer

  I was traumatised and terrified and so very ashamed. I was angry and nasty because I felt dirty and unworthy. My brothers tried to wrap me in their love but because of my deadly secret I pushed them away. I couldn’t tell them the truth. It all got too much so I took flight. I moved away to protect them and in doing that I lost them as well for a long time. I lost in every way and that’s a cruel irony. In those nomad years after I was abused I was taken in by some wonderful people and I’d like to thank those who rallied to support me after Mum passed away and while I was finishing school and moving in and out of home. I thank Mrs T. I thank Lyn Judd, who was a single mother with five children to care for, and her daughter Ricci, who took me under their wing. Lorraine McDonald made me feel as though I was one of her own. Alex ‘Peacock’ Wymarra, Mrs Swan, Mrs Harrison, and Evelyn Henson and Jenny Fosterwho were my friends and who I hope one day will be again. I’ll always be grateful for these people’s love and support at such a difficult time.

  James couldn’t stand our dad and always referred to him as ‘Steve’s father’. So in 1997 when ‘Steve’s father’ died, James invited me for a coffee to talk about Dad’s passing. He told me he felt that it was time Stephen, he and I went to Mum’s grave and presented ourselves to her and said, ‘Mum, this is how your children are today.’

  That was the catalyst for me to change my life.

  I thought about James’s invitation and knew that I wasn’t fit to join my brothers before my mother until I had faced my demons and brought the man who had molested me and threatened me to justice. Until I did that I could have no self-respect, and would remain ashamed, hurt and angry. I had to be accountable for myself and do what I had told many of the young people whom I coulcil as a child care worker to do. I told James and Stephen what had happened to me all those years ago and the reasons why we had drifted apart. They, with my partner Genevieve, stood beside me, each holding my hand, and we hauled that person into court and he admitted his guilt and I received a large compensation payout. James made sure I had good legal representation, and Stephen prepared me for the rigours of the courtroom. I remember him telling me, ‘Ali, you’re a legend, baby. Hold your head up high. You have nothing to be ashamed of.’

  In turn, I was there for Stephen when his life got very messy. This great sportsman became a victim of alcoholism. We came to confide in each other, make each other laugh through hard times. Just before he entered the clinic to finally successfully deal with his disease in 2002 I gave him a book, Until Today by Iyanla Vanzant, about spiritual growth and inner peace, and he read it and kept it by his side. It made me so happy to see him recovered, and to rejoice with him when he found love and happiness with his partner Hilary and her daughters.

  Because I faced my demons, I have been able to live a good life. I became a child advocate with Barnado Australia as a residential care worker, a youth worker on the streets and an advocate for children’s rights and children at risk. For the last decade I have been Health and Education Officer with the New South Wales Department of Health, educating injecting drug users. I was able to connect again with James and Stephen and to open myself to accept the love of my partner, Genevieve, and her beautiful family. I am loved and I love. Without my brothers, and the courage I drew from Mum’s example, I don’t know that any of this could have happened.

  There are many messages in this book, as James and Stephen tell the stories of their lives; all the joys and sadnesses, triumphs and craziness and tragedy. But, to me, the main messages are that if we are not making every moment count during our short time on this planet we are cheating ourselves, and that nothing is more important than loving and letting those whom we love know that we do.

  [STEPHEN]

  taking stock

  Life is good. What can I say?

  Since I walked out of South Pacific in September 2002 my life has been rich and filled with wonders. Living without alcohol has been a blessing and opened me to experiences that I would have been denied were I still in the grip of the bottle. How good it is to live without hangovers, broken bones and the shame of never knowing what atrocities you committed when you were inebriated, but sure you’d committed plenty.

  My relationship with James is better than ever, we do things together and talk often. I’m fond of his wife Mary and his children, Riley and Emily. James’s kids will never grow up to see their dad drunk or violent or doing the things our dad did. I was following the cycle of my old man, I see that now.

  I love my brother, and we seem to be growing closer as we get older. We’ve certainly been in the trenches together. James is my hero. To have raised me and Alison after Mum died is a mighty achievement, and to have been there so many times, even after I’d hurt him, is far beyond what any brother should be called on to do for his sibling. Big Jim deserves the best that life can give. He’s like James Stewart in that movie A Wonderful Life. He sacrificed all his youthful hopes and dreams and gave up the best years of his life to help others, me and Alison.

  His achievement is all the greater when you think that he has worked so hard to become a success in business and provide for his beautiful wife and children. And not only that. He works tirelessly for charity and has given a fortune of his own money to the needy, the people who are what he once was, and especially the needy of Woolloomooloo through his work for the PCYC and Plunkett Street Public School. He doesn’t do it for the accolades, he does it because he is a thoroughly decent man. So many of us say we’re going to do this and that, but the true test is to actually do it. James has passed that test.

  I’ve reconnected with my sister Alison. Ali is a lovely girl living her own life with her girlfriend. She has a heart of gold, like our mum. I shudder when I think of all the barriers my sister had to overcome …

  Mum is with me every minute of every day, looking down and shining on me. Any good I’ve done is because of her example. She must be relieved that I emerged from the dark place where I lived and have found happiness at last. I wish she’d found happiness in her own life, but that was not to be.

  The other wonderful woman in my life is my partner, Hilary. She is a classy and gracious woman and I scratch my head wondering how she fell in love with me. Hilary has never been much of a drinker. What we share is proof that you don’t need booze to fuel a good time; as John, Paul, George and Ringo said, all you need is love. It really is all you need. Hilary and I are happy just being together, eating and watching TV, going on a holiday to the Blue Mountains or up or down the coast. Hilary had a lot of suitors out there, but when we met in 2007 at a café in Kings Cross, there was an immediate mutual attraction and we’ve been together ever since.

  I’ll never be a father. My growing-up years have cured me of wanting to be responsible for bringing others into this world. Adele and Joey, Hilary’s two teenage kids, are the daughters I’ll never have. They are so special and I treat them as I would children of my own. They see me as a father figure, but I’m not trying to be their dad, I’m their friend.

  I say to Hilary, ‘ Time is going so quick … forty-four years of my life gone like that! Let’s make every day together count.’

  If wealth is counted in how many good friends you have, then I’m a rich man. Bruce, Dominic, Vic, Matty, Vinnie, Denis, Chase, Terry, Micky, Johnny, Julian, and so many more … Sunshines, one and all, you have brightened my days.

  I’m back in the law, as a solicitor. I have my own practice. I have a young man named Chase Hope who helps me. I try to be his mentor, just as Chris Murphy, who is still my friend, was mine. Stephen Dack & Associates is a modest affair. I don’t take on the high-profile cases so much anymore. The cases I love are those in which an underprivileged person finds himself in trouble and I get him out of it. More often than not, if I believe in my client, I don’t charge him a cent. To tell you the truth, over the past four years I’ve grown tired of practising law, my heart’s not really in it anymore, and while I need the money I suspect it’s time to get out, because if you can’t give a client 100 p
er cent you shouldn’t be a lawyer. I’ve been representing people who have found themselves in trouble with the law for a long time now, people on drug charges, people on assault charges. I’m finally finding it depressing to get so enmeshed in their lives. I’m tired now. I’m asking myself, What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? It’s a privilege to defend people and try to save them if they deserve it. Being a defence lawyer is a rewarding profession. But I’m looking for a life after the law … Although I hope I never tire of helping those less fortunate.

  My mates are still the homeless people of east Sydney. What’s mine is theirs. If I have a spare $10 or $50 note I give it to them and derive more pleasure from slipping some cash into their hand or under their rough pillow or sleeping blanket than I ever got from polishing off a case of bourbon. I know their names and their histories and I rejoice when they drag themselves out of their homelessness and I grieve for them when they don’t make it. I go down to Matthew Talbot Hostel in Woolloomooloo every Sunday morning to be with the blokes there and try to give them strength and hope by telling them of my experience. There but for the grace of God (my God) go I. If I can reach out to someone who’s where I was ten years ago it’s because I have learned to be compassionate.

  Some clients have ended up being very good friends. They’re fine people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel fortunate to have helped those who have fallen through the cracks. The life I’ve led has made me a better lawyer and friend. When I talk to some defendants we are immediately on the same wavelength because of our shared experiences.

  Vices? Sure. I spend too much time sitting in cafés eating fruit salad and talking. I can be lazy, I love to sleep in; and I confess that I am more effective at 6 pm than at 6 am. After all those years getting up before sunrise to sweep the streets I reckon I’ve earned my lie-ins. A serenity has come over me. I’m not ambitious, and my old obsession to do everything to excess is not there anymore.

  I watch too many movies. I can sit all day watching great films such as Cool Hand Luke (Luke kept escaping from the prison farm and they kept bringing him back and he escaped again; he died with his spirit strong). A Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro is another movie I watch again and again because its message is one I’ve come to understand: no matter how many guns or henchmen you have, the really tough people in this world are those who do an honest day’s work and provide for their family. I saw In Bruges and something one of the characters did haunts me. He killed himself for honour. That’s having the courage of your convictions.

  I don’t pay parking fines and the car I drive isn’t registered, and this is because of the hate I still have for government bureaucracies like the Housing Commission that tried to kick us out when Mum died.

  I still love an occasional flutter at the casino, the TAB and on the footy, but my gambling is under control.

  And I’m afraid I’m a bit of a bore when I lecture people about the damage that alcohol can do. I consider myself an expert on that subject. I’m strong because of what I’ve fought and beaten, and I’m as confident as an alcoholic can be that I’ll never drink again.

  After I got sober I went around apologising to people I’d hurt or offended … there are still a few I can’t bear to face.

  James called me just a week ago and he asked me how I was feeling and I told him I couldn’t believe how clear my head is since I stopped drinking, the way I can think and act. I’ll never forget the constant fuzziness in the brain and the nausea of my boozing years.

  Henry Lawson once said it would be wonderful if you could feel as good as drinking makes you feel … without drinking. I simply never feel like a drink anymore. I can’t allow myself to even think how good a drink would taste if I’m hot or have been working out. My addictive personality hasn’t changed, my behaviour has. I know that if I had a single drink I’d be history. The instant you weaken and put a glass of alcohol to your lips you’re gone, back on the downward spiral.

  There have been times when I’ve been tempted. Like when I see others slaking their thirst and chatting happily over beers. And there was the time when I attended a reunion of my old Roosters teammates from the 1980s, and one bloke called me a cat because I refused to drink when he was taking orders for a shout. For a moment I thought, Oh what harm can one little beer do? Then, thankfully, I thought better of it, and actually derived some satisfaction telling my scoffing mates that I was finding life a whole lot more fun without alcohol.

  I’m proud of having said goodbye to alcohol. I like to think I have too much self-respect ever to regress.

  I can’t leave a more important message than this: it doesn’t matter whether you’re a sports star, a lawyer, the prime minister, a teacher, an executive, if you’re black, white, yellow, gay or straight. If you suspect you have a drinking problem, don’t deny it. Face up to it and seek professional help to deal with it before it destroys you. From my experience, here are a few warning signs. Your drinking is damaging your relationships and performance at work. You crave your next drink, thinking about it constantly. Once you start drinking you cannot stop. You drive when drunk. You can’t remember much of what you did the night before on the drink. You sneak drinks. You need to drink more and more alcohol to get a buzz. You have resolved to stop drinking, or to reduce your intake of alcohol, but you cannot. Your heavy drinking makes you feel immediately remorseful, but feelings of shame last only as long as it takes to get your hands on another drink.

  I know no better healing process than that offered by Alcoholics Anonymous and its twelve-step program, where you attend the meeting with a group of like-minded people who have experienced the same hell that you have. It has given me my life back. I attend an AA meeting every single day.

  These are Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve Steps:

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practise these principles in all our affairs.

  I’m pretty fit for a 44-year-old. Sometimes Joey and I take my skateboard to a skateboard park and I perform my skill set for the kids there. I can’t do the things that they can do, but when I do my trademark handstand they go, ‘Wow! Old school!’

  I work out at the PCYC. Bruce Farthing is still down there looking after new generations of tough and underprivileged kids from the ’Loo. I got into the ring again as recently as 2007, for charity. There was a fight night at the club, in which old boxers, such as me, and current boxers such as the heavyweight Solomon Haumono and other sports stars including league players Wendell Sailor and Willie Mason, got into the ring with Macquarie Bank executives in strictly supervised bouts. Macquarie Bank put up $250,000 for the night, which was matched by James and his father-in-law.

  I was to go up against an executive, a fit, hard guy in his late forties. My role was to fight him on the big night after training him to hold up his hands and look good in the ring
. First, however, I needed a favour from him. I had a close friend, a lovely Sicilian girl, a widow, who worked at Macquarie Bank as a casual but wasn’t being considered for a full-time job. I knew she wouldn’t let the company down if she was given more responsibility. I asked the executive if he could try her out as a full-time employee. He said he would and he was true to his word. We were on.

  After our first training session in the ring at the PCYC, my opponent said to me that he knew I’d had more than forty fights and been a champion in my day. He didn’t want to get demolished in front of his friends and work colleagues and while he didn’t expect to beat me he wanted to put up a good show.

  I said, ‘Mate, you show a lot of talent and a lot of ticker. Trust me, I’ll look after you in there. It’s the least I can do for someone representing a company that’s donating a quarter of a million dollars to the club that looked after me for so many years. We’ll have three rounds and if you fight like I’m going to train you to, you’ll look okay. Boxing is dangerous, but this is going to be your night and people are going to talk about you. Diet, fitness, technique, balance, heart, attitude … you’ve got it all. Now understand that when we get into the ring together on the night, it’ll be very different to our sparring sessions. There’ll be a big crowd of 200 people all looking at you, there’ll be bright lights, and the atmosphere will be electric. You’ll probably be more nervous than you’ve ever been in your life. I want you to go to town on me, don’t get too excited, and keep your defence up because I won’t be pulling my punches. I know you wouldn’t want me to. Put up a good show against me and your family and friends will see you in a whole new light.’