Luke Kennedy - Sex, Drugs and a Buddhist Monk

Chapter 1

THE LOUD MIND

I dont want to do this. What if theyve got weapons too? I might get locked up. I might get...

Punchy, how much do you think theyll have? my old friend Stintz asked me, seated next to me in the drivers seat of a stolen car, his words interrupting my inner thoughts. Punchy, my nickname, I had picked up through graffiti and winning organised street fights. I loved it.

Im not sure, bro. Dont know about cash, but theyll have heaps of pills, my mouth spat out, trying to drown the other conversation in my head: my doubt and my fears. My thoughts were always there, always loud.

Those loud thoughts were the reason I was sitting in that car about to run through a drug dealers house to rob him and his friends.

A couple of hours earlier I had been sitting on a warm couch with a bunch of my boys, the morning sun peeping through gaps in the curtains. It was the end of the second night without any sleep but with copious amounts of ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol.

Time on drugs gave me what I was after: a slight reprieve from my overactive mind. It gave me some stillness, some silent time. It helped me care less about what other people thought of me at least, for a short time.

As the effects started to wear off and the misery of my harsh reality began to hit, my loud berserk thoughts were back in full force. And they were worse than before I got on the drugs.

Shouldnt have said that last night. You reckon theyll care?

Fuck, Im going to be sick tomorrow... Should I have something to eat? When did I eat last? Ummm... wonder if Ive lost weight.

Im gunna go home. Fuck going home. Everyone else is still going.

Hows my face look? I bet its oily. I havent showered in a bit. Do the boys think Im a grub? Have they showered? Wouldnt mind brushing my teeth.

How can we get more drugs? Fuck, I need more drugs. Any vodka left? I think I finished it all off.

I was facing reality as the drugs wore off, and these thoughts were crawling their way back in. I didnt want the thoughts back.

How can I hold these thoughts back a little longer?

Anyone got pills? Have we finished the vodka? I slurred, glancing around the room filled with pale, miserable faces, purple bags sitting under every single defeated eye. There was no response besides a couple of weak and beaten shakes of the head.

The room had three lounges in a semi-circle, a large-screen TV playing music videos and a coffee table with empty beer bottles on top, a bong, empty satchels and a bloody tissue after two of the boys had a drunken wrestle a few hours earlier and butted heads. The jovial atmosphere of the night before had disappeared with the darkness of night. What was left was misery, the suns rays now illuminating our horrible existence. One of the boys was slouched down into the couch, his head below his shoulders and giving the impression he had no neck.

Fuck... wouldnt mind a pill, was all he could mumble.

One of the other boys who had been in the wrestle the night before chuckled and coughed, a bit of blood-stained tissue still stuck on his head.

Anyone got pills? I repeated a little louder.

Think were done, brother, Stintz said, disclosing the information we were all trying to hide from.

I had met Stintz four years earlier when he was 15 and I was 17. He was an innocent little skater boy back then, a young boy with an underlying mental health issue. He too was searching for stillness. He also craved silence.

With years of being in Sydneys most infamous graffiti and street-fighting crew, Stintzs defence, or more like attack, of the manic mind was to not only bury it in substance abuse but to also crush it down through adrenaline-filled, life on the edge experiences. Not skydiving or swimming with sharks, mind you; more like bursting into a business, jumping the counter, throwing an employee to the ground and robbing them. Or, like me, he also enjoyed a fight. He looked up to me. When I first met him he was a short kid with blond hair who was looking for guidance. Now four years later and still a touch shorter than me, he had broad shoulders, a thick neck with tattoos hugging it and many scars on his beaten face. He also had a team of younger people who looked up to him and did harsh acts at his request the vicious cycle of gang life. You either fight your way to the top or youre left at the bottom doing things for those above you. Once at the top its your turn to call the shots.

Punchy, do you think I could beat him, hes a big boy? Stintz asked me a few months after I first met him. There was an older guy from a rival crew who had called Stintz out. People in our crew never backed down, even if it meant a possible defeat.

Brother, he might be big, but his heart is nowhere near yours.

With you in my corner, Punchy, Ill take on anyone.

Ill always be in your corner, my man.

I was the main fighter in the crew. As I had grown up around the boxing scene and in a family of fighters my dad and brother were both professional boxers I won all of my street fights bar one.

I started my downward spiral after getting kicked out of school at 15. When I met the now-infamous graffiti crew RM I fought my way into it. I saw the way my dad and brother were looked up to: fighters were like gladiators in our circle. They deserved respect. I wanted that respect.

I just went about it the wrong way.

Years of organised street fights, getting stabbed twice once in the lung and the other time in the head and an unrelenting approach to gaining recognition meant I soon saw myself at the top of the crew.

I was happy to be labelled a fighter and leader. Again, I saw this as being like an ancient gladiator and it gave me a false sense of power. It gave me an identity, one that helped me feign confidence. In front of the boys I was this big, strong leader. I could handle any situation and wouldnt back down to anyone. I even looked happy.

Internally, though, it couldnt have been further from the truth. I was anxious, depressed and paranoid, and a lot of nights I would cry myself to sleep after praying to be a better man. In social situations away from the false confidence of gang life I was incredibly awkward. If I had to meet someone for the first time I would stutter, sweat and be inside my head trying to work out how to get away. The labels of fighter and leader I grasped with both hands because it helped me fake my way into feeling confident.