Where do I start with my mate Alex? The police report will tell you he’s got a severe antisocial personality with no comprehension of the laws he breaks. When I first met him he was robbing cars by night and breaking into houses by day. Chased out of every house he ever squatted in and regularly attacked while living rough. He had an unpredictable fashion sense having found his clothes for the day raiding the charity bins in the early hours of the morning after dumpster diving for bags of day old food behind the loading bay of the corporate supermarket. It wasn’t uncommon to run into Alex chomping on a coffee scroll in a new leather jacket standing in a shop front telling the mannequins his eternal catchphrase “better you than me”.
At that time it was rumoured he’d moved across from Nimbin and was running away from some drug deal gone wrong. He never told the story the same way twice but as far as I could piece it together Jacky Suzie, who was a bit of a cult leader up that way, had taken a disliking to Alex. After one night at a bon fire gathering Jacky Suzie got Alex high on 11 tabs of acid and demanded his soul as payment and then refused to give it back. Alex, not being one to let anyone get the better of him, stole it back and hid in the mountains for a few weeks. Insisting he’d killed one of the cult members who’d tried to attack him with a tomahawk. He said the police have never spoken to him about it and left town and hasn’t thought much of it since. Better you than me.