Gorman House

The Good Son
Matthew Bradley

24 May - 26 June, 2006

'The young David Hicks, now of Guantanamo Prison, was expelled from school, smoked drugs and stole cars. He tattooed himself with a compass and pen ink, he stubbed cigarettes out on his forearm. As a teenager he believed he was possessed by an evil spirit and asked an Anglican priest to perform an exorcism. He also filled exercise books with fantasy stories, he was a fast learner, read books voraciously, travelled widely and fathered a child. I know Smithfield Plains where he grew up. I’ll just say it’s a rough area. And I knew kids like him.

One night at Ben’s house, Animal, who has LOVE/HATE tattoo on his fists like Hicksy, drank Metho, blew it out of his nose and lit it up. His whole face caught on fire. Earlier we tied a video player to the clothesline, doused it with petrol and set it on fire because it had a copy of Pretty Woman inside it. Later that night, after lots more alcohol, Ben tried to crack on to Jodie and she turned him down. Ben, whose old man’s a cop, pulls this gun out, starts loading it and going off saying we were all fucken wankers and he’s gunna kill us all. And I really wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t.

The best thing about hanging out was feeling that anything could happen and that there are no limits. That everything is always on the line. With this in mind we all instinctively knew that sometimes you must face a little social death if you wish to explore limitless potential.'

excerpt from 1%ers by The Good Son