Mum kept me away from her family because she was scared. I didn't realise it at the time,...

Joshua 'J' Cody: Mum kept me away from her family because she was scared. I didn't realise it at the time, but they were all scared - even if they didn't show it. I think even Barry Brown was scared - even though he never showed it. Everyone felt safe around Baz. He'd punch your head off if ya got in the way - if he was in the middle of an armed robbin', you got between him and the door, he'd put you on the ground and not think twice about it. But he was good to me, and to everyone else. Darren was only a couple of years older than me. When we were little kids, he was like, my best friend. We used to throw rocks at cars 'n' that. He had a way better BMX than me - my bike was shit. My Uncle Craig moved really fast, like... he was tryin'a stay in front of somethin'. And Grandma Smurf - she just seemed to wanna be wherever the boys were. And she just wanted to be around whatever the boys were doing. But they were all scared, even if they didn't show it, even if they didn't know it exactly. Even if they were having to do what crooks do all the time which is, block out the thing they must know. They must know it - which is that crooks always come undone - always, one way or another. In Melbourne at this time - this is a while ago now - the armed robbery squad was out of control. They were shooting guys willy-nilly and gettin' away with it, and they'd been after Baz and my family for months. But the guy they really wanted, the guy they really hated, was my other Uncle - Uncle Andrew, but everyone just called him 'Pope'. He was hiding in a motel room somewhere 'cause he heard he was next. Craig was sellin' drugs, he was sellin' lots of 'em. He had a detective in the drug squad helpin' him do it - a guy called 'Randall Roach'. They'd meet in a fish shop in Footscray, 'cause Craig loved fish. An' I dunno - all this seemed strange to me, but not strange either, you know what I mean? Kids just are wherever they are and they just do what ever they're doin', you know? This is where I was, and this is what I was doin'. After my mum died, this was just the world I got thrown into.