We Dont Need Another Hero: The Captain Australia Story (Chapter Five)

Continuing my story, we are getting closer to when I strap on the mask, and we are learning more about the combination of elements that make me who I am today.  You will learn my true motivation for my Quest to Save the World in Chapter Six, in the meantime find the previous chapters of my life by following the links below:

http://www.captainaustralia.net/we-dont-need-another-hero-the-captain-australia-story-chapter-one/

http://www.captainaustralia.net/we-dont-need-another-hero-the-captain-australia-story-chapter-two/

http://www.captainaustralia.net/we-dont-need-another-hero-the-captain-australia-story-chapter-three/

http://www.captainaustralia.net/we-dont-need-another-hero-the-captain-australia-story-chapter-four/

Chapter Five: Education

The next decade was a grey and bleak period of my life.

It started (and ended) with Education.  I decided to put myself through school – I finished high school by working myself through night school, and got the highest achievable score in the equivalency test.  I had my choice of Universities and Studies, but in the interests of expedience (and apathy) I chose to do a Business Degree.

My University days were interesting, fun and enlightening to me, but with respect to the journey toward becoming Captain Australia, largely unremarkable.  I struggled financially, somehow found ways to keep my head above water while educating myself.

Incidentally, I met my father again as an adult, but didn’t really connect with him on any level.  (I found him to be a somewhat creepy man, sitting alone in his run-down house with a cupboard filled with slabs of beer and stacks of murder mystery magazines).

I discovered the internet in the late 80s, so profoundly different to what it is now.  I may be one of the first people in the world to use it for online dating, connecting in real life with a woman I met in one of the early MOOs.

The main evolution at this stage in my life was mental.  I began to form more solid views of the world, began to take a clearer philosophical position on life, death, politics.  Despite all my martial arts  and military training it turned out that I was very much pacifistic, with a strong position against violence, although with a few notable deviations: I believed in the death penalty, for example.

I continue to believe that some crimes are unforgivable, and truly hope that I never have to face such a villain in my career.  Paedophilia, Rape, Murder – if you’ve committed an act that causes such irrevocable human harm to another life – then yes, I’m comfortable that you should be killed.  I understand the concerns and reservations about convicting innocent men, I get that on an intellectual level – but on a purely emotional level, I have no real problem with snuffing out the life of someone capable of murdering a child, or murdering their spirit through paedophilia.

I was continuing my martial training, this time I took up Tong Long, a different style of kung fu and then branched into Iaido, or Japanese swordsmanship, which ultimately led me to 4 years spent learning Ninjitsu under a reclusive Japanese expatriate living in Brisbane.  My teacher has insisted that I never share information regarding him, or the secrets that he taught me, so I must honour my promise and skip through those intense years of training in my late 20s.  We’ll explore later in my story how I slowly softened as I got older, but at this stage in my life I was at the absolute peak of my physical prowess – and now that I am Captain Australia, I am training hard to meet or exceed that level again (and I will get there).

Toward the end of my university degree, I met my first love (let’s call her Kate).

There was something painfully vulnerable and sensitive about her that touched my heart, and I set about wooing her.  The romance was of course doomed (there were a range of warning signs, but I didn’t know it at the time – but rest assured I don’t make mistakes twice).

We moved in together, started sleeping together, and shortly after that she had her nervous breakdown.  It turns out that she was a victim of paedophilia, and as a result of the crime perpetrated against her, she developed some serious clinical problems requiring long term medical care.  (She is recovered now, in part due to my help – I won’t go into any great detail about her condition to spare her privacy).  A few short months after we started living together, her psychiatrist admitted her to a mental institution for heavy therapy.  She lived there for the next 9 months.

Good Lord:  had I fallen in love with my mother ?  Was I driven by some compulsive need to seek out women figures in my life that needed healing ??  (Thankfully history has proven this theory false).

In the years that followed, I stood by her.  She was essentially crippled, and completely financially and emotionally dependant on me, and I was in no way happy about it: but I saw it as my moral obligation to try and help her.  So I put aside my own hopes for love (realising that my love for her was an illusion), I put my energy into helping her recover her health and re-start a normal life, getting past her range of mental infirmities.

I knew this would be a long process, and I didn’t really see much future hope for my own happiness, but I knowingly made this sacrifice, and stuck with her through some pretty awful times.  Both her parents (including her molester father) died, other members of her family tried to defraud her out of her inheritance, the petty evil wretches.  Through her I was exposed to a whole new level of human cruelty, suffering and petty deceit, and I used my wits and superior intellect to thwart it.

This was one of my first opportunities to directly fight evil without actually having to use my fists and feet, but rather solely using my mind.  (In the end I did have to use my fist and feet, regrettably, as well as a short wooden club).

When you have an adversary, it’s important to conduct a threat assessment, map out their capabilities and possible ways that they might hurt you.  In the case of Kate’s family, their target was purely her parents’ money.  You see, her mother died first, and her father was infirm (and insane), so the relatives moved in and pressed the old man to change his Last Will & Testament directing the full estate to them and writing Kate out.  In addition, they tricked him into loaning them inordinately large sums of money prior to his death.

I could see that they were no direct threat to me or Kate (this turned out to be wrong), so my strategy was simple: shine a light on their immoral (and potentially criminal) activity.  Acting through Kate, I was able to have her father referred to the Office of the Public Guardian, an entity that takes Power of Attorney for people who are disabled or have reduced capacity and protects them from being exploited.

Discussing the matter with them, I found them to be compassionate, concerned and completely professional.  They were able to secure the relevant financial records, highlight the improprieties, and ultimately negotiate recovery of funds that Kate’s family had already fraudulently obtained.  Likewise they were able to over-turn the most recent Will as he was non-compos-mentis, making the older legitimate document prevail.

It was a real victory, but it did happen over a long twelve month period.

In that time, I’m confident that the wretched family hired a hitman (whether a professional or family ‘friend’ wannabe, I’m not exactly sure, as to their motive I think it was purely blind revenge).  I realised after a few days that we were being followed and the house was being watched.  They were pretty good at staying under-the-radar, but I was able to use counter-surveillance techniques I was learning in my ninja training and from my days in the military to confirm: yes, there were two men shadowing us for a number of days, and I could only presume they had dark intent.

I realised my best option was to set a trap.  One evening, I left the house in a taxi, carrying a suitcase and wearing a suit, clearly departing on a business trip.  The suitcase had my black ninja uniform and a single wooden Tonfa – it’s a kind of baton, and the trip was around the block until I was sure they were watching the house and not trailing me.

That evening, I positioned myself at a vantage point in a tree nearby and spent five or six hours watching the men who were watching us.  My hunch was correct, with me out of the house, they made their move a little after midnight.  I don’t know if their intent was simply to scare Kate, or to cause her real harm – I followed them stealthily as they entered the property and snuck around the back of the house.  They had slid balaclavas over their head, and had crept up onto our back deck as quietly as possible, and began to force the sliding glass door that would give them access to our kitchen.

That was enough for me.

I moved in fast and quiet and attacked with the tonfa: legs, ribs, side of face – first guy is down.  Then I hurled myself at the second guy and proceeded to beat the shit out of him.  (Sorry, there’s no more elegant way to put it – I wasn’t angry, but as with the drug-dealer from my teenage years, I knew I had to send them a message, and I was quite brutal in the beating that I administered to these thugs and potential killers).

After beating both men, I changed into a pair of pajama pants and singlet, and called the police.  Both assailants were apprehended, and I wasn’t detained – the officers questioned me and then took both (badly hurt) men away: one of them riding in an ambulance.

I did have to give a few written statements, but I never actually had to appear in court.  Both men were arrested and did prison time for the attempted ‘robbery’, and there were no further problems.  They did serious jail time, as one of them had a sawed off rifle in his possession (thankfully I was too fast for him to get a chance to use it).  As a precaution, Kate and I moved house the following week, and changed the phone to a silent number, removing ourselves from electoral roles or any other method through which we could easily be located.

Why didn’t I try and tie the thugs back to her family ?  I did mention to the police the possible connection, but unfortunately it was never seriously pursued – I think the thugs were tight lipped about it, diminishing the crime to a simple robbery.

So, Kate’s father died.  In a way, her parents dying was a mixed blessing, as it rendered Kate no longer financially dependant on me and enabled me to put together my exit strategy.  I had successfully thwarted her wicked relatives’ attempts to defraud her out of her inheritance, so she had inherited quite a large sum of money, enough to live on for at least a decade.  I had finished school, and gotten a white collar job, and was slowly climbing the corporate ladder.

(Which unlocked a level of overseas travel, opening my eyes to the world).

I learned a lot from the relationship with Kate: discipline, patience, perseverence, tolerance, sacrifice.  I also learned people’s tendency to repeat their mistakes in a restless cycle without moving forward, and resolved that I would never knowingly do that in my own life.

I ended the relationship when I was about 30 years old, and starting to daydream about finding my one-true-love.

(Corny, eh ?)

I was in Singapore on business when I realised that my one-true-love was in fact an asian woman.  I’d been thinking about her, profiling her in my mind, thinking about qualities that were important to me: strength, independence, kindness, a touch of jealousy, asian heritage, honesty, loyalty ..

My train of thought was interrupted by panicked screaming.  (It seems like screaming punctuates a number of the turning points in my life ..)

I charged to the source, and saw two Indian men holding an asian woman against the wall in a dark alley, muffling her attempts to scream.  One had lifted her skirt – they were clearly trying to rob and rape her.  Without a moments thought or pause, I charged forward, yelling to distract them.

One of the men fled immediately, the other I tackled and commenced beating him about the head and shoulders.  He tried to retaliate, but was no match for me, in fact he was on the ground in the blink of an eye and attempting to scurry away.

I regret not stopping him – in the heat of the moment, my natural priority turned to helping the poor, hurt woman, so I allowed him to flee and turned to her aid.  She was sobbing wretchedly, clutching her torn and dishevelled clothing to her.  I took her by the elbow and said “here, let me help you, lets call the police”.

She shook her head forcefully, and shied away from me, almost fearfully.  I could only watch her in surprise as she gathered herself and also fled.  I stood standing alone, in the alley-way, heart beating like a jackhammer, wondering what the hell was wrong with the world.

In the next chapter, I’ll detail for you one of the finest Quests of my life:  the Quest for True Love.  That will probably be the final chapter leading up to becoming Captain Australia .. so you will understand more of my background and motivation.

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate.