LITMIR.BIZ

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body, rips you open, goes deep inside, looks within, pulls a bit out, puts bits in, sews you up.

      Then, if you’re lucky, you awake! Some don’t wake, and this is my point … will you wake? Why should you? How can you? That’s the black hole of madness you’re in, screaming to get out. ‘Alive’ or just ‘sane’? You want out of it, you want to see the light!

      Hope — without hope you never awake! This hope, I live in continuously, every day of my life I’m under such an anaesthetic! I’m drugged up with the system’s madness, they pump more and more into my head; my brain is swimming with their shit! They’re beyond explanation, beyond explaining and beyond approach! A law unto themselves. Evil bastards! That is insanity!

      It is said that we all have a double or a soul partner or brother or sister, whatever; either you believe it or you don’t. But when you read this, it’s sure to blow your wig off!

      Here I am, banged up in old HMP Durham, England, when many thousands of miles away, in Durham County, North Carolina, USA, my namesake, Michael Peterson, is banged up and awaiting trial for murder. Now you readers new to me will know me as Charles Bronson, but I used to be called Mick Peterson (yeah, we all know it’s me) but is it?

      At the exact same time I’m banged up here in Durham Prison, so is this other Michael Peterson geezer from America. Only he’s banged up in Durham Prison, in Durham County, USA! Like me, he’s a writer, only he’s a novelist and former city council and mayoral candidate (I did try to run for the advertised job as London Mayor, but didn’t Lord Archer beat me to it … until he was rumbled). Michael Peterson is charged with first-degree murder of his wife. (Don’t mix him up with the Michael Peterson who wrote the Foreword … he’s a third Michael Peterson.)

      The American Peterson, a former Sun-Herald columnist, claims his wife died after a fall down a flight of stairs. Sounds like a nightclub doorman’s worst nightmare. The copper asks, ‘What happened, old son?’

      ‘Well blow me, didn’t he go and fall down the stairs, officer!’

      The defence claim that police used false and misleading affidavits to get search warrants for the home and grounds of murder suspect Michael Peterson. Just like me, this man is being given a raw deal. Cor, doesn’t it make you really angry? The defence said that such police tactics were ‘unconstitutional’ and that, as a result, any information obtained in the Peterson searches should be thrown out — too fucking right they should.

      After the indictment, Peterson spent three weeks in jail and was released in mid-January 2002, when a judge set an $850,000 secured bond for him. Peterson put up his Cedar Street home, with a tax value of $1.2 million, to cover the bond. Good on you, mate; maybe they’ll give me bail, too!

      The discovery of a body — the wife (Kathleen Peterson) of an outspoken critic of the police — at the bottom of a staircase is obviously a very tragic story.

      All right, it might look bad for Michael Peterson right now; there are still many more questions than answers in his case. That won’t stop many law-abiding folk from jumping to conclusions, of course.

      Michael Peterson, like me, has been a sharp critic of the Durham Police Department for years; only I was a critic of all the police departments throughout the world. Old ladies being mugged, mobile phones being taken in street robberies … all for what, a few quid!

      Peterson went after the Durham cops for, among other things, a ‘cowardly’ approach to the problem of the city’s violent gangs and ‘the lowest clearance rate in solving crimes of any police force in the State’. So, like me, he opposes bullying and what does he get for it? A raw deal. See, one minute you can be running for the job of mayor and the next minute you’re in the slammer on a murder rap; that’s what I call insanity. So all you good people out there, be careful when criticising me, ’cos by tomorrow you could well be in the cell next to me!

      Now, you think that’s mad, it gets madder! I know some of you will have read the Foreword and, if you have, you’ll have some idea of what I’m going to say next when I mention the other Michael Peterson. You see, it could be that I’m innocent of all charges! Did I kill myself off years ago to free Michael Peterson? Maybe he doesn’t exist and it’s me going insane? Is he living my life out there? Fuck me, it’s awesome! What a story, even as far back as 1974 he was in my life, and I never knew! He could be me and I’m him!

      This guy is the hidden key to madness, we have to open it up, it’s a gem! People say I’m mad; a few years ago, Michael Peterson met Screaming Lord Sutch! Anyone remember Lord David Sutch? He’s the guy who was always running for MP and represented the Monster Raving Looney Party, my favourite political party.

      Lord Sutch never won a seat, came close a few times, but that was it. Sadly, on 16 June 1999, the godfather of pop and British politics was found hanged at his home in South Harrow, London. Like all the loons, it had become too much for him and he took the way out that most of them do – he was only 58. David wanted to forget his past, but they wouldn’t let him, they thought he was Lord Sutch 24/7. Now that can be too much for any man, even me! One day, I know I’ll have to hang my Charles Bronson handle up and head for the sunset … but until then, let’s have fun, yeeeehaaaaa!

      In a set of amazing coincidences, it would seem I’m also leading another life. My name given to me at birth was Michael Gordon Peterson; the other Mick Peterson has the same initials as me, but his middle name is ‘George’. I was born on 6 December 1952; the other Mick was born on 25 March 1954, 15 months after me. My favourite drink is vodka; Mick’s favourite drink is … you’ve guessed it right, vodka! We both love a Guinness, too.

      I started offending in earnest in 1969, whereas Mick started offending in 1970. Yeah, we’ve both got criminal records that date back some time! We both have records for violence. Wait ’til you hear this one; in 1974 I was sent to prison for robbery … nothing strange about that. Back then, Mick Peterson was my name; the other Mick Peterson was working around the country having lived in London for a time, not far from Charlie Richardson’s yard in Camberwell. During the early ’70s, Mick was working at Butlin’s for a number of summer seasons and also on the fairgrounds, which meant working away from home.

      Mick’s dear mother, Barbara, only goes and reads in the newspaper that Mick Peterson (me) has been sent to prison for robbery in Luton. Mick’s mother lived in Hartlepool, so, to her, Luton may as well have been in London. Anyway, her son, Mick, lands back home on his mother’s doorstep and his mum has the shock of her life saying, ‘You’re supposed to be in prison, what are you doing here?’

      Is that mad or what? So Mick knew of me way back then. I only got to know about him when he joined my fan club in March 2000. Can you believe Mick Peterson joined my fan club? I thought, someone’s having a laugh here! So now we know what went wrong; they’ve sent the wrong man to prison and I demand a retrial.

      I could go on and on about the similarities between us, even down to looks. I mean, look at the beard, look at the power of the man, look at the bald head … cor fucking blimey, if that isn’t insane then I don’t know what is! Right now, Mick is living in Hartlepool, he’s married and has a grown-up son called Mark — I’ve got a brother called Mark. Mick has one giant-sized LP collection and he used to buy and sell at record collectors’ fairs — that’s where he met Lord Sutch, but Mick’s great interest is the legendary, now dead, Frank Zappa.

      Now there was a fucking legend if ever there was one! Frank Zappa died as a result of prostate cancer at his Los Angeles home on 4 December 1993, shortly before his fifty-third birthday. Zappa was one of the most original and complex figures to have emerged from the rock scene.

      Zappa said he didn’t care how he was remembered after he died, can you believe that? We fight to live, we want our memories to live on and yet he said, ‘It’s not important to even be remembered, I mean, the people who worry about being remembered are guys like Reagan, Bush … I don’t care.’ Is that insane or what? Can you figure this guy out? Anyway, Mick has one of the

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