The legend of Kimball Johnson

Kimball Brisco Johnson has always cast a long shadow. Soon, that will be all that's left.

When the cancer has eaten away the man he was, all that will remain is the legend of Kimball Johnson - taller than justice and as strong as truth, with muscles as solid as his word.

If you haven't heard of Johnson, then you probably live on the right side of the law. It's a side of the law Johnson is aware of - he's known roughly where the line is each time he's crossed it.

But for most of his 58 years, Johnson has lived on the other side, in a world most of us don't understand and barely believe exists.

It's a world where men settle things with their fists; where justice doesn't mean legal and no one calls the police, even when the bleeding is really bad. It's a world where criminals live, although you don't have to be one to go there.

For a long time, it was Kimball Johnson's world.

Johnson, the "Enforcer" turned multi-millionaire turned would-be country music star, is dying. Cancer is in his pancreas, liver and lungs. His legs, which once lifted more than a ton, have shrunk in size. That barrel of a chest doesn't rise as far it did. Once, he could do 3500 sit-ups without pausing, and when a mate challenged him over the size of his stomach, he proved his health by running 17km to the pub, drank a bottle of whisky, fought 11 men then ran back again. The doctor had a tear in her eye when she gave him two months to live.

"Don't cry," he said, always one who had a way with women, married twice and father of six children. "I can handle it. That's life." And it is, although how he managed to fit so much life into one lifetime is a puzzle.

There's a photograph of Johnson as a boy, sitting on the kerb of the street beside his sister, who's holding his baby cousin. From one hand, a toy pistol dangles, and on his face, a long look he still has, one that then measured your mettle through the camera.

He learned fast as a young fella; his mum abandoned him and his dad moved him and his sister to Canada, where they lived for four years. He was different there, and by the time the family came back to New Zealand, he was different again. So he learned to fight, and never really stopped. The family shifted to Te Atatu and he grew up there, before moving to Gisborne, where he made his name, still fighting, and "ran" the East Coast for 20 years. They called him "The Enforcer."

He rolls those big fists around and points between the knuckles, "I got teeth in there" and "stabbed here", hit with an axe, "run over twice in one night" and "bottled from behind". "I don't fight dirty though," he says, then adds: "I bit a fella's ear off one night. I don't feel bad about that... he asked for it. I've always loved a fight. You won't get me. I'll get your nose or your ear."

If Johnson had just been a pair of fists, he wouldn't have wound up as rich as he is with the reach that he does. There's more to him than muscle. "I've worked hard, played hard and for a couple of years I drank hard too." He's collected debts, ran fish factories, night clubs, gymnasiums, worked on farms, went crayfishing, and played a lot of rugby.

For years he rose at 5am and worked until 9pm. He made and lost fortunes, and now has money again. "It's more property than cash," he says. "It's not money until it's in the bank." His fortune is estimated at $20 million. "I pay my bills on time," is all Johnson will say. "I'm the old type of Kiwi, where a man's a man and your word is your bond and if you can't fight then f**k off."

If you judge a man by the company he keeps, you should probably judge them by that man's standards. Johnson's friends live in the same world he does - one that conventional society shuns but he has embraced all his life. He was mates with Ginger Gibbs, owner of Auckland restaurant Swashbucklers, who died earlier this year, and Wayne Doyle, Head Hunters president. "I'm not ashamed to be a friend of Wayne Doyle's. I'd rather trust his handshake than 90 per cent of the coppers." He lived with the convicted legendary (multiple) bank robber Les Green for a while.

One story tells how Johnson and a shotgun went out the back of their Pakuranga home while Green made tea for armed police in the lounge.

Just a year ago the Armed Offender's Squad raided his Kawakawa Bay home, handcuffing everyone there while searching the house for a man on the run.

That's not company many in the police find endearing. There have been multiple arrests, and more than a few where officers have drawn their guns, always aware he might have a firearm nearby. "Do it!" he's screamed at young officers with pistols: "Once I lose my cool I don't have any fear of death.

"I associate with some pretty heavy guys. I've never denied it. I've never had very good dealings with the police. They can't catch me. It's never dawned on them I've never done that much.

"But I would really liked to have not run foul of the law as much as I did."

He's been jailed a few times and has a list of convictions "a metre long". It only tells one side of the story, he says. If there was a list for all the good things he'd done, it would be 20 times as long.

In his time, he says, the police coached a witness or two, or left out evidence that didn't suit their case but "they've never fitted me up", he says. That doesn't mean officers are totally straight. He's helped a few out, been delivered to places by police officers where he delivered his version of justice while they looked the other way.

Collectively, the police wanted to arrest him. Individually, some officers helped. "Every time the police would come to get me in Gisborne the phone would ring and a voice would say 'you've got three minutes'." Johnson was out the back door before they came in the front.

There were the guys he beat because they picked on a man for being a judge's son. Johnson was passed a message to wait at a place, and when there, the judge passed by, stopped and shook his hand, then moved on.

Johnson gives. He finds causes and donates. On occasion, the giving has been rejected after police officers have questioned whether the charity wants to be associated with Johnson.

Once, his cause was an elderly couple who appeared on Fair Go. A police officer gave them his number, he says, and they rang him for help recovering the $17,000 a conman had taken, and were ecstatic when Johnson bought the debt off them. He then hunted down the conman, and demanded payment. When he eventually failed, Johnson beat him to a pulp; he spent four months in intensive care. He beat him with a chair, then when it broke, another one and then another. As he walked away he chuckled about "three cheers for [the conman]". Then he smiles, and adds: "Allegedly."

"I was charged with grievous bodily harm. He never turned up to court." Without a complainant, the charges were dropped.

And that's the way it happens in Johnson's world. "I found his address again yesterday." He grins.

For all the fighting, he says he never beat anyone that didn't deserve it. Then he qualifies that with an "almost".

Has he killed anyone? "Not to my knowledge, I never have. I've come close a couple of times and I've sat there and thought, 'I hope he doesn't die'."

There was one that "came pretty close to it" but "I don't want every cop in Auckland standing at my bedside asking me about things" in the few months that are left.

There are some mysteries he doesn't mind solving. When an $85,000 Goldie was stolen in August 2000, police struggled for leads. The painting was returned by an anonymous businessman who had paid $10,000 for it on condition he never named the thieves. It was Johnson who paid the money and delivered the painting, but he's still not giving anyone up.

"The police hated that. They really hated that." He says he paid the money because the theft was being used as a racially divisive tool: "I believe we are all one people."

Johnson's world is a violent world, and the violence can be random. One faded photograph in his collection shows a man, dazed and bleeding from a head wound, slumped on a sofa with a guitar broken around his neck. "He couldn't sing in tune so I smashed it over his head," Johnson explains.

A few years ago, Johnson picked up the guitar again, this time to be a country music star. In the few short years he has pursued music, he's written 800 songs and had nine albums produced. He toured the United States and rubbed shoulders with the greats of country music. Johnson even bought the London Bar in central Auckland to restore it, and have a venue for his music. This Friday he plays there for the final time, from 8pm. The crowd will be large and eclectic.

The morning sun is on hills Johnson can see from his bed. At the foot of his bed, country music legend and music producer Gray Bartlett is visiting, "making a $99 guitar sound like pure gold".

They talk music, even though the cancer is painful. Lying back under the duvet at the home he has called Becalmed, Johnson is writhing. He doesn't take as much morphine as he could.

"If you feel how bad the pain is, you know how long you have to go. I reckon I haven't got long.

"I'd be grateful for a month. I'd be tickled pink with two months. On the other hand, if I could go tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference to me. I honestly think I'll go out with a smile on my face." Pause. "I hope."

Kimball Brisco Johnson will be playing this Friday from 8pm at the London Bar in central Auckland.