Enforcer (16 page)

‘No,’ he kept saying, ‘I wanna talk to your president.’

‘Piss off,’ I repeated, ‘or you’re gunna get hurt.’

He stood his ground, so I backhanded him and sat him on his arse. It was a lot less than what the Strike Force would’ve done to him. He finally got the message and was just about to get on his bike when one of our fellas started laying into him. I pulled our bloke off and told the Brotherhood president to fuck off, which he finally did.

We went back into the meeting and got into yet another heated argument between the members and the Strike Force. It was becoming all too familiar. But the club had the numbers so this time we won the battle. We voted that we wouldn’t be going to war with any Christian club.

A
ROUND THE
same time, Leroy was arrested over a matter that I won’t go into, but he was thrown into Long Bay on remand. I arranged a roster between the members and the prospects to make sure Leroy would have a visit on every visiting day, and we assured him we were doing our best to get him bailed out.

Me and Snoddy went to Jock and asked him for some money from the club account to pay Leroy’s surety.

‘No, no,’ Jock said, ‘that’s me war fund.’

‘War fund?’ said Snoddy. ‘That money’s supposed to be there in case a member gets in the shit.’

‘I can’t help it if he got himself into it,’ Jock said. ‘He’ll have to get himself out of it.’

Snoddy and I knew full well that money was there to help members so we kept pushing Jock, kept telling Leroy we were working on it. But Jock wouldn’t budge.

So at the next meeting, me and Snoddy put it to the members that everyone put in a hundred bucks, or whatever it took, to raise Leroy’s bail money. Everyone seemed all for it, but Jock’s buddy Snowy was treasurer and he vetoed the idea. The plan went down the gurgler.

Snoddy pulled me aside after the meeting. ‘Whaddya reckon’s going on with the club’s funds?’

‘Whaddya mean?’

‘We should have thousands in there but Jock reckons there’s nothing.’ The money in the account was raised through things like club dues and bar takings, which were not insignificant. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any trouble getting money for Vanessa’s new car or that swimming pool he put in at the front of his house.’

‘It’s going to be hard to prove he’s ripping the club off,’ I said, ‘seeing as Jock and Snowy are the ones that have got the books.’

S
NODDY TURNED
up at my place one night with Bernie. He’d brought him round to see my finger collection. By this time I had about thirty fingers in the jar, which I kept hidden in a false back in my bull terrier’s doghouse.

No one would be able to get to them there, not if they wanted to remain intact. But I hadn’t known Bernie long enough or well enough to show him that yet, so I said to Snoddy, ‘Maybe in a few months’ time, or when he’s proved himself.’

‘What have I gotta do to prove myself?’ asked Bernie.

‘I’ll let you know when you’ve done it.’

Snoddy said that Bernie was hoping to find out a bit more about the clan.

‘What, me brothers?’

‘Yeah,’ Bernie said. ‘I’ve got to know Snake fairly well; he seems a real bad-tempered bastard.’

‘He is,’ I agreed.

‘What about the others?’ Bernie asked.

‘Well Bull’s a lot harder to set off but he’s so big and strong he can do just as much damage,’ I told him. ‘If you like pig hunting, that’s halfway to gettin’ to know Bull. Shadow’s a lot like meself: pretty quiet most of the time but when you provoke us we can be real nasty. Wack’s another quiet one, but same thing, he could drop you with either hand.’

‘What about Chop?’ Bernie asked. ‘He’s not really your blood brother, is he?’

‘Yes he is, and I wouldn’t let Chop hear you saying otherwise. We picked him up when he got the boot from his own family and him and me and me brothers all did the blood brother bit. Then the day he turned eighteen he changed his name to Mark Campbell. So he’s legally a Campbell and he has Campbell blood running through his veins. If you ever try and tell me he’s not me brother you’re in for a lot of grief.’

Bernie wisely changed the subject. ‘So how’d Snoddy get a Campbell ring?’

‘That’s a lot harder to earn than your patch,’ Snoddy said. ‘And it was probably the proudest moment of me life when I was accepted into the Campbell family.’

‘Yeah, there’s only four other blokes who got ’em besides Snoddy, and that’s Gloves, Dukes, Knuckles and Roach. And it took ’em a long time to earn ’em.’

‘So what does your Mum reckon about you being in the club?’ Bernie asked.

‘When you’ve got the best mum in the world – no, make that the universe – what do you think?’ I said. ‘She supports us in anything we do. Just remember, she brought up fourteen kids mostly by herself. Me old man died pretty young.’

‘I never had a real family until I joined the Campbells,’ said Snoddy. ‘Ever since I got this ring I go to Mum’s birthdays, I go to the sisters’ parties. I belong to two families, which makes me bloody lucky.’ The other family Snoddy was referring to was the club.

Before he headed off, Bernie reminded us that the Bandoleros were throwing a party that Friday night and were going to have a pig on a spit and a stripper. I said I’d be there but it wouldn’t be until late.

P
ARTY NIGHT
came, and most of the Comos were there, along with all the Bandoleros. I was off working when I got a phone call from Bernie telling me to come over; there’d been some trouble.

When I rocked up, Jock had just arrived and was talking to his Strike Force. Bernie pulled me aside and told me that the Strike Force had turned up halfway through the party and Kraut had started throwing his weight around. He’d had a shot at Rua, one of the Bandoleros, then set his sights on Shadow. Bernie said Kraut followed Shadow around the clubhouse, egging him on and making smart remarks. Eventually Shadow approached Bernie and said, ‘Look, I’ve had enough of this cunt. I’m not gunna make any trouble here at the clubhouse, I’m gunna take him down the park.’

‘Fine, we’ll come down and make sure everything’s fair,’ Bernie said.

So Shadow and Kraut went down to the park about four houses along from the clubhouse. It took about ten seconds for Shadow to flatten Kraut. He was out like yesterday’s newspaper, as Bernie put it.

Having heard the full story I walked over to Jock, taking Bernie with me. I got Bernie to tell Jock what had happened. Jock wasn’t satisfied with Bernie’s explanation, but said we’d sort it out on meeting night.

Come meeting night, Kraut declared he wanted Shadow’s colours for one member hitting another. Davo stepped up in Shadow’s defence: ‘If anyone’s colours should be taken it should be yours, Kraut. You offered Shadow out in the first place and Shadow ignored you and tried to walk away. But ya kept following him. Anyone else in the club would have done the same thing.’

Shadow finally spoke up. ‘I don’t want his colours. As far as I’m concerned it all ended in the park.’

That was as far as it went, because next thing Snowy got up and surprised everyone: ‘We’ve got more important business to discuss. We’re going to war.’

The room erupted with everyone wanting to know what club it was.

‘The Gypsy Jokers,’ Snowy said.

‘Whaddya wanna go to war with them for?’ Davo asked.

‘They’ve got the same colours as us,’ Snowy said. ‘Plus they’re moving out of Fairfield and into Parramatta, which is our territory.’

Davo, who was usually pretty quiet in meetings, couldn’t contain his disgust. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding. They’ve been goin’ as long as us and suddenly you decide you wanna go to war with ’em because of their colours? For fuck’s sake, they’re similar, but they’re not the same; they’ve got a maroon strip round the border.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Jock. ‘We’re gunna wipe them out.’

Davo wasn’t going to leave it. We’d all reached our limit with Jock, and Davo wanted to take him on. He continued to challenge Jock, and judging by the look on his face he was about to punch the living shit out of him. I stepped between them to ensure Davo didn’t flatten him. The two were about the same size, but Jock had his Coke-bottle spectacles and Davo was one of the better fighters in the club.

‘Why all of a sudden d’ya wanna wipe them out now?’ Davo continued. ‘Is it just because our club’s the biggest in Sydney?’

‘Yeah,’ Jock said. ‘We’ll prove we’re the toughest club in Australia.’

I could feel my temperature rising, too. ‘We don’t have to prove it,’ I stepped in. ‘We know we are.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Davo, ‘whadda we gotta prove it for? There’s not a single club who comes into the whole of Parramatta any more. War and Peace is the only nightclub in the whole area where you can get a drink at two am, but not one club will go there because they know the Comancheros will stomp ’em. We’re already the toughest club in Australia.’

‘Well I’m the president,’ Jock argued, ‘and you’re only a member.’

‘You’re only president because members put you in the job,’ I warned him. ‘It’ll only take one meeting to vote you out.’

It didn’t worry me provoking Jock. I knew he wouldn’t have a go at me, or Davo for that matter. In fact Jock would’ve been counting on the fact that I would step in and stop Davo from thumping him, because I was the one who’d brought in the rule that one Como couldn’t fight another. But I was as pissed off with him and his war attitude as anyone. And all this in-fighting just wasn’t how a club was supposed to run. Things had been building up long enough. I turned to Jock and let him have it: ‘Look, if this is the way the club’s gunna be run, like a fuckin’ military outfit, and all you and the Strike Force wanna do is go round hitting club after club for no reason, I’ll leave. I’ll get me colours and you can have ’em.’

And with that I walked out of the meeting. Most of the club followed, then Jock and Kraut came out too. I think having seen all the blokes walk out with me, Jock must have realised he was on the verge of losing his club.

‘Look, Caesar, ya can’t leave,’ Jock said.

‘Come on, big fella,’ Kraut joined in. ‘Come back inside. Let’s talk it over.’

‘The only way I’m coming back into that clubhouse is if all this shit about hitting other clubs stops. I’m sick to death of the plastic gangster mentality that a few of this club have got. I’ll be the first to go to war with a club if they hit our brothers. If something happens to one of our old ladies, I’ll be standing right alongside you. But I’m not gunna hit a club for no good reason.’

‘Well we’re not going to now,’ said Kraut, ‘so let’s go inside and talk about it.’

Mousey put his arm around me. ‘Come on, Caesar. If you leave, I’m leaving, Davo’s leaving, there’ll be no club.’

So we went back inside and the meeting went on. Things were said that I can’t repeat, but it was finally agreed that for the club to go to war it had to be a one hundred per cent vote.

The resolution lifted the members’ spirits. I’d seen the blokes becoming restless over the last couple of years; they didn’t like the drills, they didn’t like some of the prospects that were being rushed through and patched up. But after things came to a head at that meeting, some of the tension eased off. Actually, the next month was pretty good. But it didn’t last.

I
t was 1983, and I was riding along behind Knuckles. Dukes was in the pack too, plus a couple of others. I don’t know whether Knuckles just got into a daydream or something hit him in the face – because he didn’t have sunnies on – but all of a sudden he swerved and ran straight into the pointy end of a cement lane divider. He went up in the air, the bike went up in the air, and then he came down again, crashing onto the road with the bike landing on top of him.

We pulled the bike off him and got him to Westmead Hospital, where he was operated on straightaway. They put a shunt in his forehead to relieve the pressure inside his fractured skull, his brain had swelled that much. It looked to me like a little garden tap was coming out of his forehead. His body was all banged up, too. It was a pretty bad crash. There were times there when the quacks thought we were going to lose him.

One of our members, Porky, hired a room in intensive care, which they had for friends and relatives, so he could be close to Knuckles in case anything happened. Porky spent the first week more or less living there. As Knuckles clung on, other members started using the room to give Porky a break. Every night there’d be at least fifteen or twenty Comos up in the waiting room outside. We knew that most of us couldn’t get in to see him, but everyone felt that they had to be there anyway. The nurses got used to this big bunch of bikers hanging round. One nurse came up to me and said, ‘You blokes have changed my opinion of bikies. I’ve spent most of my career in intensive care and I’ve never seen a bunch of blokes care so much about another man in my whole life.’

Gradually Knuckles came out of the woods, but he wasn’t the same man. The accident left him with severe headaches, no sense of smell or taste. His memory was shot and he was often disoriented.

The whole club pitched in to get Knuckles back on his feet. He moved in with his brother Dukes while he was still recovering, and Dukes and I took turns to look after him; the accident had caused him to become violent with anyone other than me and Dukes. When he was right to move out on his own again, the club rented a house for him and his old lady, Wendy, filled it with furniture and put on the phone and electricity. Wendy had just had a baby boy, Harley, so her time was taken up with him and they had no money coming in. She would sneak the bills out the window to us – because Knuckles would never have asked for help – and the club would pay them. We looked after our own. Especially his brother Dukes, who couldn’t have loved a brother any more than what he did.