You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids (24 page)

Christ, thought Norton, I've got to do this fuckin' thing with 200 drunks. This is going to be nice.

Annabelle finished his hair and started daubing softening make-up on his face with a large soft brush. ‘I'll tell you what, Les,' she said. ‘You reckon you've got a rough head. Wait till you see some of these geezers inside. They make you look like Rock Hudson.'

‘Fair dinkum, they're that bad, are they?'

‘Bad? Some of these blokes wouldn't get a ride on a ghost train.'

‘Dead set.'

‘Dead set, Les. They remind me of a lot of inbred wart hogs.' She daubed more make-up on his face and started putting gel in his hair.

‘Hey, how come I got to wear so much make-up?' Norton protested.

‘For the camera, love. Can't have your big ugly dial shining around in there like the Portsmouth Lighthouse.'

‘Oh.'

‘Yes Les, all those rough heads inside, I'm glad you're doing the ad not me. Still you can always look on the bright side of it.'

‘What's that?'

‘You'll probably be the best sort in the place. Come on, handsome, you're done.'

She pulled the cape from round his shoulders and Les stood up and checked himself in the mirror. He nearly died. She'd slicked his hair down with pink gel and he had pale brown pancake makeup plastered all over his face; he knew what he could expect from the locals when he went inside. The butterflies in his stomach suddenly turned into screaming wedge-tailed eagles as he reluctantly let Annabelle lead him into the bar. Inside was pandemonium.

Annabelle said there were 200 in there; it looked like at least twice that number to Les and they were of every race, creed, colour, denomination, shape and size imaginable. There were teams of stoned-out hippies, a big bunch of bushy-headed Thursday Islanders, mobs of Chinese, a sullen gang of bikies, the Marauders, and their mammas were crammed up against the bar screaming for more beer and itching for trouble. Around them was a pushing, heaving mob of sweating, barrel-chested, big-bellied blue collar workers, mainly wearing shorts, singlets and thongs all wallowing in the free beer and all well on the way to getting blind drunk.

Annabelle led him straight up to the film crew who had laid out some tracks on the floor and were just finishing some wide shots. Les recognised Mitchell and the director Maurice McMichaels. They introduced him to the publican and the rest of the film crew but their names just went in one ear and out the other. The mob quietened for a moment when they realised the star of the show, Bluey Riley, had arrived and, standing there in his hair gel and make-up, Norton could sense that every eye in the place was on him, he knew that one thought was flashing through all their minds as soon as they saw him. Poofter.

‘Okay Les,' said the director, taking him by the arm. ‘We'd better get straight into this before the mob gets too out of hand. Here's what I want you to do.'

He then started taking shots of Les walking towards the bar with a big of a swagger, walking through the crowd pretending to acknowledge some old friends and stopping to have a few words. He picked out half a dozen of the roughest but most semi-intelligent locals and made them Bluey's offsiders and Les had to burst through the door with his mob behind him, look mean, hit the bar and order beers all round for the boys. Then when they all had a beer in their hands Les had to look into the camera, smile, wink and come out with his line ‘Bowen Lager, it's the beer me ‘n me mates love to drink.'

Still a bit on the seedy side, Norton didn't really feel like drinking at all and being a Fourex man from way back he wasn't too keen on the taste of Bowen Lager. It was too sweet. But after about ten pots, which he had to drink, even though he wasn't too happy, he started to get a bit of a glow and it started to taste at least drinkable.

After getting off to an uneasy start Norton began to handle the film star rort all right. Some of the director's terms he found a bit strange like ‘cut', ‘action', ‘this is a rehearsal', ‘final rehearsal', ‘this is a take'. A guy would run in with a diagonally striped clapper board, bang it under Les's nose and say something like. ‘Scene 27, take 6.' Then. ‘All right, check the gate.' And someone would reply. ‘Okay, the gate's clear.' Then someone else would say. ‘Okay everyone. Let's wrap for lunch,' or ‘let's wrap for coffee.'

This was all going over his head but he was steadily bumbling his way through and they'd got most of it done before Norton
started to get too pissed. They still needed some wide shots and the director wasn't totally satisfied with Norton's delivery of his line about Bowen Lager.

But they had plenty of time and everything seemed to be going well. The mob had accepted Les for the ad's sake even though they were convinced he was a poofter and were copping it sweet. All except the bikies still jammed up against the bar.

‘This fuckin' Bluey Riley, the so-called cane cutter's startin' to give me the shits, ay?' The leader of the Marauders, a tall, heavily built, morose faced bikie with a Pancho Villa moustache and several earrings in his dirt-caked ears, sneered to his lieutenant.

‘This whole thing's startin' to give me shits,' replied his lieutenant. He was equally as big, ugly and dirty except he had straggly blond hair and a big, bushy beard which he'd tinged with green dye.

‘I reckon I might go over and liven the big poofter and his artsy-fartsy mates up. What d'yer reckon, ay?'

‘Why not, ay? I'll tell the boys.'

The head bikie sauntered over to where Les was standing amongst his offsiders near the bar, rehearsing a scene and stood next to him. As Les turned around he gave him an elbow in the ribs and spilt his beer on him.

‘Ooh, take it easy old mate,' said Norton giving a small grunt of discomfort.

The bikie scowled and looked Les up and down. ‘You're a big, tough cane cutter, aren't you?' he sneered. ‘You should be able to take it.'

Norton's eyebrows bristled slightly as he gave the bikie a bleak smile. ‘Yeah,' he grunted through clenched teeth and turned away. As he did the bikie gave him another elbow in the ribs. A little harder this time.

Norton's nerves were on edge as it was, he was strung up and tense from doing the ad and nowhere near in the mood for being stuffed around. The Bowen Lager wasn't going down all that well, he still had some of his hangover and he was starting to get a bit pissed.

He turned around slowly to face the leering bikie, a half smile on his face. Reaching across, he took the leader of the Marauders by his greasy shirt front, pulled him forward and head butted
him across the bridge of his nose, not hard enough to knock him out but enough to give him the drum to drop off, then pushed him aside and turned back to his ‘offsiders'.

The enraged bikie's eyes watered and he snorted out a thin trickle of blood on to the back of his tattooed hand. If he'd had any brains he would have let it go at that, but instead he let out a roar of anger and punched Les viciously in the back of the head, propelling him into the bar. The two acting barmaids let out a little scream of terror. As he spun around the big bikie hit him with a round-house left and right, catching him on the eye and mouth.

Norton's face twisted into a scowl and all the gallons of keyed-up adrenalin in him surged into his veins like a dam burst. He bunched his massive right fist, set his feet and belted the bikie under the chin with an uppercut that lifted him almost a foot off the floor, smashing every tooth in his head and completely shattering his jaw. He crashed into the ‘offsiders', then slumped forward, straight into a left hook that squashed his nose like an over-ripe fig. He hit the floor oozing blood, completely comatose.

Norton was hoping that might have been the end of it but as it is with bikie gangs, you fight one you have to fight the lot. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy the rest of the Marauders charged through the crowd to get at Les.

Norton dropped the first two pretty smartly but the rest pinned him up against the bar, crawling over each other in an effort to get a shot at him. Norton started butting, punching, kneeing, elbowing, gouging and biting like a well oiled machine and was giving the surprised bikies almost as good as he was getting. But the odds were stacked heavily against him. However, just as Les was starting to go down under the sheer weight of numbers the cavalry arrived in the form of ‘Bluey Riley's offsiders' who started pulling the bikies off Les.

He got back to his feet just as one of the Marauders whipped off his bike chain belt and went to wrap it round his head. Norton grabbed the chain from his hand, picked up a beer bottle off the bar and smashed it straight into the bikie's face, opening him up like a tin of strawberry jam, then smashed what was left of his face into the bar several times.

‘If you want to start gettin' fair dinkum, that's okay with me,' he snarled as he dropped his body on the floor.

Now that he could get a fair go at them there was no stopping Norton. All the pent-up rage and tension poured out of him and he started snotting bikies left, right and centre. And loving every minute of it.

However, in the melee one of the Thursday Islanders got a smack in the mouth so he belted the nearest whitey. Some drunk yelled out. ‘Come on boys, let's give it to the spooks.' The next thing all the Thursday Islanders were going at it hammer and tongs as part of the mob turned on them. The rest of the drunken horde spotted the Chinese. ‘Yay boys. Let's get the dingbats.' Up went the cry and in an instant the drunken Australians charged into the Chinese, to be met with a barrage of kung-fu kicks and karate chops. A lot went down but they were too big, too many and too drunk to feel anything and before long there were terrified Chinamen getting speared all over the place as what started out to be a slightly humorous beer commercial turned into a gigantic, riotous brawl that looked more like a scene from a Mel Brooks movie. And standing in the middle, a wild grin on his face, was a blood-spattered Norton trying to turn every bikie into minute steak.

As soon as they could see that things were getting completely out of hand the film crew picked up what gear they could and hurriedly retreated to the corner and the end of the bar. The director tried vainly to break it up at first. He was running around shrieking, ‘Stop it you idiots. Stop. You stupid bastards, you're ruining my beautiful commercial.' Not one of the drunks took a scrap of notice and when someone tore his megaphone from his hands and smashed it over a bikie's head he quickly got behind the others and stood there staring in horror at an equally shocked Mitchell Buchannan. Both were trying not to cry as they watched an entire days filming and about $300,000 go down the drain in a welter of punches, kicks, blood and torn clothing. And as far as they were concerned the cause of it all was the new modelling discovery that had been sent to them. Les Norton.

‘Some bastard's going to pay for this back in Sydney.' The director screamed at Mitchell, as through the mass of heaving bodies they watched Les punch and kick three bikies from one side of the bar to the other. ‘Someone is going to pay. I swear to God.'

The soundman kept recording at first but as soon as he realised it was turning into a riot he switched everything off, grabbed most of his equipment and got down behind the bar. The cameraman was fairly safe perched up on the bar with his camera resting on a big pile of sand-filled, canvas weight bags, like a soldier in a gun emplacement. And being half full of drink and a bit of a wag, contrary to the seething director's screams to cut he filmed the lot. Laughing like a hyena the whole time.

Leaning on the bar next to the director was the bleary-eyed publican. He was so drunk he could hardly stand up. He put his hand on Maurice's shoulder, as much to steady himself as to attract his attention. ‘I suppose I'd better do something,' he hiccuped. ‘I'll call the cops.' Just as he said that eight of the biggest Queensland wallopers you'd ever wish to see burst through the doors. ‘Jesus, that was quick,' he said blinking his eyes in amazement.

They were all members of The Brisbane Policemens' Rugby League Team. Each one built like a council dump truck and each with the disposition of a trapdoor spider guarding its eggs. They happened to be in the area after training, and hearing about the commercial being filmed thought they might drop in and see what was going on. And maybe, just maybe, have a free drink.

As soon as they saw what was happening they charged straight in, belting and collaring everyone they could get their hands on. At the sight of the police uniforms an immediate change came over the fight and within seconds there was a stampede for the door, with the Thursday Islanders leading the way. They knew that if there were going to be any arrests they'd be the first to go.

Once the fighting stopped and the police were doing their best to round up as many drunks as possible, from out of the destruction Norton walked slowly towards the film crew. His clothing was in tatters, he had pieces of scalp missing and blood all over him but across his face was a wry grin. Behind him was utter carnage.

Body upon unconscious body, mostly bikies, lay stacked haphazardly across the floor in a writhing, moaning heap of drunken, blood-spattered pain. The beer sodden floor was a sea of shattered chairs, upturned tables, broken bottles, smashed glasses and other debris. Every window was broken and two wrecked air conditioners were dumped on what was left of the
tracks the film crew had layed down, which looked like a bombed railway line. Every now and again one of the bodies would try to rise then give a little moan of pain and collapse again.

‘Well. What do you reckon, Maurice old fellah?' said Les, standing in front of the astonished, irate director. ‘Was that scene convincing enough or did it look a little too rehearsed?' He threw back his head and roared laughing; somehow the director failed to see the joke.

Norton stood there for a moment picking his teeth to get rid of some hair and pieces of flesh that had become imbedded when he had to chew his way out of a couple of headlocks, when he noticed the grinning cameraman up on the bar with the soundman standing next to him. A strange look came over Norton's face.