Regular readers will know most of the stuff I write about my club days is light-hearted, and intentionally so. I laughed a lot more than I cried in those days, and quite frankly there ain’t no point in doing that shit unless it’s fun, right? But there were times when things got graveyard serious. Of course they did. How could they not? You hang out with gunslingers, there’s gonna be a showdown.
I have purposefully never told tales out of school. And I never will. What goes on in clubhouses at 16 o’clock remains the business of the people there and no-one else. I have always and will always keep the faith and the secrets entrusted to me by members of other clubs. Writing tell-all sensationalist books and articles so a publisher can cash in on the notoriety of outlaw clubs is not something I’ve ever been minded to do.
And not many books like that get written. Which is good. You wanna know what it’s like to be in a club? Go join a club. Then, if you’re an undercover cop, you can go and write about it while you spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder because you’re a treacherous piece of shit.
Then there’s the whole statute of limitations thing. Some crimes never get old in the eyes of the law. And it will come for you decades after their commission. So I never write about any of that stuff, cos I’m dumb but I ain’t stupid.
But at the end of the day, there’s no law about writing fiction, is there? So for the purposes of this piece, I will tell you it is entirely fictional, and that will be what I tell the judge if it comes to that. Cross my heart and hope to die.
Are you seated comfortably? Then let us begin…
Outlaw motorcycles clubs are the most fun just before they become outlaw motorcycle clubs. Like, you may have already sewed your colours on, elected officers, and had a bunch of meetings, but you’re not quite there yet. You’re still altogether embryonic. You’re still very much caught up in the whole outlaw romance of it all – a type of LARPing without any serious consequences…yet.
You’re committed, you’re strong, you walk tall, you don’t take any shit from anyone, but your mettle, as it were, has not yet been tested. You have yet to walk through the fire – and that fire is gonna burn you. Make no mistake. No-one gets out unscathed.
But what the fuck. You bought the ticket, right? You are so gonna get the fuck on that ride, flames or more flames. Because there are always flames.
This was the state me and my companions were in when we decided we would have a party on the banks of a river. Of course, this was back in the days when such things were possible. You try having a party on the banks of a river now, and if that riverbank is not on private property, that ain’t gonna be no party.
But ours was. Was it the fuck ever. I reckon there’s a picture dictionary somewhere with the word “party” in it, right next to an illustration of us that long weekend.
It was a lovely spot, and there might be people reading this who will know where this spot is, because it’s still there. To get there, you have to ride down a steep, winding, and very popular road just outside of Sydney, and into a beautiful river valley. The valley is hemmed by stunning sandstone cliffs, and the river itself is somewhat tidal and can go from being a knee-deep crystal-clear delight, to a swirling, fast-moving muddy nightmare full of dead trees and death. But mainly it’s a delight.
Then you chuck a left, and keep on riding past farms with the river on your right. The bitumen turns to dirt, and the dirt eventually turns back into bitumen. Then, just as you’re considering how great it would be to go for a swim, you might see a small dirt road leading off to your right. It helps if you know it’s there. You take that road, cross a low wooden bridge built by convicts, and you’re there.
And “there” is a sizeable grassy area right on the banks of this river. The banks are steep, but you’re young and strong, and you’re only gonna fall into the water if you slip. No biggie. And if you like to party, like we did, this was the perfect place for such things. No neighbours, hardly any passing traffic because the road you turned off on turns to dirt again. It does eventually come out somewhere else, but you need to know where you’re going, and you need to know how to drive a four-wheel-drive or a dirt-bike – and even then it can be challenging. We did get drunk one day and try to get our Harleys as far along that road as we could, but when one of them caught fire, we decided against continuing.
Our party plan – and we always had a party plan because we were an organisation and organisations have to plan things – was breath-taking.
We would erect a very large canvas marquee – six-metres by six metres. We would erect a smaller awning just near it. We would then place our tents or sleeping bags a distance away, so that we had privacy when we passed out from too much party. And we also had girls with us, and girls like a bit of privacy for when they’re changing their underpants and the drugs have yet to properly kick in.
We would have a big fire. Because nothing says “party” like a big fire. And we would have a band. And because we decided we would have a band, we needed a generator to make electricity for this band. And since all of this looked like it was gonna cost a fuck-tonne of money we did not have because we were not importing pallets full of Columbian cocaine and were poor as fuck, we decided we would sell alcohol to the guests. Not at exorbitant rates, mind you. But just enough so we could cover our costs and give the band some money, because musos at that level are all on the bones of their arses too. And while we could, if we had to, rob servos to eat, musos just tended to starve to death instead.
We discussed offering food, and selling it, but none of us wanted to cook, and none of us could be trusted to turn off the gas barbecue. So, seeing as none of wanted to die in an explosion while cooking sausages, we decided to leave the food business to the guests, and we would all snort lots of speed, and thus not have to worry about appetites. As an added bonus, this decision meant we would all be very alert, very horny, very talkative, and very, very, very awake.
And it all came together rather well. We arrived with our girlfriends and their girlfriends, and some mates, on Friday morning. The band, and the bulk of the people we had told about the event were due to arrive Saturday afternoon. How many people would come, we really had no idea. It wasn’t going to be hundreds, but it could well be maybe 80 or so. There were ten of us, plus another half-dozen reliable mates, so we figured that was enough if things went pear-shaped.
I was the one who always anticipated things going that way. Which is why I brought a 12-gauge eight-shot pump-action. It was a thing of great beauty and I loved it very much. It was an Ithaca (made in New York state) and it was a silver-hued, roto-forged masterpiece, which has since been banned in Australia because it was too scary or something.
My fellow members didn’t question this call. All of us operated with the view that it was better to have a thing and not need that thing, than need that thing and not have it. This applies to lawyers as well as guns, knives, and drugs.
I erected my tent, put the gun under my sleeping bag, then made damn sure every member knew where it was and where the shotgun cartridges were, and then forgot all about it.
We had a ball on Friday. The weather was hot, all the girls were topless and shining with Hawaiian Tropic suntanning oil because melanoma was not invented yet, and we were all splashing in the river, drinking, snorting and smoking drugs, and preparing for our big party the following night. It was a vision splendid. Our bikes were parked haphazardly, our two back-up vehicles were hidden behind the pavilions we had erected, the hired generator worked, and everyone was smiling, laughing, and having a great time.
There were a few other people there, but they were across the river. On their side there was a beach and room for some car-parking up on the bank. The few cars that had ventured across the bridge quickly turned around when they saw what was encamped there. We didn’t chase anyone off. We didn’t have to. But we were friendly as fuck to the people sharing the river with us. We gave them beer and offered to rub oil into their wives and girlfriends. We even invited them to hang out the following day. None of them took us up on that.
We had a big fire that night, and no-one was remotely interested in sleeping, so we roared and laughed and drag-raced our bikes up and down the road on the other side of the river. No-one died or even got hurt, which was pretty amazing, when I think back on it. Sure, Clarky did fall into the river, but he did not drown, and when his girlfriend went down to get him, he rooted her in gratitude right there in the water.
The next day, we hauled in the ice and the beer and the pre-mixes, and put them in the tubs we’d brought. Then we had a briefing where it was explained that we would be nice, and we would inform everyone they were to buy their piss from us. No BYO was to be permitted (and we’d made this very clear to everyone who was coming), because we would not make any money, and if we didn’t make any money then the band would not get paid, and then they would cry, and we would have to comfort them, and we were not any good at that.
We delegated who would serve drinks, who would supervise the generator, who would see to the band’s needs, and who would be overwatch. We all spoke to our respective girlfriends, told them to mind themselves when they wandered off to have a wee, but none of us were much concerned with anyone bothering them. You’d have to be a special kind of fool not to quickly work out which girl belonged to which bloke. The girls made a point of making sure everyone knew who was with who whenever we went anywhere. Sure, sometimes things went wrong, because alcohol is a terrible drug and people make all sorts of poor decisions and bad life-choices when they’re pissed, but it mostly worked most of the time.
People started arriving just after lunch, and by dusk, there was about 100 people there, us not included. The band had set up, complete with a light show, and they were tuning up and very much indulging in the free piss and drugs we told them they could have. You always look after the entertainment, and the entertainment will look after you. The bands and strippers we had hired for other parties were always cared for.
As the sun was setting, the band kicked off and it was simply sensational. They played covers, and they did it very well. Beatles, Stones, AC/DC, Thorogood, Seger, Cash – the whole kick-arse drinkin’-dancin’-singin’ stuff we all knew and loved. The girls were dancing, the guests were dancing, lots of people were laughing, and we were doing a brisk business selling booze. The evening looked like a wonderful success.
Mark and I were busy patting ourselves on the back, and that was, as it turned out, far too premature.
Two car-loads of blokes had turned up just on dusk, and they were all a bit older than us. Some of them were in their late forties, and there was an edge to them I felt bore watching.
“Who are those cunts?” Mark asked me when they got out of their cars with eskies.
“No idea,” I shrugged. “Go tell them there’s no BYO.”
Mark duly wandered over and had a brief conversation with the blokes. I saw nodding and hand-shaking, figured everyone was on the same page, and thought no more about it – except I did. I have told you I am suspicious cuss, haven’t I? I went about my business but I kept a close on eye on them. As did the other blokes. It’s what we do, after all. And we were very alert, as you can imagine. This was Day Two of our meth- fuelled party, and we were all topped up, and…um, zesty as fuck.
There’s this thing you need to know about speed. It’s a very mood-specific drug. If you’re in a good mood, you’ll be in a better mood four lines in. If you’re horny, you’ll get hornier. If you’re drinking, then you’ll find yourself not getting all that hammered no matter how much piss you neck – though there is a drop-off point. But if you’re in a bad mood, or something happens that rains on your parade, then speed is like lighting the blue touch paper and not standing back. You embrace and become the firework. And you have a very, very high pain threshold and lots of energy. Sure, it’s all chemically-driven, but that does not make it any less effective.
About ten pm, I was in a very suspicious mood, so I had a few lines to steady the ship, smoked a joint to sand off the pointy edges, and sipped at a beer, which I couldn’t really taste. All I could taste was the speed’s fearsome metallic chem-tang in my throat, but this was not my first rodeo. I went with it.
This was when Clarkey came to me and told me the blokes I had been watching were not buying their piss from us anymore, and had not been for a while. They were going back to their cars, getting cans out of their eskies, and drinking that. And they were, to my mind at least, looking a little too much the wrong way at the girls. I can’t blame them for looking. It was the way they were looking. The bitches had all left their bikini bottoms on and put on pretty tops, and they were dancing like the meth-fuelled sluts they had become. But there’s ways of looking at that – and they did indeed want to be looked at – without it becoming an act of base lechery, if you know what I mean.
“Fuck that,” I said, probably out loud, because Clarkey followed me as I went over to where they were all sitting and standing. I knew my blokes were also watching me, because that’s another thing we do. We all watch each other all the time. So, while no-one moved towards the not-buying-our-piss bastards with me and Clarky, they all made sure they weren’t too far away.
Things like the situation that was developing are a light-switch. The switch may stay off, and everyone stays cool in the dark. Or the switch is flipped, the lights go on in a blinding flash, and on the instant it’s a very different kind of party.
“We explained there was no BYO,” I said to them all, and wondered which one was their spokes-knob. There is always a spokes-knob. And one must always deal with the spokes-knob, for everything depends on what happens with and to him.
My spokes-knob identified himself. He stepped forward and said: “Yeah, fuck that. We bought all this piss and we’re gonna fucken drink it.”
I punched him hard in the face and he fell down. Now I know some of you might think me belting him this early in our discussion is over the top. I gotta tell you this was not a discussion. I had not walked over to them to have a conversation.
The only way he was not gonna get belted was to say: “Fuck, mate. Sorry, but we just grabbed these few cans. How about we just give you the rest and you can sell them back to us?”
So the light switch went on. All my blokes moved towards all of the spokes-knob’s blokes, as he pretty quickly got to his feet, and left me wishing I had punched him way harder than I did. He was a bit bigger than me and maybe 15 years older than my mid-twenties.
“Fuck you!” he spat, pushing his mates off him. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. Thing is, folding knives need unfolding, and while he was doing that, I punched him in the side of the head much harder than I did the first time, and then immediately belted the bloke standing next to him. Then I stepped back and watched as my blokes put themselves in between me, the bloke on the ground, the bloke I had just belted who did not fall down, and the rest of them, none of whom seemed about to scamper off in fright.
I could sense Clarkie just behind me and to my left. “Get the shotty,” I said to him. He did not hesitate and made for my tent like an arrow.
Meanwhile, scuffles were breaking out. There was a bit of pushing, a few punches were being thrown, but none of the older blokes seemed overly keen to take it to the next level and were looking at their spokes-knob for guidance. He was back on his feet again, a bit bent over and woozy, but there was no knife in his hand. I had no idea where it was. It was night time, it was dark, and the band was still playing behind us. If I turned and looked at the band, their lights fucked with my night-vision, and I figured I needed to be able to see, so I did not turn around again. A few people who had been dancing in front of the band had seen what was going on, but they stayed back.
I rocketed into him like a charging bull, head down, my shoulder went into his belly, and we both went down with me on top of him. I felt a hand on my shoulder and half-winced expecting a lump of wood upside the head, but it was Clarky and my shotgun.
I grabbed it, still kneeling on the spokes-knob’s chest, and my heart fell. It was empty. I knew that the second I took it off Clarky. An empty eight-shot pumpy weighs noticeably less than one that is full of shells.
It’s fascinating to recall later what goes through your head in that kind of situation. Nothing and everything, pretty much. But at the time, things are happening very quickly and you’re not even aware of conscious thought. A decision had been made. Doubt was not an option. Right or wrong, this is now the path I was on.
I had now escalated this situation pretty much as far as it could go, and the only further escalation was me pumping rounds into these blokes if they did not, upon the instant, stand the fuck down. But that was not going to happen with an empty shotgun.
Still, they didn’t know that, did they? All they knew was that I had a gun, and I was sitting on the chest of their alpha, and I had a gun, and I had a gun, and I very much had a fucking gun. All they could see was that gun – that big, silver, go-fuck-yourself Ithaca, with its sexy red-tipped front sight – as if a shotgun needed a front sight.
I immediately rammed the barrel of the shotty, with that big-arse front sight, into the spokes-knob’s mouth. It made one hell of a mess, breaking teeth and tearing lips, and then I yelled a bit because I was very angry, and also because I wanted everyone to hear what I was going to say.
“Where’s your knife?!” I demanded. “Show me your fucken knife now!”
Spokes-knob’s eyes were huge. I do not think I have ever seen bigger eyes on a human being. How could the fucker even open them so wide? He made loud throaty noises. It’s just not possible to speak when there is a shotgun barrel in your mouth, no matter how much you want to. And while we both understood my question was rhetorical, I felt he wanted to answer me very much. I felt he really wanted to tell me where his knife was, but for that to happen, I would need to have taken the gun out of his mouth, but I was very good with it being where it was, even though one part of me knew it would need a serious clean afterwards.
“You’re all leaving now,” I heard Mark say from somewhere behind me. I was aware my blokes were all around me, but the only thing I was looking at was the spoke-bloke’s ruined face, barrel-sucking mouth, and saucer-sized eyes. I could feel him utterly rigid under me. It was like sitting on a log.
I got up, the gun came out of his mouth along with bits of teeth and lip-meat, and I remember looking at the end of the barrel and seeing it covered in spit and blood.
“Get up,” I said.
He rolled to his side and spat. Strands of bloody saliva drooled out of his mouth, and there looked to be lots of blood coming out as well. It was dark, so it was hard to see.
One of his mates hauled him to his feet, and they all looked very confused, but very frightened at the same time. I’ve seen that look on blokes. Had it myself a few times. You spend a lot of time looking at everything but the main threat that has just brought you low. You gaze flickers from thing to thing, and you just want it all to be over, but you know that’s no longer up to you. It will end when someone else decides it will end. Your brain is simply in survival mode.
But I was not done.
Spokes-knob was being held up by his mate, but he was bent over, his hands on his knees and lots of dark liquid was falling out of his ruined mouth. His other mates were being firmly herded back to their two cars. It was all pretty quiet, but the band was still playing. There was no yelling or swearing or threatening. How could there be? There was a man with a fucking shotgun over there, and the end of his fucken shotgun was covered in unpleasantness. This was the best-behaved these fucks had been all night.
I took three steps towards spokes-knob, and as his mate backed instantly away with his hands up in front of him in the universal unspoked gesture of “Please don’t shoot me, you horrible cunt”, I grabbed spokes-knob’s hair.
My shotgun now in my left fist, and spokes-knob’s greasy hair in my right fist, I force-marched him over to his mates and their cars and rammed his head into one of the doors. He fell down on the ground again, then rolled slowly onto his back making gurgling noises.
“Sit him up before he drowns,” I said to no-one.
His mates got him up and into a car and they left. Not in a mad rush, because they might well have driven into the river. Remember, no-one was sober, so both vehicles just idled across the bridge, turned left, and drove off into the night.
We watched them go, then I rounded on Clarky.
“The next time you give me an unloaded gun, I will beat you to fucken death with it! You fucken idiot!”
“Fuck…” Clarky said. “Sorry…fuck…I had no idea, I thought it was loaded.”
Which was fair enough. You’d only know it wasn’t loaded if you were familiar with what either variation felt like. And it wasn’t his gun. And maybe I should have loaded it. And maybe it was better than it wasn’t loaded, because there’s no way of knowing how the lottery that just played out might have played out if the gun was loaded.
“Go load it now,” I said, and handed him the gun. “And wipe that shit off the barrel.”
“I found his knife,” Mark said as the others went back to calm the guests and the band, which had stopped playing round about when I banged the spokes-knob’s head into the car. Mark showed it to me. It looked a decent blade. I took it off him and opened it. It was sharp. I put it in my pocket and have it to this day. Men keep their war trophies.
“Think they’ll tool up and come back?” Mark asked.
“Hard to say,” I shrugged. “They might. But it’s not like they can sneak up on us.””
Clarky returned with the shotty. He apologised again.
I told him to forget about it, because I knew he wouldn’t. None of us would forget this evening.
I sent two blokes over the bridge to keep an eye on the road, and the rest of us went back to our dancing girlfriends and guests. The band kicked back on with Fire Lake, which is still one of my favourite songs. My girlfriend asked if if everything was cool. I told her it was. She asked me if I wanted to dance. I told her I didn’t. But I would very much enjoy watching her dance. She did this pouty thing with her mouth then started swaying to the music. I got her another drink.
About an hour later we saw a car pull up across the river. It sat there idling with its lights on. My hackles went up and I could feel the tension rise among my mates. The girls and the guests didn’t seem to notice anything, and I was a bit confused. If those blokes had tooled up and come back, they might send a few rounds across the river. There were trees and tents in the way, so they may not hit anyone, but then they very well might. Do I tell people to take cover? Do I start firing across the river at the car? It was about 250 metres, and a shotty doesn’t have that kinda range, but it does make a lot of noise. What happens then? The girls and the guests lose their shit because they’re in a gun battle, and nothing fucken good ever came out of a gun battle. I was also convinced the farmers that lived around us would call the cops when they started hearing guns go off.
As it turned out, the two blokes I had sent across the river checked out the car, deemed it just a curious local, and one of them came back to tell me so.
We all saw the sun rise the next morning and went for a swim. Clarky was nude, so he insisted his girlfriend get nude. Then he nailed her again under the bridge. They were nineteen, so they were always rooting.
By lunchtime, we were packed up, the site had been cleaned up, and we were making ready to ride home. Mark and I counted the takings. I think we made about $120 after we paid for the band and the generator hire, so we felt that was a huge success.
I have thought long and long about that night. Could I have acted differently? Certainly. There are always options. Should I have acted differently? That was a far more pertinent question. And when I asked myself that, the answer was a resounding “Fuck no!” I HAD to act that way for a whole bunch of reasons. Some of you will clearly understand why shit had to go down the way it did.
But for those who don’t, I will try to explain. Had I let them drink their own booze after they had been asked not to, they would have viewed my friends and myself as weak bitches. That could not be allowed to happen, because there is a flow-on effect when people think that, and things would have certainly escalated as the evening went on. And we would have struggled to contain or control that escalation, which would have quite ruined our party.
The spokes-knob’s reply left me no alternative but to belt him. And we could have gone on with this belting, had he not decided I needed to be stabbed. But once a weapon is drawn, everything changes. Irrevocably. There ain’t no going back. You pull a knife, you can’t then un-pull it and say: “Hey, just fuckin’ with you…”
There are too many fools on this earth who use weapons as a threat. They have no true intent to actually use them. They think that just hauling out a knife or a gun and pointing it at someone is enough to settle the matter. People like me don’t think that way. To me, a weapon is a tool that once produced is then used. It’s not show-and-tell. It’s show-and-do. And in the best case, it’s best not to show at all.
The best knife-fighters will stab you, and you won’t even see it coming. You did not even see them produce a blade. You won’t even know it’s been shoved into you, because that feels like a punch. But you will figure it out pretty quickly after that.
So, the knife came out on the banks of the river. I chose to make it a gun-fight on the instant. My reasons were simple. Knife-fights can get fucked. They are messy, terrifying, and usually end poorly for both players.
I was not doing that. I therefore gambled that producing a shotgun would have precisely the effect it had. I was pissed that it wasn’t loaded, because then it was just an empty threat. An unloaded gun is a club, and making empty threats is not a thing one should ever do. But I had to play the hand I was dealt, and the situation was fluid.
Would I have fired if the gun was loaded? Yep. In the air immediately. In fact, that was my plan. A 12-gauge being fired has a very galvanising effect. It centres the mind wonderfully. People are instantly paying attention. But I could not do that. So I improvised and did what I did, which also had the desired effect of focusing people’s attention on the problem at hand.
But it was a gamble. Calculated, I guess, but still. And I don’t want to hear any shit about being violent and unpredictable. Nothing in my experience speaks to anything unpredictable about violence. It is always predictable. Always. If you do not know when bad things are going to happen, if you can’t read the room, if you can’t feel it in your bones, then you will always and forever be a victim. You will be re-active when you need to be pro-active. You feel a bad vibe somewhere? Leave. Remove yourself from what will likely happen. Trust your feelings. They have been designed to keep you out of trouble.
That night, the violence was totally predictable. When I went over to spokes-knob I totally knew one of two things was going to happen. He either backed instantly down, or he was gonna tell me to get fucked. It was an A or B decision on his part. He chose B. My response was therefore entirely predictable, no?
I’m also not interested in hearing any mewling or hand-wringing about how maybe it would have been better not to pound his head into a car. Maybe he’d had enough, what with his broken teeth and torn lips. You watch too many movies if you think that. In the real and messy world, and in my world at that time, once situational dominance is established, it needs constant re-enforcement to remain effective. You need to stay on top of shit until your adversary’s adrenaline seeps away. Nasty shit, that adrenaline. Gets people into all sorts of strife. So, it’s always a good idea to wait until it drains off. Doesn’t take all that long.
Am I proud and pleased with what went down? Fuck, no. There is nothing in my actions that give me pride. And I got no pleasure in what happened. Shit like that always leaves you feeling a little numb, like something died inside you, and you struggle to process it. Actual violence is rare in our lives today. And the psychological tools we need to process it when it happens do not get used much at all. But they are there. Unless you’re a psychopath.
What I was very pleased about was how nothing worse happened, and how the evening was not ruined. And it could well have been ruined had decisive and immediate action not been taken. I bet, I gambled, I won. That’s all there is to that.
My world is very different now. I think everyone’s is. Change is the only constant. I am older, but I am not really any wiser. I just have a different perspective on things. I can look back on those times – and that was not the first time or the last time things got nasty for me – and I understand I remain the same person. Right and wrong don’t enter into a situation like the one I’ve told you about. I did what I knew I had to do. Moralising didn’t enter into it.
Sure, I can moralise all I want to in retrospect. We can all do that. You can debate my actions, sit in judgement upon them and me, condemn me for a violent drug-fiend and thug, and I will point to that barren field where all the fucks I’m expected to give will never grow.
It was a great night, that looked like turning into a very bad night, but didn’t. At least for me and the people I cared about. That’s the only moralising I have ever done about it. Or ever will.
