Enforcer by Caesar Campbell, Donna Campbell

meant we had a stronger bond than most clubs. Any one of us would step in front of a bloke with a pool cue and take the hit that another brother was going to cop. When you’ve got a club that thinks that much of each other, you’re pretty hard to beat.
     
    W E’D HEARD about a new club that was hanging round Parramatta called the Comancheros. We’d see them now and again when we were out on rides, parked on the side of the road or in a garage getting fuel.
    A mate of mine, Roach, from the Phoenix used to drink with us up at the Ashfield Tavern, and one night he brought in a bloke from the Comancheros, John Boy. John Boy was wearing his colours, which wouldn’t normally go down real well in another club’s pub, but he was on his own and Roach told me he was a good bloke, so I let him stay.
    Roach had hit the road by the time I left my lemon squash at the bar and went to have a leak. John Boy came in after me and told me about the blokes trying to steal my bike.
    That’s the night I flattened the two blokes and John Boy helped me with the third. That was good of him, because we hardly knew each other. I remember the look on his face when I souvenired the trio of little fingers. I had about twenty-six fingers in the jar by then. I was grateful because he’d helped save my bike and so I’d made that promise: ‘If there’s ever anything I can do for ya, you got me word I’ll do it.’
    Little did I know what that promise to John Boy would set in train, and would one day end up costing me.
     
    T OWARDS THE end of the seventies we started hanging round a pub called the James Craig Tavern, attached to the new shopping centre that had been built at Birkenhead Point. We used to park our bikes on level two of the parking station, right outside the double doors that led into the nightclub part of the tavern, so we could keep an eye on them while we were inside. The staff would always save us two or three tables right in front of the doors. We’d come with our old ladies and listen to bands like Ol’ 55 and Sherbet. I was friends with one of the waitresses, Victoria, and she’d bring us big trays of leftovers from the buffet, cold roast beef or pork and baked potatoes.
    We were up there one night and one of the bouncers came up to Bull, who was our sergeant-at-arms. ‘There’s another bike club downstairs causing some trouble.’
    ‘Who?’ Bull asked.
    ‘The Comanchees.’
    The Comanchees? Bull looked at me but I’d never heard of them, so we headed downstairs. It turned out to be the Comancheros. One of their blokes was jumping up and down on a pool table.
    Bull told him to get off.
    ‘What are ya gunna do if I don’t?’
    ‘I’ll put ya through the fuckin’ window,’ Bull said.
    He got off.
    John Boy was there, and came in from outside. ‘G’day Caesar.’
    ‘Ah, John Boy, what are youse doing here?’
    ‘We thought we’d pop in for a drink.’
    ‘Well you know the rules,’ I said. ‘You should’ve asked.’
    ‘Yeah, fuck off,’ said Bull.
    ‘Calm down,’ I said. By this stage Shadow and Schultz and some of our other blokes had wandered in and I didn’t want to see a blue.
    ‘Yeah, fair enough,’ said John Boy. So he got his blokes and left.
    Despite the rough introduction, we began hanging round with John Boy and got to know some of the other Comancheros. One night John Boy brought some of them up to the Croydon Hotel. That night the place was full of footballers, blokes from Wests and Canterbury, and John Boy got into a blue with one of the locals. I ended up facing off against Canterbury second-rower Greg Cook. He was mouthing off about what he was going to do to me.
    ‘Well, come on and do it,’ I said.
    But his mates came out and told him, ‘We’re not gunna back you against these blokes,’ so all of a sudden he was backing down the footpath. ‘I don’t want any trouble, mate.’
    See, footy players will get in and throw a few punches, put the boot in here and there, but when you