I was sitting at home one night when I got a call from JR. He wanted me to meet him up the Cross. So I put my colours on, jumped on my bike and rode to the Manzil Room. Chance was there too and he asked what JR wanted.
‘Mr Sin’s got a job for ya.’
He told me the details.
I screwed up my face. ‘You can tell Abe I wouldn’t get out of bed for that sort of money.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘I’m not joking. If he wants something collected, he knows the go. Everyone else round here might charge five to ten per cent but I charge 35 per cent and that goes for everyone.’
Chance interrupted: ‘Caesar, you oughta come into our line of business. You’d make a fortune, and we’ve both seen you shooting. You’re as good as we are.’
‘Maybe, but shooting targets is a lot different to what you and JR do.’
‘Let’s change the subject,’ JR suggested. ‘How’s your mum going, Ceese?’
‘She’s doing pretty good.’
JR turned to Chance. ‘If you ever get to meet Caesar’s mother, you’ll meet the best woman ever put on this planet. She raised 14 kids. Caesar’s dad died at 46, so Caesar had to help raise his brothers and that. That’s probably why they’re so tight. My mum, god bless her, she died a couple of years ago and I was a real mess. If it hadn’t been for Caesar, I probably wouldn’t have pulled it together.’
‘Yeah, you only get one mum,’ Chance said. ‘You gotta look after ’em.’
‘Caesar, tell Chance that story about you and your mum when you went to the pictures when you was a kid. That’s a crack-up.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘my old man was known around Newcastle as the best street fighter and pub bluer there was. He was known as Big Frankie C. I saw him in a lot of fights. I used to always hear him say to other blokes and sometimes us kids, “Hey sport, if you don’t watch it, you’re going to get the thrashing of your life.”
‘This day, me and me mum have gone to the pictures at the Strand up at Newcastle. We were watching Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. He was Mum’s favourite. We came out at interval for a choc-top ice cream and this bloke pushed in front of her. He looked like a big bloke to me, but I was only about ten. I said to him, “Hey sport, don’t push in front of my mum. Are you looking for the thrashing of yer life?” He just started laughing at me and gave me a bit of a shove. And then I heard the bloke say, “Oh, Big Frankie.” The old man had come out of nowhere and was standing there. Next thing the old man’s given him this big backhander and floored the bloke. Dad’s standing over him saying, “Don’t you ever put your hand on my son.”
‘Anyway, we didn’t get to see the second feature. The old man took us home and on the way he gave me the big lecture: “You might think you’re going to be something special when you grow up, but till then, stick to kids your own age. Don’t go taking on full-grown men.” And I said, “Yeah, but he pushed in front of Mum.” “I know you were trying to stick up for your mum, but no one would have touched her. Everyone knows she belongs to me.”’
‘So your old man had a bit of a reputation up there, eh?’ Chance said.
JR butted in: ‘Not only Newcastle. In the ’50s, Big Frankie C was as well known up the Cross as he was in Newcastle. Not many people wanted to mess with him. You know who he used to knock around with, don’t ya? Blokes like Ces Rolls.’
‘Really?’ Chance said, his ears pricking up at the mention of the old-time hardman.
‘Yeah, Ces was a mate of the old man’s,’ I said.
‘Your old man did travel in some heavy company,’ Chance said.
‘And it wasn’t just Ces Rolls,’ JR said. ‘He drank with Chow Hayes and Darcy Dugan and Jockey Smith. Caesar’s old man got around.’
‘I never knew this,’ Chance said.
‘Well, you know now.’
I told the story about how he would come down to Sydney and go to the Tradesman’s Arms Hotel in Darlinghurst – now yuppified and renamed the East Village – and he’d always have a beer with Paddles Anderson, who was the first real Mr Big of Sydney, but on other days he’d be inviting senior coppers and/or the mayor of Newcastle over for dinner at our home.
‘I remember one night he brought me down to Sydney when I was ten or 11. He went to take me into Chequers nightclub and these bouncers told him I couldn’t go in. They wouldn’t budge until this really big bouncer came out. “Oh Frank, come in.” The other bouncers said, “You can’t let him in with a kid.” The big guy turned to Dad and put his arm on his shoulder. “Sorry about these fellers, Frank. They’re new.” As we went through the door, he turned to the other blokes. “You know who you’re talking to, don’t ya?” They’re looking at Dad blankly. “This is Frank ‘the Iceman’ Campbell.” All of a sudden they were all looking at him very respectfully and maybe a little scared, and I’m standing there wondering what’s going on.
I hadn’t heard the Iceman bit before, but suddenly these blokes are trembling and I’m wondering, What the flip? We get taken to our table and the singer Bobby Limb comes over and he’s shaking the old man’s hand. (A while later, Dad ended up with Bobby Limb’s E-Type Jag. What that was for, I don’t know, but he got it.) On the way home, in his great big Yank-tank Ford Customline, I’m quizzing him on the Iceman thing, and he’s going, “I’ll tell you one day, son”. I pestered him about it for weeks, but he wouldn’t tell.’
‘So, did you ever find out?’ Chance said.
‘Years later, I got him to the point where he told me he’d tell me on my next birthday. But he died before I got there. That was in 1969.’
‘That explains a lot of things about you, Caesar,’ Chance said. ‘Sounds like he was a tough customer but managed to spend his whole life out of the limelight and out of trouble. It’s a bit like JR and me.’
So we sat there for another few hours bullshitting to each other and said our adieus and each of us went our own ways. I headed home and as usual The Woman was sitting up waiting, wanting to know if I needed something to eat. As I was tucking into my food, the phone rang. It was Dukes. ‘You’ve got to come up to the Illinois.’
*
So I GOT my colours back on and rode over. There was a ton of sheilas there and a whole heap of Comos, all having a rocking good time.
One of the bouncers up there, Terry Regan, was a young bloke down from the country playing first grade for Balmain. Regan was a real hard-tackling forward and a good friend. When it came closing time, Dukes and some of the other Comancheros had told him that I wanted him to keep the pub open, or the back part at least, because we had a lot of sheilas rocking up. So Terry did this for them, but he was waiting for me to arrive so I could keep an eye on them. Dukes was worried he was going to kick ’em out if I wasn’t there.
Terry had unlocked the jukebox. Everyone was playing their songs for nothing. People were dancing on the pool table and on the dance floor. It was what the life of an outlaw biker was really all about – when you’re with your brothers and a ton of women, letting it all out. It’s when the blokes bond and get that feeling of brotherhood. I sat back and had a great time just watching.
This went on from about 1.30 am through to about 4.30, when Terry said to me, ‘You’re going to have to get ’em out of here and get a few of ’em to help me clean up.’ So I got some of the prospects and sent ’em to work for Terry. And I said to Dukes, ‘You’re the one that started all this, you can get in and give ’em a hand too.’ He helped straighten the place up so everyone was happy.
But Terry was worried that the boys were doing this sort of thing a bit too often. He pulled me aside. ‘We’re going to have to quieten this down a bit, otherwise the coppers are going to wake up to what’s going on and I’ll be in all sorts of shit. I’m surprised they haven’t busted the joint yet.’
‘Yeah, thanks for doing it for us, Terry. I’ll have a word to the boys and tell ’em that no one’s to stay here after closing unless I’ve given you a tingle and cleared it first. So, unless you get a ring from me, don’t open the place up.’
‘Thanks, Caesar.’
*
THERE WAS a Tuesday night when Donna and I, plus Chance and his old lady, rocked over to JR’s for our regular meal. We went there about twice a week, but it turned out this night was going to be special. While we were eating our roast lamb with loads of mint sauce, JR kept hinting that he had a surprise for us. So, after we’d polished off the bombe alaska, we left Cheryl and the old ladies to yak on while we went downstairs.
As soon as we got into the bomb shelter, JR turned on the light. Sitting there in front of us was a Tommy gun, like we’d all seen in the gangster movies.
‘How’d you get that?’ I said.
‘That’s for me to know and you not to find out . . . Watch it go, man.’
He picked it up and started firing and boy did it make a mess of the target. The .45 bullets smashed into the sandbags at the back of the range. I had my hands over my ears, and by the time he’d emptied the circular magazine, the bunker was thick with smoke. Me and Chance couldn’t wait our turns. Because JR and I were best mates, he gave it to me first.
I held it in my hands, thinking about Babyface Nelson and Eliot Ness and all those old gangster movies. My hands slotted nicely into the wooden finger grooves on the handle at the front. And then I pulled the trigger, Rat a tat tat.
I didn’t hear the noise or smell the smoke. It was like starting a really loud Harley. It might have been a god-awful racket to some people but to have it under your control and to just let it rip was beautiful to experience.
It had a bit of a kick to it, though. You really had to hold it down.
Chance got his go and he was in love with it as much as I was. But the ventilation in the shelter wasn’t up to all the gunsmoke and nitrates in the air. As we retreated up the stairs for a breather, he was hassling JR, ‘I’ll buy it from you. How much did you pay? I’ll double it.’
‘No way,’ JR said.
We had quite a night that night. We spent about three hours down there, taking regular breaks for the smoke to clear and for the barrel to cool down. But it also got hard to talk after a while. Our ears were ringing too much.