LP drove the Kombi out of the property, back down the tree-lined driveway, and turned right onto the rain-soaked road. The flood waters had risen further, and were flowing over the bridge, but LP crossed anyway. George’s Kombi stalled and stopped in the middle of the bridge.
“This isn’t good!” said LP. “Oh well, I got us into this mess, I’ll get us out. Mason, you drive and press the winch release button, and I’ll take it through to the other side.”
LP slowly walked through the flowing water. There was a gap of twenty feet where there was no guardrail. If he lost his footing, he would be like the others who had disappeared under the bridge. Step by step, he slowly pushed through the rushing waters.
“Hurry up; you’ve got company,” Bear yelled.
The swollen creek had flushed out water rats the size of small beavers, and they were headed for LP. He glanced around and saw six rodents with gnawing teeth swimming towards him.
“Oh shit!” he yelled. “Do something!”
“Turn the floodlight on, George,” said Bear. “Before those rodents start chewing on LP’s legs.”
“If I do that without the engine running, we’ll have one dead battery. That floodlight has the brightness of two million candles.”
“Just do it now!” Bear shouted.
When George flicked the switch, the brightness was blinding. The rodents turned and swam off. LP reached the other side of the bridge, secured the cable to a lamppost, and called, “Mason, press the winch button.”
“We’re lucky the auxiliary battery is connected directly to the winch, or we’d have been stuffed.” Mason pressed the winch button, and the Kombi was slowly pulled through the flooded waters.
“That was a close call; if you didn’t make it, I was going to kill you!” said Bear to LP.
“That would be a bit difficult, as you would have been in the Kombi floating down the creek,” LP replied.
Laughter from the guys would have been heard streets away, but it covered their fear of what might have happened.
Everyone except LP got back into the Kombi, glad to be out of the rain. Then, out of the darkness, a guy climbed up the flooded embankment. He was drenched and wearing only his undies.
“Who are you?” asked Mason, through the side window.
“I’m Bill. I’m from Western Australia. I was sleeping in my panel van across the creek in the park, and I guess the flood waters rose and picked up the van. I still can’t believe what happened, and I’m still alive. All I’ve got left is what I’m standing in: my jocks.”
“Well, mate, we phoned the police; they are on the other side of the bridge. When the waters subside, see them. They’ll help.”
When Bill did finally make it to the police for help, he was arrested for unlawful exposure, vagrancy, not having a licence, and illegal camping. As they walked Bill over to the paddy wagon, one cop pulled out his revolver, turned, aimed at the head, and shot – a water rat had come out of the flooded waters. He then opened the door and pushed Bill into the paddy wagon.
The coppers saw him as a ticket to get back to the station early and get out of the rain. That was the Westie’s welcome to Queensland. Beautiful one day – in the slammer the next.
LP was cold, saturated and shaking from his creek crossing. He dried off his six-foot-tall, lanky body and shoulder length, brown hair, and then changed into jeans and his favourite t-shirt – brightly coloured with an image of a wave breaking, and the words ‘Bigger the Better’. He climbed back into the driver’s seat of the red Kombi and turned the key to start the engine. It coughed and spluttered a couple of times before finally kicking over.
They headed to Romeo’s Pizza Palace in downtown Brisbane, an area known as The Valley. It was the seedy underbelly of Brisbane, but had not gained the notoriety of King’s Cross in Sydney.
All the guys had the munchies, and were hanging out for a feed.
LP parked the Kombi a hundred yards up the road from Romeo’s. They all got out, except for Red, who said, “I’m staying with the Kombi. Just bring back a couple of slices of pizza, and don’t be too long.”
The reason Red didn’t get out of the Kombi was that he had cut his toes on glass back at the party, and needed them bandaged to stop the bleeding. He didn’t want to tell the guys how bad the cut was, because he wanted to avoid wasting time going to a hospital – it would delay getting to Bells Beach.
Romeo’s was a great pizza place; not just any pizza, great pizza. The best order was The Godfather’s Pizza. It was a true Italian-style pizza, just like the old country.
At Romeo’s, you did not make eye contact with anyone – it could be taken the wrong way. The Valley was controlled by Mafia heavyweights. The nightclub next door was also under their control. Luckily, any time the guys had been in that part of town, they had never had any trouble. They ordered three pizzas and waited quietly.
Next door, at Romeo’s nightclub, a group of drunken troublemakers were trying to get into the club, but weren’t having much luck, and were turned away. They apparently took it as an insult that they were refused entry by a faceless voice that came through a peephole in the door. In revenge, several decided to ‘take a leak’ on the closed door, and urine leaked under the doorway into the nightclub.
They had picked on the wrong people to piss off. The door opened, and there was an all-out brawl on the footpath. Not one troublemaker was left standing after the bouncers and patrons got stuck into them.
“No one dishonours this place or our women,” said one of the bouncers. He spat on them and turned to go back inside, slamming the door.
The pizzas were ready by this time, and the main man of the restaurant, with a scar from ear to cheek, said, “Boys, don’t look left or right; go straight to your car, and leave quickly.”
They all thought that sounded like good advice.
Bear said, “Good idea; let’s get out of here.”
Mason walked out with the pizza boxes in hand. He could double as a Leo Sayer look-a-like, with his long, black, curly hair. He also had an ear for music, but sometimes what came out of his mouth would be better left unsaid.
Mason made eye contact with scar face, and yelled, “You don’t scare me!”
The guys realised they were in trouble, and bolted out with the pizzas, avoiding the bodies that lay bleeding across the footpath outside the nightclub.
“Mason, you dickhead, you should have kept your mouth shut,” said Bear.
They sprinted to the Kombi. The gangsters were right behind, wanting to inflict some damage to them.
Bear yelled, “Get to the Kombi and get it rolling.”
LP jumped in and tried to start the engine. “Start pushing; the battery’s flat again!”
“Try auxiliary.”
“No go; it’s flat, too!”
Bear, Cassa and Brownie started pushing the Kombi, and George, a slow fourth, was still hobbling along, trying to catch up. The mob was gaining on them.
The Kombi finally started. Bear, Brownie and Cassa ran up to the side door, pulled it open, and jumped in.
“Where’s George?” shouted LP.
Mason, who had jumped in the front seat, said, “He’s still coming.”
LP did a sharp U-turn. Bear reached out, grabbed George by the hand, and pulled him in the side door. LP did another sharp U-turn and left the gangsters in the distance.
With a sigh of relief, Bear said, “Just as well we didn’t try to get into that nightclub. I don’t think they’d like long-haired surfies, either!”
LP looked down at the fuel gauge. “Hey guys, we’ve got to get petrol soon, or we’re going nowhere.”
Red came up with a bright idea; they could siphon fuel from a truck he knew was always parked in a back alley not far from where they were.
They headed down the road around five hundred yards, and found the truck parked where Red had said it would be.
“There it is; turn the engine off and pull up across the driveway.”
Bear and Cassa jumped out with the jerry can and headed over to the truck fuel tank. They proceeded to siphon as much petrol as they could in the shortest possible time. Unfortunately, the owner of the truck was standing on the third-floor balcony of a nearby building.
“You bastards, I’ll kill you! Get away from my truck,” he yelled.
It was time to do a runner. Cassa struggled to carry the jerry can, and spilt petrol as he ran. The trucker pulled out a rifle, took aim, and fired. Luckily, it was pretty dark in the laneway, and his bullet missed Cassa. Cassa panicked, dropped the can, and ran to the Kombi.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bear yelled as they climbed into the side door and slammed it closed.
The trucker fired again; lead ricocheted off the bitumen, sparked, and ignited the spilt fuel.
As the guys sped off in the Kombi, they saw a line of flame racing to the truck’s fuel tanks. Within seconds, there was a huge explosion; one truck destroyed, one truckie not happy, and part of the Valley about to be burnt down.
Nutter and Porky had taken a different route to avoid the flooded roads, and were hot on the trail to recover their coin. They remembered the surfers talking about pizza and Romeo’s to one of their mates, so they figured that was where they would catch up with them. They arrived there on their Harleys, with two hundred other bikies following.
As the troublemakers from the nightclub started picking themselves off the footpath, Nutter pulled up and asked, “What happened to you lot?”
“The last thing I remember is some long-haired surfies walking across our backs after leaving the pizza house.”
“These guys are tougher than I thought,” said Nutter.
“Yeah, and I bet that explosion and flames down in the Valley was their handiwork, too,” replied Porky.
Nutter and Porky headed down to the back alley and found the truck ablaze. The truckie was hosing down his pride and joy with a nearby fire hose.
“What happened?” Nutter asked.
“Bloody long-haired surfies. If I catch ‘em, I’ll kill ‘em.”
“No worries; if we get to em first, they’re dead meat.”
The bikies roared off just as the police and fire brigade arrived.
The sarge said to the constable, “Looks like we can add this to the Bad Meadows charge sheet. Destruction of property and arson. Put a call out to arrest all those bloody bikies; we’ll lock ‘em up for good this time.”
“How low is the fuel, LP?” asked Bear.
“We’ve got a couple miles left in it. There’s a self-serve pump at a service station just down the road. I’ll pull into the Esso servo, and we’ll get fuel there. The coin-operated machine only takes twenty-cent coins. Dig deep, guys, and see how many we have.”
“Is that it? Ten twenty-cent coins?” asked Bear.
“That’s not going to take us far,” added George.
“Two dollars of fuel will get us over the border. We’ll fill up in the morning. The servos will be open then,” LP said. He stopped the Kombi at the bowser.
Bear took the coins and dropped them into the slot. LP started to fill the tank, but the fuel bowser stopped with still a dollar to go. Bear kicked the bowser in frustration, but that didn’t help. It looked like road rage without a road, as Bear’s temper boiled over. He walked over to the coin slot in the wall and started thumping it, trying to make it work.
Brownie got out of the Kombi, grabbed the Golden Fleece emblem on top of the bowser, and started rocking it in frustration. That didn’t help, either – it broke off. He was left holding a ram in his hands. “Oh shit! I didn’t think that would happen.”
However, something happened! The fuel started to flow again and, when it got to two dollars, it didn’t stop. The tank was now full.
“Don’t stop now; fill the long range fuel tank, too,” said George.
“Brownie, put that Golden Fleece emblem on the ground, and I’ll fill it up, too,” LP said. “We can use it as a plastic jerry can.”
LP filled the Golden Fleece, which looked like a small hollow merino ram. He put the hose back, and the self-service bowser stopped.
“You’ll need a bung for that thing, or it’s not riding in the back with us,” said Bear.
“No worries. Grab that footy sock and shove it in the opening. That’s it; there will be no fuel coming out now. Strap it on top of the Kombi, at the back of the surfboards, and we’ll use it down the track.”