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The night drives all the way down the dark road, inducing drowsiness and bringing dreamy memory. The moonlight is split over the open water, carving up a thousand shapes and shadows, washing, back and forth.
Lou stands, on top of the bridge, leaping over the roadway. His long fingers clutch at the cold wire fence, his vision is steady. A gush of headwind catches beneath the bridge and lifts up into Lou’s face. Throwing his long blonde hair back, he sheds a wind swept tear. Goose bumps grow all over his back.
A helicopter buzzes somewhere up above. This is the place where you still hear stories of youngsters throwing rocks off the bridge and into oncoming traffic below, just for fun. Now drivers are advised to divert and take tunnel highway instead.
The taxi Lou called pulls up behind him with a squeak and he climbs in through the backdoor. The driver grunts for payment up front. Lou tells him to drive into town. He nods, pulls out from the curb and coughs. From his wallet, Lou pulls out the approximate fare of $30 and puts it in the driver’s outstretched hand.
Lou turns to his window. Speeding along the quiet roads, streetlights flash intensely through the glass. Flickers of parked cars, footpaths and patient rubbish bins dash past him. Several street urchins huddle under a dull hotel awning. Lou checks his wristwatch, and then the taxi fare meter. It is at $11.30 already and he guesses they are about halfway through the journey.
Through the front windscreen Lou can make out the city limits. Dozens of tall towers rise up out of the ground like tree sprouts in a crowded rainforest, constantly competing for sunlight. The taxi driver asks if Lou would mind him turning the radio on, he has been trying to follow tonight’s football matches. Lou knows being a Friday night there are always two matches on, however he is too tired to ask who is playing, afraid of initiating a never-ending rant about the current form of the teams and their players.
Lou closes his eyes as the rise and fall of football commentary takes over the speakers. Out of his jeans pocket he pulls out his mobile and checks for new messages. Nothing. The taxi comes to a sudden halt at a red light. At the intersection sit three bikers straddling their motorcycles. All aged, with long hair and beards, one was wearing dark sunglasses. Lou winds down his window for a clearer view, as he does the bikers get a green light and rev their engines.
“Please don’t look at them.” The taxi driver pleads. Lou stares into the rear-view mirror.
“I’m not causing any trouble.” Lou smiles and looks back out at the riders passing his window. The last of the three bikers throws him a deathly glance that seemed to last an eternity. The taxi driver nervously drops his foot on the accelerator at the first hint of a green light and looks deep into his side mirror. Lou turns right around and peers out the back window, straining to make out the emblem on the back of their jackets. In bold white print he reads ‘The Legions’, also known as The Legions Motorcycle Club.
“We have a lot of problems with bike gangs around this part of town you know”, the taxi driver warned. “Can’t give them a reason, cause you know they always retaliate.”
Lou slouches back into his seat and looks silently ahead.
The taxi fare meter now reads $28.08 09 10. It sickens Lou to look at it.
“It’s just up at the next right, thanks mate.”
“Up here?” The taxi driver looks into his mirror.
“Yep”. Lou replies
The taxi turns onto a narrow suburban street, cluttered with two and three story terraces from the 1950’s.
“Just drop me at the end up here mate.”
“Okay mate”, the taxi driver echoes. Again he jolts to a stop at the end of the road.
“Thanks”, Lou mutters.
The taxi driver turns to acknowledge, but the door had already been opened and Lou had disappeared into the darkness.
Striding up the street away from the taxi, Lou passes several sleeping houses, all with their lights out. With his jacket slung over his shoulder, he approaches an overgrown side street on his right and he stops and looks behind him. A slinky black cat sneaks out from under a parked car and dives through a hole in a fence.
His boots tap heavily on the broken bitumen as he reaches the next block, where the distant commotion came within an earshot. And then Lou’s long stride quickly turns into a gallop, followed by more panting, as he runs up the road to the hotel.
And suddenly… there it was… sheer terror, the pub brawl. Men were running all over the road, yelling wildly. The green sign above the hotel door read ‘The Legion’ and glowed brown like seaweed underwater, while the sound of intense fist fighting and crowded chaos rung briefly in Lou’s ears.
Crazy Chris was holding a bikie up against the wall by the scruff of the neck and then he hurled him into the gutter. Wheeling around to jump back on top of the man he saw Lou.
“Bastards” he cried “BASTARDS!”
Lou picked up a brick off the ground and threw it into one of the glass windows.
The angry boar inside him suddenly lurching up and out of his throat, and with a blood-curdling cry he simply began separating friend from foe, laying punch after punch into the faces and guts of The Legions.
After being bottled over the head, Lou stumbled into Joe and together they got the unique opportunity to witness the next phase of the assault. A dozen or so police officers stormed in through the entrance of the hotel with cans of spray aimed at the crowd. They began belting the bikers over the head with batons, left right and centre.
Feeling suddenly revived, Lou jumped to his feet and grabbed a nearby police officer by the collar, looking into his terrified face Lou raised his fist and pummeled him. Blood spurted everywhere and the face he had seen was suddenly unrecognizable. Still holding the limp officer in his hands, Lou felt the forthcoming impact immediately, the rush of blood from his own hands, dropping to the floor with a thud.
