“Get that fucking knife away from my throat” Ruby was tired.  This dickhead had been waving his knife in front of her face all night.  It was meant to be some kind of foreplay as “Shorty” had decided he liked big women and he would be bedding Ruby tonight.  Ruby had other ideas, but that didn’t stop him or his forty mates from hassling her all night. It was a fine line she treaded keeping herself cool, and keeping a pub full of bikies, locals and idiots (who had to be there just to say they had spent the night in a pub packed with bikies), under control. Funnily enough, so far, none of the trouble had been started by the bikies.  It was as if they had decided that this was going to be their pub, and not even these low-lifes like to shit in their own nest.  There had been a disproportionate number of blues tonight compared to usual, none of which was started by a bikie, but tonight wasn’t exactly your usual quiet Sunday night. The Satan’s Warriors had hit town en masse earlier that day.  The numbers had been building ever since the Mutineers had shut down the Scorpions’ drinking hole and like honour amongst thieves there are alliances amongst the various ‘one percent’ clubs.  The Warriors were aligned with the Scorpions and something was brewing. All weekend Ruby had been on edge.  One of the younger Warriors had taken a liking to her apprentice chef’s girlfriend.  Both kids were scared witless and Ruby was really pissed off with the little turd wearing the Warriors patch.  He had been drinking Raspberry and Lemonade all weekend, but she knew from his dilated pupils, his constant jerky movements and rapid speech that it wasn’t the red cordial he was getting his hit from. How dare they call themselves ‘Warriors’?  They were a bunch of misfit miscreants who individually weren’t capable of joining regular society, so they banded together and like a pack of wild dogs, they intimidated anyone who showed any sign of weakness and wore the fear they engendered in ordinary people like a badge of honour.  Cowards! Occasionally Ruby would get talking to one of them.  He might have a farm that his two daughters were looking after while he was away with the gang.  He would sound like an ordinary guy just out for a ride with a few mates.  But then Ruby would reflect on the initiation that these men underwent to complete their apprenticeship and earn their full colours and she would remember that these weren’t just ordinary people.  They had no honour or respect outside the one percent code. She had had enough of the intimidation.  When she was fending off the raspberry-drinking bikie she was sick with the stress.  She just couldn’t allow two good young people to be damaged by such a nasty little oxygen waster, but she always hated having to deal with people on the ‘goey’.  They were unpredictable and that made them very dangerous. Every time they walked into the bar they would interrogate her about what she had been doing.  Shorty wanted to keep tabs on her because as far as he and his mates were concerned, she was his trophy.  When she let slip that she had lunched with her ex-husband they were menacing.  Had they known, he wouldn’t have walked out of the hotel.  She could taste the bile in her throat. “You bastards”, she thought rather than said.  She’d have to make sure Peter stayed away for a while. Before this weekend the Mutineers had been doing the round of the pubs quizzing anyone on a bike, asking what they were doing there; whether they were riding with anyone; and how long they were in town for.  She had been drinking with a mate who rode a Harley when a ute full of Mutineers pulled up out the front.  They came straight up to Ruby’s friend and started interrogating him.  She knew better than to intervene so she shut up and after their questions were answered satisfactorily they left. Since then the number of Satan’s Warriors had been steadily growing.  There’d even been a few Devil’s Angels, but they hadn’t come near her pub.  They were on other side with the Mutineers.  But the Cobras had been there.  They were with the Warriors and the Scorpions.  The build-up of tension between the various gangs made Ruby uneasy.  She was a damned sight more uneasy now that one of the groups of protagonists had made her pub their local.  She hoped she wouldn’t get fire-bombed in the middle of the night, or, worse still, have a bikie war break out in her public bar. And now tonight was the icing on the cake.  It seemed to her that when bikies were around otherwise normal everyday people go a bit stir crazy and others, who have a morbid fascination for the patch culture sniff out large bikie gatherings and descend on wherever they are, like vultures, fighting over scraps of carrion left behind by these predators.  And so it was tonight. One of Ruby’s young regulars had lost the plot.  Usually a quiet young man who just enjoyed a few beers and a few games of pool, he had picked a fight with one of the Dorante boys.  It was a fight he never had a hope of winning, or even of getting a swing in.  The Dorantes were fleet of foot and even faster with their fists.  By the time Ruby got out to the front where the affray had started all that as left of Aaron’s nose was a couple of flattened nostrils and a torrent of blood.  She caught Evan Dorante’s arm on the third backswing, not sure whether he would turn around and lay into her with his free one.  The Dorante brothers were hard nuts to crack and so far they had given no indication that they had accepted her as their new publican and she knew it wasn’t beyond them to give women an occasional touch-up. The bikies either stood around watching or ignored the action and continued drinking.  It was as if they were determined not to give the police any reason to pay them more than the passing attention they were already attracting.  While Ruby was pleased, she was concerned about the bigger fish these men had yet to fry and hoped the barbeque wouldn’t be at her place. Some woman from the big smoke had been talking to a couple of the bikies all night.  She was one of the ‘morbid fascination’ type people who want to be able to say they were drinking with bikies.  There are a few things you don’t do with a bikie and one of them is touch any part of his colours.  That includes his jacket, vest and t-shirt.  This woman just couldn’t help herself.  She had been fawning this bikie’s t-shirt all night.  To their credit, on each occasion they had asked Ruby to intervene and she had warned the woman to keep her hands to herself. Now, while Ruby was checking on one of the other bars, the silly bitch had groped and ripped this guy’s t-shirt.  One of the bar staff came running through calling Ruby back into the public bar.  By the time she got there the woman was sitting on the floor in tears, her bare breasts protruding from the gaping front of her t-shirt.  The bikies, defiantly holding their own member’s torn shirt were simmering and well on the way to boiling.  Ruby had no choice, and suppressing her outrage at these mongrels, ordered the woman to her feet and to get out.  Hadn’t she been warned a number of times not to touch the bikie’s shirt?  Ruby thanked God that settled them down. But now the pub was shut and she was turfing out the last of the detritus.  All that were left were Ruby, a barmaid, the President of the local chapter of the Satan’s Warriors and Shorty. Then Mark, the local President, asked Shorty “What makes you think she’s yours, I haven’t had her yet?” “Oh yeah, well if you want her so much then come and get her” The steel was cold against her throat. Ruby was tired. She had had enough of their intimidation and having that fucking knife flicked around in her face all night while Shorty, with his putrid breath has been forcibly trying to kiss her every time she came out from behind the bar. Ruby was tired and she was pissed off. She didn’t even give it a second thought as she grabbed her glass of Scotch and rammed it as hard as she could over her left shoulder.  Back to stories page Home