Book Review: Caesar Campbell (with Donna Campbell) The OUTLAW and the HITMAN. Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2016) 310 pages

This is the third volume of Caesar Campbell’s auto-biography about his exploits as an outlaw biker and follows his highly readable earlier books Enforcer (2010) and Wrecking Crew (2011). Campbell writes about his early life as a biker in far greater detail, particularly his experiences in his first outlaw club, the Gladiators formed in 1965, and his days as a debt collector in Kings Cross. The writing is intimate, compellingly clear but often gritty & explicit in detail.

In the Prologue, Caesar tells us that in late 2014, aged 69, he is shot in the hip by a Middle Eastern bloke in the Auburn RSL car park. About a month later the wound becomes infected and he falls into a septic coma for nine days but he luckily recovers. Waking up in a hospital bed, he decides to write down more of his adventures, “As I come into consciousness at Canberra Hospital over the next few weeks, I know I’ve got to get more of the stories down and I figure I might as well raise a few ghosts from Kings Cross while I’m at it.” To provide himself with some creative licence and so as not to incriminate himself or others, he says slyly, “Ninety-seven per cent of the story I’m about to tell is fact. The other three per cent has been fudged. You can figure out why.”

The title of the book The Outlaw and the Hitman is also alluded to in the Prologue. Retired in the Snowy Mountains, Caesar sits across from an old mate, Irish and they yak about the old days when they both lived up the Cross and the hard men of the era. They bullshit on for a while and trade stories about a hitman known as The Widowmaker. Irish thinks Caesar is having him on and asks him suspiciously at one point, “But the Widowmaker did exist, didn’t he?” 

The intimate yarn based structure of the book is quickly established and at the beginning of  several chapters Campbell returns to a Cooma pub setting where he talks carefree to his retired biker mates. This clever narrative technique allows the reader to feel like a fly on the wall while the bikers talk but also enables Campbell to seamlessly transition to a higher gear where he relates to his readership the heart of the book- his outlaw bikie stories and his relationship to the hitman.

Campbell represents old-school outlaw values, he calls “warrior’s code.” In his world a man keeps his word and who settles things “by the fist- or the boot, or the chain, or the bat, or the knife” and unlike today, not by the gun. He is in the club “for the brotherhood and the fun of riding”. You never went to a man’s house to confront him. You took your bike on runs and didn’t sleep in motels like many today.

The stories are told by Caesar Campbell in a clear and exhilarating way. Campbell’s discussion of the Gladiators is deepened through his social commentary on gang life but what makes this book go full-throttle are the dozens of incidents he recollects in amusing or sometimes horrifyingly detail. 

Of obvious interest are the punch-ups with footballers, skinheads and wharfies and the wild parties on weekend runs.  As Campbell says matter-of-factly early in the book, “If you’ve got nothing else from this book, you will have noticed that I’m not afraid to tell you about my blues and about how, with some of them, I went and actively chased the blokes and belted shit out of them, and some.”

Far more interesting is Campbell’s detailed explanation of his involvement in the underground bare-knuckled fight scene from 1972, his freelance “collecting” work for the Sydney criminal Abe Saffron and his latest thoughts on Jock, the split with the Comancheros , that infamous day at Milperra in 1984, the aftermath of his prison life and his desire to be shown respect by the club.

Perhaps even more fascinating are Campbell’s lower-keyed anecdotes like the 1973 nude motorcycle run from the rock and Roll Hotel in Woolloomooloo up through the Cross and back, Campbell’s torture at the hands of the Satans Riders, how bikers earn their “red wings”, JR’s maggot salad he dished up to a heavyweight crim and the crazy story about prospect Sticks “cock-up.”

There are actually two hitmen that Campbell discusses in the book- Johnny Regal, known as JR, and later Chance, the Widowmaker. The three often meet up and have a chat. JR has the knack of making his target disappear without trace or to make their deaths look like natural causes. Chance did a bit of work for the Kiwi underground figure Terry Clarke. In the chapter “What Happens To Paedopiles” Campbell describes in gruesome detail how a wire saw is used to cut through the leg of a screaming victim. Usually when he recounts stories about the anonymous the Widowmaker, he qualifies his comments by, “Now, remember, this book is three per cent fiction and 97 per cent fact.” 

Embedded between many of the chapters is an inventive section called “Caesar’s Law” in which Campbell provides the reader with some of his hard fought wisdom. Some segments offer highly personal insights into the bloke, such as, “Beard Maintenance”, “Best Song Ever”, “Favourite Movie”, “My Hero”, “The Perfect Romantic Evening”, “My Favourite Recipe”, “The Secret Of A Happy Marriage” and “Is There A God?” While other segments reveal more of his hard-nosed bikie side: “How To Disarm A Bloke Holding A Gun To Your Head”,  “What To Do If Confronted By A Bunch Of Blokes That Want To Bash You”, “How To Train A Dog To Attack On Command”, “To Tattoo Or Not To Tattoo”, “How To Do A Sleeper Hold” and “How To Survive Being Shot.”

Despite his tough bikie persona, Campbell is essentially a family man. He says of “the Woman”- his wife, “Donna was the best thing to ever happen to me and still is. We’ve been together for 38 years now and I just thank the Lord that He gave me the honour of having this special woman in my life.” He says near the end of the book, “To this day, I still get a tingle in me balls when I see her getting changed.”

In the concluding chapter, Caesar Campbell implies that there may be four more outlaw biker books after he has died: “I’ve got hundreds of hours of tapes detailing more about the blokes up the Cross and things I’ve done. They’re 100 per cent fact, so they can’t be published until after I’m gone. It’ll take about four books to fit it all in. I remember everything. Everything Abe did, and George and Paddles, the coppers. Everything. Where the bodies are buried. Where people think bodies are buried, but they’re not. All that stuff.”

If you are new to Caesar Campbell’s writing, it makes sense to start with his first book Enforcer. The Outlaw and the Hitman in contrast, appears patchy in content, more of a scrambling together of stories, some previously touched upon, to feed on the success on his earlier work. 

If Macmillan has the balls to publish Campbell’s posthumous work, particularly if it deals with police & political corruption, uncensored murder and mayhem- I’ll be lining up to buy the fuckers!