‘What’s wrong with you anyway? These BTK fuckers wanna take over our crib. They want all the Darra territories. You gonna let these fuckers take over our hometown? This is our turf, Tink. We gotta defend it.’
*
The battle starts much like any other throughout history. The heads of each opposing clan exchange words.
‘I’m gonna cut your nose off, Tran, and stick a key ring through your nostril,’ Darren calls from the front of his house on the cul-de-sac of Arcadia Street, standing in the centre of a group of 5T members that has now swelled to about thirty.
At the entrance to the street stands the man who I guess is named Tran, before his gang of fidgety BTK barbarians who do indeed appear to have been placed on this earth for the sole purpose of ending the lives of others. Tran holds a machete in his right hand and a hammer in his left, leading a group that outnumbers Darren’s by at least ten.
‘I’m gonna cut your ears off, Darren, and sing the Marching Song into them every night before supper,’ Tran says.
Then the clanging starts. Gang members on both sides clanging the metal weapon of the man next to them. A rhythmic clanging that escalates in intensity. A call to war. A song of doom.
And something inside me, my own lust for life, my own quest for peace perhaps, or maybe just my innate fear of having a machete lodged into my scalp, makes me push through the huddle of 5T members from my position behind them.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’ I walk into the centre of Arcadia Street, the very centre of the divide between these two bloodthirsty groups. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ I call. And the clanging of machetes halts. Silence fills the street and my shaky voice echoes across Darra.
‘I know there’s no reason why you should listen to me,’ I call. ‘I’m just some idiot who dropped in to see his mate. But I really feel an outsider’s perspective might help you guys resolve any grievances you may have against each other.’
I turn to each side. A look of profound befuddlement can be seen on the faces of Darren and Tran.
‘Sons of Darra,’ I say. ‘Sons of Vietnam. Was it not war that forced your families from their homelands? Was it not hate and division and miscommunication that brought you to this beautiful suburb in the first place? There’s a strange land out past the borders of Darra and that place is called Australia. And that place isn’t always nice to newcomers. That place isn’t always welcoming to outsiders. You guys will face enough fights out there, out there beyond this sanctuary of home. You need to fight together out there, not against each other in here.’
I point to my own head.
‘Maybe it’s time we all started using a bit more of this,’ I say.
And I raise my machete.
‘And a bit less of this.’
I slowly and symbolically place my machete flat on the bitumen of a motionless Arcadia Street. Darren looks at his men. Tran lowers his arms for a moment and looks across at his soldiers. Then he looks back at me. Then he raises his weapons once more.
‘Tan coooooong!’ he screams. And the BTK army charges forth, machetes and hammers and crowbars raised to the Brisbane sky.
‘Kill ’em all!’ screams Darren, as the merciless 5T army sprints forward, rubber shoes rushing on the street and metal clanging in anticipation. I turn and sprint to the side of the street just as the two rabid armies meet in an explosion of flesh on flesh and blade on blade. I leap over a knee-high fence and into the front garden of a small cottage home, four doors up from Darren’s house. I fall to my belly and crawl across the cottage home’s front lawn, praying a BTK member hasn’t spotted my escape. I crawl to the side of the house and find shelter behind a white rosebush from where I take one last look at the Great Machete Battle of Arcadia Street. Blades whistling through air, fists and elbows finding foreheads and noses. Legs kicking into stomachs. Knees meeting eyeballs. Darren Dang leaps briefly and triumphantly out of the melee on an arcing flight towards some unsuspecting rival warrior. My hand reaches to the bottom of my backpack to feel for the fifty grand still sitting in there. And I thank the gods of war for remembering the sixth ‘T’. Turn and run.