Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

by Hunter S. Thompson

  It is easy enough to trace the Hell’s Angel’s mystique—and even their name and their emblems—back to World War II and Hollywood. But their genes and real history go back a lot further. World War II was not the original California boom, but a rebirth of a thing that began in the thirties and was already tapering off when the war economy made California a new Valhalla. In 1937 Woody Guthrie wrote a song called “Do-Re-Mi.” The chorus goes like this:

  California is a garden of Eden

  A Paradise for you and for me,

  But believe it or not,

  You won’t think it’s so hot,

  If you ain’t got the Do-Re-Mi.‡

  The song expressed the frustrated sentiments of more than a million Okies, Arkies and hillbillies who made a long trek to the Golden State and found it was just another hard dollar. By the time these gentlemen arrived, the Westward Movement was already beginning to solidify. The “California way of life” was the same old game of musical chairs—but it took a while for this news to filter back East, and meanwhile the Gold Rush continued. Once here, the newcomers hung on for a few years, breeding prolifically—until the war started. Then they either joined up or had their pick of jobs on a booming labor market. Either way, they were Californians when the war ended. The old way of life was scattered back along Route 66, and their children grew up in a new world. The Linkhorns had finally found a home.

  Nelson Algren wrote about them in A Walk on the Wild Side, but that story was told before they crossed the Rockies. Dove Linkhorn, son of crazy Fitz, went to hustle for his fortune in New Orleans. Ten years later he would have gone to Los Angeles.

  Algren’s book opens with one of the best historical descriptions of American white trash ever written.‡‡ He traces the Linkhorn ancestry back to the first wave of bonded servants to arrive on these shores. These were the dregs of society from all over the British Isles—misfits, criminals, debtors, social bankrupts of every type and description—all of them willing to sign oppressive work contracts with future employers in exchange for ocean passage to the New World. Once here, they endured a form of slavery for a year or two—during which they were fed and sheltered by the boss—and when their time of bondage ended, they were turned loose to make their own way.

  In theory and in the context of history the setup was mutually advantageous. Any man desperate enough to sell himself into bondage in the first place had pretty well shot his wad in the old country, so a chance for a foothold on a new continent was not to be taken lightly. After a period of hard labor and wretchedness he would then be free to seize whatever he might in a land of seemingly infinite natural wealth. Thousands of bonded servants came over, but by the time they earned their freedom the coastal strip was already settled. The unclaimed land was west, across the Alleghenies. So they drifted into the new states—Kentucky and Tennessee; their sons drifted on to Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

  Drifting became a habit; with dead roots in the Old World and none in the New, the Linkhorns were not of a mind to dig in and cultivate things. Bondage too became a habit, but it was only the temporary kind. They were not pioneers, but sleazy rearguard camp followers of the original westward movement. By the time the Linkhorns arrived anywhere the land was already taken—so they worked for a while and moved on. Their world was a violent, boozing limbo between the pits of despair and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. They kept drifting west, chasing jobs, rumors, homestead grabs or the luck of some front-running kin. They lived off the surface of the land, like armyworms, stripping it of whatever they could before moving on. It was a day-to-day existence, and there was always more land to the west.

  Some stayed behind and their lineal descendants are still there—in the Carolinas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. There were dropouts all along the way: hillbillies, Okies, Arkies—they’re all the same people. Texas is a living monument to the breed. So is southern California.

  Algren called them “fierce craving boys” with “a feeling of having been cheated.” Freebooters, armed and drunk—a legion of gamblers, brawlers and whorehoppers. Blowing into town in a junk Model-A with bald tires, no muffler and one headlight … looking for quick work, with no questions asked and preferably no tax deductions. Just get the cash, fill up at a cut-rate gas station and hit the road, with a pint on the seat and Eddy Arnold on the radio moaning good back-country tunes about home sweet home, that Bluegrass sweetheart still waitin, and roses on Mama’s grave.

  Algren left the Linkhorns in Texas, but anyone who drives the Western highways knows they didn’t stay there either. They kept moving until one day in the late 1930s they stood on the spine of a scrub-oak California hill and looked down on the Pacific Ocean—the end of the road. Things were tough for a while, but no tougher than they were in a hundred other places. And then came the war—fat city, big money even for Linkhorns.

  When the war ended, California was full of veterans looking for ways to spend their separation bonuses. Many decided to stay on the Coast, and while their new radios played hillbilly music they went out and bought big motorcycles—not knowing exactly why, but in the booming, rootless atmosphere of those times, it seemed like the thing to do. They were not all Linkhorns, but the forced democracy of four war years had erased so many old distinctions that even Linkhorns were confused. Their pattern of intermarriage was shattered, their children mixed freely and without violence. By 1950 many Linkhorns were participating in the money economy; they owned decent cars, and even houses.

  Others, however, broke down under the strain of respectability and answered the call of the genes. There is a story about a Linkhorn who became a wealthy car dealer in Los Angeles. He married a beautiful Spanish actress and bought a mansion in Beverly Hills. But after a decade of opulence he suffered from soaking sweats and was unable to sleep at night. He began to sneak out of the house through the servants’ entrance and run a few blocks to a gas station where he kept a hopped-up ’37 Ford with no fenders … and spend the rest of the night hanging around honky-tonk bars and truck stops, dressed in dirty overalls and a crusty green T-shirt with a Bardahl emblem on the back. He enjoyed cadging beers and belting whores around when they spurned his crude propositions. One night, after long haggling, he bought several mason jars full of home whiskey, which he drank while driving at high speed through the Beverly Hills area. When the old Ford finally threw a rod he abandoned it and called a taxi, which took him to his own automobile agency. He kicked down a side door, hot-wired a convertible waiting for tune-up and drove out to Highway 101, where he got in a drag race with some hoodlums from Pasadena. He lost, and it so enraged him that he followed the other car until it stopped for a traffic light—where he rammed it from the rear at seventy miles an hour.

  The publicity ruined him, but influential friends kept him out of jail by paying a psychiatrist to call him insane. He spent a year in a rest home; and now, according to the stories, he has a motorcycle dealership near San Diego. People who know him say he’s happy—although his driver’s license has been revoked for numerous violations, his business is verging on bankruptcy, and his new wife, a jaded ex-beauty queen from West Virginia, is a half-mad alcoholic.

  It would not be fair to say that all motorcycle outlaws carry Linkhorn genes, but nobody who has ever spent time among the inbred Anglo-Saxon tribes of Appalachia would need more than a few hours with the Hell’s Angels to work up a very strong sense of déjà vu. There is the same sulking hostility toward “outsiders,” the same extremes of temper and action, and even the same names, sharp faces and long-boned bodies that never look quite natural unless they are leaning on something.

  Most of the Angels are obvious Anglo-Saxons, but the Linkhorn attitude is contagious. The few outlaws with Mexican or Italian names not only act like the others but somehow look like them. Even Chinese Mel from Frisco and Charley, a young Negro from Oakland, have the Linkhorn gait and mannerisms.

  ‡ © Copyright 1961 and 1963, Ludlow Music Inc. New York. Used by permission

  ‡�
� A story called “Barn Burning,” by William Faulkner, is another white-trash classic It provides the dimension of humanity that Algren’s description lacks.

  14

  Basically they’re just like Negroes. By themselves they’re no more trouble than anybody else—but the minute they get in a group they go all to pieces, they really do.

  —San Francisco policeman

  Just before dusk on the first afternoon a sudden scrambling tension swept over the camp. People had been coming and going for several hours, but with no sense of urgency. The odd welcome at the beer market had undermined the sheriff’s edict about keeping away from the tourists, and many of the outlaws rode over to sample the hospitality. The atmosphere at Willow Cove was festive. New arrivals were greeted with shouts, kisses, flying tackles and sprays of beer. The deputies were taking pictures. At first I thought it was for evidence, but after watching them urge the Angels to strike colorful poses and dive into the lake with their clothes on, I realized that the cops were as fascinated as any first-time visitor at the Bronx Zoo. One told me later: “Hell, I wish I had a movie camera, this is the damnedest thing I ever saw. People wouldn’t believe it unless they saw pictures. Wait’ll I show these to my kids!”

  Just before lunch, for no obvious reason, the tempo changed abruptly. Barger and several others went into a huddle with two deputies, then jumped on their bikes and disappeared down the trail. About ten of the outlaws left the camp in a group, all looking grim. Moments later two police cars left. Most of the outlaws seemed content to let Barger handle whatever was happening, but about twenty gathered around Tiny, in the middle of camp, and muttered darkly at the news, on the police radio, of “an attack on a motorcyclist.” They didn’t know who it was, or even if it was one of their own. (A motorcycle hill-climb-and-scrambles event was scheduled the next day near Yosemite, and there were many respectable bikes in the area. Somebody said a group wearing Seventh Sons colors had been seen near Mariposa, but none of the Angels had ever heard of that outfit, or knew if they were outlaws.)

  When a gathering of Angels and their allies get word that “a motorcyclist” has been attacked, it comes as an ominous signal that some enemy is on the move. Barger and his escort were gone for almost an hour, and many of the others would have gone out to look for them if Tiny hadn’t insisted on waiting for further word. I recall somebody cursing the untenable position: “Jesus, look where we are! The bastards got us trapped out here! There’s no way out except that one path!”

  Willow Cove was a natural Dunkirk. I watched the two remaining deputies; the moment they left, I was leaving too … their departure could only mean that things had gotten out of hand somewhere else and that the Angel campsite would be next. I didn’t want to be there when the vigilantes came whooping through the trees.

  But the deputies didn’t leave, and just before dark Barger’s patrol came back in good spirits. Dirty Ed, it seemed, had been riding peacefully beside the lake when five friendly-looking youths, on foot, had flagged him down. Always conscious of public relations, he had stopped to chat. What followed, according to one version, was an unconscionable bushwhacking:

  “Are you going to compete in the scrambles tomorrow,” one of them asked.

  Just as Ed was about to answer no, the sixth man snuck up behind him.

  “He knocked me clean off my bike,” cringed Ed. “Hit me with an eight-foot length of two-inch pipe. My head exploded. I thought I’d been hit by a locomotive!

  “The six young men had been drinking. The only reason I can figure for them doing it was to make a name for themselves,” complains Ed. “They were ‘joe citizens,’ and had been drinking for about five days. The other ‘citizens’ in the campground were afraid we would come back and stomp them. Some of them were so scared they started folding their tents and moving out. ‘Rather Switch Than Fight,’ they said.”

  This absurd and fraudulent account appeared in what is known in the trade as a “newsstand quickie,” titled “The Real Story Behind the Hell’s Angels and Other ‘Outlaw’ Motorcycle Groups.” It was whipped up by the photographer who was arrested later that weekend for “obstructing justice,” and although it contained some excellent photos, the text was apparently put together by somebody like Whittaker Chambers.

  Yet Dirty Ed now insists—for public consumption—that the “Real Story” version is pretty close to the truth, although he chuckles indulgently at lines like “The six young men had been drinking … Rather Switch Than Fight” … and the lunatic assertion that he somehow sensed, without ever seeing it, the exact length and width of the pipe that laid his scalp open. Twenty years on the outlaw circuit have not done much to mellow his view of the press and the world of devious squares he thinks it represents. He would no more trust a reporter than he would a cop or a judge. To him they are all the same—the running dogs of whatever fiendish conspiracy has plagued him all these years. He knows that somewhere behind that moat, the Main Cop has scrawled his name on a blackboard in the Big Briefing Room—with a notation beside it: “Get this boy, give him no peace, he’s incorrigible, like an egg-sucking dog.”

  Dirty Ed has been a motorcycle outlaw for all of his adult life. He works as a bike or auto mechanic around the East Bay cities, but he is not professionally ambitious. At six foot one and weighing 225, he looks like a beer-bellied wrestler. His hair is balding on top and gray at the temples. If he shaved off his stringy oriental beard he could look almost distinguished. As it is, he just looks mean.

  Later that night, standing by the bonfire with a beer, he talked briefly about the encounter. The eight stitches in his head had cost a dollar each, and he’d had to pay cash. That was the worst part of it—having to pay. Hell, eight dollars was a case of beer and gas back to Oakland. Unlike the younger Angels, Ed has to underplay his action and keep his image at least double tough. He has been around longer than almost anybody, which is plenty long enough to know he won’t get any sympathy when he starts showing signs of old age. Few of the younger Angels would have made a screeching U-turn on the road and roared back to confront five punks who’d yelled an insult. But Dirty Ed did. He would ride his bike into a river to fight a bull moose if he thought the beast had it in for him. Probably it was lucky for everybody that the kids poleaxed him off his bike before he hurt one of them. They told the police they’d panicked when he swung around and came at them, for what they considered no reason at all. The fact that they just happened to have a lead pipe on hand didn’t seem to surprise anybody.

  The teen-age assailants were arrested—“to make sure we didn’t kill em,” Barger explained—and then driven to their homes, where they were released with a warning to avoid any contact with the outlaws for the rest of the weekend. The fact of their arrest gave Barger the excuse he needed to let the incident pass. Had the bushwhackers not been taken into custody, the Angels would have insisted on revenge—perhaps not instantly, but the threat would have changed the whole tone of the weekend. As it turned out, the formality of arrest satisfied everybody. Barger wasn’t pleased, but after weighing the alternatives and talking with Baxter, he decided to give the jury-rigged truce another chance. His legionnaires agreed, which they would have in any case—even if he’d called for a frontal assault on the sheriff’s home. But when he opted for prudence, peace and more beer the others seemed genuinely relieved. They had saved face without having to fight, and they still had two days to party.

  The outlaws don’t mind a fight, even if it means a good chance of getting hurt, but getting arrested can be a very expensive proposition. Once jailed, they have to post bond to get out, and unlike the solid citizen who is a jobholder or property owner or at least has friends who can sign for the amount, the Angels have no recourse but their friendly bondsman. Each chapter has one, who is always on call. If necessary he will drive two hundred miles in the dead of night to get an Angel out of jail. His fee for this service is ten percent of whatever he signs for; and in rural situations, where tensions are running high, a Hell’s Ange
l who winds up in jail will invariably be socked with a maximum bond, which can run as high as $5,000 for drunkenness and assault, or $2,500 for indecent exposure … netting the bondsman $500 and $250 respectively. These fees are not refundable; they are interest on a short-term loan. But the Angels are such good customers that some bondsmen will give them a group rate, scaling down the fees to fit the circumstances. The outlaws appreciate their bondsmen and rarely welsh, although many are so far in debt that they have to pay off in installments, $10 or $15 a week.

  The Frisco chapter’s bondsman once had a windfall of forty-six arrests in one night, at $100 to $242 each.‡ The clubhouse was raided, and those captured—including eighteen girls—were charged across the board with “suspicion of (1) robbery, (2) assault with deadly weapons, (3) possession of marijuana, (4) harboring fugitives, (5) conspiracy to harbor fugitives and (6) contributing to the delinquency of minors.”

  It was a spectacular bust, causing huge headlines in the press, but all charges were dropped when the Angels mounted a countersuit for false arrest. Not one of the forty-six was ever tried, much less convicted … yet all those caught in the raid had to sign for 10 percent of his bond to get out of jail. There was no alternative. They have no friends either willing or wealthy enough to put up $2,500 in cash or property in the middle of the night, or the next day either. A check won’t make it, and no court has ever released a Hell’s Angel on his own recognizance. The only way out of the slammer is to pay the bondsman, and he only answers the call for those with good credit. An outlaw who has welshed in the past will sit in jail indefinitely.