The Angels are too personally disorganized to have any clear perspective on the world, but they admire intelligence, and some of their leaders are surprisingly articulate. Chapter presidents have no set term in office, and a strong one, like Barger, will remain unchallenged until he goes to jail, gets killed or finds his own reasons for hanging up the colors. The outlaws are very respectful of power, even if they have to create their own image of it. Despite the anarchic possibilities of the machines they ride and worship, they insist that their main concern in life is to be a righteous Angel, which requires a loud obedience to the party line. They are intensely aware of belonging, of being able to depend on each other. Because of this, they look down on independents, who usually feel so wretched — once they’ve adopted the outlaw frame of reference — that they will do almost anything to get in a club.
I don’t know why, said an ex-Angel, but you almost have to join a club. If you don’t, you’ll never be accepted anywhere. If you don’t wear any colors, you’re sort of in between — and you’re nothing.
This desperate sense of unity is crucial to the outlaw mystique. If the Hell’s Angels are outcasts from society, as they freely admit, then it is all the more necessary that they defend each other from attack by the others — mean squares, enemy gangs or armed agents of the Main Cop. When somebody punches a lone Angel every one of them feels threatened. They are so wrapped up in their own image that they can’t conceive of anybody challenging the colors without being fully prepared to take on the whole army.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
— St. Matthew
Since the revelations of the Lynch report the Angels have rejected so many membership bids that one of them said it was like a plague of locusts. The majority of would-be Angels are independents who suddenly feel the need for fellowship and status. . . but in one case the Angels deigned to absorb a whole club: the Question Marks, from Hayward, which became the Hayward chapter of the Hell’s Angels. Other charter applications came from as far away as Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan and even Quebec. . . and when the charters were not forthcoming, a few cycle clubs in the East simply created their own insignia and began calling themselves Hell’s Angels.*
* A club called the Detroit Renegades decided to hang onto their identity and go the Angels one better. In January 1966 forty-four of them were arrested when a police raid on their storefront clubhouse netted eighteen pistols. The raid was prompted by neighbors’ complaints that the Renegades’ presence cast a pall of fear on the neighborhood. They came from out of a clear blue sky, said a tenant in a nearby building. And they drink down there. When they get too much, the women in the neighborhood are scared. Police said most of the outlaws were factory workers and filling-station attendants, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty-three. Despite the elegance of the Renegade uniform — black leather jackets and satin shirts — a neighbor described them as crummy-looking people. Later in 1966 an unofficial Hell’s Angels chapter appeared in Detroit. After several well-publicized mass arrests, the leaders appealed to Barger for a national charter — which was still pending in autumn, when this book went to press.
As of 1966, the Hell’s Angels proper were still confined to California, but if the general response to their publicity is any indicator, they are going to have to expand whether they want to or not. The name isn’t copyrighted, but even if it were, the threat of a lawsuit wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to any gang of riders who wanted to appropriate it. The Angels’ only hope for controlling their image lies in selective expansion, chartering only the biggest and meanest clubs who apply, but only on the condition that they terrorize anybody else in their area who tries to use the name.
The Angels won’t have any trouble exporting their name to the East,* but the day-to-day realities of being an outlaw motorcyclist in California are not easily transplantable. Bikes are a sunshine thing; they are dangerous and uncomfortable in rain and snow. A gang of riders in New York, Chicago or Boston could only operate in the far-ranging Hell’s Angels style for a few months of the year, while in California the outlaws can move around — except in the mountains — any time they get the urge. This factor is reflected in nationwide motorcycles sales: in 1964 New York registered 23,000 bikes, while California had 203,420 — a roughly 9-to-l ratio. On the other hand, there were more than twice as many motorcycles in New York in 1964 as there were in 1961, when only 10,000 were registered.**