Hell’s Angels. A Strange and Terrible. Saga by Hunter S. Thompson

The certain knowledge that an emergency force of cops and dogs was waiting for them — a knowledge now reinforced by radio bulletins — had already made a difference in the make-up of the run. Many who would ordinarily take their old ladies had left the girls behind in case of a serious clash with the law. Get­ting locked up in a country town is bad enough if you’re by your­self, but to have your wife or girl friend locked up in the same jail — instead of back home to call lawyers and bondsmen — is a kind of double jeopardy that the Angels have learned to avoid.

When I found such perennial double packers as Sonny, Terry, Tiny, Tommy and Zorro without their women, I realized the out­laws were expecting real trouble. But instead of trying to avoid it, as they often have in the past, this time they were determined to meet it head on. It ain’t that we’re really so hot for Bass Lake, said Barger, but with all this newspaper and radio stuff saying they’re laying for us up there, we can’t back out. This is one run we got to make or they’ll never give us any peace again. We don’t want trouble, but by God if it comes, there won’t nobody be able to say we ducked out.

This was the kind of talk that was making the rounds in the parking lot when the eight-thirty radio alert led into the rock-‘n’-roll song called A World of Our Own.

We’ll build a world of our own —

that no one else can share.

All our sorrows we’ll leave far behind us there. . .

The song made the whole scene jell. As I sat there in the car, sipping coffee from an Army surplus canteen on a mean cold morning when all of us should have been home in bed, I tried to fit the lyrics to the scene I was part of. At first it seemed like just another teen-age pipe dream with a good swinging beat:

And I know you will find

there’ll be peace of mind —

when we live in a world of our own.

* Copyright © 1965 by Springfield Music, Ltd., Chappell Co., Inc., owner of publica­tion and allied rights for the Western Hemisphere

A World of Our Own .. . and then, sweet Jesus, it dawned on me that I was right in the middle of it, with a gaggle of righteous dudes that no man could deny. . . weird flotsam on the rising tide, Giant Boppers, Wild Ones, Motorcycle Outlaws.

I had a feeling that at any moment a director would appear, waving cards saying Cut or Action. The scene was too strange to be real. On a peaceful Saturday morning in Oakland, in front of a dumpy, Turkish-looking bar, this weird hellbroth of humanity had gathered. . . wearing labels saying Hell’s Angels and Gypsy Jokers, and now they were anxious to shove off on their annual Independence Day picnic. . . a Monster rally too rotten for Hollywood, crude parody of the crazy-cool melodra­matic scene that Brando had already made famous.

Yet the action was certified by Time, Newsweek and The New York Times. It was at least that real. Grant Wood might have titled it American Modern. But there were no artists on hand — nor photographers, nor legmen for the New York press establish­ment. Here was the radio chattering crazily about the impending destruction of a California resort by an army of five hundred motorcycle hoodlums, and not even a wire-service stringer was there to get a first-hand report. As it turned out, the press was get­ting the story from the police, by telephone — which seemed odd in light of all the advance publicity they had whipped up.

Finally the Joker president gave the word, and we thundered out of the parking lot. The lead bikes peeled off into the street, and the others followed, whooping and gunning their engines. But the noise died down almost instantly. By the time the formation turned onto the freeway, just a few blocks away, the riders were strung out two abreast in each lane, holding a steady sixty-five miles an hour. Everybody looked grim and purposeful; there was no talk at all between riders.