16
The psychopath, like the child, cannot delay the pleasures of gratification; and this trait is one of his underlying, universal characteristics. He cannot wait upon erotic gratification which convention demands should be preceded by the chase before the kill: he must rape. He cannot wait upon the development of prestige in society: his egotistic ambitions lead him to leap into headlines by daring performances. Like a red thread the predominance of this mechanism for immediate satisfaction runs through the history of every psychopath. It explains not only his behavior but also the violent nature of his acts.
— Robert Lindner, Rebel Without a Cause
On a run everybody gets wasted. As midnight approached, the Willow Cove campsite took on an air of bedlam. People with glazed eyes wandered into the lake and sat down. Others fell against bikes or shouted meaningless abuse at friends they couldn’t recognize. Rather than mix in the deranged traffic around the bonfire, I drifted back to my car, on the edge of darkness, and joined a group of Gypsy Jokers. They were still holding back, letting the Angels put on the show.
Hutch, the spokesman, seemed to have a philosophic bent and he wanted to talk. Just what was the meaning of this whole goddamn thing about motorcycle gangs? He didn’t claim to know, but he wanted to explore it. We aren’t really bad, he said. But we aren’t good either. Hell, I don’t know. Sometimes I like this scene, and sometimes I don’t. But the thing that really pisses me off is the newspapers. I don’t mind them calling us punks and that kind of stuff, but you know? Even when we pull off some really bad shit, they still get it wrong. When I read those things I don’t even recognize myself. Hell, we should probably kick your ass just for being a reporter.
The others chuckled, but it occurred to me that the same remark might spark a different reaction later on, when the drink began to take hold. Yet it seemed that if the outlaws really wanted no part of the press, they would have bounced me out of camp much earlier. Just before dark Tiny had driven off two cameramen who claimed to be from CBS, and shortly after that he’d warned me about using the tape recorder, saying he’d throw it in the fire if he saw it. Except in posed or prearranged situations most Angels are leery of being photographed or recorded and even of talking to a man with a notebook. Tapes and film are regarded as especially dangerous because they can’t be denied. This is true even in peaceful situations, where a casual photograph can place a man at the scerie of a crime not yet committed. An Angel who gets arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in Oakland can always find witnesses to swear he was in San Francisco that night — but he is done for if any newspaper has a photo of him talking to the victim ten minutes prior to the fatal fight. Tape recordings can also be incriminating, particularly if one of the outlaws gets strung out on booze or pills and begins bragging about what Senator Murphy calls their wild acts and defiance of decency. This has happened. In one instance Barger took three hours of tape from a reporter and went over it carefully, erasing anything that seemed incriminating. Since then he has passed the word that nobody gives interviews without checking with him first.
The Jokers don’t answer to Barger, however, and at that point they were eager to get the ear of any journalist who might give them a boost up the status ladder. Hutch is a bright fellow, about six-two, with thick blond hair and a face that any Arthur Murray studio would hire on sight. He works as a laborer now and then, but only to stay eligible for unemployment insurance, known in outlaw circles as the 52-26 Club. At twenty-seven he exists on the fringe of the labor market, working only in emergencies. When I saw him several weeks later at his parents’ apartment in a prosperous residential district of San Francisco, he talked about motorcycle outlaws with a lazy objectivity that was hard to mesh with his concern for more and better press notices. I was only dimly aware of it then, but after a while I realized that if the outlaws were ever forced to choose between consistently bad and biased publicity or no publicity at all, they wouldn’t hesitate to choose the former.