Magoo is a pill freak, and when he gets wired up he does a lot of talking. Despite his Cro-Magnon appearance, he has a peculiar dignity that can only be dealt with on its own terms. He is easily insulted, but unlike some of the others, he distinguishes between accidental insults and those which are obviously intentional. Instead of bashing people he doesn’t like — in the style of Fat Freddy, a heavy-set Mexican, the Oakland chapter’s punchout artist — Magoo will simply turn his back on them. His opinions are flavored with a morality that seems more instinctive than learned. He is very earnest, and although much of his talk is weird and rambling, it is shot through with riffs of something like primitive Christianity and a strong dose of Darwin. Magoo started the Porterville riot in 1963. He was the one who, according to the news magazines, mercilessly beat the old man in the tavern. Here is Magoo’s version:
I was sitting there at the end of a horseshoe bar, just drinking beer and minding my own business when this old bastard came up, picking up my beer and threw it in my face. ‘What the hell!’ I yelled, and I stood up quick. ‘Uh-oh,’ says the guy, ‘I made a mistake.’ So I clipped him with a right and he stumbled. Then another and he was going down, then I finished him off with another punch and left him there on the floor. That’s all. Hell, what would you do if some sonofabitch threw a beer in your face?
One night in Oakland, Magoo and I got into a long conversation about guns. I expected the usual crap about dum-dums and shoot-outs and cooling guys with a rod, but Magoo talked more like a candidate for the Olympic pistol team. When I casually mentioned man-size targets, he snapped, Don’t tell me about shooting at people. I’m talking about match sticks. And he was. He shoots a Ruger .22 revolver, an expensive, long-barreled, precision-made gun that no hood would even consider. And on days when he isn’t working, he goes out to the dump and tries to shoot the heads off match sticks. It’s hard as hell, he said. But now and then I’ll do it just right, and light one.
Magoo is more self-contained than most of the Angels. He is one of the few who doesn’t mind telling you his real name. He is married to a quiet, ripe-looking girl named Lynn, but he seldom takes her to any Angel party that might get wild. Usually he comes alone and doesn’t say much unless he decides to drop some pills, which cause him to rave like Lord Buckley.
At Bass Lake he tended the fire with the single-minded zeal of a man who’s been eating bennies like popcorn. The flames lit up his glasses and his Nazi helmet. Earlier in the day he had chopped his Levi’s at knee level with a hunting knife, exposing his thick white legs for about ten inches before they disappeared again into black motorcycle boots. The effect was an obscene mockery of bermuda shorts.
Sometime before dawn I was standing by the fire and listening to Magoo make one of his classy propositions. He was talking to two other Angels and a girl, trying to convince them: Let’s the four of us go off in the bushes, he said. We’ll smoke up some weed, get all fucked up, feel no fucking pain — and if she wants to lay some body on us, why not? He waited a moment, but there was no reply, so he continued: You’re an Angel, aren’t you? I never manhandled you, did I? Never given you a hard time. So what’s wrong? Let’s go over to the bushes and smoke up some weed. She’s an Angel woman. Hell, she should swing.
At that moment, without waiting for a reply, Magoo turned slightly at the hip, not moving his feet, and urinated into the fire. There was a loud hiss as some of the embers went black. The stench caused people to move away. Perhaps he meant it as a mating signal, a carnal gesture designed to strip away all pretense, but all it did was queer his act. The Angel whose woman was being hustled had not been happy with the situation, and Magoo’s mindless indulgence of his bladder gave the others a good excuse to drift off, seeking an upwind position.