Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (44 page)

Nobody is lower than friends—associates of club members who have no official rights and wear no colors but may be invited to parties or on rides. Friends who want to apply for membership must meet some qualifications. “Someone who comes around the club and wants to join must have a good motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson,” said Clarence “Addie” Crouch, former vice-president of the Cleveland Chapter. “He must be white and 21 or older.” A woman from Ventura, California, once attempted to sue the Hells Angels to gain membership, but failed because the club receives no government funding. “We don't get any money from the government; they can't make us do anything,” said Barger years later. “Even if they could, we wouldn't do it.” An applicant is expected to do everything he's told by anyone above him. He must also withstand a lot of “mud checking”—being beaten up by club members. Although he is expected to fight back, he will often be attacked by groups of two, three or more and usually knows better than to show a full member up by winning.

After a period that usually ranges from three months to two years in which the friend has proven himself trustworthy, the club members will vote on his status. Only if he receives 100 percent support from club members will he be promoted to a hangaround. Now he has more rights: he may be allowed in the clubhouse to work and he gets to hang around the clubhouse preventing the curious from getting close. A hangaround's primary duty is to keep a distance between club members and the public, but he may be asked to do anything by a member and he must do it. Chad Proctor, a former hangaround in Vancouver, described his life under the members as “intolerable” and called his bosses “tyrannical.” But such is the allure of the Hells Angels that many young men fight for the opportunity to go through the procedure.

As his status rises, so does his risk. While a transgression by a friend may just result in his dismissal, it gets tougher for hangarounds. They are expected to be available to do any task a member dictates and they are on call 24/7. If a hangaround breaks a rule, he's exiled from the club forever. “If he does not go through a mud check, they run him off,” said Crouch. “They beat him up, take his motorcycle, take his old lady, whatever; they run him off.”

A hangaround is given three opportunities to become a prospect and must get 100 percent approval. If he fails, he'll be exiled. Unlike much of the operation of the Hells Angels, there's no set of rules surrounding the prospecting process. If a hangaround proves his worth and exhibits the right attitude, he'll be approved. The prospect's life is still tough, but in many ways is better than a hangaround's. He's allowed full access to the clubhouse and, far more important, he gets his colors. A leather jacket with the death's head logo and a top rocker (the text above the crest) that says “Hells Angels,” the colors are said to be more important to a Hells Angel than any other possession or woman. The colors are precious and the rules around them are complex and absolute. They can't be touched by a non-member without punishment. A Hells Angel who forgets to wear his colors to a party or meeting will likely be beaten by other Angels. If he loses his colors, he will probably be exiled forever. To desecrate an Angel's colors is said to be an offense punishable by death, even when done by other Angels. The Angels are fiercely proud of their colors and will not tolerate imitators. Wannabes have had their unearned death's head tattoos removed by knife.

A prospect gets his full patch (the bottom rocker identifying which chapter he belongs to) when he becomes a member. Traditionally, the initiation ceremony for a member is as awful as everything he's had to endure thus far, and more disgusting. In a ritual that was as profane as the Cosa Nostra's is regarded as religious, the new member was forced to undergo a shower of vomit, urine, feces, blood and ejaculate and forbidden to wash his jacket ever again. What followed was a party where the initiate must prove his ability to withstand beatings, drink dangerous amounts of alcohol and perform sexual feats with women supplied by the club. The initiate was then given nine days to get a tattoo of the Hells Angels' logo (complete with rockers) and the date he joined. Most chose to tatoo an arm, but other body parts have been used, including the penis of some more dedicated members. If a member left the Angels honorably, he had to get the date of his departure added to his tattoo. If he was kicked out, he'd have his tattoo removed by other members. Although a few Hells Angels veterans have claimed that initiates must kill a person to gain full membership, that claim is almost universally regarded as a myth.

As horrible as it sounds, men lined up to join the Hells Angels. Existing motorcycle clubs either eagerly applied for acceptance or were forced to do so as the franchising operation sought dominance. For the next few years, the Hells Angels enjoyed riding, drinking and partying with celebrity status. They had so much notoriety and confidence that Barger found the chutzpah to express his hardcore patriotism by writing Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to offer help for the military in Southeast Asia.

Things changed later that year. Two girls—one 14, the other 15—claimed to have been gang-raped by Hells Angels at a Labor Day run in Monterey. Although one of the girls later refused to testify and the other failed a lie-detector test, the damage was done. The Hells Angels emerged from the Monterey rape case an altogether different organization.

Members “Terry the Tramp,” Marvin “Moldy” Gilbert, “Mother” Miles and Filmore “Crazy” Cross were indicted in the case and their defense was expensive. Despite their notoriety in the early '60s, the Angels were not rich. Still at that point a social club dedicated to bikes, booze and broads, many members committed some petty crimes to supplement paychecks, but were not riding to get rich. A few sold drugs, but nothing major. More often, the bikers would rent themselves and their vicious reputations out to the mafia as debt collectors and enforcers. The Hells Angels who were employed generally worked in low-paying menial jobs; Barger himself worked in a warehouse. By this time, Harley-Davidsons were becoming expensive and notoriously prone to costly breakdowns. Cops had it in for bikers and the constant barrage of tickets, bail and workdays lost for court appearances depleted the club's reserves. The club charged dues, regularly fined its members for minor infractions and needed a constant supply of beer, booze and food for its parties. Even the most decorated Hells Angels edged close to homelessness since keeping the club going and their bikes running was more important than things like rent.

Although a few younger Angels used and dealt things like marijuana on a small-time basis, the Hells Angels traditionally disdained illegal drugs. But it was a desperate time. With four brothers behind bars needing bail and lawyers, the club was on the brink of collapse. At a meeting, one member spoke about a friend who earned tons of money making a new kind of drug in his kitchen with ingredients bought at a pharmacy or grocery store. The other members listened and the Hells Angels, perhaps reluctantly, entered the crystal meth business.

Methamphetamines are stimulants that dilate the pupils and produce temporary hyperactivity, euphoria, a sense of increased energy and tremors. Crystal meth is the much more potent and smokable form of the drug. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency:

It was the perfect drug for the Hells Angels. Made up of small white flakes or shards—earning it the nickname “ice”—crystal meth is easy to hide in a jacket or a motorcycle. In fact, many attribute the nickname “crank” to the fallacious idea that bikers hid the drug in the crankcases of their Harleys. Even better, since it was made locally in informal “labs,” the notoriously xenophobic Hells Angels didn't have to rely on any “foreigners.”

It was the '60s and the times were indeed a-changin'. The primary market for drugs was the burgeoning population of young people who were growing increasingly anti-establishment, but in an entirely different way than the Hells Angels were. Although they didn't care much for government and its rules, the bikers were fiercely patriotic and considered the legions of antiwar youths to be “commies.” The animosity was not reciprocated. Hippies and their associates were as seduced by the biker mystique as anyone, maybe more so. When journalist Hunter S. Thompson was living and riding with the Hells Angels, he introduced them to pioneer hippie Ken Kesey. A strong advocate of drugs as a mind-expanding tool, Kesey traveled around the country in a multicolored school bus with a group he called the Merry Pranksters. He decided to put the two groups together and on August 7, 1965, the Hells Angels and the most prominent hippie group got together with assorted cultural and academic noteworthies for a summit and party.

About 40 Bay Area Hells Angels, led by Barger, showed up. At times disgusted with the hippies and the egghead intellectuals' left-wing pretensions, the bikers lightened up when they were introduced to all kinds of new drugs, primarily LSD and cocaine, and realized the implications. The hippies were delighted. The bikers seemed heroic. In the reactionary world of the '60s left, the Hells Angels filled the romantic niche of the rugged individualist soldier—much like the role of knights, cowboys and fighter pilots in other times and places.

After the party, the knights in leather armor went back to their regular way of doing things. On October 16, a throng of antiwar protestors (contemporary estimates were as high as 15,000) marched from the University of California campus at Berkeley toward the massive Oakland Army Terminal. The cops stopped them long before they reached the base and the demonstrators arranged an impromptu sitin /silent protest as they had a couple of times already that year. Local bikers went to check on the situation. Angered by the brazen display of what they perceived as anti-Americanism, the Hells Angels went in and started busting heads. The cops stepped aside and let the bikers do what many of them probably wouldn't have minded doing themselves. One cop did what he was paid for and tried to separate a Hells Angel from a hippie he was pummeling. Other bikers descended upon him and his leg was broken with a kick from a steel-tipped boot.

The top of the hippie hierarchy panicked. Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and others begged for an emergency meeting with Barger. He responded with a threat to derail a similar, larger march planned for November 20. But after much beseeching and offering of tribute from the hippies, he eventually relented and let the “commies” plead their case. What followed was a defining moment for the Hells Angels.

On November 19, Barger called a press conference and changed history. Although he pointed out his absolute disgust for what the protestors believed in, he ultimately chickened out. The Hells Angels put business before principle: “Because our patriotic concern for what these people are doing to our great nation may provoke us to violent acts,” he said, “any physical encounter would only produce sympathy for this mob of traitors.”

The demonstration went on as planned, uninterrupted by the Hells Angels. Some bikers showed up, but they didn't bust heads, they sold drugs. The bikers got a chance to sell drugs to the millions of anti-establishment youths who craved them. The people who told those youths what to think got lots of drugs, the glamor of the Hells Angels and a lot fewer trips to the hospital. The '60s “revolution” was able to happen in large part because the Hells Angels didn't interfere.

On that day, the Hells Angels transformed from a bunch of guys looking for thrills, women and good times into an organized crime syndicate.