Hunter S. Thompson - Hell`s Angels (1966).pdf - books - kavaman

Hell's Angels

A Strange and Terrible Saga

by Hunter S. Thompson

a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF

Text: 12pt Times Roman

* Footnotes: 10pt Times Roman

Quotes in text: 10pt Arial

Back Cover:

The barbarians are no longer at the city gates. . . they are in the city! And Hunter

S. Thompson, America's most brazen and ballsy journalist, tells their story as no one else

can!

"A close view of a world most of us would never dare encounter."

-- The New York Times Book Review

"For all its uninhibited tone and its sardonic humor Thompson's book is a thoughtful

piece of work. . . He was not gulled by their self-conscious shock tactics or the

mountebank obscenities they practice in public."

-- The New Yorker

Hunter S. Thompson is a freelance writer from San Francisco, Aspen, and points

east. His research on the Hell's Angels involved more than a year of close association

with the outlaws -- riding, loafing, plotting, and eventually being stomped. A native of

Louisville, Kentucky, he began writing as a sports columnist in Florida. He started his

first novel while studying at Columbia University in New York City. Since then he has

worked on newspapers and magazines in New York, San Juan, and Rio de Janeiro. His

articles have appeared in The Reporter , The Nation , Esquire , and Rolling Stone .

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless,

it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed" and neither the author

nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and

simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

http://www.randomhouse.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-96723

ISBN: 0-345-41008-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition: November 1967

First Ballantine Books Trade Edition: August 1996

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the friends who lent me money and kept me

mercifully unemployed. No writer can function

without them. Again, thanks. HST

The idea for this book came from Carey McWilliams,

editor of The Nation, who asked me to write an

article on the weird phenomenon of motorcycle gangs.

The article appeared in The Nation in April 1965.

Carey's ideas and suggestions gave the book a

framework and perspective that it might

not otherwise have had.

In my own country I am in a far-off land

I am strong but I have no force or power

I win all yet remain a loser

At break of day I say goodnight

When I lie down I have a great fear

Of falling.

-- François Villon

Roll em, boys

California, Labor Day weekend. . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw

motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levi's roll out from damp garages, all-

night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland,

heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again, the

Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning

freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety

miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches. . . like Genghis Khan on an iron

horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up

your daughter's leg with no quarter asked and none given; show the squares some class,

give em a whiff of those kicks they'll never know. . . Ah, these righteous dudes, they love

to screw it on. . . Little Jesus, the Gimp, Chocolate George, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone,

Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed,

Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy

Cross, Puff, Magoo, Animal and at least a hundred more. . . tense for the action, long hair

in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastikas and

stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome as traffic on 101 moves over, nervous, to let the

formation pass like a burst of dirty thunder. . .

They call themselves Hell's Angels. They ride, rape and raid like marauding cavalry --

and they boast that no police force can break up their criminal motorcycle fraternity.

-- True, The Man's Magazine (August 1965)

They're not bad guys, individually. I tell you one thing: I'd rather have a bunch of Hell's

Angels on my hands than these civil rights demonstrators. When it comes to making trouble for

us, the demonstrators are much worse.

-- Jailer, San Francisco City Prison

Some of them are pure animals. They'd be animals in any society. These guys are outlaw

types who should have been born a hundred years ago -- then they would have been gunfighters.

-- Birney Jarvis, a charter member of the Hell's Angels who later became a San Francisco

Chronicle police reporter

We're the one percenters, man -- the one percent that don't fit and don't care. So don't

talk to me about your doctor bills and your traffic warrants -- I mean you get your woman and your

bike and your banjo and I mean you're on your way. We've punched our way out of a hundred

rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists. We're royalty among motorcycle outlaws, baby.

-- A Hell's Angel speaking for the permanent record

. . .The run was on, "outlaws" from all over the state rolled in packs toward

Monterey: north from San Bernardino and Los Angeles on 101; south from Sacramento

on 50. . . south from Oakland, Hayward and Richmond on 17; and from Frisco on the

Coast Highway. The hardcore, the outlaw elite, were the Hell's Angels. . . wearing the

winged death's-head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their "mamas"

behind them on big "chopped hogs." They rode with a fine, unwashed arrogance, secure

in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole history of Christendom.

From San Francisco in a separate formation came the Gypsy Jokers, three dozen

in all, the number-two outlaw club in California, starved for publicity, and with only one

chapter, the Jokers could still look down on such as the Presidents, Road Rats,

Nightriders and Question Marks, also from the Bay Area, Gomorrah. . . with Sodom five

hundred miles to the south in the vast mad bowl of Los Angeles, home turf of the Satan's

Slaves, number three in the outlaw hierarchy, custom-bike specialists with a taste for the

flesh of young dogs, flashy headbands and tender young blondes with lobotomy eyes; the

Slaves were the class of Los Angeles, and their women clung tight to the leather backs of

these dog-eating, crotch-busting fools as they headed north for their annual party with the

Hell's Angels, who even then viewed the "L. A. bunch" with friendly condescension. . .

which the Slaves didn't mind, for they could dump with impunity on the other southern

clubs -- the Coffin Cheaters, Iron Horsemen, Galloping Gooses, Comancheros, Stray

Satans and a homeless fringe element of human chancres so foul that not even the outlaw

clubs -- north or south -- would claim them except in a fight when an extra chain or beer

bottle might make the crucial difference.

Over and over again I have said that there is no way out of the present impasse. If we

were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors which surround us. . . We would

drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on.

Could the man or woman who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are

now expected of him or her every moment of the day?

-- Henry Miller, in The World of Sex

(1,000 copies printed by J.N.H., for "friends of Henry Miller," 1941)

People will just have to learn to stay out of our way. We'll bust up everyone who gets in

our way.

On the morning of the Monterey Run, Labor Day 1964, Terry the Tramp woke up

naked and hurting all over. The night before he'd been stomped and chain-whipped

outside an Oakland bar by nine Diablos, a rival East Bay cycle club. "I'd hit one of their

members earlier," he explained, "and they didn't appreciate it. I was with two other

Angels, but they left a little bit before me, and as soon as they were gone, these bastard

Diablos jumped me outside the bar. They messed me up pretty good, so we spent half the

night lookin for em."

The search was futile, and just before dawn Terry went back to Scraggs' small

house in San Leandro, where he was living with his wife and two children. Scraggs, a

thirty-seven-year-old ex-pug who once fought Bobo Olson, was the oldest Angel then

riding, with a wife and two children of his own. But when Terry came down from

Sacramento that summer to look for a job in the Bay Area, Scraggs offered bed and

board. The two wives got along; the kids meshed, and Terry found a job on the assembly

line at a nearby General Motors plant -- in itself a tribute to whatever human flexibility

remains at the shop level in the American labor movement, for Terry at a glance looks

hopelessly unemployable, like a cross between Joe Palooka and the Wandering Jew.

He is six feet two inches tall, 210 pounds heavy, with massive arms, a full beard,

shoulder-length black hair and a wild, jabbering demeanor not calculated to soothe the

soul of any personnel specialist. Beyond that, in his twenty-seven years he has piled up a

tall and ugly police record: a multitude of arrests, from petty theft and battery, to rape,

narcotics offenses and public cunnilingus -- and all this without a single felony

conviction, being officially guilty of nothing more than what any spirited citizen might

commit in some drunk or violent moment of animal weakness.

"Yeah, but that rap sheet's all bullshit," he insists. "Most of those charges are

phony. I've never thought of myself as a criminal. I don't work at it; I'm not greedy

enough. Everything I do is natural, because I need to." And then, after a moment: "But I

guess I'm pushin my luck, even if I'm not a criminal. Pretty soon they'll nail me for one of

-- A Hell's Angel, talking to police

these goddamn things, and then it's goodbye, Terry, for a whole lot of years. I think it's

about time I cut out, went East, maybe to New York, or Australia. You know, I had a

card in Actors' Equity once, I lived in Hollywood. Hell, I can make it anywhere, even if I

am a fuck-up."

On another Saturday he might have slept until two or three in the afternoon, then

gone out again, with a dozen or so of the brethren, to find the Diablos and whip them

down to jelly. But a Labor Day Run is the biggest event on the Hell's Angels calendar; it

is the annual gathering of the whole outlaw clan, a massive three-day drunk that nearly

always results in some wild, free-swinging action and another rude shock for the squares.

No Angel would miss it for any reason except jail or crippling injury. The Labor Day

Run is the outlaws' answer to New Year's Eve; it is a time for sharing the wine jug,

pummeling old friends, random fornication and general full-dress madness. Depending

on the weather and how many long-distance calls are made the week before, anywhere

from two hundred to a thousand outlaws will show up, half of them already drunk by the

time they get there.

By nine o'clock that morning both Terry and Scraggs were on their feet.

Vengeance on the Diablos could wait. Today, the run. Terry lit a cigarette, examined the

bumps and welts on his body, then pulled on a pair of crusty Levi's, heavy black boots,

no underwear and a red sweatshirt smelling of old wine and human grease. Scraggs drank

a beer while his wife heated water for instant coffee. The children had been put with

relatives the night before. The sun was hot outside. Across the Bay, San Francisco was

still covered in a late-lifting fog. The bikes were gassed and polished. All that remained

was the gathering of any loose money or marijuana that might be lying around, lashing

the sleeping bags to the bikes and donning the infamous "colors."

The all-important colors. . . the uniform, as it were, the crucial identity. . . which

the Attorney General of California has described with considerable accuracy in a fuzzy

but much-quoted official document titled "The Hell's Angels Motorcycle Clubs."

The emblem of the Hell's Angels, termed "colors," consists of an embroidered patch of a

winged skull wearing a motorcycle helmet. Just below the wing of the emblem are the letters

"MC." Over this is a band bearing the words "Hell's Angels." Below the emblem is another patch

bearing the local chapter name, which is usually an abbreviation for the city or locality. These

patches are sewn on the back of a usually sleeveless denim jacket. In addition, members have

been observed wearing various types of Luftwaffe insignia and reproductions of German Iron

Crosses. Many affect beards and their hair is usually long and unkempt. Some wear a single

earring in a pierced ear lobe. Frequently they have been observed to wear belts made of a length

of polished motorcycle drive chain which can be unhooked and used as a flexible bludgeon.

The Hell's Angels seem to have a preference for large heavy-duty American-made

motorcycles [Harley-Davidsons]. Club members usually use a nickname, designated as their

"legal" name, and are carried on club rolls under that name. Some clubs provide that initiates

shall be tattooed, the cost of which is included in the initiation fee. Probably the most universal

common denominator in identification of Hell's Angels is their generally filthy condition.

Investigating officers consistently report these people, both club members and their female

associates, seem badly in need of a bath. Fingerprints are a very effective means of identification

because a high percentage of Hell's Angels have criminal records.

Some members of the Hell's Angels as well as members of other "disreputable"

motorcycle clubs belong to what is alleged to be an elite group termed "One Percenters," which

meets monthly at various places in California. The local Hell's Angels clubs usually meet weekly. .

. Requirements for membership or authority to wear the "1%-er" badge are unknown at this time. .

. Another patch worn by some members bears the number "13." It is reported to represent the

Hunter S. Thompson - Hell`s Angels (1966).pdf

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