Jerry Langton - The Secret Life Of Bikers

N either of us got exactly what we wanted. I was interviewing a prominent biker over pizza when he complained about the sources I used for my books.

Cops, lawyers and snitches, he spat out, his disgust with those groups clearly evident. Cops, lawyers and snitches, his friend, the guy whod set up our meeting, repeated with a sigh.

I use sources a lot more diverse than that, but I got his point.

I hadnt been too surprised when I received the call that this big-time biker wanted to meet with me. Since I had written a couple of books about bikers that were successful and surprisingly well received by the biker community itself, I had been getting repeated calls, texts, emails and even letters from people in and around motor-cycle clubs, either wanting me to tell their story or hoping to contribute something to any new book ideas I might have. Word got around quickly. As one Hells Angel told me, We dont mind you because you dont make shit up, and you dont want to be one of us.

During the interview over pizza, I couldnt stop thinking about the dilemma of trying to write the truth about a society that is sworn to secrecy and more than a touch paranoid these days.

The biker had just been through the legal systema process that cost him months behind bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bail and seized propertyand was now a free man. He hadnt been acquitted. The primary witness against him suddenly had a change of heart. He told the judge that after all the years that had passed, he no longer trusted his memory to be accurate enough for court. The prosecutors withdrew the charges and the biker walked. The bikers lawyer made a point of asking the recalcitrant witness if he had been intimidated in any way. He replied that he had not.

And the biker was free of the club too. Of the many bikers from his club arrested in the raid, several pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for shorter sentences. That disgusted the biker I was interviewing, who pointed out that all the bikers he knew who hadnt been arrested or had been freed were partying and hadnt contributed a dime to his struggle.

He quit the club, wanted to talk and wanted my help writing a book, the story of his life. He even had a title picked out: Last Man Standing.

But as we talked, I became less and less intrigued by his offer. In his vision of his biker career, cops, lawyers and snitches were the bad guys. So were judges, corrections officers, the media and pretty much anyone who wasnt a biker.

The bikers, least of all him, would not be accused of any wrongdoing or law-breaking whatsoever in the book.

What about the homicide you did time for?

Self-defense.

What about the time bullets from your car shot up a bus with two rival bikers on it?

Mistaken identity.

How about all the cocaine you are alleged to have sold?

They never caught me with any.

He did, however, admit to beating many, many people up and proudly pointed out hed never been charged in connection with any of those assaults. He also acknowledged that he knew of several women who had been sexually assaulted, even gang raped, but told me hed never say who did what to whom.

While he no doubt had some great stories to tell, I had to turn him down. The book he wanted would be nothing but biker propaganda and, I believe, a totally inaccurate picture of what had actually happened.

But that mantra of cops, lawyers and snitches stuck with me. I wanted to be able to tell people the truth about outlaw motorcycle club life in an accurate and even-handed way. I wanted to get a bigger, more in-depth look at their lives, including what they would rather the public did not know, so I cast a wider net, speaking to more people, including bikers themselves.

After the books came magazine and newspaper articles, then TV and radio appearances. Not only did I need to know more about the biker world to speak with any authority, but the exposure meant that more and more bikers sought me out to talk. Over the last decade, Ive talked to plenty of bikers, but its almost always the same thing. They tell me they dont break any laws and then give me that of-course-I-really-do smirk.

But they do tell me things that shed more light on their lives, and I have also rounded up several ex-bikersonly one of whom would accurately be considered a snitchto tell me even more. They include Dave, a Hells Angels sergeant-at-arms who turned informant and now lives under a new identity; Duane, a former Hells Angels full-patch member who left the club after a dispute and now lives in a state without any Hells Angels; Randy, a former Outlaw full patch who quit the club after a series of arrests; Mitch, a former Bandidos prospect who left the club after it cost him his wife and job; Pete, a Hells Angels prospect whom the club expelled for being soft; Sean, who had been with an independent club but left when it patched over to the Hells Angels; and Frankie, who had been a prospect with the Outlaws but quit because he felt abused by the full-patch members.

I have also included in this book quotes and anecdotes from memoirs of and interviews with other bikers, like Sonny Barger, Chuck Zito, George Christie, Pat Matter, Anthony Menginie, Edward Winterhalder and others, although the books themselves are frequently self-serving, with glaring omissions.