Most clubs have abolished the wearing of any club patch by women. The Vagos is one of the few clubs keeping the old “Property of . . . ” tradition alive. At least you know who not to mess with.

THE WORD ”VAGO” IS SHORT FOR ”VAGABOND,” a hell-raiser or troublemaker. In 1965 a group of men with the unlikely names of Berdoo Moose, Poodle, J.R., Psycho, Whitey, Sugar Bear, and Hall kicked off the Vagos Motorcycle Club. They were just boys running wild in the streets of San Bernardino, the home of the Hells Angels (established in 1948). Poodle had been a member of the Mescaleros, a local motorcycle club, but the other Mescaleros decided Poodle was a psycho and kicked him out of the club.

“Fuck you,” he told the members who pulled his patch. “I’m going to start a bigger, nastier club.” He stormed out of the clubhouse and launched the Vagos.

A wild, uncontrolled, turbulent era was just about to begin. Poodle and his brothers didn’t know what they were getting into. The mid-1960s proved a tipping point for America and its people. Alan Freed, who coined the term “rock ’n’ roll” and introduced it to white America a decade earlier, died in 1965 of alcoholism at age forty-four, broke and forgotten. Protest-rock erupted on American radio that same year, focusing on timely topics such as the escalating war in Vietnam (“Eve of Destruction,” by Barry McGuire), the civil rights battles in America (“People Get Ready,” by the Impressions), and a general rebellion against authority as portrayed in any number of songs, such as the Rolling Stones surly number one hit, “Satisfaction.”

Over the next decade what started out as fun became serious business, business that many chopper-riding motorcycle maniacs didn’t survive. The parties turned into violent blood baths fueled by mind-altering drugs. Meanwhile, Terry struggled with life as a family man, balancing the demands of an irrepressible broad and his first son, who meant everything to him. Tekla was the consummate evil nester. She wanted everything—control, a comfortable home, and a secure family. The more Terry wandered, the more she fought him.

“The parties turned into violent blood baths fueled by mind-altering drugs.”

His brother, Eddie, started to hang around clubs and became a member of the Dirty Dozen in Los Angeles, which had nothing to do with the Arizona-based, one-percenter organization of the same name.

Initially, motorcycle clubs consisted of guys looking for wild times aboard glistening choppers. They avoided organization, structure, and rules, but running wild in the streets didn’t last. Territorial boundaries were drawn, patches were pulled, club business became mired with rules, and the almighty buck got involved.

Eddie’s psyche was laced with a serious violent streak that manifested itself as meanness toward women. A brother gave the stout, five-foot nine-inch, sandy-blonde, mustachioed biker with no tattoos the nickname “Parts.” He started to run with the Vikings, the Coffin Cheaters, the Hangmen, the Henchmen, Satan’s Slaves, and the Vagos from Berdoo. The Vagos began with the Berdoo chapter and then branched out. First they started a small chapter in the high desert town of Victorville, followed by another in Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles.

He started to run with the Vikings, the Coffin Cheaters, the Hangmen, the Henchmen, Satan’s Slaves, and the Vagos from Berdoo.

In 1967, another group sprung out of the streets of West Covina, the 13th Rank. They tried to make a name for themselves. During a party, they picked up Champ, a Vietnam vet and a well-known young member of the Dirty Dozen, from the streets of El Monte. The kid was partially disabled, and everyone in town knew him. The Rank members got drunk and high, then beat the kid half to death. They dumped him out of the back of a pickup on the freeway. His leg braces saved his life when he crashed onto the unforgiving asphalt at more than 60 miles per hour.

Parts knew Champ. The incident infuriated him, as well as members of the Vagos, the Sabers, and the Dirty Dozen. He hauled representatives of all the small LA-based clubs to a Vagos meeting and proposed creating a San Gabriel chapter of the Vagos. The Vagos approved the chapter and their ranks began to grow. That one night expanded their membership by 125. The new troops set out to avenge Champ’s beating and the shit began to fly.

“They kicked down doors and kicked ass,” Terry said.

Parts was trouble, but he was always on hand for Terry and the club. Terry fought Parts, his most trusted stepbrother, three times. “I could never win—he hit like a sledgehammer—but we fought anyway,” Terry said, “usually over women.” Parts was built solid inside and out. He was always a gangster, stealing cars and dealing drugs, getting hooked on coke in the process. Terry and Parts first fight revolved around Parts’s first marriage to Terry’s blood sister, Sandy.

“That didn’t go down well. I knew it would mean trouble.” Parts had two boys with Sandy before the relationship unraveled.

Around that time, James Brown made an abrupt shift from pure soul to a rhythm-based new invention of his own making called funk with the hits, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag,” and, “I Got You.” Funk, which was more frantic and explosive than traditional rhythm and blues, better captured the atmosphere that permeated the era.

Terry avoided clubs at his young age and no longer owned a motorcycle after the last one was impounded. “Tekla hated motorcycles and despised club guys even more,” Terry said. His old lady might have hated the club life, but Terry could feel a shift welling in his consciousness.

Parts messed around with a number of women, and one turned on him when she discovered that she wasn’t the only one coupled with the tough guy. She called the cops and filed kidnapping charges. The next night, Parts was pulled over on his way to the Bunny Run, a biker bar on the edge of town. He was rousted by LA County sheriffs and hauled to lock-up. He called Terry from jail.

Terry drove out to the Bunny Run, a rundown biker bar in a strip mall. It had a jail cell nailed to the back of the simple stucco structure where they tossed drunks to sleep it off. The Bunny Run was anything but a friendly joint. Nobody came to the Run unless they knew someone, or could box their way into the seedy saloon. Terry knew a few of the brothers and sought out Butch, the young president with a constant smile.

“What are you going to do about Parts?” Terry asked.

“Nothing,” Butch said. “It wasn’t club business.”

Terry left the bar disgruntled, mustered the cash, and bailed Parts out, but the notion of club brothers not backing a brother ate at him.

“I didn’t get it,” Terry said somberly. “My brother was in jail, and the club wasn’t doing anything, no bail, no attorney, nothing. So I went to find out why.”

Terry took off work and attended Parts’s hearing in downtown Pomona. He cleaned up, dressed the part of a courtroom citizen, and arrived at the court on time. He was twenty-four years old, with long thick hair and a small frame. The judge and bailiff warily eyed the surly club members as they swaggered into court, unruly, disrespectful, and uncontrollable. The year was 1972, the height of the drug revolution. Wearing shredded Levi’s jackets, greasy denim pants, and Vagos patches, they raised quite a stink, which didn’t much help Parts’s cause.

The bikers in the courtroom were just young outlaws passing from one party to the next. Terry was focused on a singular goal, getting his brother out of jail. He had no respect for the lawless club members and showed it in his demeanor. Finally, one of the members confronted the swaggering young loner.

“What’s your problem?” a gruff biker demanded, eyeing Terry’s direct countenance. It was One-Eyed Willie, a Charles Manson-type character with one eye and a notoriously evil spirit. Even though he stood less than five feet tall, he didn’t care if you were a monster or armed to the teeth. He was dead serious and dead ready for anything.

“That’s my brother,” Terry fired back. “And he’s in your club. What the hell are you doing to help?”

He stared into the eyes of the small man.

“Got a lawyer? Any bail money? I’m going to need some assistance getting him out,” Terry said, continuing his eyeball-to-eyeball assessment of the nefarious man.

The patch-holder looked away from Terry’s unblinking gaze, a sign of weakness. “We don’t have shit,” he admitted.

Looking back at it today, Terry says, “That was bullshit,” referring to the club’s resources, or rather lack of resources for helping out a brother in need. Terry took matters into his own hands and raised $1,700 to hire the attorney. Finally the attorney revealed the jealous girlfriend’s intentions. The judge cut Parts loose, and Terry had impressed One-Eyed Willie.

Two weeks after his brother was released, Terry began to hang around the motley crew of Vagos. He sensed an organizational need within the club, and although he was devoted to his son, his wife was pushing all the wrong buttons.

Terry found himself as conflicted as society itself. Times were changing, but a lot of old-fashioned notions still held sway. This was apparent on January 1, 1972, when Three Dog Night became the first rock band to appear on a float in the Tournament of Roses New Year’s Parade, in Pasadena, California, while Lawrence Welk was still the Grand Marshal of the parade.