THE SUMMER HEAT OF 1975 baked the Mojave Desert between Vegas and Barstow, California with 110 degrees of unpleasantness as a twenty-five-year-old clubber, his little redheaded secretary wrapped tightly around him, rumbled toward Los Angeles and the Easyriders magazine offices.

Between the seizure-inducing light show of Las Vegas and bleak desert nothingness of Barstow there’s a strange road to nowhere called Zzyzx.

“I was delivering the saga of sagas to share with the motorcycling world,” Puppy said. He was determined to meet the magazine’s editor and pitch his epic. Little did the lanky biker know he was about to change directions. Between the seizure-inducing light show of Las Vegas and bleak desert nothingness of Barstow there’s a strange road to nowhere called Zzyzx. There’s no town, only miles and miles of Joshua trees, creosote brush, and road debris bordering the asphalt ribbon.

Puppy rode a vintage 1937 Harley-Davidson flathead 80. It was black and ugly, with a 7-inch over-extended H-D springer. It was cool-looking until he traveled; then he bolted on the full-valence front fender and added stock leather saddlebags for packing. He bought this bike in 1964, so it already carried a decade of his outlaw history as a member of the Sundowners, another national club with chapters in ten states and the mother chapter in Ogden, Utah.

The bike reverberated with the sound of solid lifters and upswept fishtail pipes that slapped their harsh note against the surrounding mountainside bordering the Mojave National Preserve. Puppy and his girl rumbled along at 80 miles per hour heading directly for the Devil’s Playground, a large, sandy region of the Mojave Desert stretching more than 40 miles into the preserve.

Puppy was flying, his long red hair slapping against the frumpy crimson-haired secretary holding tight to his vibrating torso. Puppy always rode like a man possessed. One time while traveling from Florida to New York to visit his mom, several Hells Angels chased him for three days. He grew up with these guys and they knew how to ride, but not well enough to keep up with Puppy.

“They couldn’t catch me,” Puppy said, “so they went to my mom’s house on the third day and had coffee with her while they waited for me to show up.”

Puppy and his secretary rumbled up the incline toward the Zzyzx Junction, his typewriter strapped on the back of his tall sissy bar and 132 epic chapters of loose-leaf manuscript bundled in the saddlebags, when his rear Goodyear Eagle tire hissed and deflated.

The old motorcycle spit from side to side and Puppy fought for control as he veered onto the gravel-strewn emergency lane. He was pissed and boiling in the simmering heat. His secretary tentatively dismounted and they studied the damaged rear tire. There was nothing for him to do but remove his classic biker leather jacket and black leather cut, drape them across the solo seat, and start pushing the apehanger handlebars on the 500-pound motorcycle laden with luggage and his manuscript.

The deflated tire caused the bike to blubber back and forth and added substantial drag. A late-model Ford Grand Torino slid into the emergency lane and skidded to a stop.

“Can I help?” hollered Terry the Tramp from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” Puppy barked back. “Get that fucking thing outta my way.”

“No,” Terry said, “can I give you a hand?”

Sweat ran down Puppy’s face, but he kept pushing, and shoved the flathead into the truck lane and alongside the Torino. “Unless ya got a pocket full of air, you can’t help.”

Just then, a slick BMW rider wearing a full leather suit and full-face helmet pulled off the highway in front of the Torino. He dismounted, sized up the situation, and approached Puppy.

“I just bought a can of this new Fix-a-Flat in Vegas,” he said. “If you can cover the $4, it’s yours.”

Puppy gave him the cash and Terry and Puppy crawled around the hot motorcycle in the desert heat, positioning the valve stem for a refill.

“I’m Terry,” Terry said. “I’m a Vago.”

Puppy was well aware of a recent conflict between the Vagos and the Sundowners, but he was too pissed-off about his flat tire predicament to consider the political ramifications.

“I’m Puppy,” he said. “I’m a Sundowner.”

Terry didn’t hesitate to extend his hand. “I’ll take your girl in the car,” Terry said, “while you test this shit out.”

The tire aired up and seemed to hold. Puppy kicked his bike to life and pulled onto the freeway. As he rolled through the gears and gained speed and confidence, the heat from the smoldering asphalt and pavement friction exacerbated the weakness in the tire structure. It blew out and sent Puppy sideways and off the side of the highway once more.

Terry again rambled off the freeway in front of Puppy and backed within range. He immediately jumped out of the slick air-conditioned sedan and popped open the massive trunk. He grabbed some tools and in short order removed the trunk lid and tossed it into the desert, where it rested among years of highway debris, hubcaps, and whiskey bottles.

“Let’s load it in the trunk,” Terry said.

“Are you kidding?” Puppy asked, stepping into the desert to retrieve the trunk lid.

“We can do it,” Terry said.

“But this car is almost new,” Puppy said.

“It’s just a car,” Terry said. “I’ll get another one.”

They hoisted the Lady 80 into the trunk and shoved the trunk lid in between the motorcycle and the back of the massive sedan, then lashed it down. Terry pulled out into the traveling lanes but quickly determined that the additional weight of the heavy motorcycle and his two new passengers caused the wide car tires to rub against the Torino’s rear fenders . He pulled off the freeway again, jumped out of the car, found the tire iron in the trunk, and proceeded to wedge the cast iron bar between the fenders and the tires. He pried the steel sheet metal away from the tires until there was ample clearance.

“You’re destroying your car,” Puppy said.

“It’s just a cage,” Terry said. “Let’s hit it.”

They drove directly to Terry’s home in El Monte, more than 200 miles into Los Angeles.

“He just had a new baby and his wife and his stepdad were there,” Puppy said of the generous biker opening his home to a complete stranger.

Together they removed the flathead 80 from the trunk, replaced the scratched and dented lid, and started to work on the wounded motorcycle. At the time, Terry had a carport next to his house with a small closet attached. He opened the closet and dug out a fully chromed, 16-inch wheel with a virtually new Goodyear Eagle tire mounted.

“I don’t have any money,” Puppy said.

“That’s alright,” Terry said. “Either return this wheel or pay me when you have it.”

That evening, Terry fed Puppy and his redheaded secretary and put them up. The next morning the group rode to Terry’s Denny’s restaurant headquarters. That’s where Puppy discovered that his host was the president of the San Gabriel Chapter of the Vagos. From time to time, as the coffee shop filled up with members of the green tribe, Puppy tripped on the fact that there had been a recent problem between their clubs. But he never suspected foul play, or a trick back looming as a member made a phone call or two brothers walked outside to discuss something in private.

“I felt like I had met a brother, not a member of another club,” Puppy said.

“Puppy thinks he’s a Sundowner,” Terry said. “But he’s really a Vago.”

Puppy knew his welcome wasn’t everlasting and needed to find his own Sundowner brothers in the Long Beach region. He yanked his leather address book out of his cut and started making calls from the Denny’s phone booth. Connection after connection went dead. His list of numbers was outdated.

“Let me see if I can help,” Terry said and produced his directory of club members throughout Los Angeles.

“All the numbers worked,” Puppy said, slightly embarrassed because Terry was more connected to the region’s Sundowners than Puppy was, but he appreciated the help.

“Puppy thinks he’s a Sundowner,” Terry said. “But he’s really a Vago.”

Puppy lived in Los Angeles from time to time, since he escaped his home in New Orleans when he was thirteen.

“I had to head west,” Puppy said. “You know the drill, ‘Go West young man, go West.’” He toiled on rodeo grounds in Texas. He worked for his uncle in Tucson, and worked on a horse ranch while hitchhiking across the country.

“My hero was Stony Burke. I even dressed like him in those days.”

Settling down in Los Angeles this time wasn’t a problem and he immediately grabbed a position as a motorcycle mechanic in Santa Monica, but the connection with his club brothers led Puppy down a dark road.

“I contacted Tang, the president of the Long Beach chapter,” Puppy said, “but he told me most of the brothers lived in Riverside and they couldn’t hook up with me that night. He had numerous restrictions.”

Puppy rode to Long Beach, the seaside community just south of the Los Angeles Harbor. He discovered a biker bar called the Why Not on Cherry just south of Signal Hill, the home of a thousand oil wells jutting out of the landscape like the prickly spines on the back of a porcupine. He rolled into the Why Not, finding a dingy bar with a couple of scratched and abused barroom pool tables and a handful of rickety dining tables. It was packed on a Friday summer night and patches were prevalent.

There were Hessians, Mongols, and lots of loners or independent riders, and everyone got along.

“Everyone accepted me,” Puppy said. He called Tang, since he lived only a block away.

“We don’t go there,” Tang said. “We party in Riverside at the Quaff.”

Puppy finally hooked up with Tang and Hooch—Larry Harris—a Utah charter member and one of the club’s founding members.

“Let’s play poker,” Tang suggested, inviting Puppy to his home.

“I don’t gamble much,” Puppy said, “but I’ll give it a shot.”

Unfortunately he took the pot and it raised Tang’s ire. Tang was average build and height, with long, blonde hair and lots of chips on his shoulders.

More than once, Terry and Puppy were back-to-back, taking on anything that came their way.

As the weeks rolled on, Puppy met Smokey and Gimpy at the Quaff Barrel Inn in Riverside, but he found himself staying with Terry and the Vagos. Each time he suggested that the Long Beach Sundowners party with the Vagos, he was turned down by the irascible Tang.

“When in Rome,” Tang said. “We don’t party with them.”

Finally, on a warm fall evening, Puppy left work and rode to Terry’s house in El Monte.

“I’ll ride home with you,” Terry said, all suited up and ready for the road.

“I couldn’t turn them down this time,” Puppy said, and Terry, Dago, and Jerry the Jew rode with Puppy to Long Beach, where they met with several Sundowners. The cocky Tang was visibly upset. They rode to a bar in downtown Long Beach and Tang immediately started a fight.

More than once, Terry and Puppy were back-to-back, taking on anything that came their way. “We barely got clear of that place and Tang started another problem at the next bar.”

At the third bar, the owner met them at the door and refused entry. The five riders peeled down the street. Tang needed to prove something, and the more he drank, the more the too-tough condition was exacerbated.

As they approached a light on Atlantic Boulevard, the light turned amber and three of the brothers nailed it and peeled through the light. Tang and Dago were stuck and slid to a stop. Dago was a helluva Vago, but he was on parole and couldn’t face another problem with the law. While Dago sat on his bike minding his own business, Tang kicked out his kickstand, jumped off his bike, unzipped his fly, and began to urinate in the center of the street. Then he dropped his ignition key and was crawling around the street when the cops arrived.

Dago, in the spirit of brotherhood, stayed with Tang, but as soon as the cops ran his license, his parole situation surfaced. Plus he had no papers for his motorcycle; he was arrested and his motorcycle was impounded.

“He never saw that motorcycle again,” Terry said. “It was a shame.”

Puppy learned the true meaning of brotherhood from Terry. He moved out of Los Angeles and set up a chapter of the Sundowners in Florida, but he remained on the road most of the time, where he felt most comfortable reaching out to meet his brothers.

“I wanted to know all my brothers when they rolled to our national annual run,” Puppy said.

So every year he rode out of Florida, heading north to visit South Carolina chapters, then New York, where he visited his mom and sister. Next, he would peel west to Wisconsin, then Minnesota, and spent long months in Colorado with various chapters, until he rolled into Utah to the mother chapter, then Nevada, Idaho, and finally back to California. Before the summer months were gone, he rode to the national run early so he was set up and ready to greet his arriving brothers. One year, he covered more than 275,000 miles.

Every time he crossed the state line into California, he looked up Terry the Tramp and the Vagos. They would be friends forever.