Terry the Tramp

Dale, left, Monster Red, and Randy roaming the vendor-packed parking lots during the annual Laughlin River Run at the Colorado Belle Casino Hotel.

FOR A WHILE IT WAS ALL ABOUT BEING TOUGH, guarding Vagos’ territories, and building a hollow reputation that wasn’t vacant. The Vagos ran to LA, Little Rock, and into the South Bay. For a while, they hit Long Beach on weekends. One weekend while partying with a group of Sundowners out of Ogden, Utah, they wrecked four saloons before the Long Beach Police Department surrounded them in the fourth bar.

Terry and Fonzy slipped out the back of the bar with their girls and escaped to one of the babe’s houses nearby. In her car, they returned to witness all their brothers sprawled in the seaside street. They were all arrested and their motorcycles were impounded.

One weekend while partying with a group of Sundowners out of Ogden, Utah, they wrecked four saloons before the Long Beach Police Department surrounded them in the fourth bar.

Late one Sunday night they ran in a pack of 20 riders out to San Bernardino to party with another chapter. On the trip out to Berdoo, they flew down Interstate 10 in the fast lane, flying out of the city with chrome sparkling and pipes blasting into the night sky.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a foreign compact car weaved into their lane and split the pack just behind Terry’s rear wheel. At seventy-five mph, the group of motorcycles went down like dominos. The driver swerved out of the collision and tried to run, but Terry and a brother, Randy, were still upright and gave chase for over two miles, trying to force the drunken driver off the freeway.

Bashing the side of the compact with their fists, the driver finally acquiesced and slowed, pulling into the asphalt emergency lane. A CHP unit skidded to a stop behind Terry, siren blasting and lights flashing. Then another black and white sped to the scene. Terry and Randy worried that if they jumped off their bikes and moved away from the compact, the drunk might escape. The officers moved on the bikers and not the driver, as if they were attacking an unsuspecting motorist.

“He crashed into our pack!” Terry barked.

“Step away from the car,” the officer ordered.

“You don’t get it!” Terry said.

The argument continued until a radio report caught the officer’s attention. Several motorcycles were knocked down in the fast lane two miles back. The small Asian man in the bruised compact car could hardly stand when he was removed and consequently arrested for a DUI and reckless driving.

Every night, it was something. But it wasn’t always the man against unfortunate, innocent clubbers.

“We were building a sour reputation,” Terry said. “If a guy made the mistake of hanging with us, he usually lost his motorcycle or got his ass kicked.”

At seventy-five mph, the group of motorcycles went down like dominos.

The Vagos ran amok every night. At the time, one-percenter club members messed with anyone who came around. And, said Terry, “When we weren’t fuckin’ with outsiders or other clubs, we attacked each other.”

One such occurrence in December of 1979 turned seriously nasty when Igor, a member of the Cossacks MC, tried to party with the Scavengers. His motorcycle was stripped from his possession and he was sent down the road, beaten badly. The next day, Vago members reached out to Igor and offered to return his chopper for $500, but Igor had contacted law enforcement, and a sting operation was set in motion.

Los Angeles Police Detective Michael Lane, thirty-one, working undercover as a biker club member, was an eleven-year veteran in the department. He took Igor to P.J.’s Cocktail Lounge on Whittier Boulevard and set up a meeting in an open parking lot across the street. It was a trap and the Vagos knew it.

Rocky Lee Berch, twenty-seven, a member of the Scavengers MC, was a bad-ass, more than willing to build a desperado reputation within the Vago ranks. He grabbed a new Vago member, George Harvey, twenty-eight, of Rohnert Park near Santa Rosa, as backup. He was a thick muscled kid, five-foot eight-inches tall, with long, wavy brown hair and a full beard. He rode an old Panhead and worked hard in the oil fields.

As they approached a Toyota pickup to meet with Igor, Detective Lane stepped out hoisting a sawed off shotgun and all hell broke loose. Rocky unloaded his pistol. George pulled his new, unloaded gun tucked in his lower back waistband, but he was knocked to the ground by fire from surrounding cops, who were hiding behind other vehicles and shrubbery. The windshield was blown out and Detective Lane died of multiple gun shot wounds, whereas the six-foot ten-inch Igor didn’t suffer a scratch.

“I never could figure this one out,” Terry said. “The cop was riddled, Igor wasn’t touched, and the two brothers were hit several times.”

Rocky died at the scene and George lay in a pool of blood for more than an hour before he was taken to the hospital.

“They wanted him to die,” Terry said. Once dragged into the hospital on a rattling gurney, he was shoved in a corner unattended for another hour. He had been hit six times.

A Los Angeles Times report indicated that the two bikers unloaded on the unsuspecting undercover agent in the pickup, when in fact only bullets from surrounding police units riddled the truck.

Rocky died at the scene and George lay in a pool of blood for more than an hour before he was taken to the hospital.

A year later, Harvey was convicted of dual second-degree murder charges and sentenced to two nineteen-year-to-life sentences, although testimony indicated that the undercover officer was not hit with any bullets from Harvey’s pistol. A decade later, one of the nineteen-to-life sentences was dropped, but Harvey remains incarcerated as of 2011.

As the new decade approached, Terry was forced to face his major demon: drinking. Fortunately he had a knack for building relationships with positive influences. Harry and Alma set him on a path to success. Judge Gately became a life-long mentor. Harold Tuttle introduced him to motorcycles.

Terry’s flair for building positive relationships also helped him sustain them. He was just thirty-three years old and running wild on the streets. His stepfather moved in with him in a small lath-and-plaster duplex on Bruce Street and took over many of his duties as a father.

“Harold and I met at the coffee shop,” Terry said. “I was moaning about finding a baby sitter, and he said he could handle it. But he didn’t know what he was getting into.”

He offered to help with the utility bills. He afforded Terry the opportunity to run even farther amok every night, and he did.

“I had a lot more freedom to run wild,” Terry said. “I was drinking every night.” Terry’s booze of choice was tequila. “Quervo Gold, or Gorilla juice. Made me feel like I was King Kong.”

He stayed out to all hours, and often came home so drunk he passed out on the living room floor. One morning behind a terrible hangover, his blustering stepdad confronted him in the hall.

“No more liquor in this house,” Harold snapped. “You’re no good to your son, no good to anyone while you’re drunk. You can sign custody over to me and go be a happy drunk or get over it.”

Terry stopped drinking that night and never returned to the bottle. He had enough on his back to drive any man insane. He was left to grapple with the violence, the cops, the politics, the drugs, the back-biting, and the legal battles. He chained-smoked and took up drinking coffee like it was ethyl for his personal Cadillac.