Ink and chrome, beyond the tyranny of first impressions

I rolled into a truck stop outside Barstow, afternoon, 61 years old and feeling every mile of it. The place was full of Harleys. They had most of the space around the fuel pumps occupied, bikes lined up wherever there was room, chrome throwing the desert sun back at anybody who looked.

Twenty bikes, maybe more. Men and women with tattoos from neck to knuckles, skulls and eagles and flames. Leather vests, patches sewn onto their backs that meant something specific to somebody. The whole place seemed to belong to them.

My first thought: Keep your head down, get your fuel, get gone.

They moved like a crew. Nobody gave orders, but everybody seemed to know where to be. One guy walked the line checking tires on bikes that weren’t his.

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