MR HARLEY WOLF, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1991.

I travel on a Greyhound bus from Chicago to see some old friends who now live in Cedar Rapids. One afternoon I meet this guy called Harley Wolf (apparently that’s his real name).

Harley is a Vietnam veteran and proud of it. He also seems proud that he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. He’s the leader of the local biker gang and, as we are getting on well, Harley invites me to their headquarters for a beer that evening. The people I’m staying with advise me not to go.

So I go to the bar. I enter as Bo Diddley’s ‘Road Runner’ fades from the jukebox into the thick cigarette smoke. The crowded joint suddenly becomes very quiet as I look around for Harley in vain. The deafening silence is broken as one of the bikers says “I don’t know who he is, but I’m having the f***er’s boots when we’ve finished with him,” referring to my beloved snakeskin cowboy boots I’m wearing. I realise that my friends were right and I should have taken their advice.

Then the door slowly creaks open and Harley Wolf enters. “Hi Rev, how yer doing man? Wanna beer?” I’m immediately handed a bottle by a passing waitress as the record machine’s stylus drops on Cream’s ‘I Feel Free.’ The drink never touches the proverbial sides.

I spend the night there, take some photos, smoke a little herb and get drunk. I’m invited along to the gangs next bike ride. They’re going to Montana or somewhere. I wish I’d gone.

(See the next photograph: Mr Harley Wolf and Friends, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1991).