Mount Rushmore and the Hells Angels

9 Mount Rushmore and the Hells Angels dorianne laux 9 We felt out of place, standing there in our Bermudas among the leathered others, the men’s spiderweb beards, the women’s leatherette vests crushing their breasts, tattoos inked on biceps bronzed by the Dakota sun. And yet, like us, they were families, babies pinking in strollers outfitted with mag wheels, dressed in Grateful Dead T-shirts with rolled sleeves, tiny biker boots, frilled bonnets cross-stitched with skulls and bones. And they looked up, like we did, to the massive carved faces, one hand on the handlebar of a tricked-out bike, an American flag flipping from a thin rod in the desolate wind, the other cupping the shoulder of a lover, the mother or father of their child, like the parents who once loved them, held them high and threw them up, up into the bright summer air, the faces below looming large as heroes’ as they came down—tired, hungry, wailing. ...