Ordine Harleyita

Ordine Harleyita is a motorcycle club recast, for tax reasons, as a sisterhood of nuns. Its members bring together outlaw conduct, religious devotion, and anti-government politics: a combination that makes them seem like possible allies to Zoyd Wheeler, but does not prevent their eventual retreat from his cause. Their arc turns on a sharp reversal, from a group Van Meter hopes to recruit for an armed effort to one too famous to spend time helping him recover his home.

Identity and Religious Ethos

The group’s headquarters are in Walnut Creek. Van Meter encountered Ordine Harleyita during his persistent search for the transcendent and was immediately struck by the spirituality he believed emanated from them. Their identity is deliberately incongruous: they continued to drink heavily, use drugs, commit symbolic and actual acts of violence, engage in sexually transgressive conduct, and oppose authority, yet regarded these practices as transformed by their love of Jesus Christ.

Sister Vince, the group’s theologian, supplied its defining religious image by describing Christ as the First Motorcyclist. The motorcycle was not simply a practical emblem of the group; it offered a way to make religious language and outlaw identity coexist. Their wall graffiti functioned as a sacred text, while their tattoos declared them full of grace. The group’s claim to purity is therefore presented as antinomian rather than conventional: its members do not abandon their old behaviors but interpret them through a devotional framework.

Van Meter and Zoyd’s Proposed Alliance

When Zoyd explains that he has recruited men and needs equipment with which they can express themselves, preferably equipment capable of automatic fire, the possibility of approaching Ordine Harleyita arises. A supply of .22-caliber AK rifles is under discussion, and Van Meter says the group’s Walnut Creek headquarters presents no problem. His familiarity with the sisters makes him a potential intermediary, not proof that they have already agreed to take part.

Van Meter is uncertain whether recruiting them is wise. He warns Zoyd that the group might solve its own problem by killing him, an ominous possibility that makes the proposed alliance look less like dependable support than a dangerous gamble. Zoyd insists that he needs people to back the effort. Van Meter counters that the sisters are unconcerned by the prospect of armed insurrection against the government: they believe Jesus approves of everything they do, including revolt. Their religious convictions thus make them plausible participants in Zoyd’s plan, while their volatility leaves the practical consequences uncertain.

Celebrity and Withdrawal

The proposed support does not materialize. After Ordine Harleyita appears on Phil Donahue’s television program, offers arrive for endorsements of T-shirts, collectible dolls, lunchboxes, and other merchandise, as well as appearances in television series and miniseries. The group decides collectively that it has become too important and too famous to spend time on the comparatively small task of helping Zoyd recover his confiscated house. A possible alliance built around shared opposition to authority is displaced by the opportunities opened up by mass-media attention.

When Isaiah Due Quattro brings Zoyd the latest news, the deal for the rifles is already collapsing. Isaiah treats the sisters’ change of priorities as an example of television absorbing the politics of an older generation: people who once believed in their revolution and risked their lives for it, he argues, failed to understand the power of the Tube. In his account, the alternative America they had tried to build has been sold to its enemies at a low price. Zoyd still hopes to take his case to 60 Minutes or a similar program, making television both the force that has drawn Ordine Harleyita away from his cause and a medium he considers using himself.

Narrative Significance

Ordine Harleyita’s religious and political language initially makes the group appear available to a struggle against government power. Its later refusal shows the limits of that apparent solidarity: opposition to authority does not guarantee sustained commitment to another person’s cause. The shift from the group’s sacred graffiti and rebellious self-image to merchandise offers and screen appearances gives its change of course a concrete measure. In this episode, the same medium that turns the sisters into celebrities also helps make Zoyd’s urgent effort seem, to them, too small to matter.