Eons ago some friends of mine had to deal with a second-rate motorcyle-gang psychopath who went by the name of Wild Bill. It happened in a small apartment that three of us — Chance, Mike and myself — were staying in next to a performance bar called Fat City in Wilmington, Vermont. I was luckily passed out in the bedroom from an overdose of Jack Daniels, but Chance’s descriptions have never left me.

It began with a loud knock on the door and Chance saying “who is it?” and a voice saying “look though the peephole.” (One of those dime-sized holes with a tiny metal latch.) Chance started to put his eye to the door when a switchblade knife blade suddenly jabbed through a couple of times. Chance got angry and opened the door and there was Wild Bill, wearing a chrome-plated Nazi helmet. He muscled his way in and wouldn’t leave.

He was fried and stupid and clearly dangerous, Chance said. Not what you’d call a top-of-the-line biker but a loser type. Bill had a pair of pliers hanging from his belt, and Chance asked him what they were for. “I’m an amateur dentist,” he said.

You could feel the booze and boiling rage, Chance said. Telling Bill to leave or (ha!) trying to force him out would’ve surely resulted in aggravated assault or worse. Chance and Mike decided to humor him.

Wild Bill got his switchblade knife out soon enough, and my two friends and he began to throw it at the living room door. Except Bill began to get angrier and angrier that his knife-throws weren’t sticking, and then really angry. Chance was better at knife-throwing than Bill was, but he naturally began to deliberately miss.

Then a new game started with Bill putting a wad of cocaine into a rolled-up dollar bill, telling Chance and Mike to sit down and lean back and then he’d blow it into their nostrils, like a dart gun.

It went on like this until at least 4 am. Thank fortune I was out like a light. Grace of God. (Originally posted on 3.2.08.)