When I was about 19, I rode with a biker gang called the Wheeling Wolves. The only reason that I qualified to ride with them is that my girlfriend’s older brother was a member.

So, one night, in Northern Wisconsin, we are prowling the countryside looking for someone to hassle or a tavern that hasn’t previously thrown us out. We find the latter.

A few hours later, after a lot of pool and way too many beers, we head out to the bikes. The parking lot is lit by orange tinted sodium vapor lights. Bill and I hop on our bikes and kick them into life. The biker Alex to my right is kicking and kicking and swearing. All of a sudden, he jumps off the bike shouting “that isn’t even my bike.” And he starts to kick the tank in and the other sheet metal.

I know the problem here… I pull my bike ahead and turn around so that my headlight is hitting him and his bike full on. The bike is red in white, orange in the sodium vapor lights. I couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders noticeably dropped. He turned around without a word and went back into the tavern. I never did see him again.

About 2 hours later we’re heading South towards home. We all stop at a rest area. Everyone parks and shuts off their bikes. Bathroom and flask and joint breaks accomplished including a few cans of beer that I still don’t know where they came from, we all mount up. I hear about half the bikes fire up right off. Some take a couple kicks. Two to my right is a guy kicking like heck and cursing. Someone yells at him to check the reserve fuel. He does.

Now here is where it gets comical; after checking the fuel petcock, he decides to check to see if there is any fuel in the tank. Well, the rest area isn’t well lit, so he can’t see into the tank neck. So… out comes the Bic lighter. The next thing we saw was a fireball consuming his head.  His beard, long hair, everything was aflame. Someone took a jacket off and put him out, but I could see he was badly burned.

So what does the guy do? He has a bike that won’t start and a face full of at least 2^nd burns. What does the club do? The ideal thing to so is have him ride on back of someone’s bike to a hospital. But no one would offer to do that. No one wanted to get involved with taking him to a hospital. I looked at a gaggle of bikers and realized I had no respect for any of them. I turned to man and said “Get on, next stop Glenbrook ER” and that’s where I took him.

He never rode with the club again..

That was the last time I rode with them, though I kept in contact with Nick.