By John Chandler

I didn't get to see the actual carnage being wrought; I arrived late and by then, the cops had pretty much chased everyone away and the bikers had roared off into the night.

But the message was crystal clear, burned into the legend books with blowtorch emphasis: Don't fuck with Zipper.

Zipper is a difficult guy to describe with normal, human adjectives. What's needed are super-sized descriptive words that mean "times 10." He's always the same fun-loving (times 10) fellow whether drunk (times 10), stoned (times 10) or sober. He isn't malicious, but he loves to stir shit up. If you look into his icy blue eyes you'll see bottomless pools of mischief and an unlimited capacity for creating havoc. He's like an American Indian deity summoned with beer and a midnight campfire ceremony: Zipper the bringer of chaos and deviltry.

Fucked-up situations are his temple and he strides through the madness he creates with a delighted, crooked smile pasted to his mug. And nothing ever happens to him. Consequences bounce right off. Karma is never a problem. Zipper could dance through a minefield and find a pirate's doubloon on the ground.

One Halloween, two of Zipper's buddies, Pete and Tony, decided to throw a party at their house. Unfortunately, Pete's girlfriend, Angela, and Tony's girlfriend, Gretchen, wanted to have "an elegant cocktail party." Pete and Tony groaned and bitched, but ultimately went along with the idea.

"And no Zipper!" Gretchen announced, unknowingly sowing the seeds of her own destruction.

It fell to Tony to inform Zipper that he would not be invited to this fancy function (I think the girls were on some kind of Martha Stewart trip). Oddly enough, Zipper didn't appear offended at all. In fact, he wished Tony and Pete a happy Halloween and hoped that their tasteful little soiree would be the toast of the season. Zipper was hatching a horrific plan.

On the day of the party, Pete and Tony scrubbed and polished the house under the iron-fisted direction of Gretchen. Angela whipped up several tempting trays of cheese balls, crab puffs and shrimp dainties. There would be no beer; fine wine only. Pete and Tony wondered what they had done to deserve such a fate. They didn't know the half of it.

As luck would have it, some bastardized touring version of the band Steppenwolf was playing that night at Gussie's, the local shit-pit booze-a-torium. Steppenwolf is of course best known for its biker anthem, "Born to be Wild" from the movie "Easy Rider."

Since this was a small coastal town in Oregon, the crowd would undoubtedly be full of Free Souls, a regional motorcycle club, and possibly some Gypsy Jokers as well.

Sure enough, Gussie's was crammed with drunken, hairy, bikers, seeking frolic and cheap thrills. Zipper was there, too. After Steppenwolf played its first set, which included a rousing version of "Born to be Wild," Zipper jumped onstage and grabbed a microphone, announcing that his buddies "and a bunch of hot ladies" were having a kick-ass kegger and everyone was invited. And then he gave the address of Pete and Tony's house.

Dozens of dudes ran to the parking lot and fired up their hogs. After all, at Gussie's you had to pay for drinks. Free beer was like the Holy Grail.

Over at Pete and Tony's, the wine was flowing and everyone was dressed in semi-elegant threads. The crab puffs were a smash and the place looked simply divine. In the distance, Tony heard a rumbling, like thunder rolling in.

"What's that?" Angela asked, gazing out a window. What she saw froze conversation in the room. The Harry Connick Jr. album scratched to a halt.

Outside there were bikers. Lots of them. The partygoers turned white and their spines were reduced to jelly. It must have been similar to what the British contingent felt when a handful of hardy soldiers faced 4,000 charging Zulus at Rorke's Drift.

Things went to hell quickly. The girls wisely fled. Pete and Tony tried to maintain a semblance of order (it was their house) but the task proved impossible. Every bottle of wine was chugged in about five minutes. When no beer was found, several bikers began inexplicably ripping up the carpet and setting fire to it. The couch was thrown out of a (closed) window.

A few bikers spun cookies on the lawn. Another punched out a neighbor who dared to complain about the racket. The toilet was uprooted and relocated in the kitchen.

Finally the cops showed up and brought down the curtain on the riotous tableau. The luckless Pete and Tony were cited for throwing a loud, out-of-control party. $125.While a cop wrote out the hefty ticket, Pete felt something bounce off his head. He looked up. On the roof was Zipper, wearing a propeller beanie. He had a tray of crab puffs and was throwing hors d'oeuvres at cops, bikers and party guests. He had a lunatic (times 10) grin on his face.