William "Wild Bill" Krider

Yesterday, at around seven in the morning my Uncle Bill passed away. Mom tells me his last words to her were 'Hold my hand'. He died in his home, as per his wishes, in his bed and in the arms of his mother. They played his favorite band, the Grateful Dead in the background, and i'm told that he was in no pain when he passed.

When I was seven years old, back when my folks and I lived in Brooklyn, (this was over at 1708 E 4th St., roughly six stops away from Coney Island on the F train). I was a latch key kid. Both my folks had to work. Mom worked days and Dad worked nights. There was an empty shift, a few hours between when Mom would get home and after Dad left. Being in that empty apartment used to scare the hell out of me. The rooms seemed to be filled with ghosts that lurked in the corner of my eye, and I was convinced of a conspiracy of monsters that lurked in the closed doors of closets and the underneath of beds. When this got to be too much for me I would call my Uncle Will up at his job at the garage and ask him to come over. Not once, no matter what he was doing or how early he had to leave and probably make up the time for later, not once did he not show up. I would get a knock on the door and he would say "It's me kid!" in that distinct voice of his, he always seemed to have a perpetual chuckle in his throat. He would sit there with me in my room as I bombarded him with comic books and micronauts. Sometimes he would help me with my math, he was really good with multiplication. I always felt safe around Will. As a kid, sitting off on the sidelines of the serious conferences grown ups were always in, he stood out visibly among the other adults. He raced motorcycles and had won awards for first & second place, he one of the first people I knew with inks,(he had a tattoo of the grim reaper on his forearm), he dressed in jeans and boots and a leather vest, projecting this bad ass persona that was in contrast to the gentle man who sat in my room bored out of his skull and smiling patiently as I tried to enlist him in one of my action figure wars. Though he exuded that special confidence of a man who's seen some serious shit go down and was in fact always ready to see more, he was also a man willing to play baby sitter at a moments notice.

Will was my Godfather, and this fact lent me an odd courage growing up, I had only to think of him when the occasional flare up occured on the playground, and I would remember to stand my ground, more afraid of what he would think of me if I did not, than the inevitable ass beating I would receive. Later, as my family and I moved from the Apple to the Orange, Will was always there to help us out. He was an excellent mechanic, and to my understanding had used his considerable knowledge to custome build his own Harley, which he took on a road trip across America. He had worked on many a ride for such outfits as the "States" and "Pagans" and even hung with NY chapter of Angels at one junction in his life. Whenever the family had an automotive problem Will could be found the next day under the hood, like a surgeon, dissecting and removing problem parts with a detached patience. Usually within an hour or two he had it fixed or patched up long enough to cover us 'til payday when it could be bought to the shop. Will was just like that. You asked, he came. He never made you feel bad about it, he never showed a sign of annoyance or of being put upon. We were family. He could help. And that was that.

When I moved up here later after my discharge from the service, along with my best friend from the ship to start a new life of art & adventure, one that led inevitably to a road of obvious failures and pleasant surprises. I lost touch with most of my family, soon only seeing them twice a year on my birthday and Christmas. Being away that long lets you see how fast your family is aging, the bursts of weight and gray hairs that weren't there the year before, the subtle inches of my baby cousins into children and now preteen & precollege. Yet Will always seemed like the same Will to me. The jeans, the inks, the boots and the leather. He never changed, he got older but remained the man I called on those lonely afternoons waiting for my Mom to come home. He still had that smirk holding up his humor, he still had a knife on his belt and a chain connected to his wallet, he never lost the loud bark of his laugh, he still took me aside to tell me of some adventure or to listen to one of my own. Will was at times the loudest man I had ever known and yet also one of the quietest at times. Often I mistook the earnestness of his nature as a sign of unsophistication. This was my mistake. He struggled, like all men must, with his own demons and inequities. Sometimes he staggered, sometimes he fell, what counts was that he never stayed down, he kept getting back up on his two feet, ready for another round at it. He never lost that strength that kept him going, that core aspect of him that insisted on doing right by his own and not taking shit from those that weren't. He never stopped smiling. Even on his death bed, Mom tells me she could make him laugh, long after he lost the ability to talk.

I saw him last Sunday. Less than a week before his passing. He sat on his recliner watching the race, the family was all around, we drank and ate and laughed. It was a beautiful day, one of those fantastic Spring days you get in South Florida where the blues and greens seem to have a special crispness to them, like the sky and the trees are pallettes waiting for the brush of the eye to paint with, and I sat there in the living room of his trailer, cracking dumb jokes to keep that smile going as long as I could, knowing full well that it was all I could do and not nearly enougth by a long shot, and when we left I leaned in and hugged him goodbye. He was supposed to have two more months, maybe three, so I made plans to come down later and see him one more time. Sadly his condition deterioated a lot faster than expected and the cancer spread from his liver to the rest of his system a lot sooner than expected.

I have only one photo of him. It was one he sent me on my first tour during the first Gulf War. It was taken from the Daytona bike rally, and in it he's sitting on that custome made ride of his, wearing black sunglasses and holding a can of Bud. The photos been water damaged so theres color flecks all over it but I can still read the words on his t-shirt.
"If they don't allow Harleys in heaven/ I'll ride it straight to hell".
Something tells me that won't be a problem.