But things don’t always go smoothly for Otto. One day he was playing to a street crowd with a puppet on his arm when a drugged person came up to him and started talking roughly to the puppet.

“Otto was just unable to resist the opportunity. ‘Come on! Come on! You got a problem, tough guy? Come on!’

“‘Oh, yeah? How do you like this?’ The guy pulls a knife.

“Otto thinks he’s playing along. ‘Oh, yeah? What are you going to do with that? Oh, a pussy with a knife! You don’t have the balls to use it!’

A woman answered the door. “Oh hi. You came.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s my husband. He’s been drinking. He didn’t go to work this morning.”

I get her name, her age, the name of her husband. “Has he got any guns in the house?”

“No.”

“Knives of any sort? Swords?”

“No.”

“Where’s he at?”

She says, “Oh, take it easy on him. He obeys the law. It’s just when he’s drinking.”

“OK. Sounds good. You wait here.” Now I start walking down this long hallway. And as I’m walking down the hallway, my gun’s unsnapped, still in the holster. I see an alcove built into the wall. I remember looking into this room, then to the alcove. He’s standing there with a gun.

Mid-step it was, bonk! I said, “Oh, how you doing, man?” We are within a foot or two of each other. I remember looking at him and thinking, “Oh fuck!” Everything is slowed down. I remember looking at the gun barrel, thinking, I don’t know how he’s able to hold that with one hand. That’s a huge gun. The bullet is going to smash me. I felt every breath I took I could feel every molecule of air. I started to perspire. It felt like every drop was an ice cube.

I said, “Man, why don’t you put the gun down. You haven’t got problems now. Why don’t you just put the gun down?”

He said, “Fuck you! I’ll kill you and her.”

“Oh boy,” I says. “Buddy, you don’t want to do that. Put the gun down, and let’s end it right here. Because if you don’t, you’re going to die.”

He says, “I’ll kill you!”

Suddenly the gun went down in size and I remember calculating, “That’s a .22 or a .25. If he doesn’t get me in the head, it’s going to take some time for me to die. Well, I’ll be able to kill him because I carry a .38 special.” My gun was half way up, still in the holster.

I says, “I’ll tell you what buddy. You’ve got your chance. Put it down, because I’m going to count to four. When I reach four, you may as well goddam shoot, because I drawing and I’m killing you. I’m not going to die right way. OK? One… .”

And he put the gun down. I was going to draw on two.

He goes, “Aw fuck!” All I remember is his arm reaching all the way to the floor. He must have bent over, but I didn’t notice.

“OK,” I says, “let’s grab the wall.” I put the gun in the waste can, handcuffed him.