This day in 1986, Johnny Paycheck was found guilty of shooting and wounding a man after an argument in an Ohio bar.

Paycheck walked into the North High Lounge in Hillsboro, Ohio. The bar was less than 20 miles from his hometown of Greenfield, and the country singer was planning on heading back home to his childhood stomping grounds to visit his mother for the holidays. Before completing the drive, though, he wanted to grab a drink.

Also in the bar that night was Larry Wise, a Greenfield native and country music fan who recognized Paycheck. Although the exact details of their conversation remain unknown, Wise began talking to the singer, who asked to be left alone. The dialogue escalated, with Wise — either as some sort of peacemaking gesture, or a clever dig at Paycheck’s small-town roots — offering to take Paycheck back home and feed him a home-cooked meal of deer meat and turtle soup. That’s when Paycheck — who, coincidentally enough, scored one of his earliest hits with a song called “Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill” — reached around his hip in search of his .22-caliber pistol.

”I never seen the gun, and I never heard the shot,” Wise testified during a hearing that occurred eight days later, claiming he began backing away as soon as Paycheck roared, ‘Do you see me as some kind of country hick?’ Although Wise ultimately ran from the bar, he wasn’t fast enough to avoid a bullet from Paycheck’s gun, which grazed his scalp and left him bleeding above the right eye. ”He blowed my hat off,” Wise told the court room. “I guess he took it as a personal insult.”

Paycheck was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison, but was released in 1991.