Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead (24 page)

 

ON A NOVEMBER day in 1993, I called one of my boys in Springfield and learned that I had a daughter. A few hours later, the prison counselor fixed it so I could call Jessica at the hospital.

“She has your eyes,” Jessica said. “I wanted her to have your eyes.”

I wanted to know what every part of my baby looked like. “What’s her hair like? Tell me about her nose?”

“I’ve got to go,” Jessica replied. “I’m so tired.”

“I’m sorry. But I just gotta know what she looks like.”

“She looks like Riley.”

Riley. My baby girl was named Riley. But not Riley Meeink. Jessica had told me all along she was giving the baby her last name, but I’d spent nine months praying she’d change her mind. She didn’t. My baby wasn’t a Meeink. Then again, neither was I.

Jessica refused to bring Riley to see me. She didn’t want Riley to meet her father for the first time in prison. I understood; I didn’t want my kid to meet me for the first time in prison either. But my heart was breaking, and it came out as rage. I screamed into the telephone; I called my baby’s mother a “bitch” and a “whore.” It was the final straw. Jessica had put up with my temper and my jealousy since the day we’d met. She’d had her name dragged through the mud for dating Springfield’s “Nazi threat.” Her notorious boyfriend and her unplanned pregnancy had strained her relationships with family and friends. Now she was a seventeen year-old single mother trying to support a baby on her own because I was in prison. I was in prison nagging her, hounding her, distrusting her, demeaning her. I wasn’t worth it for her anymore. She told me to go fuck myself and slammed down the phone.

I was a basket case. Jessica refused to take my calls, and she was wise to my three-way trick. The Springfield skinheads were my only source of information about the woman I loved and the baby I hadn’t seen yet. They assured me Jessica and Riley were both okay, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the questions that were driving me insane. How does it feel to hold Riley? Is Jessica screwing somebody else?

Riley was nearly a month old when I received her birth announcement in the mail. The tiny picture of my tiny girl was the most precious possession I’d ever had. I slept clutching that picture to my chest every night. Jello and Little G asked to see it almost every day. They made a huge deal over me becoming a dad. All the Vice Lords on the football team congratulated me. All those guys asked me how the baby was doing every time they saw me. If they hadn’t made such a fuss over Riley, I’m not sure I would’ve noticed how little my fellow Aryans seemed to care. But I couldn’t ignore the contrast. Almost none of the white inmates even acknowledged the news that I’d become a father.

THE ILLINOIS PRISONS were ridiculously overcrowded in the 1990s. As a result, a lot of dudes were getting paroled early just to make room for the newly prosecuted. I knew going in that if I kept my ass out of serious trouble, I stood a good chance of getting out even before my three years were up; that knowledge was motivating. I broke a lot of rules in prison, but I never got busted for anything serious, except refusing the piss test.

One Thursday, I received a letter informing me that I was scheduled for release the following Monday. The guards came to my cell on Friday and exchanged my regular uniform for a set of reds, the special jumpsuit prisoners wear in the days before their release. If you’ve got a lot of enemies, reds say, “Last chance to take me out.” If you’ve got a lot of friends, reds say, “Last chance to say your goodbyes.” I was lucky; I had a lot of friends.

Early in the morning of Monday, March 6, 1994, the guards locked down our tier. Then they popped the lock on my cell. They handed me a box to gather my personal items. I didn’t have much, just Riley’s picture and a few letters, mostly from Jessica and Nanny and Pop. As the guards escorted me through the rows of cells for the last time, my friends called out their goodbyes.

“Go hug that baby.” My Vice Lord spade partner.

“Take care of yourself.” Little G.

“We love you, man.” Jello.

I was almost off the tier when a voice bellowed, “White is Right!”

Voices echoed down the row. “White is Right!”

“White is Right!”

The guards led me to an office and presented me with the clothes I’d been wearing on intake at Graham, the same clothes I’d been wearing when I got arrested in Springfield. I stripped off my reds and slid into my Levi’s. I carefully attached my red braces over a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Brutal Attack.” Then, for the first time in more than a year, I wound my red laces through my twenty-hole Doc Martens. My legs quivered to
the cadence of skinheads marching in formation through the streets of Center City, down the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore, across the quad of a fancy private college. The echo of the cell block rang in my ears: “White is Right! White is Right! White is Right!”

As I put one combat boot in front of the other, I said goodbye to the parallel universe that is prison. Prison isn’t like the real world. Everything’s different in prison. In prison, regardless of race, People are just people, and Folk are just folks. The door to that world slammed shut behind me.

I stood only two feet away from a second door,
the
door, the door back to the real world.

“Goodbye, Little G. Goodbye, Jello,” I whispered.

The buzzer sounded again.

“Goodbye, B25509.”

The door popped open.

“Frankie!” a skinhead screamed, running toward me with his arms wide open. He hugged me close and said, “I can’t believe you’re finally back.”

“I’m back,” I replied. “Trust me, I’m fucking back.”

THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS GAVE ME FIFTY BUCKS for bus fare, but since I had a ride, I blew half my wad on junk food at a convenience store not two miles from the prison. I think the dude working the counter thought I rode in on the short bus, because when he handed me my change, I just stood there staring at it. The prison economy runs on barter and bills; it’d been more than a year since I’d seen a coin. So I stood staring into my palm, marveling at the sight of loose change. On the ride home, my skinhead buddy filled me in on how the Springfield crew had fallen apart while I was gone. My driver was pretty much the only one of my guys who had stayed true to the cause in my absence. Some defected the day I got busted because they were scared they’d be next. Some held out until the jock and prep bullies at their high school realized I wasn’t going to be waiting out in the parking lot anymore; those chickenshits buried their Docs in the back of a closet and went back to hiding for cover under a tree. The rest, the majority, just lost interest.

“So what’re they doing instead?” I asked.

“Nigger shit,” my driver said with disgust. “They’re all into rap now and smoking weed.”

“Jello and Little G would fit right in,” I thought. So would I. But I didn’t say that to my lone loyal follower.

A few days earlier, I’d left Jessica a message saying I was getting out Tuesday, so I could show up Monday and surprise her. Instead, she surprised me. She wasn’t home. Neither was Riley.
Jessica’s stepdad told me I could come in and wait for her, but that he wasn’t sure when she’d be back. I wandered into her room and found a letter laying on her dresser. It was addressed to Clark, the guy she’d been dating before I first blew into Illinois. Toward the end, she wrote, “I hope we can stay as close as we’ve been even after Frankie gets back.” That was all the proof I needed. I went ballistic. I was ransacking through her drawers looking for more evidence that she’d cheated on me when her stepdad called me to the phone.

Jessica welcomed me home with the words, “What are you doing at my house?”

“Is Riley with you? When can I see her?”

“She’s spending the night with my sister. Don’t go over there. It’s too late. You can see her tomorrow.”

“Can I at least see you tonight?”

She hesitated a long time before saying, “I guess.” She told me where she was partying with the former skinheads.

“I’ll see you in a while, then,” I said. “By the way, I found your letter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your letter to Clark? Remember, the one where you hope youse two can stay so fucking close now that I’m back?”

She didn’t say anything.

“I knew you were screwing around on me!”

“You want to talk about screwing around? How fucking many girls did you screw behind my back? Can you even count that high?”

Barely. She’d heard the rumors from the beginning. She’d always known, but I’d always lied my way back into her heart. There was no sense lying this time.

Jessica’d already told me where the party was, and when I got there, she didn’t greet me with open arms. She barely spoke to me the whole night. Not that she had much of a chance. The guys were swarming around me, welcoming me home and asking me about prison. Pot smoke hung over the room like fog. A couple
guys who’d been pretty serious about the movement were now decked out like they were part of NWA. They apologized for the weed while they toked. I told them not to sweat it; I even admitted I’d smoked in prison. But I didn’t smoke pot that night. I just drank. Hooch had scarred my tastebuds; it took half a case before beer tasted normal to me again.

Everybody was polluted when the party broke up. I climbed into the same car as Jessica. So did six or seven other guys. We all piled out at her house. She went straight up to her room, and the rest of us crashed in her basement. About half an hour later I snuck upstairs.

“What do you want?” Jessica asked.

“Just to talk. But not yet.”

I sat silently in a corner of her room, watching her until her steady breathing steeled my nerves. When I was convinced she was asleep, I confessed all the shit I’d pulled behind her back. I told her how sorry I was for being such a jealous asshole. I admitted I was a shitty boyfriend and that she had every right to dump me and find somebody decent.

“But don’t cut me all the way out, Jessica,” I begged as she slept. “Let me be Riley’s dad.” I stroked her hair and gently kissed her forehead. As I rose to leave her room I prayed, “Please, God, let me be Riley’s dad.”

I met my daughter the next day. She was sleeping in a basinet. I picked her up softly without waking her. I never wanted to put her back down. She was still in my arms when her little eyes fluttered open. I gazed into my five-month old daughter’s eyes and saw my own staring back at me.

I asked Jessica, “Does she smile?”

“She smiles at Clark.”

God, that girl could hit below the belt. If it weren’t for Riley, she would’ve met me at the door with a shotgun. But whether Jessica liked it or not, I was Riley’s father, and I wanted to be her dad. I came to visit Riley every day. I held her. I played with her. I fed her. I even changed her diapers. Everything about Riley was
sacred to me, even her poop. I spent hours every day with Riley, but I almost never got to spend time alone with her, partly because Jessica didn’t trust me with her and partly because all the former skinheads spent almost all their time at Jessica’s. During the day, they hung around watching TV and taking turns holding the baby. Once Riley was settled in her crib for the night, they partied in Jessica’s basement.

I still loved the Springfield guys, even if they’d given up on being skinheads. I was grateful they’d been there for Jessica and Riley when I couldn’t be. I loved them
because
of that. But it just about killed me to watch Jessica and Riley with those other dudes. Every time Jessica laughed at one of their jokes, my heart broke a little. And every time one of them made Riley giggle, part of me died. The one thing every inmate fears most had happened to me: life had gone on without me. Jessica and Riley had found a family amid the rubble of my Nazi crew. As time had worn on, the skinheads hadn’t just drifted away from white supremacy, most had actually turned against it. Once I finally got back, those guys let me hang with them in spite of the fact I was still a skinhead, not because of it.

I left prison assuming I’d show up in Springfield and resume control of my crew, whip the boys back into shape, and take that gang as big-time as Strike Force in Philly. By my second night back in town, I gave up hope of trying to put the crew back together. I could turn nerds into Nazis, but I couldn’t turn serious druggies back into skinheads. So I split the difference. Every night, I wore my Docs and my flight jacket to the party, then I toked weed while I drank myself straight to hell.

Somewhere in the middle of each of my nightly binges, I ’d hit this point where everything felt okay, the point where I couldn’t feel anything. The problem was the before and the after. Before I hit that point, I felt like total shit because I was still sober enough to realize Jessica didn’t love me anymore and none of my crew really gave a shit about me anymore. Then I’d hit the sweet spot; for an hour or so, everything would be okay. If I
could’ve just stayed in that spot, everything might’ve been different. But nobody can stay there.

By midnight or so, I was belligerent, and I aimed my mouth at Jessica. By two or three in the morning, I was dangerous, and I aimed my fists at any dude within striking distance. By dawn, I was a basket case, and I aimed my sob story at Jeremy, the former skinhead whose mom generously agreed to let me live at their house. By the next afternoon, I never remembered what all I’d said to Jessica or Jeremy or who all I’d bounced around. I didn’t even remember the night I attacked Jeremy. Everything after the sweet spot always faded to black. There was never even a blur in my memory. Back in Philly, there’d always at least been a little trace the next day, if somebody reminded me. But by 1994, all traces were gone. Every morning was a morning after, and every morning after, I had no recollection of the night before. I’d jump into the shower and try to scrub off the stink of the booze and the haze of my hangover. Then I’d show up at Jessica’s to see my baby girl, acting like nothing had happened the night before, because I never remembered. Jessica did, though. And after two or three weeks of it, she’d had enough. First, she put time limits on my visits. Soon after, she made it clear that I wasn’t welcome at her basement parties anymore.