Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead (19 page)

The kid didn’t get a chance to call the cops; his downstairs neighbors beat him to it. When water started pouring through their ceiling and they couldn’t get an answer at his door, they dialed 911. Of course, we were long gone by then. We gathered the whole crew together for a party on Christmas night and promised we’d have some surprise entertainment. Once everybody settled in with a beer, I walked over to the television. The camcorder was connected to the set.

“This,” I said dramatically, “is what happens to people who
stab me in the back.” Then I pushed play. A few of those dudes nearly puked just watching it.

I didn’t think too much about the closet SHARP or the videotape after that. I just went about my business, trolling the mall for more recruits, preparing future episodes of
The Reich
, and trying to keep the peace with Jessica. The tattoo itch hit me again in early January, but I didn’t have enough cash for what I wanted, even at Illinois’ cheap rates. So I asked my tattoo guy if he took trades, and he asked me what I had to offer.

“I’ve got a camcorder I’m done with,” I said.

He scrolled “
Sieg Heil
” on the back of my head in exchange for the camcorder. It never once dawned on me to pop that thing open and make sure there was no tape in it. When I showed up at the television studio about a week later to record another episode of
The Reich
, the program director met me in the waiting room. She looked more nervous than before, which seemed weird to me. She’d actually been pretty cool once she’d decided I wasn’t going to murder her. I figured she was probably just having a bad day, and I thought I knew why. There were quite a few people crowded onto the couches in the cramped waiting room. I had a hunch they were there to give her hell about letting me tape
The Reich
. I shot her a look to let her know if any of those other guys gave her any crap while I was there, they’d live to regret it.

That’s when I saw her eyes dart over my shoulder. It was already too late.

“Francis Meeink, you are under arrest for…”

The detective who’d snuck up behind me slapped cuffs on me and rattled off a string of charges that started with assault with a deadly weapon. I didn’t bother to resist, not much anyhow, once the people on the couches jumped to their feet. They weren’t there to give the program director trouble. They were all there for me; they were all undercover cops.

THE JUDGE SET MY BAIL AT $750,000. ONLY ABOUT $749,999 more than I had to my name. Getting sprung early wasn’t an option. Getting sprung ever wasn’t looking like much of an option, either. The State’s Attorney’s Office had the videotape I’d left in the camcorder. They also had the statement the closet SHARP had finally given to the police more than two weeks after the attack. They even had statements from Jake and the skinhead cameraman, who’d both run their mouths like hoses. When I found that out, I started talking, too. All’s fair in love, war, and a holding cell.

Of course, the authorities had way more on me than they did on anybody else. Thanks to my own bigass mouth, they had all the statements I’d given to local media and all the sermons I’d preached on
The Reich
. Because I was in that limbo-land called “age seventeen,” they had access to my juvie records from Philly. And they had the eyewitness accounts of my recent escape from Crazy Cate’s. I didn’t find out until later, but they even had surveillance logs: the cops had been watching me since the first week I’d moved to town, including on the night I took delivery on that shipment of illegal guns.

Me? I had another public defender.

A lot of dudes get religion in lock up. Most of them have PDs. I was no exception. That I’m not still in prison to this day is proof that miracles happen. By my count, I could’ve been facing close to a dozen felony charges. I might’ve even been looking at federal charges on that gun deal, since the guns weren’t just hot,
they were imported across state lines. But the prosecutor decided to focus all his time and energy on what I’d done on tape to the secret Sharpie. I was facing actual charges on only two counts: aggravated unlawful restraint, which is kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. And on those two counts, I was toast. Under the circumstances, my PD advised me to take any deal the prosecution offered. “If a jury sees that video…” he said, shaking his head in despair. Not even Johnny Cochran could’ve gotten me off with that footage replaying in a jury’s mind.

I was still in booking when I promised my lawyer I’d keep an open mind. I was also still in denial about how much shit I was really in. In my mind, it was going to be Sleighton Farms revisited. But I wasn’t a “juvie” anymore. I was seventeen, and I’d used a firearm in the commission of a violent felony. By Illinois law, that meant I was an adult; I would be tried as an adult, and I would serve time as an adult, even while awaiting trial.

Reality started hitting me when the guards escorted me to my cell in Springfield’s Sangamon County Jail. Compared to Philly, Springfield is a village. But it’s the county seat, the state capitol, and also home to part of the federal court system, so its local jail is surprisingly large and un-fucking-believably hardcore. It was the back wing, three or four stories high, of the same massive red-block building that housed several courts. I guess that made it easy to transport people to hearings: us inmates didn’t even need to go outside to get in front of a judge. And we never got to go outside for anything else, either. The day the cops handed me over to the guards at the Sangamon County Jail was the last day I breathed in fresh air for nearly three months.

As the guards ushered me along the cellblock corridors, I caught glimpses of my fellow inmates peeking out at me. They were men, not boys. Some were big time gangbangers from East St. Louis and Chicago awaiting trial on federal drug charges. Some were parole violators waiting to be shipped back to the prisons where they’d spent the last decade or two of their lives. Some were rapists. Some were murderers. But only one
dude in the whole joint was a seventeen year-old Nazi kidnapper with his own TV show who’d recently escaped from a mental institution after a suicide attempt.

I’m pretty sure my adventures in Terre Haute are what landed me in the maximum security segregation cell block of the Sangamon County Jail. My private quarters featured only a blue rubber mattress atop a concrete slab and a stainless steel toilet-sink combo. Through the slot in the metal door that the guards used to deliver my meals, I could glimpse the rows of cells housing other high-risk inmates. Through a small, lonely window, I could look down several stories onto the back entrance to the building. I wouldn’t have been able to fit through that window, and I wouldn’t have been able to survive that jump.

The guards watched me 24-7 via closed circuit camera, for my own safety. They could’ve quit watching. Unless I’d figured out how to drown myself in the pint-sized toilet, suicide wasn’t an option. And unless the guards had tried to off me, I was as safe as could be because I was on constant lockdown. For more than a month, the authorities secluded me completely from the other inmates.

Except for court appearances and meetings with my lawyer, I was allowed to leave my cell for only two reasons: showers and visitors. I got shower privileges two or three times a week, visitation rights only once a week; neither lasted more than a few minutes, and both required that I be accompanied by guards. Jessica and a couple of the skinheads came to see me every week. One week, between visits, she sent me a letter. It said she was pregnant.

Thinking about what kind of father I’d make occupied my mind during the 166 or so hours of each week I spent alone in my high-security cell. I wanted to be the kind of father my grandfather was. I wanted my kid to feel the kind of love Pop radiated. I hoped my kid would respect me like my uncles respected Pop. They didn’t stay out of trouble and make smart choices because they feared Pop, but because they feared disappointing him.
Pop was Ward Cleaver, the perfect dad. But I’d only had one weekend a month in the best years to observe how Pop pulled that off. Most of what I knew about being a father I caught from my dad and my stepfather, two alcoholic-addicts, one who seemed to forget I was alive and one who seemed to want to kill me. With those two for my role models, what chance did I stand of turning out like Pop? What chance would my kid stand of surviving me?

My cell didn’t look like my tiny bedroom on Tree Street, but it felt like it. Late at night, I’d startle awake from nightmares of my years as John’s prisoner of war. In my daze, I’d look across the room, expecting my cousin Nick to be there. Of course, he wasn’t. This time, Nick wasn’t lying across from me, whispering assurances so I wouldn’t lose my mind. This time, no one was there.

My only company was a worn copy of the Bible. At least it wasn’t John’s damn dictionary. I opened that Bible the first time simply to dull the boredom. I filled the endless hours searching for verses that said what I wanted to hear. I was a footsoldier in God’s army; that’s why I had to beat down that sneaking closet-Sharpie ZOG dupe. I was a martyr for the white race; that’s why I was rotting in a ZOG jail.

I’d been locked up a few weeks before my public defender delivered the prosecution’s opening offer: fifteen years.

“I’m only seventeen!”

“They have the videotape,” he replied. “They watched you torture that kid.”

Against my lawyer’s advice, I opted for a jury trial. He told me that was suicidal and promised he’d keep trying to work a better deal with the State’s Attorney. Prison overcrowding was a serious problem in Illinois then. That and my age were the only arguments my PD had to work with.

I hadn’t spoken to my mom since before I’d left Philadelphia, but she knew I was in jail. Jessica had called her for me, which made me love that girl even more. What a fucking call to have to make: “Hello, ma’am, my name is Jessica. I’m dating your son.
I thought I’d call to introduce myself and fill you in on what Frankie’s been doing in the six months or so since you saw him. Basically, he fled his outstanding warrants by moving to Indiana where he stayed in a safehouse operated by a hate group, then he tried to kill himself, escaped from a mental institution, formed a new gang, starred in a television show called
The Reich
, beat the shit out of God-knows how many people, then kidnapped and almost killed one. Now he’s in jail and it’s not looking so good for him. I’ve got the telephone number and mailing address of the jail for you, in case you might want to get in touch with him. By the way, I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a grandma before you turn thirty-five, isn’t that great? So, anyhow, enough about all that. How are you today?” Even my mom didn’t deserve to get a call like that from a stranger.

Under the circumstances, I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t mail me a care package. But as the weeks wore on, I was surprised she didn’t even write me a letter. Just a few hours after my lawyer delivered the prosecution’s plea offer, I asked the guards for permission to use the telephone.

My mom responded better than I thought she would. When the operator said, “You have a collect call from Frankie. Will you accept the charges?” my mom didn’t slam down the phone, which I’d kind of expected. Instead, she said something like, “I was wondering when you were going to have the balls to call me yourself.”

I tried to sound as normal as possible: I asked how everybody back home was doing. My mom said, “Fine,” then asked what exactly I’d done to land my ass in jail this time. I told her. She asked me if I was bullshitting her. I assured her I wasn’t.

“Mommy, the lawyer says I’m going to prison. Pretty much for sure.” My voice broke a little. “Maybe for fifteen years.”

“Oh my God, Frankie. What have you done?”

Neither of us said anything for a long time, then I asked, “Does Daddy know?”

“I told your grandparents. I’m sure they told him.”

“Does he know how to reach me?”

“You know he does.” The soft, sad tone of her voice frightened me, as it had ten years earlier, the night she’d held me and asked if I missed him.

I’d felt alone most of my life. But in my cell that night, I felt a kind of loneliness I’d only ever felt once before. And this time, there was no rusty knife stuck in a filthy cabinet to keep me company. There was only a blue rubber mattress, a metal toilet, and a Bible. I couldn’t tie the mattress around my neck, and I couldn’t fit my head into the toilet, so I got down on my knees, folded my hands, and bowed my head.

“God, please fucking help me!” I began. I’m sure it wasn’t the most eloquent prayer the Almighty ever heard, but it was sincere. Prayer was nothing new for me. I’d been praying ever since the nuns at Our Lady of Mount Carmel had taught me how. As a kid, I’d prayed for new hockey skates that actually fit. I’d prayed to win free season passes to Flyers games. I’d prayed for my dad to visit me. I’d prayed for John not to kill me. I’d prayed for someone to kill John. I’d prayed a lot as a kid. And I’d kept praying as I got older; I just prayed differently. The Lancaster County skinheads, and later, the Klan, had taught me how to pray like an Aryan. I’d prayed for God to reveal the “truth” of white supremacy to the world. I’d prayed for God to reveal his will to me and all the other white warriors battling ZOG out in the streets.

Alone in my cell, hundreds of miles away from Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Invisible Empire, I prayed like never before. I didn’t remind God I had just been trying to do his will. I didn’t make any promises I knew I wouldn’t keep if he’d just cut me a break. I didn’t even ask for forgiveness. All I did was open my heart.

 

I MADEMY debut in the general population common room accompanied by two guards. My hair had grown out a little during my stint in solitary, so “Made in Philly” and “
Sieg Heil
” were hard to read, but the big swastika on my neck was clear to the
dozen or so black and Latino inmates gathered around the television.