Romantic Violence

by Christian Picciolini

  Before I opened my shop, I would have given them hell. Told them they had no right to trespass on my property and kicked them out for being traitors to their race. I’d have thrown my constitutional rights to serve who I pleased into their faces.

  But I chose not to do business that way. I bit my tongue and treated everyone who walked into my store with respect and fairness. My kids’ livelihood depended on it.

  And because it did, I unwittingly became more tolerant of those people whose views didn’t line up with mine. Until the day Sammy, the black anti-racist skinhead, entered my shop.

  I kept a loaded 9mm handgun behind the counter. Just in case. When Black Sammy and three of his fresh-cut minions walked in, it didn’t take long for the pistol to find its place tucked within reach behind my belt.

  I’d been paging through catalogs of upcoming new releases, jotting down titles I wanted to stock the following month, when Sammy strolled in with his crew. My blood froze when I casually glanced up and saw him standing there in the doorway, his black bomber jacket hanging off his skinny frame, dark eyes brooding, his henchmen unflinching behind him. It was a standoff for about fifteen seconds. Short, wiry build, the whites of Sammy’s eyes were faded and lifeless. Our stares held each other, suspicious and ready.

  “You got any Skrewdriver in this joint?” Sammy quipped as he made his way through the front door of the record store. “How about some White American Youth or Final Solution?”

  Sammy was a well-known old school skin who had co-founded the anti-racist group SHOC—Skinheads of Chicago—with Dwight, another black skinhead who’d grown up in Chicago’s rough ghetto housing projects. They found each other as lonely, young punk rockers going to shows on the North Side of the city, dark-skinned anomalies among an ocean of white suburbanites in studded leather and tinted mohawks. After CASH members began passing out Romantic Violence flyers in front of punk shows at clubs like Cabaret Metro and Medusa’s in 1985, the two decided they would counter Clark and his crew by forming a rival anti-racist skinhead gang—pre-dating the Chicago SHARPs by half a decade.

  “I think you’re in the wrong place, Sammy,” I replied, staring him down as I stepped from behind the counter. I was alone in the store. My hand was hovering behind my back, near my piece.

  “Come on, Picciolini, I know you guys keep that shit behind the counter.” He sounded serious, despite the curious ink on his forehead. Sammy was an enigma. He was a virulent, black anti-racist skinhead who was deranged enough to have a giant swastika tattooed on his forehead. A reviled Nazi symbol on the forehead of a black anti-racist skinhead? That’s right. It never made sense to any of us white power skins, but we chalked it up to his frequent alcoholic blackouts and a touch of insanity. Even his own cohorts thought he was nuts. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Sammy, you and your crew are welcome here,” the words came out of my mouth before I realized I’d said them. “But I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Good, now give me all your motherfucking Skrewdriver.” He approached as my hand nervously adjusted my waistband.

  “Alright, I’ll bite,” I said, snapping into action. “Which album do you want?” I moved my way back over to the counter, creating a barrier between me and the four goons who were now littered about the shop.

  “All of them. I want everything you’ve got.” Fuck. Here we go, I thought. Don’t make me shoot you, Sammy. Not in my store. Not today.

  As I knelt behind the counter to grab the box of CDs, I carefully slid the already racked pistol from my belt and held it at the ready behind my back. Scenarios flashed through my head of how I would have to put two bullets in Sammy first and still have time to track the other three Antis and put the remaining 9mm hollow-point rounds in them. Surely it would be justified self-defense in response to a robbery.

  “How much are they?”

  My itchy finger located the trigger as I slowly rose up with the gun hidden beneath the box of CDs.

  “Do you take credit cards?” Sammy asked.

  “What?” I wasn’t sure if I’d registered what he said.

  “Do you take credit cards? I ain’t speaking Swahili, motherfucker.” His guys laughed.

  I carefully returned the readied gun behind my back to my waistband. “Yeah. MasterCard and Visa. No American Express.” I turned to scan the barcodes into the computer. Hesitantly, I turned to him. “Sammy, why the fuck are you buying Skrewdriver?”

  “Why the fuck do you sell it?” He paused. “That shit is dope, nigga!”

  I didn’t bother to ask about the Nazi tattoo below his receding afro as we spent the next thirty minutes discussing other “dope” skinhead bands and reminiscing about the early days of Chicago skins and my time in WAY and Final Solution. I laughed when he told me that he hated Bound For Glory because their music was “too goddamn metal,” but WAY was “aight for some white boy music.” I jokingly told him I’d pass along the feedback to Big Ed.

  Before they left, Sammy and his pals spent over three hundred dollars buying music and T-shirts that afternoon. By far the biggest receipt for a single customer since I first opened the store. Before I knew it, we were shaking hands, and a bizarre smile was forming on my face. What could I say? My beliefs were crumbling right before my eyes. This guy wasn’t less than me: In the head, he may have been a few beers short of a six-pack, but he was just another lost soul, trying to find his way in a tough, mixed-up world. That thought stuck with me.

  Once they were gone, I unloaded my gun and locked it in the safe in the back room. I’d come too close to murder again that day and I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

  Over time, dozens of Antis came in to buy the more apolitical Oi! and ska music they would otherwise have to trek twenty miles deep into the city to get. They may have been my sworn enemies for nearly the last seven years, but I offered better prices and a vast selection to choose from. I carried titles that record shops in the city wouldn’t stock. Even some of the anti-racist skinhead bands. That seemed to occasionally trump their negative feelings about me.

  Regardless, I couldn’t put a gun in their face or chase them out of my store or not sell to them if I wanted my business to succeed and provide for my family. So I chatted with them. Made small talk. Remembered names. Answered their questions and learned about their personal lives by exchanging conversation. I was surprised to discover they were decent. Even more so, they were people. Period. Politics aside, we had many things in common and I began to humanize them. No longer were they just a target for my group to eliminate, they were human beings. Most of us weren’t violent by nature. Many came from hardworking families. We all had our problems with each other and our fair share of street fights, but none of us were actual sociopaths. On second thought, Sammy might be a sociopath—and Clark definitely was—but most of us weren’t. Regardless, we got to know each other over time. Bonded over music. Became friendly even.

  Meanwhile, my white power customers dwindled. I started hearing less and less from Kubiak and the crew. I chalked it up to the fact that they were usually broke, or that none of them were married or had kids to support and they probably thought hanging around at a boring record store all day wasn’t as exciting as being out on the street raining mayhem. I didn’t think too much of it at the time. I was engrossed with keeping the business running smoothly and by the friendly new connections I was enjoying. If I had to be completely honest, though, my crew rarely entered my mind anymore. Business was decent and keeping me more than busy. And what little time I did have those first few months, I spent with my family. The guys seemed to be operating smoothly without me—at least that was the impression—so I put it out of my mind.

  Surprisingly, my customer base was quite diverse. I began to meet gay and Jewish customers and increasingly found myself being genuinely civil to them, as well as other minorities. Our conversations were brief. Guarded at first, but slowly we got to know each other through our shared interest in music. And they kept comi
ng back. Through music, we found some commonality, and I found myself thinking clearly, “These are good people. I don’t want to hurt them.” We talked about bands, laughed, swapped stories about concerts we’d been to. Related to each other in ways I hadn’t thought possible.

  The first female Jewish customer I met was a twenty-something punk rock girl who’d introduced herself as “Godiva.” She was a stunning brunette with a great body and ample breasts. I know this because when she came to the cash register to pay for her Sex Pistols T-shirt, she took her top off right there in front of me to try it on, not only revealing her bare breasts, but also a huge Star of David tattooed around her left nipple. I’m pretty sure I forgot to charge her for the shirt, further distracted after she leaned over the counter and kissed me on the cheek, saying “Thanks!” before leaving. All I could do was smile.

  I met punk rock customers of every color. Metal heads from Latin America. A rockabilly band from Algeria. A gay Christian couple shopping for underground death metal lounge music. I didn’t have it, but I ordered it for them. And I met my first gay, half-Asian, half-Puerto Rican atheist Jew. Life became interesting in a way I never would have guessed it could.

  The unexpected camaraderie I began to share with customers at the store jolted me back to the summer my family moved to Blue Island, between my eighth grade and freshman year in high school. A time only recently passed, yet it felt a lifetime away.

  In my nostalgic reverie, I recalled being the insecure thirteen-year-old boy who loved playing sports with his High Street mates, being part of a team, belonging, having fun.

  I missed that. And it felt good to get a little glimpse of that innocence back. To have friends who didn’t care what your “beliefs” were. I suddenly became aware that the bitterness that had surrounded me had begun to atrophy. Empathy had trickled in, filling the resulting void.

  In August of 1994, shortly before our second child was due, I decided to attend a concert that was being held in memory of Ian Stuart in Racine, Wisconsin. Resistance Records, an upstart American white power label whose music I’d sold through the store, was hosting the highly-anticipated event.

  Lisa was far from happy I’d decided to go, but she knew I’d kept my promise to step back from movement activities to spend more time with the family. She recognized this concert was a one-time thing and especially significant to me. Stuart had been one of my musical idols, someone I’d corresponded with and emulated over the years. What worried her was that the concert would be well attended. And where groups of skinheads gathered, trouble was certain to follow.

  I minimized the likelihood of that, reassuring Lisa I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our mending relationship and that I’d drive the two hours back home as soon as the concert ended. I pointed out that I didn’t consider myself an activist anymore. I’d even decided to stop selling white power music in the store. And I’d completely—and voluntarily—stopped using derogatory racist terms now that some minorities and gays had become my customers. Not because I wanted to sell more music, but because I’d become friendly with them, and I didn’t want to insult anyone.

  Reassured somewhat, Lisa hugged me and told me to come home safe.

  When I arrived, the concert was humming with energy. Great music. Centurion and Das Reich from Wisconsin. Aggravated Assault and their AC Boys crew caravanned in from Atlantic City. Nordic Thunder from Delaware. Berserkr came from Tulsa. Rahowa from Canada. No Remorse from England. And Bound For Glory. Not to mention how close I’d been with the members of every band on the bill, the audience was also crawling with old friends. Embraces and shared stories filled the night.

  “Well, look who it is. How’s it going, stranger?” It was Big Ed.

  “Hey man. Good to see you,” I replied.

  “How’s that record store of yours doing? Are you carrying the new Bound For Glory record?”

  “Actually, I’ve been thinking of scaling back a bit on the white power music. It hasn’t been selling like it used to. Rock-O-Rama raised their prices and I have to charge more and I guess people just can’t afford it,” I lied.

  “Really? That’s too bad.” He seemed to want to say more than he had. “Well, maybe you can bring in some of that jigaboo rap music to boost your sales,” he laughed. He didn’t mean anything by it, but it made me feel uneasy nonetheless. By now the first band had taken the stage and was ripping into their first song.

  I let out a half-hearted laugh. “Well, hey man, it was good to see you. Pretty cool that No Remorse was able to make it, even if it is under somber circumstances.”

  “Yeah. I’ve gotta get ready for our set.” He gave me a bear hug and started to walk away. “Oh, that reminds me, some guy claiming to be from your crew in Blue Island sent me a letter a few weeks back. I think you should read it.”

  “Really?” I was genuinely surprised. “What did it say?”

  “He was saying all kinds of crazy shit about you. Julie’s got my bag. I’ll give you the letter after the show and you can take it home and stick it up his ass. You should read it.” I said I would. “It ain’t good.”

  “Oh, okay.” I became worried. What the hell was he talking about? And, more importantly, who the hell was the letter from? Nobody had said anything to me back home. I hadn’t been hanging out, but nobody seemed too upset by it. I knew a few of the guys weren’t too happy about some of the music I sold in the store, but they’d been in the store since I’d started carrying it and never mentioned anything about it other than ribbing me a bit.

  I couldn’t get my conversation with Big Ed out of my mind. I ran through every possible scenario I could think of. Had I slighted someone? Said something to offend one of them? Just then No Remorse took the stage and the nagging voices in my head disappeared.

  Before blasting into song, their singer Pete Burnside, who I’d shared some correspondence with and become friendly with over the years and whose music I had grown up on and learned from as a young skinhead, began his set with a moving speech about Ian Stuart. And for a moment, I let myself be pulled back in, high on the ephemera and intensity of the night. The music pounded in my veins. A thousand skinheads filled the hall. Outstretched arms carving the air in tribute to a fallen hero among skinheads far and wide. The worries and responsibilities of my family faded into the background again as the desire to be part of this fractured world filled me anew. Old comrades I hadn’t seen in years were happy to see me, peppering me with questions about what I’d been up to.

  “You know, the family…the store,” I’d say.

  But the extreme high was short-lived.

  Less than an hour after the concert ended, tragedy struck. While buying beer in a nearby convenience store, Joe Rowan, a fellow Hammerskin and the lead singer of the band Nordic Thunder, was shot and killed in a skirmish with black youths. Joe was a friend. Someone I’d known for several years and had grown to respect. We’d spoken at the venue less than twenty minutes before he was murdered. He was shot just minutes after I’d gotten in my car to head home. Joe was so proud of his children and carried on affectionately about them and showed me their photographs that he kept in his wallet. Now he had left his two young babies fatherless and a young, single mother unequipped to care for them.

  I didn’t wait around for Big Ed to give me the letter. I no longer cared. I just wanted to leave.

  I could no longer deny my ambivalence, my doubts about this miserable existence I’d created. This life wasn’t for me. This fractured perpetual motion machine of unending violence and despair that I’d helped create was not something I was proud to be a part of anymore. I cried for Joe and his fatherless kids the whole ride home. Another part of me wept for my own two children.

  Christian, 1994

  23

  WALK ALONE

  Between my friend’s hate-related murder, my disillusionment with the movement I’d helped build, and the fact that due to my experiences at the record store I couldn’t reconcile hating the people I�
��d once wanted to eliminate on principle alone, I began to let go of my biases. I discovered so many commonalities that I could not in good conscience disparage anyone based on superficial differences. I simply couldn’t justify or rationalize my prejudices any longer.

  Memories of the past seven years flashed through my mind and they made me angry. I thought about the Ku Klux Klan with their ridiculous dunce caps and tablecloth clown costumes; the racist sovereign constitutionalists who carried automatic weapons to the grocery store and felt like man-made laws didn’t apply to them; the Christian Identity nuts that distorted the Bible to suit their perverse dogmatism that turned God into a vengeful Aryan warlord who sought to slay the mud races which they say are reincarnations of the Devil; the revisionist historians who claimed the Holocaust never happened and six million Jews somehow magically evaporated from the earth; the laughable American Nazi Party stormtroopers dressed as if every day were Halloween—with their brown Boy Scout shirts and fancy culottes; the racial Odinists who believed that fairy Viking gods who lived in the clouds would strike down the dark-skinned infidels with bolts of lightning and a crack of Thor’s hammer; and the neo-Nazi skinhead gangbangers who fooled themselves into believing that they had an ounce of courage running through their veins, when in reality they were filled with a volatile cocktail of cheap beer and self-loathing to fuel their hate. Now, when I looked into the mirror I saw a hollow shell of a man—a stranger—filled with all of those same toxic elements, staring back at me.

  For one-third of my life I’d chewed and swallowed gristly bits of each one of those twisted ideologies and now all I felt like doing was jamming my fingers down my throat and vomiting them all up into the nearest toilet. I felt sick. Like a dope fiend detoxing from selfish power and control, instead of heroin—always needing more and blindly living my life on a razor’s edge to score the next hateful fix.