Hard-Core: Life of My Own

by Harley Flanagan

  My first court date was September 27th. I was more than slightly nervous. I was facing four felonies and looking at a good amount of time in jail. It all would have amounted to nothing back when I was a kid, but in 2012, in the soft-ass city that New York has become and with all the media attention, it was a very big deal.

  But the DA didn’t have a case established. The 20-something witnesses they had were all starting to fall to the wind. All of the statements they made to the cops and to the press, including John’s, were all contradicting each other; people’s lies weren’t matching up. John was giving interviews left and right and each time changing his story, so the DA started having a hard time putting a solid case together. It was as if John was helping me beat the case with his inability to shut up and with his nonstop lies. Each time he told the story it changed, and each time he told it he implicated himself more in having played a part in setting me up.

  The whole thing makes me sick. Even at my worst hate for John or anyone else, I would never stand by and watch and knowingly turn my back on someone while they were getting jumped, especially a former friend or band member.

  NYHC has become the antithesis of its former self. It’s not about unity; it’s about conformity. What is that Agnostic Front line? “You talk about unity, talk about conformity, you say that you support the scene, why don’t you get the fuck away from me?” That shit is more true now than it ever was.

  Another hearing got adjourned while the DA’s office continued to try to build the case against me. It was a big case and they did not want to let it go. I was like Sid Vicious meets Charles Manson or some shit: a crazed knife-wielding, stabbing, slashing, biting, Hardcore Punk Rocker “attacking my former band” at a show with the infamous “CBGB” name attached to it. It was great media fodder and I think the DA wanted to make a name for himself.

  Then at my next court date I wound up getting an adjournment again ’cause they still didn’t have a case against me. And again it got pushed back while the DA continued to try to build it, until finally in December of 2012 they contacted my lawyer and said to appear in court on Friday, December 14th, when the entire case was dismissed.

  Over the next year there was more fallout in my personal life, not just from the mother of my two boys, but also I was sued by some of the punk-ass motherfuckers who attacked me at Webster Hall. Bitch-asses jumped me, then try to turn me into the “bad guy” ’cause they got fucked up—ain’t that ironic? Anyway, it all slowly started to level out.

  After all that, I was walking around with so much anger and rage inside me, I was ready to explode; I felt like a fucking bomb. I wanted to go hunting, get some payback, unleash some hate. My thoughts would go from angry to hostile to murderous. And I realized that if I didn’t remove myself from all of the things that were bringing me to that point, that bad things were gonna happen. So I made a conscious decision to separate myself from the people and things that were bringing me to that kind of negative place.

  I have a hard enough time dealing with anger and violence; it has been a lifelong struggle. There has been enough of it in my life, and in order to maintain some level of calmness and control I have had to move away from it. It wasn’t about giving in or giving up, it was about knowing what I had to do and surviving.

  Since then, I have left the majority of the people I once knew behind—not all, but the majority. People that bring negative energy and anger out of me and into my life, I’m done with it. Maybe one day I will look back without the feelings I have now. One day it won’t matter to me so much, but either way, I am in a different place now.

  But even with everything that’s gone down, I would still gladly get together with all of those guys: John, Parris, Doug, Mackie, all of us together in a room, and do one last show. Not because of the scene, not for the money, not for the fame, not for NYHC, but because the time that we spent together meant something to me. Those guys and the songs that we played together meant something to me. It meant more to me than the beef, it meant more to me than all the bullshit, all the ego, all the drama and everything else. I would do it for free in a heartbeat just to share that moment with those guys again and then walk our separate ways and know that it ended right. ’Cause I don’t like ending things on a bad note. I know that once one of us is gone it’s over. There will never be a chance to do it again and no chance to end the quarrel. Either way, I won’t hold my breath. I’m in a great place in my life.

  The hardest thing I ever faced in my life was losing my kids; it hurt more than anything else ever has. I suffered through serious depression over it, but I tried to learn from it as well. I have two great kids from that relationship who I love with all my heart; they mean more to me than anything, and for that I am grateful. I have always done the best I can for them and I always will. And despite all the craziness I’ve been through in this life, I still have love and hope in my heart.

  As I finish this book I am shedding my past and looking to the future.

  I am in the best relationship I have ever been in, I am in love with a beautiful, educated woman; she is a doctor and a lawyer, who treats me better than anyone ever has. In fact the only thing wrong with her is that she loves me.

  I am teaching Jiu-Jitsu at one of the most respected martial arts academies in the world alongside world-famous MMA and Jiu-Jitsu legends, people who I truly respect; writing, traveling, being a father, spending as much time as possible with my kids and the people that I love. Every day I know how lucky I am and I am grateful. I hope my kids can learn from me and from my mistakes and not have to make as many as I have.

  Not too long ago, I walked through the Lower East Side with my sons. We didn’t plan it, it just happened. I showed them the building I grew up in, with my mom, Simon, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hell and a ton of other now famous people that lived there back in the day when the neighborhood was nuts.

  I have so many memories of that building and that block. They tore the church down across the street from my building where the Hitmen used to hang out at night and blast their radios when I was a kid, and the funeral home. I didn’t even know they were allowed to tear down churches. So much has changed and yet it still looks kind of the same—kind of. It’s just so busy, so safe and so white now.

  My eldest wanted to know all the crazy stories, so I told him a few. I showed them where I used to hang out and where I went to school, where I went and got ice cream at Ray’s. I can’t believe he’s still alive. The place looks relatively the same, just messier: the small counter, barely any room to move, and all the handwritten signs in Magic Marker, and the best milkshakes and egg creams on the LES.

  I only saw three people that I knew. I ran into Dick Manitoba from the Dictators, and his wife, and I saw this martial arts dude Jose that I knew when I was young.

  I spoke to a couple of neighborhood people who noticed me on Avenue A, and I walked by the old C Squat and the new one. What used to be a crazy and dangerous neighborhood is now full of tourists, yuppie bars, restaurants, coffee shops and stores; it’s so bizarre.

  Life goes on.

  Epilogue

  HARLEY AND ROSE, PERSONAL COLLECTION

  After all the madness in my life and the recent drama surrounding Webster Hall, my arrest, losing my kids, starting a new relationship, getting my kids back in my life, and dealing with all the drama of family court, my mom was stricken with terminal cancer.

  After a major operation and what seemed like a recovery, things took a turn for the worse. And through it all, she remained supportive in my battle for my kids, and I started spending a lot more time with her.

  It’s fucked up when you know your mom or your dad is dying. You go through your life with all the baggage and shit that they put on you, and all the shit the world and your friends put on you, and then there comes a time when you realize you have to put it all down, just let it all go.

  I remember just a few days before she went into hospice that Patti Smith called her ’cause she had heard she was sick. They
had only met a few times. Obviously my mother must have made an impression on her. It meant a lot to my mom that she called. My mother had always admired her. They knew each other through Ginsberg and they had both been with him when he died.

  I was with her as much as possible during her last few months. We spent more time together than we had in years. We even left the city one day just a month before she died to spend some time at a horse stable. She loved horses, and she hadn’t been around them since she was a child. She said it was the most beautiful day of her entire life; and later she spent the night, and then the next three nights at my apartment. We had such a good time that she completely forgot to take her pain medication.

  I hope I can face death with as much dignity. The way she has handled it, I have never seen a braver person in my life. She makes all the “men” I know look like cowards.

  Sadly she only saw my kids twice during her last few months. But the time that they spent together was amazing and very meaningful, and picked up her spirits; and I know that she took great comfort in the fact that I am finally in a place in my life where things are coming together in a positive way. I just wish she could’ve been here with us longer.

  After she was admitted to hospice, I still had two good days of conversation with her before she slipped into a deep sleep. She had looked so tired and worn out when she first got there, but then just a day later, she looked so peaceful. In just days she had gone from looking like my mother to looking more like my grandmother to looking like herself but as a child—her skin so smooth, all the stress gone from her face. While she lay there breathing, I held her hand.

  She had a constant flow of visitors, quietly coming and paying their respects and giving her love.

  She died Monday, June 15, 2015.

  I was at home getting ready to go see her, when I got the call that she had passed. I went to Bellevue hospice where she had spent her last few days and there she was looking beautiful and peaceful. My Aunt Sophie’s rosary lay out across her chest; it was surreal.

  There was my mother dead, the one who brought me into this world. I cried. I sat with her. I kissed her goodbye even though I knew she was already gone. She was still warm. Even though her heart had stopped and her breathing had stopped, her cells were still alive. Then it was as if I could hear her voice in my head saying, “Go now, don’t stay here with my body, I love you my son.” I spent just a few more moments with her and then I left.

  Over the next few days came the calls and e-mails from old friends, friends of hers—some I knew, some I didn’t, calls and e-mails from people from the Stimulators days, people from the old Cro-Mags days, people who knew her from when we lived in Europe, and people who knew her in the ’60s.

  It’s so surprising the people you hear from at a time like this. But even more surprising is the people you don’t hear from. The only member of the Cro-Mags that I heard from was Doug Holland.

  Her funeral was beautiful. She didn’t want a service in a church and she wanted to be cremated, so we did as she wished. The father of my girlfriend, now my wife, gave my mother a plot to be buried in at Woodlawn Cemetery, a beautiful place where lots of writers and musicians like Miles Davis and many historic figures are buried.

  It had been raining all morning on June 20th, but it stopped as soon as we arrived at the cemetery. I was there with my boys, my girlfriend, my family and hers, close family friends, some going back to my early childhood and even to my mother’s childhood.

  My mother’s second husband, my stepfather Karsten, flew in from Denmark. And her third husband, Simon Pettet, flew in from Toronto with his wife. Friends flew from Scandinavia; a lot of the people I knew from 12th Street in the building that I grew up in showed up, like the author Luc Sante, famous artists like Carol Bove who was with my mother up ’til the end, Allen Ginsberg’s longtime friend and assistant Bob Rosenthal, Steve Taylor from The Fugs and many other old friends. Her boyfriend of nearly 20 years, Kirt Markle, who is the same age as me, was so devastated that he did not attend.

  Her ashes were carried out and placed on a table. They were in a box not meant to be buried, a beautiful statue of a crying angel. There was an awning set up for the rain, but as if on cue, the rain had stopped. There were three chairs sitting by themselves right in front but strangely no one sat in them. It was later that day that I thought about it: I felt that those seats were for my grandmother, my grandfather, and my Aunt Sophie sitting right there in front, and I cried again.

  The priest who did the service was a childhood friend of my mother. He had my youngest son light incense as he smiled, and said how my mother always loved incense. He did a blessing with holy water, and then gave my son the flask to hold for him as he then continued with the service.

  We all took part in reading from Bible verses; I held on to my son Jonah and he cried quietly. My son Harley stood behind me with my girlfriend, trying to keep his composure as tears rolled down his face.

  At the end of the service, a drizzle of rain started again. When everyone was done consoling each other and people started walking away, I looked at the box sitting there on the table surrounded by flowers with the hole in the ground beside it. Two cemetery workers arrived with shovels and a rake, and I walked back and asked if I could cover her with the soil myself, as I had done for my father 13 years earlier.

  I explained that I didn’t feel right about someone who didn’t know my mother covering her with dirt. They understood. I thanked them. I took the box with the angel off the table. I kissed it, my sons kissed it, and I got down on my knees and put it in the ground.

  One of the cemetery workers handed me a shovel and I started to fill the hole. My youngest son, who’d been crying, came over next to me, got on his knees, and started to help me fill in the hole with his hands, grabbing pieces of soil and putting them in, picking out rocks so none would damage her box as we filled it. And his tears stopped.

  I put down the shovel and we both finished by hand, and then I raked the soil over, and we patted the earth down with our hands and it was done. It was so sad and so beautiful.

  The next day was Father’s Day.

  When I started writing this book I didn’t know what the end was going to be or what I wanted to say besides telling the story of my life, and setting the record straight. But now it’s so obvious what it’s about: closure.

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