Most nights, I stayed home alone in my room. I’d down a twelve pack or more of beer alone while I licked my wounds. Some nights, though, I went out with whoever’d still have me around. I was cruising Springfield with one of Jessica’s high school friends when a cop car flashed its lights behind us. Jessica’s friend was a minor, behind the wheel, sipping a wine cooler. I grabbed the bottle from her, but didn’t have time to ditch it out my window before the cop’s face appeared in hers. He scanned the inside of the car and saw the wine cooler in my hand. Then he smiled the kind of smart-ass smile only a cop can pull off.
“Hey, Meeink. Long time no see.”
I remembered the dude; he’d been part of the posse that
busted me at the television studio. He glanced at the bottle in my hand. “Glad to see you’re staying on the straight and narrow.”
I spent most of the rest of the night in the holding tank at the Sangamon County Jail. I think half the freaking guards on duty stopped by to ask me what in the hell I was thinking to violate parole less than a month after getting sprung. I wanted to ask them if they’d been talking to my buddies down at Shawnee State Penitentiary, because every one of those guards ended their visit with the same advice other inmates had given me: you better watch your ass, ‘cause nobody’s going to go easy on you the second time.
Sitting there in holding, I figured I was headed straight back to prison, but that’s not how it works, at least not for something as minor as underage drinking and open intoxicants in a car, which is all they technically had on me. The cops released me early the next morning. At the same time, they forwarded my case to my parole officer. I was his problem now.
“Don’t leave town,” a cop said to me on my way out the door. “And stay by your phone, because your PO is going to be pissed if he has to track your ass down.”
My PO found me later that day. He chewed me out for a while on principle, then admitted it was a minor violation in the grand scheme of parole violations. The Illinois prisons were still overcrowded. I went to bed that night pretty certain I wasn’t going back to Shawnee.
I may as well have. After that, everywhere I looked I saw cops. It seemed like every time I left the apartment there was a cop on my ass. I saw cops on damn near every corner on my way to and from visits with Riley. When I picked up work on a construction crew, I would’ve sworn on a Bible cops were patrolling that job site. God forbid I went out after dark; everywhere I looked I saw red lights reflecting off windows. Partly, I was being paranoid. That comes with the territory for parolees. Partly, though, I really was being watched at least some of the time, especially when I went out at night anywhere near other kids. Springfield’s
Nazi problem had all but disappeared in my absence. The Springfield cops weren’t going to give me a chance to stir shit up again. They didn’t realize I’d already given up on that plan. The only plan I had left was to try to keep far enough inside Jessica’s good graces that she wouldn’t take Riley away from me. Seeing as Jessica basically loathed me, that posed quite a challenge.
JESSICA PROMISED I could have Riley for part of the day on Easter. It was my first holiday with my daughter, and I wanted to make it special. I bought her a little basket and filled it with toys. I hid plastic eggs full of candy all around the house. I had everything ready hours before Jessica was supposed to bring Riley over. When she was more than an hour late, I called.
First, she said she forgot.
“How could you forget Easter?”
Then she said it was getting too late to drive the baby over.
“Come on, Jessica, it’s the middle of the afternoon.”
She hemmed and hawed for a while, then asked, “Why should I let you see her?”
“Because it’s Easter,” I said, missing her point. “I’ve got everything set up with eggs and all. Rileys going to love it.”
“She can’t even crawl yet.”
“I’ll help her.”
“You can’t help her. You don’t help anybody. You just hurt people.”
She fucking unloaded on me. No little girl should have to grow up having the police follow her every time she has to visit her father. No little girl should have to grow up knowing her father is the drunken, violent son-of-a-bitch who beat up her “Uncle” Jeremy and threatened her “Uncle” Clark and keeps scaring off all the good, reliable men she’s come to love. No little girl should have to grow up being “the Nazi’s daughter.” I thought I saw where she was heading. The same ultimatum I’d heard before, from my mom and John, Nanny and Pop, even my cousin Nick: your family or the white supremacy movement. The choice had always
been crystal clear; it was crystal clear this time, too. This time, the choice would be Riley. But Jessica didn’t let me choose. She wasn’t giving me an ultimatum. I hadn’t seen where she was going at all. She fucking blindsided me. “Everything you say about the white supremacy movement is nothing but fucking bullshit. You’re not a ‘race warrior.’ You’re a thug. Riley may be stuck with your DNA, but I’ll be damned if that means she’s got to be stuck with you.”
I could’ve promised to try to do better by Riley. But wounded animals always bite, and Jessica’s words had damn near killed me. I called Jessica names I’d never called a woman. If another man ever says to Riley the things I screamed at her mother that night, I’ll end up on death row. I was screaming long after Jessica slammed down the phone. I was still crying long after I gave up screaming. When I finally calmed myself, the empty house was as silent as a tomb. Just like that goddamn apartment in Terre Haute. The silence closed in like hands around my throat.
It was early evening when I picked up the phone. Late enough, though, that I knew to call the bar, not the house. My dad sounded exactly the same as he had in our last conversation nearly three years earlier: groggy as shit, but happy to hear from me, like I was a long-lost 68th and Buist boy back for a reunion. He apologized, in his own way, for not keeping in touch.
“Youse know I don’t like to talk to nobody when they’re caged up.”
I did know that. I’d heard it my whole life, whenever his friends got busted.
“It’s too hard on me,” my dad said.
It had been too hard on almost all my friends and family. Only Jessica and Nanny and Pop had written to me faithfully. Even Louie had stopped checking in on me after the first couple months.
“I understand.” I said. Then I switched subjects and told him about his granddaughter, which seemed to thrill him.
“Jessica and me can’t make it work. I fucked up too many times. She ain’t gonna let me be Riley’s dad.”
I struggled to find the right words to explain to my dad that I wasn’t thinking about leaving my kid, because I’d never leave my kid, because it would kill me to leave my kid, but what was the point of staying if I couldn’t be her dad. The words didn’t come out too good, but they didn’t need to.
“ You’re preaching to the choir,” he said. “What you gotta understand is this: it ain’t leaving if nothing’s left.”
I ran the final fight with Jessica through my mind one more time, just to be sure. I choked back my grief and said, “There’s nothing left here for me.”
“ What’s your PO gonna say?” my dad asked.
“I wasn’t going to tell him.” I was afraid if I asked my PO for permission to leave the state he’d say no. I decided to go first then call him. I wasn’t a murderer; I didn’t think Illinois would waste the money to send somebody to Pennsylvania to haul me back.
“If you’re gonna skip, you gotta do it clean,” my dad said. “You got enough money?”
“I want to leave what I’ve got for Riley.” I waited for him to volunteer, but he didn’t, so I asked. “Youse think maybe you can help me out with train fare?”
“I’ll call your mom. We’ll get it together for you.”
I called my mom the next morning expecting to hear that a ticket paid for by both my parents was already waiting for me at the train depot. Instead, I got another earful about my dad being the biggest asshole ever born onto Planet Earth. He’d quibbled about the fare she quoted him. She’d brought up the decade or so of child support he still owed her.
“I ain’t talking to him again,” she said. “So don’t bother asking.”
“Fine. Will you help me anyhow?”
“It’s real tight around here. Let me and John talk about it.”
Translation: no.
A couple days later, I asked the girl whose wine cooler had landed me in hot water to give me a ride to the train station. As we pulled into the parking lot at the depot, Jessica’s friend caught me scanning the rows of cars.
“She’s not coming.”
“I know.” But I still hoped she would. Deep in my heart, I couldn’t bring myself to believe Jessica hated me so much she would deny me one last chance to see Riley.
“Make sure Riley knows I’ll be back,” I said. “I will. I swear I’ll be back.”
But the thing was, I only had enough money for a one-way ticket to Philly.
Fallen Heroes
MY MOM SHOCKED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME. SHE actually met me at the train station in Center City. She ran toward me and gave me a big hug and a kiss like I’d just gotten home from college or war. She ruffled my hair, which hadn’t been cut, let alone shaved, in six months. Then she asked, “ What do you want me to cook tonight?”
I hadn’t had a homecooked meal in close to three years, but just because my mom was acting like June Cleaver didn’t mean I was counting on John to be Ward. The Warden was waiting for me on his favorite spot on the couch when I walked in.
“ Welcome back,” he said, raising his beer slightly in my direction.
Here it comes, I predicted. Any second now, he’s going to add, “Speaking of back, I bet you had to watch that back end of yours real close up at Sing- Sing.”
John rose to his feet. He reached out his hand to me. “ Now I see where he’s going,” I thought. I’m going to shake his hand, and he’s going to say something like, “Hey, what’re you pawing me for? I ain’t one of your boyfriends from Sing- Sing.” What the hell, I coached myself, get it over with. I extended my hand.
“Glad you made it through okay,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.
My little half-sisters mauled me in the kitchen. They weren’t babies anymore. Kirsten was six and Hayley was five. I flashed to Riley. Will I get to see her again before she’s that old? I flushed
with panic. What if I never get to see her again? Tears welled in my eyes. I buried my face in the girls’ long, soft hair and breathed in their scent until they finally wiggled away from me.
While my mom cooked dinner, I sat at the kitchen table, drinking beer with John and pumping them for everything they knew about what had happened to my cousin Nick. They stuck by the story my mom had given me over the phone when I was in Sangamon County Jail: some dude named TJ had shot Nick up with a huge dose of China White, one of the most powerful forms of heroin available. The dude was a total junkie, half dead already with AIDS, and he’d overdosed Nick. My mom and John both swore there was no way Nick would’ve ever shot that much heroin of his own free will.
After dinner, which I got to add was freaking fantastic, I headed down to Third and Jackson. The last words Nick ever said to me echoed in my mind: “You used your only pass tonight.” I didn’t care. I had to find Jerry. I busted into a circle of about a dozen Third and Jackson boys who hadn’t seen me since the night of Jimmy’s wedding reception riot.
“I gotta know what happened to him.”
Jerry grabbed me by the elbow and steered me away from the crowd. “I already took care of it,” he said.
“My mom swears he wasn’t using, not serious anyhow.”
“Your mom’s flying,” Jerry reminded me. Jerry knew all about my mom’s pill habit. “Nick could’ve shot up at the kitchen table, and your mom and John wouldn’t have noticed.”
“So what are you telling me?” I asked.
Jerry shook his head with grief. “I’m telling you he did it himself.”
“But you said youse took care of it.”
“I did.” Jerry’s hard eyes dropped to the sidewalk. He shuffled his feet like a guilty child. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “I feel real bad about that now. You gotta believe I do. I fucked that dude up hard. But I didn’t have the whole
story then. TJ didn’t do it, I swear to you. So don’t youse go after him, too.”
There was no point in telling my mom her story about TJ was bullshit. She would’ve sworn on a Bible that Nick hadn’t shot the fatal dose himself. Of course, this is the same woman who would’ve sworn to the Pope I got all those bruises as a kid playing hockey. When I got home, I begged off joining her and John for another beer. I couldn’t bear the thought of listening to my mom rehash the lie. But before I made it upstairs, the Tasmanian Devil crashed through the front door screaming, “Yo, Frankie!”
My cousin Jimmy hadn’t changed one bit since I’d left Philly. He plowed across the living room in full Strike Force regalia, lifted me off my feet, spun me around like I weighed about as much as a cafeteria tray, then hugged me so hard I’m surprised he didn’t crush my ribs.
“It ain’t been the same without you here. But I want youse to know one thing. It’s the same now, you know what I mean?”
I did know. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“I been running it without you, but I ain’t got no ego about it. Strike Force ain’t mine; it’s ours.”
“What about Louie?” I asked.
He glanced nervously over his shoulder at the skinchick standing just inside the front door. In all the excitement, I hadn’t even noticed her until that moment. “Louie’s a conversation for another time,” Jimmy whispered to me.
The next night, Jimmy hosted a welcome home party for me in a woods north of the city. About thirty skinheads were already gathered around a bonfire when I arrived. Matt Hanson spotted me first and tackled me with a hug.
“What’s with the hair?” he asked.
“No good barbers in prison.”