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  At no time in Mack's life had he ever expected to live a long life. The life expectancy for young black males in the 80s was the lowest it had ever been. Every morning that he opened his eyes and breathed fresh air was a surprise to him. He felt like he was living on borrowed time and that was cool. At least now, he knew exactly how he would die. It was a comforting feeling.

  "Fuck going all the way to The Gallery. It's too damn cold out here. Let's go over to The Gathering Space. Padre always has coffee and stuff. There might be some donuts and cookies left over from the AA meeting."

  "Yeah, it's cold as fuck out here. Let's go see Padre."

  Chapter 5

  The Gathering Space, South Street, 11:22AM

  Antonio ran a small volunteer center out of a second floor storefront above a goth clothing store called "Trash and Vaudeville". He held Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings there as well as group therapy sessions for runaways and abused kids. A lot of kids hung out there because they always had coffee, it was warm, and Father Antonio never tried to preach to them about Jesus or talk them into going home to their parents. He just listened. He was good at that.

  All the kids on South Street called him Padre. No one knew why. Father Antonio was Italian, not Latino. But the name had stuck.

  "Hey, Padre!"

  "Mack. Jason. You kids stayin' out of trouble?"

  "Not if we can help it," Jason replied. He bumped fists with Padre then took a seat on one of the donated couches. Mack nodded in greeting then sat down beside Jason. Mack liked Padre but he didn't completely trust him. He thought it was weird that the man spent so much time hanging out with teenagers.

  "Is there any coffee, Padre?" Jason asked.

  It was a rhetorical question. There was always coffee there.

  Padre walked into the makeshift kitchen which was little more than a counter with a hotplate and a coffeemaker with two cabinets above it filled with paper plates and Styrofoam cups.

  "I heard you two got into a fight?"

  Mack and Jason looked at each other in disbelief.

  "That was just ten minutes ago. How'd you hear about it already?"

  "Lucas, that red-headed kid who looked like he shaved his head with a weedwhacker told me. He said he was driving his car down Fourth Street and he saw the two of you fighting ten skinheads. He said you and Mack knocked out ten guys all by yourselves. He said he drove around the block and was going to jump out and help you guys but by the time he got there, the two of you were gone and the skinheads were all lying unconscious on the sidewalk. Is that true?"

  Mack looked at Jason and shook his head. Jason smiled. The rumor had begun to grow already. The six skinheads they'd beaten, an incredible feat in of itself, had now become ten via the power of the rumor mill.

  "Yeah, it's true. We fucked 'em up!"

  "Well, be careful. Those Unrest guys are a bad group. I heard something on the news last night about a few of them being wanted by the police for setting an old black lady on fire at the subway station."

  "What?"

  "She was seventy-two years old and they burned her alive. It was horrible."

  Mack couldn't believe what he was hearing. That could have been his grandmother or one of his great aunts. They were all around that age. How could anyone do something like that to another human being?

  "Something really needs to be done about them."

  Padre leaned forward and put a hand on Mack's shoulder. Mack tensed but allowed it to remain.

  "Don't do anything you'll regret, Mack. I know that you were accepted into a good college. Antioch right? You've got a bright future ahead of you. Don't jeopardize all of that fighting with those guys. Most of them are going to wind up in prison or strung out on drugs."

  "Or dead," Jason added. He turned to Mack and smiled but looked away when Mack didn't return it. He couldn't understand how Jason could joke about a man's dead body lying in the basement of the house they were squatting in. He still didn't know how they were going to get rid of it.

  The front door opened and two girls in leather miniskirts, torn fishnet stockings and leather motorcycle jackets walked in looking like refugees from a Russ Meyers film. One was a tall blonde with shoulder length hair that looked oily and unwashed. She wore dark eyeshadow, black lipstick, and black fingernail polish. She had large lips curled into a sensual sneer. The other was a short black chick with breasts the size of beachballs and a belly to match. Her head was completely shaved and she wore the same dark eye-makeup and lipstick and an almost identical sneer. Her name was Simon and the blonde's name was Cat. They were part-time prostitutes, full-time drug addicts, and regular fixtures around South Street.

  "Hello, Simon. Hi, Cat," Padre said, smiling wide.

  "Welcome, bitches!" Mack said, climbing from the couch with his arms spread wide.

  "Nigga, please!" Simon replied.

  They rushed into his arms and Mack kissed them both, long and deep like they were long lost lovers.

  "Hey, Padre. Do you mind if we use your restroom?"

  "I'm not fucking you here, Mack," Simon chimed in.

  "What about you, Cat?"

  "I would love to, but it would be weird doing it here."

  "Weird is sexy."

  "Beatin' the shit out of twenty skinheads is sexy." Cat ran her hand down Mack's chest and down the front of his jeans. She stroked his hardening erection a few times grinning and licking her lips.

  "Damn, how the hell did you two hear about that shit already? It just happened like fifteen minutes ago."

  "It's all over the street. You guys are fucking heroes now."

  "Well how about a hero's blowjob?"

  "Twenty skinheads." Jason laughed.

  "I thought there were a dozen of them?" Padre asked.

  Jason shrugged.

  "We didn't count 'em."

  Mack shook his head and turned back to Cat and Simon who were still hugging him. He reached down and rubbed one of Simon's massive tits.

  "So, how about that blowjob?"

  "Sure. Fuck it."

  Mack took the two girls into the bathroom. Father Antonio started to protest.

  "Um...this really isn't the place for that... uh...that kind of..."

  "Oh, let them have some fun, Padre. What's the harm in it?" Jason said. He stood up and draped an arm over Father Antonio's shoulders.

  The bathroom door slammed shut and locked. Father Antonio let out an exasperated sigh. Jason shrugged and winked at him.

  "Boys will be boys, Padre. Beside's Mack's going through some shit right now. The girl he loves got hurt a couple weeks ago. She's in a coma and he never got the chance to tell her he loves her. He's real fucked up about it."

  "Well, I don't think that having sex with other girls is the way to handle it."

  Jason shrugged.

  "That's how Mack handles it. Is the coffee ready yet?"

  Chapter 6

  Camden, New Jersey, 1:55 pm

  They were walking to Little Davey's house, where they planned to get drunk, listen to music, and watch horror movies on the VCR. Nightmare On Elm Street had just come out on VHS. Skinner was singing Guilty of Being White by Terrorist Threat at the top of his lungs, irritating the hell out of Bo and Little Davey.

  "Man, shut the fuck up!" Bo yelled.

  "It's Terrorist Threat, man."

  "I hate that song!"

  "Why? It's fuckin' awesome!"

  "It's too apologetic," Little Davey said.

  "Yeah. It's like he's fucking apologizing for being white."

  "That's not what he's saying. It's about how we get blamed for all that shit and people want us to apologize."

  "And he does. The first words in the song are 'I'm sorry'. Fuck being sorry. I'm proud that my ancestors owned slaves. I wish we still did. Could you imagine if we owned slaves right now? We wouldn't have to do shit. They'd cook for us, clean the apartment. I'd fuck their women just like those niggers are fucking ours now. Why apologize for that? They would ha
ve done the same shit to us if they'd been able to. Look how they treated us in school. We were getting our asses kicked everyday because they were the majority. Well, in the real world, we're the fucking majority. Don't apologize for that shit."

  "Yeah, that song is weak," Bo said, punching Skinner in the arm.

  "Ow! Quit playin'! That hurt."

  "Quit playin'!" Bo mocked.

  "I still like the song."

  "That's 'cause you're a pussy." Bo punched him in the arm again.

  "Quit it, dude!"

  Little Davey walked up to Skinner and poked him in the chest. "Bo is right. That song is weak. You want to be a skinhead, you need to sing something with balls, like Skrewdriver."

  "Fuckin' A! Like The Way It's Gotta Be! That song fuckin' Rocks!" Bo began bellowing the lyrics at the top of his lungs. Little Davey joined in, shouting the lyrics in Skinner's face along with flecks of spittle.

  With obvious reluctance, Skinner joined in. They bumped chests and high-fived.

  "Fuckin' A, dude. That's real music!" Bo said, grinning from ear to ear.

  "Let's play kick the cat," Little Davey said, smiling mischievously.

  A small calico crossed the sidewalk in front of them and, true to his word, Little Davey stepped forward and kicked it, catching it in the ribs and lifting it off the ground into the air and into the street, into traffic. A small Subaru struck it and knocked it into the gutter. It lay there, bleeding from the ears and mouth, its tail twitching spastically. Davey wanted to watch it die but didn't want his friends to think he was weird. He laughed as the cat made a hissing sound that slowly wound down like a punctured tire. When he turned to look at his friends, their expressions were completely horrified.

  Too late. They already think I'm weird.

  "That wasn't funny, man. I like cats," Bo said.

  "Yeah, dude. Not cool," Skinner said.

  "Fuck you, Skinner! Does Bo know how you got your nickname?"

  Skinner blushed.

  "Just chill, dude."

  "Chill? You sound like a fucking nigger."

  "How did you get your nickname?" Bo asked. "I always thought Skinner was your last name or your middle name or something."

  They stopped walking and Little Davey turned around, not just to face Bo, but also so that he'd have a good view of the dying cat in the gutter in back of them.

  "This mick? His last name is McDowell. Evan McDowell. Everyone calls him Skinner because when he was a kid he used to torture animals, skin them alive and shit, including fucking cats. His mom sent him away for a whole summer, to a mental hospital." Little Davey turned to Skinner and sneered. "Now, what? You're some kind of fucking animal lover or something? What? Did they cut your balls off in the loony bin?"

  Skinner looked like his face was boiling. Tears squeezed out from the corners of his eyes. He was breathing hard and bouncing up and down on his toes. His fingers curled into fists.

  "What? You want to hit me now, Skinner? You want to kick my ass? Go ahead. Go ahead and hit me, psycho! I promise you that you'll know exactly what those animals felt like if you do." Davey pulled a large Bowie knife from under his jacket and waved it in Skinner's face. '"Cause I'll cut all the skin, the muscle, and the fat off your bones. I won't just skin you, psycho. I'll fucking fillet your ass!"

  Bo stepped between them.

  "Cut it out, guys. We don't fight each other. You're acting like a bunch of ghetto scum right now. Save that shit for the porch monkeys."

  Little Davey tucked his knife back into his jacket and held his hands up in surrender.

  "Okay, Bo. I'll chill" he said derisively.

  "So, what are we gonna do today? You want to head into Philly and hang out on South Street? I heard Suicidal Tendencies is playing at Club Revival with Terrorist Threat. I love that band. They're fucking hardcore!"

  Bo and Skinner looked at each other.

  "You didn't hear?" Bo asked.

  "Hear what?"

  "All the punk kids in Philly have declared war on us. A bunch of skins got jumped at Pizzaz last Sunday at a Murphy's Law concert. They were playing with Agnostic Front and a couple local bands, Uncivil Disobedience or somebody. The place was full of punks and straight-edge kids and some of our Unrest brothers. Anyway, some black guys from the projects showed up with some punk kids from South Street and started a big riot. A lot of our boys got hurt bad. Oh, and these two punk kids beat up like twenty skinheads on South Street this morning."

  Little Davey looked like he was about to explode.

  "Two fucking punks beat up twenty skinheads?"

  "Yeah, one of them was this big black kid named Mack. I think he knows karate or something. Todd, you know that muscle-head jock from the football team? He was with them and his punk ass ran. Left all his brothers behind."

  Little Davey looked like he'd just been slapped and spit on.

  "Fucking karate? That's bullshit! Why didn't anybody tell me about this shit? Why haven't we had a meeting?"

  Bo and Skinner looked at the floor.

  "There was a meeting. We went to get you, but...uh... Big Dave, I mean...uh...your dad was drunk and chased us off your porch. We tried to call too, but no one answered."

  Little Davey began pacing back and forth on the sidewalk. He rubbed his face with both hands, kicked a hole in a wooden fence then turned and kicked a dent in a parked car with his steel-toed Doc Martens, imagining that it was a punkrocker's head.

  "So, what the fuck was said at the meeting?"

  "John Jones ordered everybody to stay out of Philly until after Christmas."

  "And then?"

  Bo lit up. He nodded his head enthusiastically, licking his lips and punching his fist into his palm.

  "There's a Skanking Razor concert the night before new Year's Eve. We're all going down there together and we're going to fuck all those punks up. He's put a five-hundred dollar bounty on that kid Mack," Bo said.

  "I hate those Skanking Razor pussies," Skinner added.

  "Yeah, we all do. And they all know it. That's why all the punks will be there to protect them, but they won't be expecting a hundred of us to show up at once. We'll fuck their asses up!" Bo said, punching his fist into his palm again.

  Little Davey looked up at the sky as if imploring God for help in dealing with his two idiot friends. He ran both hands down his face again and let out a long sigh.

  "Not if there's two hundred of 'em! We'll be the ones getting fucked up. Again!"

  He paused and stared at the ground, pacing back and forth and flexing his fingers as if strangling something. He grit his teeth. His nostrils flared. A large vein popped out on his forehead and pulsated. It looked like it was about to rupture.

  "We should bring guns."

  Bo shook his head. "John said no guns. If we start shooting then they'll start shooting and then the cops'll get involved and we'll all wind up dead or in jail. No guns."

  "A fucking kid beats up twenty of our brothers and his solution is to bring a hundred? And this time there won't be just one or two guys. They'll be like a hundred, two hundred of 'em! I'm bringing a gun. My dad has an old .45 Smith and Wesson. I'm bringing it with me. And I'm killing that singer from Skanking Razor too. Those sons of bitches started all this shit with their lyrics about bashing skinheads. They need to die too."

  "Why not kill all the guys from Camper Van Beethoven too?" Bo said. "They wrote that song Take The Skinheads Bowling that all those fucking hardcore kids sing. I bet that's inspired a few of 'em to go after us. Why not kill them too then?"

  Little Davey sneered and nodded his head in agreement.

  "If those bastards were gonna be there I'd shoot them too."

  "You're crazy," Bo said, pointing at Little Davey.

  "No way, man. I ain't killing nobody," Skinner said. "They'll put me back in an institution. I ain't going back there."

  "I don't care. We can't let the niggers and Jews think that we're scared of 'em. We can't let 'em think we're weak. Did you know that most punk ro
ckers are Jews? It's a fact! And now there are nigger and spic punks too. They're all joining forces against the pure white man. That's what's happening out there. My dad may be a piece of shit but he's a hardworking American. Not like these fucking mud people who come over here and leech off society, stealing and scamming and taking welfare instead of getting fucking jobs. And when they do get a job, they don't know enough to charge a decent wage so they work for shit wages which makes it hard for a white man to make a decent living. The fucking spics are taking all the damn jobs because they'll work for the price of a taco. Meanwhile, the niggers are fucking all the white women and selling drugs to our kids. Look at who our women idolize now. You go into any teenage girl's room in America and she'll have a poster of Prince or Michael-fucking-Jackson. That's what's happening to our white women, all over the country. They're growing up being taught to lust after black men. We let 'em win this time and this shit will just get worse. They'll take over the whole fucking country! My dad is right about that much. How do you think it looks that those fuckin' punks are kickin' our asses? Everyone's probably talking about it! They're laughing at us right now!"

  Little Davey's dad was a painter by trade. He used to charge fourteen dollars an hour to paint a house until Mexicans and Puerto Ricans started undercutting him. Now, if he wanted to work, he could barely charge more than seven dollars an hour without being outbid and losing the job. That was just barely enough to pay the bills and not nearly enough to support his growing alcohol addiction. The worse things got economically, the more he'd taken it out on his young son. Black eyes and busted lips had been regular sights on Little Davey's face for as long as Bo and Skinner had known him. Davey's mother left when he was ten after one too many beatings from his drunken father. She promised to come back for him but his dad threatened to kill her if she ever came near his son. He never saw her again. His father told him that his mother had left them for a black man.