held a gun to my head. I needed my dad to tell me I wasn’t a pathetic little pussy. I needed him to have one of his boys track down that plate. I needed him to show that motherfucking asshole what the 68th and Buist boys did to perverts who rape kids.
“Bad shit happens,” my dad said.
That’s all he said. I was fourteen years old, slamming back Jack Daniels to try to wash the taste of some asshole’s cum out of my mouth, and the only thing my father could think to say was, “Bad shit happens.”
Later that night, I jumped a random queen in Center City. I bragged to the other skinheads about how I’d brutalized him, but I never breathed a word to them about what the man in the car had done to me. The skinheads closest to me could tell something was up, though – my drinking got even heavier, my moods even darker. I paced South Street like a wounded lion; Philly felt like a cage.
Matt Hanson misread my mood when he came into the city that Friday night after his school let out for the summer.
“We should go on vacation,” he said.
“Dude, where am I supposed to fucking go? Beverly Hills? Youse know I ain’t got no money.”
“We don’t need money. You up for a little trip to the shore?”
“Jersey?”
Matt grinned. “There’s always somebody down there from South Street. We can get by.”
OTHER THAN CASINOS, Atlantic City’s got nothing on Wildwood. The Wildwood boardwalk is classic East Coast, Jersey’s very own Coney Island, only it’s not an island. It’s block after block after block of wide wooden decking crammed so tight with souvenir shops, carnival rides, and junk food joints that in some stretches it’s easy to miss seeing the Atlantic Ocean. Still, you can’t escape
the ocean in Wildwood. Every gust of wind whips off the waves, crosses the beach, then side-checks the boardwalk. Along the way, the salt air mixes with the sand, the fast-food fumes and the sweaty, suntan-lotion stench of tourists so that it’s thick and sticky by the time you suck it in. One good breeze in Wildwood and I knew I was on vacation.
No other Nazi skinheads lived at the Shore full-time that summer. In fact, it had been a few years since any Nazi skins had really laid claim, which is how the SHARPs had managed to get a foothold. With no Nazis around to counter them, the SHARPs had done to the boardwalk in Wildwood what they’d once done to South Street in Philly: they’d terrorized every alternative white kid in town. Matt and me decided it was time to take back the beach. We had about the best support troops imaginable for this mission. The Axis Skinheads out of central Jersey were the most brutal Nazi crew on the East Coast back then. I was brutal enough myself by this point, but I was fucking terrified of the Axis Skins.
Early in the summer, a couple of them came down to visit. They hadn’t been there more than a few hours when they grabbed this homeless guy and dragged him under the boardwalk. It was like a scene out of a movie. It happened so fast, and they didn’t say a word, not to him or to each other. They shot each other this look and leapt into action like they were following a script. I’d seen a lot in my fifteen years, but I hadn’t ever seen anything like that. A few minutes after the Axis guys disappeared with the homeless dude, they reappeared on the boardwalk. One of them had a puckered face that made him look like an old man who forgot his dentures. That Axis skin wasn’t missing any teeth, though. He flashed Matt and me a smile that would’ve made a dentist proud. Then he claimed he and his crewmate had stabbed the homeless dude. I don’t know if they did or if they were screwing with us, but either way, it left an impression.
The only reason the Axis Skins had ever let the SHARPs so much as touch the Wildwood boardwalk was because it was
inconvenient for them to police it. They had their own boardwalks to patrol in other parts of Jersey, and they patrolled them like the Nazi
“Bad shit happens,” my dad said.
That’s all he said. I was fourteen years old, slamming back Jack Daniels to try to wash the taste of some asshole’s cum out of my mouth, and the only thing my father could think to say was, “Bad shit happens.”
Later that night, I jumped a random queen in Center City. I bragged to the other skinheads about how I’d brutalized him, but I never breathed a word to them about what the man in the car had done to me. The skinheads closest to me could tell something was up, though – my drinking got even heavier, my moods even darker. I paced South Street like a wounded lion; Philly felt like a cage.
Matt Hanson misread my mood when he came into the city that Friday night after his school let out for the summer.
“We should go on vacation,” he said.
“Dude, where am I supposed to fucking go? Beverly Hills? Youse know I ain’t got no money.”
“We don’t need money. You up for a little trip to the shore?”
“Jersey?”
Matt grinned. “There’s always somebody down there from South Street. We can get by.”
OTHER THAN CASINOS, Atlantic City’s got nothing on Wildwood. The Wildwood boardwalk is classic East Coast, Jersey’s very own Coney Island, only it’s not an island. It’s block after block after block of wide wooden decking crammed so tight with souvenir shops, carnival rides, and junk food joints that in some stretches it’s easy to miss seeing the Atlantic Ocean. Still, you can’t escape
the ocean in Wildwood. Every gust of wind whips off the waves, crosses the beach, then side-checks the boardwalk. Along the way, the salt air mixes with the sand, the fast-food fumes and the sweaty, suntan-lotion stench of tourists so that it’s thick and sticky by the time you suck it in. One good breeze in Wildwood and I knew I was on vacation.
No other Nazi skinheads lived at the Shore full-time that summer. In fact, it had been a few years since any Nazi skins had really laid claim, which is how the SHARPs had managed to get a foothold. With no Nazis around to counter them, the SHARPs had done to the boardwalk in Wildwood what they’d once done to South Street in Philly: they’d terrorized every alternative white kid in town. Matt and me decided it was time to take back the beach. We had about the best support troops imaginable for this mission. The Axis Skinheads out of central Jersey were the most brutal Nazi crew on the East Coast back then. I was brutal enough myself by this point, but I was fucking terrified of the Axis Skins.
Early in the summer, a couple of them came down to visit. They hadn’t been there more than a few hours when they grabbed this homeless guy and dragged him under the boardwalk. It was like a scene out of a movie. It happened so fast, and they didn’t say a word, not to him or to each other. They shot each other this look and leapt into action like they were following a script. I’d seen a lot in my fifteen years, but I hadn’t ever seen anything like that. A few minutes after the Axis guys disappeared with the homeless dude, they reappeared on the boardwalk. One of them had a puckered face that made him look like an old man who forgot his dentures. That Axis skin wasn’t missing any teeth, though. He flashed Matt and me a smile that would’ve made a dentist proud. Then he claimed he and his crewmate had stabbed the homeless dude. I don’t know if they did or if they were screwing with us, but either way, it left an impression.
The only reason the Axis Skins had ever let the SHARPs so much as touch the Wildwood boardwalk was because it was
inconvenient for them to police it. They had their own boardwalks to patrol in other parts of Jersey, and they patrolled them like the Nazi
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