Confessions of a Former Skinhead
We were only boys. Spike-hearted teenagers with round rescue-me eyes. We threaded our Docs with fat red laces. Our hair fell in piles, skulls shiny as eggs. We rolled in tattooed crews. We spread white wings the size of infinity, sprayed names on subway cars. We threw bottles, hid rolls of quarters in our fists, wiped blood from our eyes. Our mothers didn’t recognize us. We were fists clenched tight, black wheels spinning. We were music, hard and loud and lit up from inside. It was 1987. We were only boys, and it was all we knew how to be.
Helped me through some tough times, so many parallels to my own life
Woooooooow relatable
Awesome. I’ve been searching this site for quite some time, and this by far is my favorite. Nice job Becky. Saludos.
I love this story. Every day words strung together in an unpretentious way resulting in a mood, an image, a story in only 100 words.
I think I dated you in ’88…:). Totally awesome! You really captured the flavor of the 80s and the flavor of the personality of the Neo Nazis movement…at least the ones I met on campus back then in NYC (where I lived in ’89) and while going to school at Ohio University (Athens campus) in ’86/’87. Thanks for sharing.
Wow.
Excellent, almost poetic in its tone and selective uses of words, its nostalgia ironically for a time not governed by hate but more by free spirits and music. Beautiful ironic tone to regard these crazed neo-nazis as lovers of music, freedom and spiritual love of youth and art and strangely enough a dark innocence. So much in such few words.