Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The movie never defines the meaning of the title, Invictus. In fact, everyone I asked who saw the film had no idea what “Invictus” meant. They only knew how the words of the poem made them feel. Inspired, empowered and propelled to action. The title means “unconquered.” In the movie, Invictus, Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, initiated a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the losing national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Mandela was held for nearly 26 years on Robben Island as a political prisoner. His release marked the end of apartheid in South Africa. Mandela’s amazing tenacity is the stuff of heroes and legends, the stuff of ordinary people who survive extraordinary challenges with grace and dignity. He had inspiration, the poem “Invictus” which kept his spirits up in his place of “wrath and tears” in the “horror of the shade.”
Francois Pienaar, the captain of the losing South African Springboks rugby team, understood that kind of inspiration for he too recited a special song before each match. “How do you inspire a nation…” Mandela implored him. “How do you make them believe against all odds? The final match, between the undefeated New Zealand team and the Springboks, resulted in a South African win of 15-12. How do you inspire a nation? How do you make them believe? You recite over and over again as Nelson Mandela did, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Deliver.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
THE DEADLY TRUTH
At times we all wish the truth was fiction. It might be more palatable. After all, imagination is a kind of frontier without borders or restrictions; with true evil, at least we hope there is definition, limit and some moral barometer. And if there isn’t . . . we search for explanation, excuse, and even justification. And if we don’t find any . . . then we look for motivation, for clues in a person’s childhood, for that toxic cocktail that transformed them into a monster, for brutal figures who influenced them, used them, abused them and ultimately erased what made them human. And if we don’t find those factors . . . then we’re left with the untenable hypothesis that there really are natural born killers.
Why else would a Phoenix woman who had been “happily” married for eight years to a devoted and wealthy arts dealer decide one day to throw his body into a freezer, defrost him, dice him up and put his remains into a large garbage bag? Or, a father conclude that it was okay to keep his daughter hostage in a makeshift cellar for twenty-four years so that she could gratify his sexual urges and bear his children? Or, a woman slice up her boyfriend to drink his blood in a perverse vampire love ritual?
Everyday as I stand in the court room and defend against this kind of pathology I search for a way to mitigate my clients’ horrific choices. The challenge is to find a kernel of good, to convey to the judge and the jury that something about them is worth salvaging because our knee-jerk reaction is to warehouse them in cells or exterminate them like rats. My real life experiences have fueled my desire to write true crime because I don’t want refuge or respite from the real stories or the real macabre. I want to understand. Writing is a kind of catharsis for me, a way to process savage behavior with a goal toward inspiring change in the social institutions—schools, families, prisons—who house and guide these sad individuals.
My goal, in many ways is to do what the operatives did in my first book, Running with the Devil, to journey through the darkness in order to understand the criminal mind, its violence, rage and purpose. The undercover operatives lived for eighteen months as outlaw motorcyclists in order to infiltrate another vicious gang, The Hells Angels. They lived a triple life as outlaw bikers, ATF agents and family men. And the stress nearly destroyed them.
Their goal was to cripple the Hells Angels, chill the club’s criminal exploits and enlighten the public about the gang’s activities. In the end few of the criminal charges against the bikers held and the ATF operatives were rewarded with fear of reprisal from the Hells Angels without government protection or, sadly at times, even government interest. But, the operatives’ efforts were not entirely in vain, the Hells’ Angels public persona was tarnished and the club’s reign as “Lord of the Flies” diminished. But what may have died as a news story lives on in Running with the Devil. With both of their secret lives exposed—the operatives’ sacrifice and bravery and the gang’s savagery and pathology—the public cannot forget what happened or why it happened. That’s the real goal for me in writing true crime, to preserve a moment in time and to hopefully learn from the experience so that we can effect change through information and knowledge.
Running with the Devil, The True Story of the ATF’s Infiltration of the Arizona Hells Angels. ISBN:978-1-59228-976-9
COMING SOON from St. Martin’s, Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club.
