One day in the mid-1990s, Marcus the Karcus, then 16, was flipping through a magazine in an underground bookstore when he came across some pictures of people hanging from hooks. Having always been drawn to the macabre, young Marcus was instantly mesmerized by the photos. “This is the world I wanted to be in,” he recalls thinking. “It seemed like one of those things that only went on in big cities, not something that was accessible to me.”

Nine years later, Karcus, as he’s generally known, began exploring body modification. One day while getting pierced, he noticed a picture on the wall of a shop employee hanging from hooks. In that moment, his life changed. “It was like I’d found the Holy Grail,” he says. “I asked, ‘How do I do that?’”

Now 32, Karcus runs a body piercing business, and performs pullings and suspensions, practices pioneered by certain Native American tribes as a spiritual ritual, but done today more as performance art. Having now been suspended with flesh hooks upwards of 50 times, he still recalls the thrill of his first time. He found it so enjoyable that he didn’t want to be unhooked. “I remember everyone looking at their watches and being like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to go,’” he laughs.

Each month, Karcus hosts a fetish night at Club Inferno in Madison, Wisconsin, called Sabbat de Sade or Sabbath of the Sadist. His gruesomely themed events, which riff on taboo subjects such as necrophilia, have been a staple of the city’s nightlife since he began them five years ago. On July 17, his long anticipated Serial Killer Night will feature an array of activities, including a class on bondage ropes (more specifically, what to do once you’ve got someone restrained). He’ll also be doing play piercings and, of course, suspensions.

Karcus recently sat with The Feral Scribe to discuss flesh-hook suspensions, the people who seek his services and why he was once asked to sew shut a person’s eyes.

Tell me about your first pulling or suspension?
It was set up in someone’s backyard. There were two hooks in my back and two hooks in my girlfriend and we pulled against each other. I’d get into the zone, then she’d break and I’d have to stop. I’d get into the zone again and then she’d break. I was like, ‘Cut me away from this girl and tie me to a damn pole!’ So they cut us and tied us to poles. From the start I couldn’t get enough.

Chicago resident Mistress Maya is hooked.

Are the hooks painful?
The initial piercing is like a pinch. Then, as you start doing it, that first initial separation of subcutaneous tissue is like a little sting-y. But once you get off the ground, surprisingly, it all subdues and then you’re just like, ‘Weeeee!’

It’s possible that my brain doesn’t process pain the same way other people do, but if you look at it as just an intense sensation, some sensations are happier than others, but they’re all just sensations. Once you stop looking at it as pain, it works a little different. A guy once told me, ’It’s not the pain that’s the problem, but the avoidance of pain.’ Once you accept it and incorporate it, you can get through anything. I keep that as a motto if things do start to hurt.

Do people generally find the experience enjoyable?
There have been a couple of people who did it and were like, ‘I did it; I’m done.’ One guy wanted to do a pulling. So I put in the hooks and he took them just fine, and he gets up there and tugs on the strings three times. He looks at me and asks, ‘Is that it?” And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s all it is.’”

This other girl I did, I put two hooks in her and I was there for like three hours. This girl couldn’t get enough. Her legs were hurting before her back got sore, so I told her to get down on her knees and pull that way. She kept pulling for like three hours. She couldn’t get enough, so I pulled out some play-piercing needles, so I’m piercing her all over and she’s got blood all over her face and obviously having a really good time. But of the two people, I was really surprised that this guy was like, ‘eh,’ and the girl was like, ‘I want more.’

It seems like suspensions are becoming more embraced by the mainstream. Do you see many soccer moms?
It’s definitely getting more popular. There are suspension crews popping up in every city.  I have gotten some people you wouldn’t expect: people who sell insurance, people who work in research labs, all types of different people. I think it’s people who are looking for an alternate path, who are looking to break out of the everyday life type of thing.

While you’re suspended, what’s happening mentally? Is it like a drug euphoria?
Different people get different things out if it. I think it tends to attract adrenaline junkies, just by nature. I don’t think any one is really conscious of what’s going on chemically inside their body. I know a lot of endorphins are released and a ton of dopamine is released, but you don’t necessarily go into a trance.

If it’s a particularly painful one, where you kind of have to relax the whole time, you’re probably not getting as into it. I find it’s harder to do a suspension when you’re not moving around. The more you kick your legs and move and swing around the easier it goes.

How much weight can skin support?
A single hook, placed properly, will hold up to 300 pounds. I’ve seen people suspended from single hooks. The skin can hold a lot, which is strange since the skin is just a bunch of itty-bitty cells touching each other.

Click to enlarge

Is there any physical damage that occurs?
Different layers of skin start to separate so that the fatty tissue area starts to open up a bit. We don’t know the long-term ramifications of constantly separating that tissue. Some people, at the end of a suspension, end up getting air inside that sort of leaks in through the pierced hole, so you have to burp that out. We’re not going through muscle or anything. Sometimes scar tissue builds up under the skin.

What’s the craziest thing someone has asked you to do?
Of the fun interesting things I’ve done, sewing peoples’ eyes and mouths shut is probably on the top of the list of extreme things. We had Malice in Wonderland, a band that is no longer together, that wanted to do a music video. And a girl suggested we sew her eyes and mouth shut. It took us a couple of hours, but we dressed her up as a cute little doll and then she was put inside this cistern that looked like a little cave and she was pawing around. Another fun thing I did was sew zippers onto a guy’s forearms.

Tell us about Sabbat de Sade and the upcoming Serial Killer Night?
Sabbat de Sade is a fetish night that I’ve been running for the last five years. I started the night wanting to do a highly engaging and interactive fetish night. Before this one, I’d gone to a lot of fetish nights, but they always seemed to be centered around a stage performance, where someone was on stage doing something and everybody stopped to watch the stage show. I thought ‘Why is everyone watching the stage show when they could be doing that stuff?’

[An early theme] was a cops and robbers and night. We got dressed up in police gear and had handcuffs. I built a little jail cell inside the Inferno and I had a girl walk around with a Polaroid camera and she’d ask people if they’d want to be arrested and take their picture. She gave me the stack of Polaroids and we went around the club, like a little manhunt, and asked people, ‘Do you know who this person is?’

Once we’d find the person, or if someone pointed them out, I’d be like, ‘You’re dressed like a cop. Lets go get this person.’ We’d march up to them, shine lights in their face and throw them to the ground…

Some nights I go for the light and fluffy, but other times I like over-the-top themes. One night that was really over-the-top was the necro-night. People were like, ‘I can’t believe you did a necrophilia night.” I’m like, ‘Of course I did!’

Serial killers is another theme that I’m attempting to go overboard with, to get some shock value out of it. I started doing short classes at the opening of the events, because it’s usually dead early on in the night. What I’ve got lined up for this one is a class on what to do to a person while they’re restrained, which is fitting for a serial killer night. I noticed there are a lot of classes on how to restrain people, on how to do knots, and how to do safety, but no one ever talks much about what you do once you have someone restrained and on the floor. What do you do with them?

After that, I’ll be doing play piercings, so I’ll be putting needles in people. I know there’s a few people in the area who like to do play piercings, but I get a little nervous about random people doing it, so I try to contain it a little bit. And after an hour or so of play piercings, I’ll be getting into the suspensions, so the people who come for some of the extreme stuff can do some of that.

Submitted Photo

Tomorrow, Brent Delzer, 36, will begin what he hopes is only a four-and-a-half year odyssey at the very bottom. At 2:00 p.m., he’s scheduled to turn himself in to federal marshals in Madison, WI, to begin serving a federal prison sentence. Last month, he pleaded guilty to an indictment alleging he was part of a marijuana trafficking conspiracy that lasted from 2000 to Nov. 8, 2004, the day his best friend and supplier, Amos Mortier, went missing.

Mortier’s disappearance sparked a massive federal drug investigation reaching across five states and into Canada. According to federal court documents – including grand jury transcripts – obtained exclusively by The Feral Scribe, Mortier, for four years, received regular shipments of marijuana from his New York connect, Reed Rogala. In October 2004, Rogala visited Mortier in Madison, WI, to settle $80,000s of outstanding debt. Mortier didn’t have the money and went missing less than 10 days later. Rogala, who was in Vermont when Mortier disappeared, was sentenced in 2009 to more than 12 years for his role in the conspiracy. Investigators have all but ruled him out as a suspect. (Click here and here for two articles I wrote in February 2009 about Mortier’s disappearance.)

Delzer, being Mortier’s best friend and business associate, was an early suspect in the disappearance and presumed homicide. But unlike Rogala, investigators haven’t fully scratched Delzer from their list of suspects. They have over the past six years kept the pressure on him, culminating in his August 2008 indictment on federal drug conspiracy charges, arriving at last month’s guilty plea and concluding with his November sentencing. At his plea hearing, Delzer told the judge he believed the government had enough evidence to prove he sold marijuana for Mortier.

On Friday, a special agent from Miami flew to Madison to administer a polygraph, which Delzer consented to as part of his plea. He has steadfastly denied any involvement or knowledge of Mortier’s disappearance. Likewise, investigators have never produced any evidence to the contrary. At a special hearing in June 2009, several witnesses succumbed to emotions while being forced to testify against their friend during a special hearing regarding the drug charge. “I know that man loved Amos,” one cried out, according to court transcripts.

The Feral Scribe spoke with Delzer earlier today about the disappearance of his friend, what he’s done to prepare for prison and how he’s spending his final hours of freedom.

In twenty-four hours you’ll begin serving a four-and-a-half year federal prison sentence. How are you spending that time?
Well, I’m to going try and have as much fun as I can. I’m spending time with my girlfriend. I’ve already said good-bye to my mother. I’ve already said good-bye to my lawyer. It’s basically saying good-bye, and trying to tie up loose ends.

What goes through your head, knowing that this is the last time you’ll see a lot of these people for a while?
Quite frankly, I don’t know yet. It’s a ball of emotions. It’s very hard to deal with that, to come to grips with the fact that I won’t be able to see these people. I don’t know if I can comprehend what that is all about, because in my rational mind, I know that I’m not going to see these people again for a long time, but on the other token, I don’t know what it’ll be like. It’s hard to process that emotion, the fact that every person I love will be away from me and I’ll be in a completely new environment, a very scary environment, quite frankly.

Tell us about the crime you pleaded guilty to.
I pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute… marijuana. The reason I pleaded out… I was never caught with a single shred of marijuana, but I realized the federal government is a powerhouse. If they want you, they’re going to get you. I decided to hedge my bets, so to speak, and plead out, because if I pleaded out I might get a reduced sentence.

This is how it is: If I would live my life completely alone, with no one else, I would’ve told them to pound sand and go to trial. But I don’t live my life alone and I never will. I have people around me who love me. I have a new niece who is two-months-old. I have a fiancee. I want to get out in time so that my niece isn’t so old that she says, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ I want to be a part of her life, to be a part of the lady I love’s life. I want to get out while my mom is alive and vital and be a part of her life. These are the factors that led me to plea.

How did the feds learn of the operation?
The disappearance of Amos Mortier, my best friend. The last time that he was seen was November 8, 2004. The terms of how he disappeared or the way he disappeared, I can’t talk about that, because I have no clue. But I can tell you that I went to the ends of the earth and did everything I could to find him. I threw benefit shows to raise reward money, spent my own money to put up flyers, I gave money to his mother. But in terms of how he disappeared, I have no clue. He was just gone, like a ghost. One day he was there, and the next he was gone.

Now, investigators believe his disappearance was connected to the conspiracy, correct?
They believe that, yes.

Given your proximity to Amos, you were, for a while, considered a suspect in the disappearance.
Yes, I was. In fact, for a while, I was the main suspect, not only in his disappearance, but also in his suspected homicide.

You recently took a polygraph as part of your plea agreement. What was that like?
The polygraph was horrible. It was about five-and-a-half hours, and they asked the same seven or eight questions. I was connected to this machine, which looked like something out of The Matrix, by the way. I was wondering if shit was going to be plugged into the back of my head.

So people know what a polygraph is like, they use what looks like an old, industrial strength telephone cord wrapped real tight around your chest. Then there’s another one wrapped around your abdomen. There are two velcro strips with metal sensors wrapped around your ring and index finger on your left hand that you have to keep totally still and flat. There’s a blood pressure sleeve that wraps around the calf, that doesn’t measure pressure, but blood flow. And, for lack of a better term, there’s a butt sensor, like a pad that you sit on, to measure your fidgeting. Then there’s a webcam on your face that doesn’t record anything, but, because the polygrapher sits behind you, it allows him to watch to see if you’re cheating the test.

It’s a horrible process. You get asked a series of questions, then they tell you to take a break, to relax, but you can’t, because you’re in the most uncomfortable chair in the history of chairs. Then they ask you the same questions again, and again, and again, and again. It just isn’t fun. It’s pretty much one of the worst experiences I’ve been through. Not to mention that they would never say my best friend’s name. They just referred to him as this man. As in: Were you involved in this man’s disappearance?

So this has been going on for six years. Was it a relief to plead guilty and know there’s an end date for you?
That’s a really interesting question. I would have to say yes, there was relief that there’s closure, that finally I could do something actively to end this, to serve this time, whatever time it will be, and then continue my life once all of it is over. Now I have a finite amount of time this will go on. It is a relief to know that tomorrow I’ll begin serving my time. But I’d like to do the Marty McFly, 88-miles-an-hour in a Delorean thing. If I could go back and know how all of this was going to go, I’d go back to the start of it and just plead guilty, because I’d be out right now.

If I could go back to the last time I saw my best friend, on November 5, 2004, I’d have shoved his little ass in a basement with a lot of food and kept him safe.

What will be the hardest part of losing your freedom?
Being away from my loved ones, my family. My family is large; they’re the people around me that love me.

Do the feds prep you for what to expect once inside?
I have several friends who’ve been not only to state prison, but also federal prison. They’ve given me information to assuage my fears. I’m sorry, to a layman, to someone who hasn’t even been in jail, what I know about prisons comes from the movies. I think shanking in the lunch line and rape in the shower, but my friends have assuaged my fears that that is not going to happen. However, I’m not going to say it’s not scary as fuck. It’s scary as hell and I’m just trying to get my head around it all.

It was weird. Last Tuesday, I wake up in my bed, my bed, in my room, in my house. It’s about 6:30 in the morning, I’m looking around, and it’s a weird feeling to realize that this is the last Tuesday you’re going to wake up in this situation. My kitten was sleeping at my head. My girlfriend had her arm around me. I woke up and then they woke up, and I looked at both of them and said, ‘If next Tuesday something is sleeping on my head and some person is rubbing me from behind, we’re gonna have a bad day.’ That’s hard to wrap your head around. It’s the unknown. You don’t know how to fucking deal with it. There is no way to deal with it.

How do you respond to when people chalk you up to being a low-life drug dealer?
I’m happy you asked that, sir. I answered this very question the other day. I realize that just because they chalk us up as some dirty, low-life drug dealers, it was a job. There are people who will see Amos and I in this category, but it was a vocational choice. It was a minor thing in our life, it didn’t define us. I wasn’t defined by marijuana. We had pursuits, dreams, and endeavors that transcended all of that.

Do you think they’ll ever find Amos?
No. They fucked up, bungled and botched the whole goddamn thing. I’m one-hundred percent sure they’ll never find out what happened to Amos, which pisses me off. From the get go, they were like the Keystone cops from the old-school movies. They will never figure out what happened to him because of their own ineptitude. Based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think at any point in time they were interested in finding him. I believe they never even tried to find him. Time, time and time again they fucked up everything. Even someone who just watches Law & Order would understand that this is ridiculous.

Now that they have their eyes on a guy who they believe is responsible, do you feel the murder investigation is heading in the right direction?
Not at all. No. I do not. Based on what I’ve read from my own discovery papers, let me say I think there is a very loose circumstantial case against this guy. However, everything about this tells me he did not do this. There is another person I do think did do this.

Personally, I think they’re so fixed on him because they just want somebody. If they go for him, no jury at all will convict for a murder with no evidence. They’ll go for him, he’ll get acquitted and then it’ll be closed. Then we’ll never know what happened to my best friend. We’ll never find out.

As he puts it, “[Iraqis] are used to blood and war.”

In 1971, Saddam, who then headed Iraq’s network of secret police, imprisoned Ahmed’s mother and grandfather in Abu Ghraib prison on suspicion they were working with the Iranian and Israeli governments, because of their religious beliefs. When Saddam rose to power in 1979, Amhed’s uncle was among the thousands of dissidents who disappeared in the political purges that followed.

After America overthrew Saddam’s government in 2003, the kidnappings began. First, Ahmed’s 16-year-old cousin was kidnapped, but released after a ransom was paid. But as jihadis from neighboring countries poured in through Iraq’s open borders, religious strife between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims pushed the country to the brink of civil war. In 2006, his father, a university professor, was among the first wave of intellectuals kidnapped and presumably murdered.

Fearing for their safety, Ahmed and his family fled Baghdad to Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in the northeastern part of the country. In July 2008, Ahmed struck up an Internet correspondence with Madison resident, Kate Vestlie, whom he’d been introduced to by a cousin. Months later, Kate flew to Iraq to meet Ahmed in person. Not long after, they were engaged and then married. In February, Ahmed’s visa was approved and he moved to Madison, just in time for the birth of his son, Samir.

Ahmed is currently taking classes to improve his English and to supplement the civil engineering degree he earned in Baghdad. The Feral Scribe met up with Ahmed recently to hear about his harrowing journey from one of the planet’s most dangerous cities to one of its safest.

What was life like under Saddam?
I was born in 1983 and there was war between Iraq and Iran. All my life I’ve been from war to war. It’s hard to live because there’s no simple condition to live, no freedom for people who have thoughts. They put my mother in jail for seven years – she was 21 – because she was Bahá’í.

When Saddam came to power, he destroyed all the parties around him. He just wanted his party. He destroyed too many people without any reason. Too many people wanted freedom, so they try to leave Iraq, but he made hard conditions to leave, so they have to stay and follow his rules even more. But we did have a safe life, to be on the safe side, to be close to his party. Anyone against him, they would disappear. Like my uncle; he was against him and we don’t have any information since 1979.

Was the line you didn’t want to cross very clear?
We call it, ‘red line.’ We don’t be close to this line or we get into trouble. He took my mom for seven years because she’s a Bahá’í. After she was out, she couldn’t say she was Bahá’í. Her ID said she was Muslim. She couldn’t ask for her right. We thought the war would solve all of these problems, but what happened is much worse compared to the past. In the past we could live on the safe side. But now, there is no government control on the situation. There is no Iraq power to destroy the terrorists. There is no law.

So under Saddam, as long as you followed certain rules, you were pretty safe?
Before, he was focusing on specific groups against his party. There were politicians against his government. He’s not religious. He doesn’t care what religious do as long as you’re not against his party.

Were the Bahá’ís against his party?
He thought this religion came from Iran. We have a shrine in Haifa, in Israel and he thought we had relationship with Israel and Iran, but we don’t have relationship with them, just relationship with people, not government. But he thought we did so put Bahá’ís in jail in 1971 to 1978… He let them out when he came to power [in 1979].

Obviously things changed when the Americans came. What was that like in 2003 when the occupation began?
We learned from the other wars to prepare for war before it’s coming. We prepare as a family, to be in one place so if we die, we die together. We get food for a long time, water for a long time. In war, there is no television, no water, no electricity. We lived in a dark place for 20 days, in one room and protect each other from the bombs – about 30 of us. It’s so hard. After 20 days we went outside.

Iraqis, we are closed and don’t know the outside and don’t know the American thoughts. We thought the war would solve problems and get us the freedom. We were optimistic about the situation. Like in 1997, they hit special places. In 1991, they hit special places, Saddam’s places and they didn’t hurt Iraqis. We thought they would come and hit Saddam’s places. But they came and opened the borders and broke the Iraqi Army and, before that, Saddam had let out all the people from the prisons. So the borders are open and there is no army. We could see in the street people killing the weak people, stealing, the officers stealing from the banks.

How long after the invasion did you realize things weren’t going as you had hoped?
Iraqis, they think everyday that things are going to get better because the American’s came. They think that American’s came from far away to help Iraqis, but they saw that there was no help for the Iraqis. We see now it’s only politics. Politicians came for a specific purpose, because they don’t try to fix the problem. And the Iraqi politicians think about themselves. Each government thinks about itself. We know now why they came. If we don’t have oil, nobody will come to us. All the problems, all of the wars, because of the oil. Like Jordan, there is no oil, there is no problems.

In 2006, when the insurgency really took root, what was day-to-day life like for you in Baghdad?
I’d go back to the history of Islam, because the problem came from the history. The history began 1,400 years ago, the problem between the two big parts of Islam, Sunni and Shi’a. All countries, they have this problem. Even during Saddam’s time we have this problem, but the government controlled it. Each government in the Arab country control it. After the war, the Shi’a wanted to have their right, because 30 years ago they lost their right, so they started to practice their right and because there is no government, no law and the border is open… there is people in neighborhood countries who think about their politicians and they come from [various] groups. We have Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Afghanistan. So the Shi’a from Iran came to Iraq and tried to make this country Shi’a. They came from Syria and they fight with each other inside the country. They trained Iraqis in Syria how to cut heads, how to kidnap people, how to make fake checkpoints… so all the fighting came from outside the country to Baghdad, inside the streets.

Why was your father kidnapped?
In 2005, the first kidnapping in my family was my cousin. He was 16. The people who kidnapped him… it wasn’t between Sunni and Shi’a. Those people didn’t come until 2006. From 2003 to 2006, it was stealing and kidnapping for money. One day they kidnapped my cousin. When he was done with his school they stop him at a fake checkpoint. They kidnap him for 13 days. His father gave him the money and they let him go.

Did they pick him at random?
They study the situation, the family, if they have money and can pay for him. In 2006, when the government became weak, and the terrorists from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Afghanistan, you could see so easily the terrorists kidnapping people. So we decided right away to leave Baghdad, but I wanted to finish my degree at the college.

So you’re going to school during all of this?
Yes. All the people hope for a better situation. There’s nothing to do but practice your life. We get in troubles with the government if we don’t do our lives. We have to practice our life or the terrorists will get more power. It was my last year. We decided to leave as a family. Everyday we see these terrorists kill people. We decided to leave in September when I finished exams. My father was a professor at the college. The terrorists who came wanted to make life like Islam time, 1,400 years ago.

So they get rid of the intellectuals and thinkers first?
Exactly. They kill all the technology, the doctors and teachers and the histories. They don’t want car or gun; they want sword and horse. So they started to kidnap the people who have knowledge. So we decided to leave after I finished exams, but they kidnap my dad before that, on the 23rd of August, in 2006.

Did you ever hear from his kidnappers?
We heard from a group. After they kidnap him, me and my uncles, we went to the hospitals and the morgues and search for him. It’s hard to recognize, because all of the bodies are in bad shape. So we look on the street. The terrorists put the bodies in the garbage, but they put bombs on the bodies so when the Americans come to take them. We didn’t want to go to the police, because we know when the police get information… but we gave them a phone number and the information. After that, a group called us and said, ‘Your father is with us; we need money.’

We had a little bit of hope, but asked to hear his voice or any proof he’s with you guys and they said he’s fine and that they’d let us hear his voice, but to prepare yourself for the money. They wanted $100,000. We made it to $10,000 and we agreed to meet some place to get him. They ask for only my mother to go there and we asked to hear his voice or call from his cell phone. But they didn’t so we think it’s the police. They used to do this, because they have the information. We told them we can’t pay unless we have the proof. So they told us, ‘Give us the money or we kidnap your mother.’ We decided to leave the same night.

Then, some time later, your cousin wants to introduce you to this American girl, but the Americans have done so much damage to your country.
We know the people are different from their government. We cannot judge the people. There are big differences between East and West, but we share the same religion, Bahá’í. We started on Facebook, then Skype, and we became serious. But it was very hard to get out of Iraq so she came to visit with my sister. We get to know each other. In two months, we were engaged and her family came, then her brother came and we were married in Kurdistan. Then I waited several months to get my visa.

I had to go back to Baghdad for my papers, but there are too many bombs in Baghdad. They had blown up the building, so my papers weren’t there. It was the last stage. I was going to get my papers, but two days before they blew up the building. I didn’t expect that. I went there and saw people dead. They were still pulling bodies. The police ask me what I am doing here. I said, ‘I’m looking for my papers.’ The police say, ‘We don’t care about your papers.’

What’s it like to see that, the bombings and bodies and bloodletting?
I have a video, about two minutes after the bomb, taken by my friend. Two car bombs destroyed the building by my apartment in central Baghdad. All the windows in my apartment were broken. We used to hear bombs, but this time we saw the affects. We saw hands and heads, arms, legs and tissue. The building is so big that they didn’t go in to help the people. They heard them crying, but they were afraid to go inside. And this is still happening. We hope it gets better. We go from war to war.

What are your hopes these days? Five years from now, do you think it’ll be better?
There have been improvements, maybe a little bit. But the people, they’re used to blood and war. We need a new generation to live without war, to live without blood. We believe now that the war was negative. Nothing about it is positive. We need big energy from God. He is the only one who can help this society. There are too many wars around the world. We thought the war would bring freedom, but the terrorists came and now the Iraqis live with terrorists. I have faith, but my emotions are broken, my heart is broken to see the Iraqis dying everyday… but I cannot do anything. It will take a long time to control the situation.

Click here to see exclusive, unreleased footage of the immediate aftermath of the double car bombing of Iraq’s Justice Ministry building on Oct. 24, 2009. The video was shot by Ahmed’s friend, who, like him, lived across the street from the government complex. Ahmed was en route to Baghdad to finalize his visa application when the bombing occurred. However, the papers he needed, proof that he had no criminal history, were destroyed in the blast, delaying his reunion with his wife in America. He arrived in Madison last February.

Nashville, TN – Ray Crocker is a voice of reason in the otherwise chaotic and largely unregulated repossession industry. The mafia failed in the 1950s to bring repos into their rackets, but Crocker has watched over the last 25 years as tow-truck companies and auto auctions have not only low-balled professional companies like Crocker’s, but have also caricaturized repo men as lawless renegades at the ready to strong-arm consumers. On the television show Operation Repo, situations based “on real life events” are re-enacted, depicting repo agents muscle-men wrestling property from owners using headlocks and mace.

Nonsense, says Crocker, 62, who sits on the board of directors for Time Finance Adjusters, one of the more reputable repossessor associations. His attempts to persuade state lawmakers to regulate the industry have failed, but Crocker insists he’ll keep trying. The Feral Scribe caught up with Crocker at his Nashville, TN, office to discuss the industry, the difference between television and reality, and whether being a repo man is actually dangerous.

How does the reality differ from what you see on television?
Don’t get me wrong: you can get in some bad situations. If you walk in prepared, if you know where you’re going, when is the best time to be there, then generally you’re successful. Sometimes you can’t just go there with the keys and take it. Sometimes you have to make contact. And that’s the difference between Joe Repo and a professional. You have to be a salesman. You have to sell somebody on giving up something they need, want, and been trying to pay for. You’re gonna take it from them. For them, there’s no tomorrow. The word ‘repossession’ is like the word death. They think, you take their car they’ll never get it back, but the truth is that law allows the debtor 10-days to make arrangements.

Have repossessions gone up as the economy has gone down?
Right now, business is slow. When I first got in the business, my going rate was around $350, but we got companies out there, like these auto auctions, that decided to get in the repo business years ago. They go to these finance companies with flat repo fees, whereas they’re paying me $350 for the repo, plus another $200-plus for the skip-trace and find. These other guys might drive 200 miles to eight different addresses, never find a vehicle and still think they’re making money. Some will tell you they’re a skip-trace company, but really they aren’t. I call them skip-guessers. (Note: Skip-tracing is the process of locating a person or property.)

What’s a good repo?
Address is good and you get it on the first lick.

A bad one?
Dealing with a guy who has been in jail for drugs, assault and battery, murder, he’s hiding, he’s running, the law is looking for him. Just last week, we had a girl go into a car dealership with a letter from the bank that said she just deposited $250,000 in a bank account, but due to the amount there was a hold on the money for 10 days, then her check will be good for the new car. It was a bogus check, but they gave her the car. So, they called me. I had the car in two days.

Do repo men need to be licensed?
The state of Tennessee will not license repossessors. They demand PI companies to be licensed, but not the repossessors. Last year they passed a law saying you need a license to make keys. We do more investigation in a week than most P.I. companies will do in a year. We make keys and can open just about any vehicle but we are not required to be licensed. Look at the laws that impact repossessors. This [binder] tells me what federal laws impact my business, the things I have to abide by. It was first 97 pages, and has just been revised to 339 pages. Joe Repo has no idea what these laws are.

I went to a state Senator a few years back to try and get him to license repossessors. He thought that was a good idea, because it’s a consumer protection, ya know? You can’t jerk people out of the car, mace them like you see on TV or put your hands on them. That’s assault. You can’t go busting into their office. You can’t do anything that’s illegal.

How they get away with that stuff on television?
They shouldn’t. I’ve been after the industry to go after them. If someone tells you to put the car down, you put the car down. If you do it against protest, you’re breaching the peace. You can’t go in and cut a lock. You can’t mace them. It’s really pathetic. I don’t know how to put it other than shaking my head.

What happened with the law?
So, they wrote up the law and filed the law and it wasn’t three weeks that I get a phone call calling me to this Senator’s office. He’s got all these guys in this room and the Senator goes, ‘I’m gonna have to drop this law.’ And I says, ‘Why?’ ‘Well this is Big John over there and he’s president of Tennessee’s Tower’s Association and they’re not gonna support me anymore if I fight for this law.’ And I look at Big John and say, ‘Well, why not.’ He says, ‘You’re trying to license our business.’

I says, ‘No I’m not. I don’t do private property tow aways. I’m not in the rotation for the local police or sheriff. I don’t clean up after wrecks.” But they pulled the bill. What it takes, they think, is a lot of nerve and a tow truck.

So the industry exists in a regulatory limbo?
The majority of it does. We’re not just thieves in the night. I take a lot of pride in what I do, what my company does. Anybody with a tow truck can go to an address and leave with a vehicle. The first phase of the investigation is that you gotta know where that car sits. Ford Credit, GMAC, all of them, they all downsized and are using call centers in India that use the same investigative databases that we do.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)… you wouldn’t think HIPAA applies to us but it does. You get somebody’s car and there’s medical information inside papers, prescriptions, whatever. You have to box that up and secure it per HIPAA. Gramm Leach Bliley does not allow you to talk to anyone about the debt other than the debtor. Not his wife, his mother or brothers. You can’t just go over there and say, “You know where Ray Crocker is? I need to repo his car.’ You can’t say that. You can’t talk about their situation. You have to put a whole lot of sense in what we do. Only two states require licenses for repossessors – Florida and California.

Biggest misperception people of have of repo men?
That we’re tattooed, have studs in the eyebrows… I had an idiot walk in that had that crap on him, muscle shirt, nose with an earring, and I say, ‘Son, you’re telling me you wanna work for minimum wage the way you look? Just get out.’ I wouldn’t even consider hiring a guy who looks like that. The recovery agent is an extension of their client. How they dress and present themselves and what they do to handle the job is a direct reflection on the client.  Federal courts have ruled time and again the client – banks, finance company, credit union – is responsible for the actions of the recovery agent.  Millions of dollars have been paid by the client because of a repossession gone bad.

Now listen, this guys sends out a guy on assignment to pick up a car… this is a real story… guy don’t handle that area, so they send it to a repo man who does handle the area, but the guy doesn’t have the truck, his brother-in-law does. Guy beats the hell out of the repo man. Repo man tells the bank, ‘You gotta go legal on this. The guy beat me up.’

The debtor goes bankrupt. Eight months go by. The collector from the finance company calls. They put it out on another repo. Send it to the same repo company, who sends it to the same guy. He’s got a key to it this time. The guy comes runnin’ out and the repo man ends up hittin’ him, draggin’ the debtor 90 feet down the driveway. Kills him. Family sues the finance company, the repo company and it goes through all the channels of court. The finance company was responsible for the actions of the collector. They hire these untrained, six-gun repo men thinking they’re getting a good deal.

So it is pretty dangerous work?
Of course it is. We’ve been shot at. Things you wouldn’t think would happen. Guy has three BMWs. Send three guys up with keys to get them. They get into driving and the guy comes out. Pow! Pow! Pow! One bullet goes through the license plate, the back panel and then lodges in the back of the front seat.  I’ve had people sit across the street with a gun. In 25 years, I’ve dealt with all kinds. I know that sounds bad, but in all the years of recovering collateral, and I mean tens of thousand of vehicles, 98 percent of the time the recovery is done without incident.

Arguably there are no greater heart-pounding conditions under which to travel than those that come with being a fugitive from justice. Just ask Gerald Heckathorn, who, in the early-1980s, went on an 18-month cross-country bank-robbing spree in his prized white Cadillac El Dorado. “I went everywhere, man” he recalls. “I was living large.”

That is, until the FBI zeroed in on him.

Gerald was an unlikely criminal. Born to bohemian parents in the San Francisco Bay area, he rebelled as a teenager by going to war in Vietnam. Less than three weeks after arriving in Saigon, a Viet Cong kid somehow ran into Gerald’s bayonet, knocking them both to the ground. While impaled, the kid beat Gerald in the head with the butt of his rifle, breaking his neck and ending his service.

After recovering, Gerald ran afoul of the law and served a brief stint in a California prison. Determined to make a better life for himself upon his release, Gerald went to school, but circumstances led him down an alternative career path upon graduating.

Now 60, Gerald lives in Madison, WI, where he remains on parole. Here, The Feral Scribe caught up with him earlier this month to discuss his time as fugitive road-tripper and bank robber.

The Feral Scribe: How did you get into bank robbing?
Gerald Heckathorn: Well, I went to teller school. Paid $500 for it. Got out of prison in California and wanted to turn my life around. I thought it was legitimate, legal work that might help me get my life back on track.  They advertised that they would train and place you. So I did that. Six month course and when it came time to be placed they said, ‘You can’t be bonded because you have a conviction.’ I said, ‘Well you should’ve told me that, now gimme my money back.’ They said, ‘No.’

I’ve always had criminal in me, and I think I’m semi-intelligent, so I thought of a plan to rob banks. I knew the inside of banking. I knew what the tellers were supposed to do if they were robbed, because I just had schooling for it. So, I used that knowledge to get them to give me the money.

I went into the first bank with a check all made out and on the back, instead of an endorsement, there was a typed note that said, ‘Please give me all of the money in your drawer. Don’t turn around. Don’t press the alarms. Don’t give me the dye bomb.’ Then, in bold letters, I wrote, ‘I do not want to hurt anyone.’ The feds said that was an implied threat.

What was your strategy?
My strategy was this: I’d go into a town I’d never been in before, let’s say Des Moines, Iowa, which is where I got caught. I call ahead on the payphone, the hotel that is, and make reservations for John Smith and then pay cash when I arrived. I’d get the phonebook out and it had all the information I needed. In the Yellow Pages, B for banks. So I’d find four. I’d get three or four in a row, working my way toward the Interstate. While I was at the second bank, the cops would be at the first, and so on until they’re run thin and are completely busy. Then I hit the Interstate. By afternoon I’m in a nice hotel in another state.

Then I’d fly to Mexico, buy an ounce of heroin and stick it in the crack of my ass – not up my ass – but in the crack. Back then you could get away with that. Then I’d fly back to where I had my Cadillac. I was doing about two grams a day, smoking weed and hitting the banks.

How much was your haul from each bank?
About $4,000 to $5,000 per bank. I wasn’t greedy. I’d hit four and leave the state.

What’s it like to travel as a wanted man?
I was scared to death the entire time. Scared I’m going to get caught. My head was on a swivel. I was scared to make friends. Basically, I was all alone. I’d sit in a room. It was the only place I felt safe. But I knew the hammer was going to drop some day. But I was addicted to the crime and the drugs. The first time I did it, I left puddles of sweat on the counter I was so nervous. I started laughing and crying at the same time on my way out of there, but then it became so easy. I didn’t need to keep doing it. I could’ve stopped, but I didn’t.

How many banks did you hit during this time?
I went back to a lot of the states twice, because I ran out of banks. Between 50 and 100 over a year-and-a-half, I’d guess. Some places wouldn’t give you the money, especially the blacks and the Asians. The Asians would pretend they couldn’t speak English. But of course they could speak English. You can’t work in a bank if you don’t speak English. I’d avoid the black tellers because they weren’t cooperative, either. I was chased, too. Once by a woman in heels and once by an old man who eventually caught up with me, so I kicked him in the nuts. I felt bad about that, but that’s the only violent thing I ever did. He was relentless.

How did you get caught?
I don’t know exactly how they got onto me. A cop pulled me over coming into Des Moines. I was all dressed up, had my notes in my pocket, was staying in a nice hotel, I’m looking impeccable and my car was just detailed. I got pulled over because, the cop said, my car was so clean. It was snowy and slushy and everyone’s car was filthy, but mine was shining. But I think they were onto me as I left the hotel.

As I was driving, before I saw the trooper, I saw a Crown Victoria. It was blue, and it was full of cops with hats and windbreakers on and a uniformed cop in the driver’s seat. I thought, ‘That’s unusual.’ I thought right then something’s up. Then this cop pulls me over. He asks about my car being so clean, asks if it’s my car. He was letting me go, but then says, ‘Wait just one minute” and he went up and looked in my windshield and wrote down the VIN number.

Why didn’t you leave after that?
I was going to. I got to the first exit and said I was going to blow off Des Moines, forget about it. When I got back to the hotel, I walked in the back door. Right after I walk in there’s a guy tapping on the back door. He’s got a green windbreaker on, but it doesn’t say FBI. So, he taps on the door, wants me to let him in. I open the door and hold it for him and he runs past me and I see FBI on the back. And I’m thinking, “Aw, fuck!”

So I run to my hotel room, and I leave everything – my suits, my typewriter – everything except my briefcase full of money and drugs, and I walk out that same back door. As I’m walking out I look back and I catch a glimpse of all those guys I saw in the Victoria out in the lobby.

So, I go out the back door and see another guy in a green windbreaker coming around the corner. He goes, ‘Excuse me, we’re looking for someone driving a Cadillac. Do you drive a Cadillac?’ I got my keys in hand, so I says, ‘I sure do.’ And he says, ‘Well which one do you drive?’ And I say, ‘Well, that red one right there.’ Mine was white. And he says, ‘Okay, thanks a lot.’ Then he stops again and turns around. ‘Would you mind opening the door?’ And I say, ‘Sure.’ So I stuck the key in the door and the alarm went off. And so I was caught… I did 15 years.

As a little girl, Davin Jael couldn’t wait to grow up so she could trade the tedium of rural Maine for the excitement and wonder of everywhere else. Not unhappy, but restless, Davin left home at 18, bouncing from town to town across America. She landed eventually in sunny California, until Mother Nature sent her packing. She’s been on the move ever since.

“I like everything to be temporary and fluid,” explains Davin, now 27. “That feeling like I wake up on a moving island rather than being stationary, I can’t see myself ever getting tired of it.”

Now, as the lead singer for the straightedge-vegan-hardcore punk band, Kingdom, Davin’s adventures have led her across the Atlantic to Britain, France, Eastern Europe and Russia, where last summer she was detained by border authorities on suspicions of drug smuggling.

In spite of this, she intends on crossing the whole of Russia next fall on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Following Kingdom’s 2010 fall European tour, Davin and her boyfriend (Kingdom guitarist Dave Hayter) will jump aboard in the Ukraine and ride until they reach Mongolia.

The Feral Scribe caught up with Davin at The Bean Café on Philadelphia’s rambunctious South Street, to discuss traveling, blogging and why she was trying to sneak a bunch pills out of Russia.

The Feral Scribe: Why were you so eager to leave home?
Davin Jael: I had been waiting to leave since I was about six, because Maine is really cold and really boring. (laughs) I used to collect pictures of cities. Every night before I went to bed I would spread out all my pictures and I would just stare at them imagining that I might live in one of the glowing little squares someday. So it started this big countdown. [Eventually] I got on a Greyhound and headed vaguely west.

Where did you go?
The goal was kind of to get to Santa Cruz. We got our Greyhound tickets and went to one place, then to the next place, to the next place and so on. We would stay with random people, look around and then, when we got to Santa Cruz, it was a nightmare. It was so expensive. We couldn’t stay there.

After a month of staying in homeless shelters, we went to Berkley. We get off the bus and realized we don’t know anyone in the city, we don’t know where the homeless shelters are. So we tried to find some church steps. I’d seen people sleeping on them all the time and they never got messed with. So we’re looking for a nice church step and we realize this insane punk venue is in Berkley, California. We have to go to this venue; they’ll give us a place to stay. So we trudge over there and go, ‘Hi, we’re from Maine. Can we sleep on your floor? We don’t have anywhere to go.’

They were like, ‘No, but there’s a show tonight and if you work the door you can get in for free. Maybe you could meet someone tonight.’

So we were stamping hands and taking money and there were these two people from Maine who had disappeared two years prior who were really good friends of mine. They were a couple and they up and disappeared and no one ever heard from them again. So I’m stamping hands and suddenly I hear, ‘Davin?’ I look and it’s the two kids from Maine. It was outrageous. So we stayed with them for a while. Then the night before we were to move into our apartment there was an earthquake – a tremor. I felt a wobble. I cried all night and we left on the 6 a.m. bus to Eugene, Oregon.

Nowadays you travel mostly with your band. How different is touring from regular travel?
It’s not really very pleasurable. It’s all the parts of traveling that suck. Sitting in a van, eating gas station food and never getting to your destination. It’s all of the bad parts all of the time. Traveling, looking out the window, waiting for time to go by, then being in a place for like an hour, but only in the three block radius around the venue we’re playing and only meeting the people who come to see our band. Then we leave again. I’m around the same three people all of the time and I can’t get away from them.

So why tour?
(Laughs) Because when I’m not touring all I want to do is tour. (Laughs) It’s the one thing I love doing, but when I’m doing it I hate it. When I’m at home all I think about is going on tour. When I’m on tour I only think of all the things I’ll do just once I’m home. I have no idea why I do it. Actually, there’s five percent of the time when it’s the greatest thing ever, usually when we’re playing, which makes up for everything else.

You’ve been writing your Elledelphia blog for a while now. How did you get into blogging?
I started when I was 21. I was living in Richmond, Virginia. My grandmother was dying. I moved back to Maine to be with her and had to leave all of my friends. I was bummed, but someone said, ‘You should get LiveJournal.’ So I got this LiveJournal blog and used it to keep up with friends from all the different places I’d been. Then I got readers, more readers, more readers and it got to the point where people would come up to me at our shows and be like, ‘I read this in your blog…’

It was bizarre, because it was just stuff from my everyday life. That’s all I write about. So I started a more “official” blog, realizing that I wasn’t just writing for my family and friends. I’m still just writing about my life, really uninteresting stuff, but for some reason people really like reading it. (Laughs)

Is it easy to find the right foods on the road, being a committed vegan?
Sometimes on tour we’d stay at peoples’ houses. Last tour we traveled with spices, a knife and a cast-iron pan. Every exit off the highway, there’s McDonald’s and gas stations, but about a half-mile down there’s a town that people live in and you just go, ‘Where’s your grocery store?’ and people would tell us. We’d buy pasta, olive oil and fresh vegetables.

If we don’t have time because we’re just driving, driving, driving, then we get Ramen Noodles, Oriental flavor. It’s the only vegan one there is. We take the bag, crush it up into four or five pieces. Then you get a Styrofoam cup from the gas station, put the noodles in, pour in hot tea water, put the cap on and wait about two minutes, pop the little drinking spout, pour out the water, put the spices in and eat with a spork. It’s usually cooked just enough to be edible. (Laughs)

Our bassist actually texted me the other day; he’s touring with his new band. He was like, ‘I just ate tour Ramen and thought of you.’ I actually got that tingly feeling like I was going to cry. I can’t even explain it.

What’s the one memorable travel story you tell everyone about?
We were on tour in Russia. We had come in through Finland and had to go out at the Ukraine. Everyone was telling us the Russian-Ukrainian border was so corrupt. So, we get there and we’re a little nervous. We’re in a Swedish van with a Hungarian driver, and on tour with a Swedish band and my band. They come to our van and tell us to go to this private garage off to the side where no one can see us. They made us wait for so long.

Finally, this hard-jawed, blue-eyed, mega-Russian – speaks no English – comes up. We have to open up the back of our van. We have all of our equipment, all of our merchandise – our t-shirts, our records, our personal belongings and thousands of Euros that we’re hiding.

He’s going through everyone’s stuff. Then he gets to my stuff. Now, we were on the road for three months, so I had four months worth of birth control with me. And when he picked it up, he had this look on his face like, ‘You motherfucker.’

He radios for back up. He motions for everyone to get up against the wall. This guy in fatigues comes jogging in to take a sample of my birth control. I’m panicking because I listened to this show on NPR before we left, about the top countries that would imprison people without giving a reason. Russia was number two. So, I think I’m going to jail. They don’t even need a reason. What if they don’t have vegan food in prison? What am I going to eat?

So, I start trying to explain birth control through pantomime to him, [rubbing my stomach] and going u-ter-us… as though breaking it down in syllables will somehow help him speak English. I’m miming a baby coming out of me… so desperate. I finally rummage through my bag and pull out a tampon and I’m like, ‘Girl. Tampon. Medicine. Girly Medicine.’ They brought in a drug dog and eventually realized we weren’t drug smugglers. They found our money, but let us keep it.

That was one of the more memorable moments.

Kingdom performing The Rage That Guides last year in Warsaw, Poland.