on numerous
occasions. I remember our car had a dent in the roof from one rally
that turned into a riot. We never tried to knock it out, kept it to
remind us what was going on, I guess."

Though Henry went on these rallies with his mother, he quickly
developed a life away from home. By the time he was 16 he was digging
everything from "Aerosmith to Ted Nugent and The O'Jays, The Four Tops,
Isaac Hayes, KC and The Sunshine Band." His nickname was Henrietta, and
he was working for the gay proprietor of a downtown cinema.

He remembers the boss and his friends as great guys, laughing as
he recalls one of his tasks. "To knock on the window if any guys who
looked like Omar Sharif went past." But it was the horror storiestold
by the police in the foyer that seems to have affected him most deeply,
the dark side of American life took a hold as he began to feel The Great
Society falling apart. This is a process that he sees accelerating
towards the millenium.

"In America there's going to be more skirmishes, more Gaza Strip
Experiences. Then the government will take off its mask and go: 'Right
fuck you, Seig Heil, this is how it is.' Because the American government
is a racist government, without the havenots...without racism the
American dream doesn't work."

The brutal disavowal of soft emotions evident in the young Henry
is well to the fore on 'Come In And Burn,' where Rollins excoriates his
own weaknesses and casts himself as a mad animal roaming the infernal
city of night "wasted on insomnia, paranoid to the hilt."

Since