Integrity Beatdown
I lived out in Cleveland for like a year and a half with my ex-girlfriend. She's part of Integrity's crew with whom we had beef from back in the day. It all started when I went on tour in '92 with Sick of It All, Biohazard, and Sheer Terror. They played a show in Peabody's in Cleveland. Toby from H2O was on the road with me too, and I guess his wife's named Moon? Anyway she had beef with Dwid from Integrity and the guy punched Moon in the face. He had a reason for doing it, but I don't know what the reason was. I was with Toby, so I saw that, knocked the kid out, and chased the rest of the band outside. And that was it. I guess Dwid found out I used to be in a band called Crown of Thorns, and told people I was just like a little hardcore kid instead of the real thing. Whatever, I never paid any attention to it. But then I went to Europe and he was talking shit, and I was like, "Yo, come on." People were saying, "Come on, this guy's crazy. He reads Dianetics." So I was like, "All right, get outta here." But he was giving me more shit, and I was like, "What is he, fucking crazy? Obviously he's fucking crazy." I was getting furious at this point.
So I moved to Cleveland with my girl and I went to play pool at the same place as these guys. After like two to three hours of playing pool they come up and go, "What's up with you?" and I was like, "What's up? You guys have a beef?" They go, "No, no, we love fucking hardcore." So that was pretty cool, and they told this Dwid dude to give me a call. He calls up and I say, "No talking, meet me outside. We'll take care of it like men." So he calls back, you know, "No, it's all right, whatever. Everything's cool, you know, this and that, it's over." So cool, you know? We shoot the shit for a while, but it's over, right? So then I leave.
My girl calls me up like four weeks later going, "Yo, fuck this guy." I was like, "Why?" She tells me, "He called back and started talking shit to my brother while I was away from the phone." She'd gone to the bathroom, and he'd called back and was making fun of her brother, saying stupid stuff about Ebonics and New York City and everything. So it was on now.
I went to Holland to play this show like 30 minutes away from where he was playing, so we drove out there. Basically I was in Europe thinking they can't press charges on me, so me and my boy Boston Mike, rest in peace, and my boy Goat—it was us three, we went to his thing looking for him. I see their tour manager, this European guy, so we grab him in an alleyway, put him in the frickin' van—basically kidnap the guy—and started questioning him, "Where is he?" We get the address and head over to it. It's this old European, Swiss Miss-like bed and breakfast, you know—very country. So we go upstairs, put on a European accent like "Ello?" but they don't answer. So then I was like, "Fuck that." I kick the door down and everyone's running. The band is already running through another door in their room, trying to get outside and jump the fence.
Dwid comes running up and goes, "Yo, what's up?" kinda like, "Hey, it's me, I'm sorry." He walks up to me, and I just punch him in the face, one shot. Then I proceeded to beat him down, bad.
I had ten stitches in my hand from this cut I'd got, so I was like, "God, I can't hit him that hard." As a result I was beating him with a 40-ounce of Coca Cola, like one of those European bottles. It's fucking him up, but I wanna really beat him good. I make his bandmates watch, and he's on the floor like, "You are the king, you are the king," and I'm like, "Yo, stop it, please. Be a man. Get up." But he keeps going, "No, you are the king of hardcore. I'm a bitch, I'm a little bitch"—which makes me more furious cause I don't know if he's mocking me or something and it's really fucking my head. So I beat him even more. I grab his arm and twist it and I hear a pop, and that was it. I broke his ribs, his cheekbones. It was really bad.
He's on the floor bleeding and I'm like, "That's it. I got no more." He goes, "I don't want to lose my band over you, even though I deserve it." And I say, "You're a little bitch, you've deserved it seven to eight years in the making."
It was funny because all the guys in the band, like Frank, became my boys when I lived in Cleveland. I played basketball and hung out with them every day. But basically, that was it. He had to have plastic surgery in Europe for his cheekbones and everything—his ribs were broken, his nose and jaw were broken, his arm was dislocated. Then he went back to his house, and found his wife fucking some guy. So the poor guy—I feel bad for him. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
There was another guy, Chubbie Fresh, who was also in Integrity and used to talk all this shit too. He used to prank all our houses when we were kids, which is how it all started. That kid, he played with Motörhead in Cleveland, and he was on the phone and I punched him dead in his face. He ran and brought the cops back to the show, so I had to hide. They ended up arresting one of the guys from Hatebreed by accident, then I came back and played the show anyway.
But then when I lived in Cleveland I caught him again. The Lunachicks were playing in like the Grog Shop or somewhere, and he pulled up on a Ninja motorcycle all guido'd out with cow spots on it. So I go up to him like, "What's up?" He goes, "Oh, that old beef is over, when you beat down Dwid," and I go, "No, it's not over," and I punch him again in his fucking face. One of his friend comes up like, "Yo, that's my boy." I go, "Mind your business," and he goes, "This is my business," so I punched him and knocked him out too. I ran inside the club—this was by myself—got the bouncer, and with the bouncer started taking beer bottles off the bar and smacking them across the guy's face.
I was living in Murray Hill, so I went back to my house, but then I was like, "Yo, I bet someone's going to rat me out on where I live." So I take my dog and I'm going up the street, and all of a sudden I see cops coming down my block. So I go the other way with my dog, and the cops go down to my place and are talking to my girl or whatever, and who do I see around the other corner? Chubbie Fresh standing there on his motorcycle with his helmet off, posing with his hand on his hip and the other on the handlebar. I go "What's up?" and he sees me and starts yelling, "Oh my god, he's here! He's here!" So I let my dog loose on him. He starts running, my dog Ajax is biting his tires, and he goes over to grab the cops to come back after me. I had to hide in the forest in Ohio for like an hour and a half covering my dog's mouth so he wouldn't bark at the cops.
DANNY DIABLO
Cro Mags- Age of Quarrel (1986)
