He was born Charles Harrell Jr., but changed his name when he was nineteen and did so for two reasons. First, he was wanted by police for assaulting a Chicago police officer during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The second, and more important reason, was that his father’s name was also Charles Harrell. He hated his father. Charlie’s father wasn’t a bad man—quite the contrary. He was a good and kind man. What Charlie despised about his father was his seeming lack of passion. He’d been content with his quiet, boring, workaday life—satisfied with the little job, with his little house, and his little family.
Charlie Henry had never been an introspective person, or one willing to accept criticism, no matter how constructive. He had been a sheltered and pampered child, brought up by two parents who had lived through the worst of the Depression and the Second World War. Despite his parents’ sacrifices, they had never passed their hard-learned lessons onto their son. Young Charlie had always had an unquenchable desire for adventure—to be a part of something big or something important. It was that desire that caused the irreparable rift between them.
It started when Charlie and some friends went to witness the Detroit race riots. The young, skinny teenagers were the only white people in the crowd—who weren’t policemen, that is. Though scared, the boys wanted to get involved somehow—to fight the injustice in the city’s ghettos. Before they could find any trouble, a young police officer spotted them and ordered them to get into his squad car. The officer asked where they were from and who their parents were and then drove them home. He lectured them about how dangerous “black folks” are the entire way home. When Charlie’s parents saw their son being delivered home by a police officer, Charlie’s mother began to cry softly, looking to her husband for answers. Mr. Harrell, a soft-spoken man by nature, stared off into space, his jaw clenched with anger.
Charlie was escorted to the front door by the policeman and stood awkwardly on the front stoop. His head hung low as the cop explained why he was bringing him home. Charlie was ashamed for his mother’s sake, but he was angry with his father and his meaningless life and this damn country that would allow its boys to go over to Vietnam and get blown to hell. As time passed, Charlie’s shame faded as his anger grew.
Months later, Charlie returned to the house one morning after staying out all night with friends. There had been a big anti-war demonstration downtown and Mr. Harrell figured that that was where his son had been. The man had merely become an observer in his son’s life, watching him slip away and become someone he didn’t recognize—and worse, a person that he no longer loved.
“Charlie,” he said in his quiet way, “you don’t know what you’re playing with here.”
Charlie had just looked at his father with disgust. The years of impotent rage that had been building within him—boiling and festering—finally escaped.
“What would you know about it? You’re nothing but a fascist pig just like those other sons of bitches!” Young Charlie said, gesturing out towards the world he didn’t truly understand. He’d expected his father to lash out at him, maybe even hit him, but the old man did nothing. He just stood there, stoic, and for the first time that Charlie had ever seen, his father looked hurt.
“As a matter of fact, Charlie, I do know what I’m talking about. I risked my life to fight fascists. I sat in a frozen hole, waiting for fascists to run across a field to kill me. Don’t tell me what I don’t know, son.”
It should have been the end of it, but Charlie felt a sick satisfaction in pushing his father’s buttons.
“Well it was a waste of time then. You come home just to become one of them. You and your useless life! Go to work, come home, kiss mom, eat dinner, watch TV. Over and over and over. But you accomplish nothing! You are nothing!”
The look of pain and betrayal deepened in Mr. Harrell’s face.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this because you’re obviously being unreasonable, but I’m going to tell you anyway and then I want you to go to your room, pack your things and get out of my house and never come back.”
Charlie looked shocked for a moment but tried to compose himself.
“One night… sometime around Thanksgiving, the Germans shelled the hell out of us. Two of my best friends got killed that night. Anyway, I sat in my foxhole, freezing, scared out of my mind. Somehow I was able to pray and I asked God to get me through that night. If He would, I told Him that I would come home and live a quiet, peaceful life. I would find a job and I would start a family. He kept His promise. This life that you call useless is just me keeping my promise.”
Charlie’s father turned around and went to his bedroom, closing the door silently behind him. It would be the last time Charlie would ever see him. He went to his room and quickly packed his things. He called a taxi and waited on the front stoop for it to arrive. As the cab drove away, he watched his mother wave goodbye to him, tears streaming down her face. It would be the last time he would see her too.
Any sentimentality he felt for his mother eventually faded. He soon became involved in much more important things—rallies, meetings, and sit-ins. After graduating from high school Charlie set off for the University of Chicago. He never did declare a major. Instead, he got more deeply involved in the anti-Vietnam movement, even joining Students for a Democratic Society. Charlie quickly gained the reputation as a lightweight, not really committed to the movement and not particularly bright. However, when the Democratic National Convention came to Chicago in 1968, Charlie got his chance to show his bona fides.
It was during the third night of the four-day convention. Many of Charlie’s friends had already been arrested, so he decided to go out alone. He was standing towards the back of a large mob that was trying to break through a police barrier. Once they did, all hell broke loose. Charlie got chased into an alley and he watched, stunned almost, as dozens of his comrades were run down and beaten by cops with nightsticks. Two cops caught a young man and started beating him right in front of Charlie. Seething with anger at the injustice of it all, Charlie picked up a loose bit of concrete, snuck up behind one of the cops and smashed him in the back of the head. He then escaped down a dark alleyway. The young officer had a fractured skull and was nearly killed. Charlie, however, was a free but wanted man.
Most people, when seeing their face on a “Wanted” poster, would be frightened. Not Charlie. When he returned to campus the next fall he realized that he’d become notorious. Word spread that he’d been involved and the police began making inquisitions. To avoid being arrested, Charlie snuck into Canada where he stayed for nearly a year. He returned to the U.S. where he continued on with the movement, but much to his chagrin, it fizzled out just a couple years later.
Charlie stayed underground for nearly a decade until Jimmy Carter formally pardoned all draft dodgers. Free from being hunted by police, Charlie returned to the University of Chicago and earned a degree in political science. He then went to Cal Berkeley to earn his master’s degree, eventually taking a job with a progressive think tank in San Francisco. That work quickly became boring so he and a few comrades from his underground days started a nonprofit group. They were given a series of federal grants, most of which they used to fund their lavish lifestyles. Officially, their mission was to spread democracy in third world countries, but it was really a front for the re-emerging American Communist Party. For decades, Charlie and his cohorts traveled the world—Cuba, Angola, East Germany, France, Southeast Asia. They worked with Marxist factions in Northern Ireland and incited Leftist uprisings all throughout South and Central America.