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Cabrini-Green native Bryant Dwayne Thomas gained an international reputation as an outspoken Black skinhead unafraid to back down from a fight with Nazi skins in the 1980s, and that's part of what made him seem invincible to me. That impression grew every time I revisited Bill Wyman's irreplaceable 1989 Reader feature on Thomas and one particular dust-up among local skins, "Skinheads." I finally had an excuse to call up Thomas last year for my piece on Punkin' Donuts, which was a story I'd long dreamed of writing; I could not have written it without Thomas, who spoke of his past with unvarnished clarity. I've thought of that conversation frequently since the story ran, and often wondered of all the stories Thomas could tell me beyond it. His friends began to share such memories last night, after the news broke that Thomas had died.

I don't have the words at my disposal to memorialize Thomas at this moment. I often struggle to articulate my feelings and knowledge of a person in the moments and days after they've died, and that's only gotten worse since the pandemic started. His life was much bigger and more complicated than what I captured in a story about a larger scene; I know his life could fill a book, and what little of that life I know could only amount to a small percentage of such a tome. 

I hope in time I will properly be able to document his life in some way. For now, though, I take some solace in every story friends of his continue to share. 


Sincerely,
 
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