The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (50 page)

On what would have been Rob's thirty-first birthday in June, just over a month after his murder, Raquel and Rene arrived at 181 Chapman Street in the early evening. Neither had ever been to his home before, and Rene had never met his mother. She was surprised by the life, the spark, contained in the bereaved woman's eyes, which reminded
her of Rob even though all she'd ever heard from him was how much he looked like his father. Raquel was remembering her crazy thirtieth birthday party in SoHo last fall, where at one point Rob had called out, “My birthday's on June twenty-fifth!” as if to say that he wouldn't object if she were to throw him a party akin to the one she'd thrown herself. Instead, in the parlor, she gave Jackie an envelope packed with checks that had come from all over the world to help allay the monetary cost of his death. She'd worked almost full-time for a month accumulating them. Some were for $10 or $20. Others were for $100, $200, $250. All in all, they added up to about $5,000. To the same degree that she was grateful to those who had contributed, Raquel remained angry with those who had refused.

“Thank you,” Jackie said softly.

As they embraced, Raquel replied, “It's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough.”

Later that night, his friends and family gathered at Passion. Though not a strip club, the bar had once been something like one, back when Jackie had met Skeet for the first time there. Poles and platforms stood behind the bar. Jackie brought three of her girlfriends and was determined to smile through it all. Victor and Lisa Wingo and Sherman Feerick and Dexter Lopina and Coach Ridley and Carl and Shannon Heggins and Nathan were there. Tamba DJ'd. Guests drank blue Long Island iced teas and little beers in Rob's honor and the music grew louder and a pleasant drunkenness settled on the crowd. Before long people were dancing on the platforms, twisting themselves around the poles, all of this behavior silly and raucous—a night Rob would have enjoyed observing from off to the side, commenting on the gleeful idiocy on display. Jackie found herself able to channel her son and laugh authentically until the cake was brought out. That moment was the only one in which Jackie had cried since the early morning after Rob's death when, while waiting for the call that would confirm what a night of driving around the police stations and hospitals of East Orange had already told her was her new reality, she had permitted herself a few moments of
outward, solitary grief.

At the same time, in the backyard of 34 Smith Street, the Burger Boyz had congregated once again with a few packages of floating lanterns, lightweight paper balloons with a small combustible carbon cube suspended beneath the open bottom. These contraptions were hard to unfold and harder to light. The first few ripped, and the next few caught fire and had to be stomped out, and they joked about how frustrated Rob would have been watching their mechanical ineptitude. Ultimately they engineered a two-man system in which one held the balloon open and aloft while the other lit the charcoal, and one by one the lanterns began to rise slowly, gracefully above the yard, their gathering place for almost two decades as they'd grown from boys to young men to something more than young men but not quite old men, that gray in-between area during which most of their mistakes had been made. The lanterns accelerated and began to drift with the breeze, above the salutes sent from below, the toasting plastic cups of liquor and raised marijuana joints and the “East Side” hand gestures and cries of “Happy born day” and avowals of “You gonna live forever, Shawn Peace.” Soon they were just glimmering specks a few hundred feet above drifting east toward downtown, over the darkened side streets of East Orange where they had all inhabited various residences over the years, over the streaming headlights along the I-280 and the Garden State Parkway and Central Avenue and South Orange Avenue and the other thoroughfares that radiated like spokes from downtown Newark to the nether regions, over Bloomfield and Vailsburg and Irvington, over St. Benedict's Preparatory Academy for Boys and the Passaic River and the rusty yet mighty bridges spanning it, a vantage point Rob had seen leaving for and returning from all his trips, from which the city looked so serene and sometimes, at the right angle and at the right time of night, even beckoning. At a certain point, the lights disappeared from view beyond the trees and eaves of the neighboring homes, leaving the
Burger Boyz to sit down once again in the plastic fold-out chairs and wonder how long it would be before the flames flickered out and the lanterns began their descent. And once that happened, they wondered where each would fall.

Curtis Gamble's house at 34 Smith Street. The black door at the base of the stairs leads directly down to the basement, where Rob Peace was shot twice and killed on the night of May 18, 2011.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

R
EBECCA
, R
EBECCA
, R
EBECCA
. Thank you for each of the thousands of hours of nightly conversation. Thank you for your mind, your work ethic, your patience, your way of connecting with people, your editing, your confidence, your humor, your insights, your eyes. Thank you for our children and for your love. YAMAAF.

My baby boy, Whitman Peace Hobbs: we are so happy that you came to us, and we hope that you grow up with Rob's intelligence, generosity, loyalty, humor—and with much more peace in your life.

Lucy: I love you to the moon and back and back to the moon and back again and back to the moon and back again . . .

Sara Nelson is the smartest and kindest person I know. Thank you for your time, advocacy, generosity, and spirit.

David Black read a very short and insufficient outline of an idea, and he saw what, with a few thousand hours of work, that idea could become. In the process, he taught me how to shape a very hard-to-wrangle narrative, and—most important—how to ask the questions that haven't been asked and are thus the easiest to avoid asking. He did so insightfully, patiently, and with unceasing belief in the importance of Rob's story. I will always be grateful.

Rob's many, many friends from his hometown of Newark have spent many, many hours rendering their memories to me: the joyful, the funny, the touching, and the tremendously painful. None of it was easy, and all of you dug deep. Jason, Demien, Tamba, Shannon, Lisa, Dawn, Julio, LaQuisha, Hrvoje, Marina, Roy, Darlene, Ina, Lana, Rene, Mrs. Gamble, Big Steve, Victor, and of course the Burger Boyz: Curtis, Tavarus, Drew, Flowy—and the youngest member, Christopher.

I am equally grateful to Rob's friends from Yale: Daniella, Lamar, Simon, Danny, Sherman, Alejandra, Yesenia, Laurel, Arthur, Helen, Ty, Dan, Phil, Albert, Tasha, Adanna, Anthony, Isabella, Nevine, Cliff, Nick, Pablo, Armando, Zina, Katrina, Jacinta, Anwar, and Mike.

At Yale, Dean Jeffrey Brenzel contributed greatly to my understanding of not only the minority experience in college, but of the larger role a college such as Yale aims to have in the shaping of its students' minds. My sister Lindsay, Amin Gonzalez, Harvey Goldblatt, Christa Dove, Derrick Gilbert, Dr. Iona Black, Dr. Elias Lolis, Nelson Donegan—thank you all for giving your time and insights into Rob's years in New Haven.

Friar Edwin Leahy, Coach Wayne Ridley, Marc Onion, Truman Fox, Dexter Lopina, Charles Cawley—one of the greatest pleasures of this book has been the window it gave into St. Benedict's and the devotion with which you treat your special school.

Mike Pallardy, Cory Booker, Ron Howell, Carl Herman, Thomas Lechliter, Albert Kapin, Mary Gibbons, Leroy Franklin, John Armeno, Louis Seppola—whether you were explaining the logistics of governing a city such as Newark, sharing with me how you police it, guiding me through New Jersey's largest prison (as a guard or as an inmate), or recalling the intricacies of a murder trial that took place twenty-three years ago, you have all helped me—and, hopefully, the reader—understand the environment in which Rob grew up.

Mom, Dad, Bryan, Kelly, Lindsay, Michael, Andy, Clare, Grandma—I do not forget for a moment how fortunate I am to be a part of such a big, kind, funny family.

Nor do I forget the fortune I have in being married to one. Martin and Ruth Goldstein, Emily Learnard, Batab, Lanie, Ann-Marie, Pixie, Ruthie, Matt—thank you all for your support and love through all things.

Many others have helped bring this book to completion in both direct and indirect ways: Daniel Riley, Corrie and Ken Nolan, Sam Radin, Alyssa Bachner, Marty Scott, Bellinda Scott, Rawson Thurber, Sarah
Koplin, Sarah Treem, Jay Carson, Michelle Weiner, Joy Gorman, Nick Wettels, Jess Lappin, Andy Wuertele, Russell Hollander, Sarah Smith, Lisa Rivlin, Cynthia Merman, Katrina Diaz, and Kate Lloyd.

I have relied on a few books to illuminate the broader canvas that Rob's life traversed, most notably
How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American City
by Brad R. Tuttle,
The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions
by William G. Bowen and Derek Bok, and
Race and Class Matters at an Elite College
by Elizabeth Aries. Also the documentaries
Brick City
, created by Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin, and
Street Fight
by Marshall Curry are both very powerful and multilayered views of modern-day Newark.

Oswaldo Gutierrez toured me through the physical and emotional landmarks of his hometown of Newark, as well as those of his alma mater, Yale University. More than anyone else, he helped me build a kind of bridge between these two worlds, and to capture the largely invisible burden that inhabiting both of them places on the individuals who are able to do so.

This entire endeavor began with what was intended to be a short, cathartic visit with Raquel Diaz not long after Rob's funeral, which turned into an eight-hour-long conversation in her living room in Spanish Harlem while the rain poured down outside. Raquel, you have remained almost as close to this book as I have, and the insightfulness of your questions has never ceased (nor have the questions themselves).

My editor, Colin Harrison, is just about perfect at doing what he does. Whether you were answering my questions, asking me your much smarter questions, steering both my research and my writing with a gentle yet unrelenting hand, editing text with attention paid to every single word, or simply leaving me alone to work—I don't believe the editorial experience could have been more satisfying or that I could be more thankful. Your “Nice job” means more to me than you know. Above all, I thank you for believing that Rob Peace's story was worth telling in this form, for having the sensitivity to want to understand who he was and why he made the decisions he did.

Nathan, Carl, Diandra, Cory, Dante, Garcia, Camilla—and all members of the Peace family—you have invited me into your homes and trusted me with your memories. My greatest aspiration in writing this book has been to earn that trust.

Jackie Peace, you have spent dozens of hours talking to me during the hardest years of your life, and about the man whose loss has made them so. You are a truly great woman, and I am a lucky man to have been able to call your son my friend.

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