The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Robert begins attending Mt. Carmel Elementary School, a Catholic school where most of the students are black or Hispanic. The tuition is expensive, and Jackie knows she’s taking a gamble—hopefully, the school will prove to be a good influence on Robert.

From the beginning, Robert stands out at Mt. Carmel. He’s a big kid, and he gets straight A’s. However, he’s quiet and sometimes sullen—he spends a lot of time thinking about his father.

After three years in prison, Skeet proceeds with his trial. The trial itself lasts only one week. Lechliter accuses Skeet of double homicide, and argues that the bullets found in the dead women could only have been fired from Skeet’s gun. He brings in nine police officers, all white, to testify against Skeet. The defense is simple: there are only three witnesses, who essentially just vouch for Skeet’s character.

The jurors retire to deliberate. They can’t decide whether to believe Georgianna’s testimony—in particular, they find it odd that Georgianna is so sure the murderer is Skeet, considering she didn’t see his face. The jurors are also uncomfortable with the image of nine white police officers testifying against one black man. In the end they convict Skeet on two counts of murder. Skeet is sentenced to life in prison.

After the sentence, Skeet is given the opportunity to make a statement. He delivers a long, articulate speech about his innocence. He emphasizes that Georgianna’s testimony isn’t consistent with the positioning of the entrance wounds—a fact he claims was never brought up at trial. Skeet concludes by mentioning his young son, a “straight-A student.”

Shortly after Skeet is convicted, Jackie buys Robert a copy of the A volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Jackie is worried that Skeet’s conviction will make Robert even lonelier than he’s been. Unbeknownst to Jackie, Robert hasn’t told his friends at Mt. Carmel anything about his father.

While Robert is growing up, Newark is going through important changes. One in three people in Newark live below the poverty line, and violent crime is very high. Beginning in 1986, when Sharpe James is elected mayor of Newark, many of the large housing projects of the ‘50s and ‘60s are torn down and replaced with smaller-scale housing. James’s reforms are important for Newark, not only because they improve living conditions for those below the poverty line but because James is a successful black politician and a role model for black youths.

Robert is one of the many black youths in Newark who idolizes Sharpe James. In the fifth grade, Robert asks Jackie to take him downtown to listen to James’s speeches. Jackie later says that James is a surrogate father for her son.

As Robert grows up, he sees how hard his mother works to put him through school. He begins working odd jobs on weekends to make extra money. Jackie admires her son’s discipline—a quality that she’s always believed is a better symbol of manhood than toughness. But Jackie can also see how angry Robert is, and she worries that some day he’ll take out his anger on his peers.

In school, Robert loves to read. But his greatest passions are math and science. He’s so good at these subjects that his teachers are convinced that he’s cheating on his homework—something that Jackie angrily denies. Robert is particularly irritated that the teachers make him show his work—he tells Jackie that he can work out the answers in his head. Although Robert is showered with praise from his teachers, he rarely seems happy.

Robert faces many challenges while growing up. His good grades lead some students to call him a nerd, but he also excels at football, and understands how important it is to seem tough around the other kids.

In the seventh grade, Robert makes a new friend—a student named Victor Raymond. Victor’s parents have died of illness, and he lives with his aunt. Robert includes Victor in his football games. Victor notices that Robert is good at fitting in his community, even though he stands out by virtue of his good grades and private school education. At different times of the day, Robert is a good student, a tough athlete, and a loyal, loving son. Robert refers to the process of making himself seem tough and hiding his intelligence as “Newark-proofing” himself.

Jackie and Robert visit Skeet in Trenton State prison. The prison is a frightening place, and Jackie comes to dread bringing her son there. As soon as she leaves the prison with Robert, she feels relief. She notices that visiting Skeet seems to energize Robert. Robert grows up quickly. Before he’s done with middle school, he’s become strong and fast, learned a huge amount of math and science, and developed serious crushes on girls.

In 1993, Jackie loses her job at the University Hospital. This means that she has no choice but to pull Robert out of Mt. Carmel and send him back to Oakdale. Robert begins giving all of his work earnings to Jackie. Public school is a challenge for Robert, because he has to devote a lot of time to fitting in with his classmates. Jackie learns from Robert that some of the students sell drugs, and she decides that she needs to find a way to send her son to a private high school next year.

Jackie finds a new job in a health care company. The job is a demotion from her previous post, but she makes enough money to send Robert back to Mt. Carmel. Meanwhile, Robert begins drinking and smoking marijuana. Some men in the neighborhood—especially Carl, who Robert considers his “uncle”—know that he’s Skeet’s son and offer him drugs and alcohol all the time.

Robert continues to spend a lot of time with his friend Victor Raymond. Victor notices that Robert is very adept at hiding his drinking and drug use from his mother. He’s also a little disturbed by how comfortable Robert is around grown men and women who spend their days drinking and getting high.

Robert tells Jackie that he wants to attend St. Benedict’s Prep, a Catholic school with a reputation for sending its students to good colleges. Tuition is high, but Jackie agrees to send him there. Victor is accepted to St. Benedict’s, and though Robert is at first waitlisted (probably because of financial statements on his application, rather than his grades), he’s eventually accepted. Robert and Jackie calculate how much they’ll have to make every week, and Robert assures his mother that he’ll work odd jobs to help her out with the payments.