The Adored Page 2

  “Oh, that’s great, Dad. Mr. Sanders knows even less than Eddie about baseball.”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be in charge. But I’ll depend on you to help him put the right lineup together, and you’ll be his third base coach if I’m not there.”

  “Really, you’ll let me do a lineup?” CJ glowed with anticipation.

  “OK you two,” Louise Strong interrupted, “it’s ten thirty; let’s go, CJ, time for bed.”

  “Oh, mom, we’re almost through, just a little while longer?”

  “Come on, son, let’s call it a night. I’m all thunk out. We’ll work on it some more tomorrow. Head to the bathroom and brush your teeth.”

  “OK, Dad.”

  As Strong was leaving his son’s room, CJ asked, “Do you think we’ll win this year?”

  “I know we’ll do better than last year.”

  “Come on, Dad, five wins and ten losses? I know we’ll do better than that with you managing, but will we win the championship?”

  “Did you think the Red Sox would win last year?”

  “Sure, Dad, we always think they’re going to win.”

  “I feel the same way about our team. I think if we get the players we want, we’re going to win.”

  “All right!” CJ yelled in delight.

  “But it’s going to take a lot of work.”

  “Don’t take the fun out of everything, Dad,” CJ smiled at his father.

  “Good night, son.”

  - - - - -

  “Dad, Dad,” Parker Barnes yelled in a state of excitement running into his father’s library. “Mr. Strong, my baseball coach, was killed yesterday,” the boy concluded, seeking some explanation from his father.

  Jonathan Barnes, alarmed, asked, “What happened, Parker?”

  “Right there, Dad, in the newspaper, look, “One dead, one seriously injured in accidental shooting by police at Westside pool hall.”

  “I saw the story, but I did not notice the name.”

  “Look, Curtis Strong Sr., see Dad, it’s Mr. Strong.”

  “That’s terrible, son. Obviously Mr. Strong should not have been at a place like that,” Barnes concluded with his usual judgmental aplomb.

  “What do you mean, Dad; it says it was the cop’s fault.”

  “What I mean,” the elder Barnes started firmly, “is that in a place like that you can only expect trouble. Look, son, it says right here, ‘illegal drinking and drug use regularly occurred,’ and there was a fight going on when the police walked in.”

  “Mr. Curtis was no dope head,” young Parker protested, noting his father’s distance, as usual. “He wouldn’t start a fight with anyone; he wouldn’t.”

  “Perhaps he was just an innocent bystander, son, but that is the wrong place for a married man with children to be.”

  “Child, Dad,” Parker said firmly, “he didn’t have children, only CJ,” and after a moment he continued, “Can we go to the funeral on Monday?”

  “No, son, we’ll be out of place there. Now you go off and play with your friends. Don’t worry about it.”

  Parker remembered Curtis Strong in his prayers that night. Mr. Strong. Coach.

  He could see his smiling, cajoling face. He also prayed for CJ.

  Chapter 4

  The unique, sociological phenomena of multimillionaire contractor’s son and poor black laborer’s son being on the same baseball team developed from their geographic proximity to each other. The west branch of Stamford harbor was all that divided the rich on the Shippan peninsula from the poor in Waterside. As years passed CJ Strong and Parker Barnes grew to realize that more than water separated their lives. Parker was isolated by his family’s wealth, and Curtis was being swallowed by the poverty and crime around him.

  In the spring of his seventeenth year, CJ Strong became a man. The event that cloaked itself in manhood occurred as CJ went to a West Main Street corner to meet his best friend, his cousin Billy Stevens. The families became even closer after Curtis Sr.’s death with Willie Stevens acting as a surrogate father to CJ and Mrs. Stevens, Louise Strong’s sister, looking out for CJ after school as CJ’s mother, Louise, worked to support the two of them.

  This night was dark, and as CJ approached the corner of West Main St. and Green Avenue, he saw Billy Stevens up ahead of him. Billy pushed the person beside him into the alley next to the corner store. Curtis called out to Billy and jogged to the alley. Looking into the shadows cast from the street light he heard a desperate yell and saw a figure slump to the ground. The other figure, maybe two people, ran out the back of the alley and hopped over a five-foot fence. CJ ran in and leaned over the body on the ground. It wasn’t Billy. It was a man who appeared to be about twenty-five years old. He looked up at CJ and said, “Please help me; he stabbed me.” CJ looked at the man’s hands; they were covered in blood flowing from the puncture wound from the knife sticking out of his stomach.

  A voice above called out. “What the hell you doing down there. Get away from there.” CJ looked up. Then panic overcame him. “She thinks I did this,” he thought. For the rest of his life, he would wonder why he did what he did next. He stood up, and as life oozed from the body on the ground, he ran out of the alley, taking the same path that Billy Stevens had a moment before.

  CJ ran all the way home, and as he stood in the yard behind his house, he heard sirens in the distance. He tried to stop sweating, to quiet his heart before going in. He knew his mother would see something was wrong. He could not hide problems from her.

  He waited a long time in the dark with his back up against the rotting clapboards of his home. He walked to the pear tree at the back of the small yard and sat with his back against it. He could not believe his friend Billy stabbed that man. Maybe it wasn’t Billy, he thought, and yet as soon as he thought it, he knew it was Billy. But why? He wouldn’t ask, he would never tell, he would never see Billy again. He prayed, “God, please take me out of here, take my mother and me away from this.” And as he prayed, it came to him that God would not take him out of this life. He would have to do it himself. He would get back into sports in school, stop wasting his life, start doing homework, and going to church again with his mother. “Only please, God, no more of this,” he whispered in the dark.

  Louise Strong was in the kitchen drying dishes in the wall-long cast iron sink as CJ walked in the door. “CJ, my, my, ten thirty on a Friday night. You feeling alright, honey?”

  “Sure, Mom, just tired; besides, I want to get up early tomorrow and look for a weekend job.”

  “Oh, my heart,” Louise Strong said, feigning an attack, “no, not that, not a job.”

  “Come on, Mom, knock it off. I’m seventeen; don’t you think it’s about time I got a job?”

  “Yes I do, CJ; I’m just surprised you do too.”

  “Maybe if I work, you can give up one of your jobs.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be nice. Tell me what brought on this rush of responsibility?”

  “Nothing,” he came back quickly and nervously and continued, “Well, let’s just say I’m growing up.” With that he turned toward the hallway, kissed his mother on the way by, and said, “Good night, Mom.”

  Louise Strong put her arms around her son’s waist and hugged him. She sensed a shudder as he hugged her; he lowered his head so that his cheek rested upon her head. “Son, are you alright?”

  “Yes, Mom, just fine,” he answered, feeling the security of his mother’s arms tightly around him.

  Something happened. Louise Strong knew as her son went off to bed that something happened. She knew she would not find out from him, and she prayed it was not bad. She thought of how big he had become, still feeling him against her.

  Later, as she turned out the lights, she thought she must move her son and herself from this area. She feared for him as he was a good boy, but he was drifting. She could probably get an apartment over by the north part of Shippan Avenue. The area had become middle class black in the last few years as families who could, fled the
growing bleakness that was Waterside. It was closer to Clairol, where she now worked, having been offered a job by a sympathetic manager after her husband died. An apartment there would also be closer to her second, part-time job, cleaning and washing floors twice weekly at Apple Manor, which she kept from CJ. He would not have appreciated her cleaning floors in his former baseball teammate’s home. She had merely told him it was an office building she worked in.

  As CJ awoke on Saturday at 9:00 a.m., he smiled, thankful it was Saturday. Then in the kitchen he heard Billy’s voice, “Morning, Aunt Louise.” The horrible panic from the night before returned instantly to CJ.

  Mrs. Strong turned around, pulling her hands out of the wringer washing machine to stick her cheek out to Billy as he walked by.

  And kissing the cheek he asked “Is CJ up yet?”

  “No, but he should be; he got in real early last night. What were you two doing to get home so early?”

  “Well,” Billy Stevens started.

  “Hey, Billy,” CJ emerged from his bedroom and interrupted before any more could be said.

  “CJ, what’s happening,” Billy smiled.

  “C’mon, I’m going to look for a job today,” CJ replied, taking the newspaper and leading Billy into his room, where he closed the door.

  “What’s going on?” Billy said.

  “Look, I saw you last night,” CJ said stretching his tall, broad frame up to his shorter, slighter friend and cousin.

  “You saw what last night?” Billy asked, with a smirk.

  “I saw you pull that guy in the alley by the corner, and when I got there, he’d been knifed.”

  “Are you nuts? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come on, CJ; me, stab someone, get real.”

  “Billy, I don’t know what you’re into, but we’re through. I’m never going to say anything, but you and I are finished.”

  “Hey, whatever you think you saw, you got it wrong. It wasn’t me you saw.”

  At that moment there was a knock at the front door of the four-room apartment. Louise Strong emerged from the kitchen, down the brief hallway past CJ’s room to the door. She swung the door open. Two men dressed in jeans, one with a flannel shirt and down vest and the other wearing a heavy, waist-length jacket, stood in the doorway. “Mrs. Strong?” the one with the vest who was unshaven with a Fu Manchu mustache asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, immediately worried. They felt like police.

  “I’m Detective Foley; this is Detective Lodovico. We’re with the Stamford Police. Is your son Curtis here?”

  She froze; her heart pounded. She felt the same sense of loss as when she was told her husband was dead. She could barely get the words out, “Yes, he is. Is there anything wrong?” she replied in terror. CJ’s returning home early Friday night raced to the front of her mind.

  “We have a few questions to ask him. Would you please ask him to come and talk with us?” Detective Lodovico asked.

  “Yes, just a minute,” she said, and she walked the few steps along the narrow hallway to her son’s room. She knocked on the door before turning the knob.

  “Yes, Mom?” CJ answered, opening the door.

  Louise Strong entered. “CJ, there are two police officers here who want to see you.”

  Instant panic came over CJ. His eyes shot to Billy. Another look of panic. Noticing the look of fear in both boys’ faces, Louise Strong said, “CJ, what is this about?”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” he trembled, continuing, “What did they say they wanted?”

  “To see you and ask you some questions.”

  “I don’t know what they want,” CJ offered, seeming bewildered.

  “Well, come and talk with them, and let’s get to the bottom of this.”

  They started up the hallway as Billy headed toward the rear door saying, “CJ, I’ve got to go; I’ll see you later,” and he left through the kitchen door, not waiting or looking for a reply.

  Louise Strong looked at her son’s face. It went empty, and she watched Billy open the door and leave. She started to cry and hugged her son, “CJ, what’s happened?”

  At that point the two officers appeared, having heard the rear door open and close. Detective Foley spoke, “Curtis Strong?”

  “Yes sir,” CJ answered.

  “I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Augusto Santos,” Detective Foley said bluntly.

  Louise Strong screamed, “Oh, CJ,” sobbing.

  “Mom, I did not do anything wrong, I promise you.”

  “Curtis, you’ll have to come with us. We will need to search you, and Detective Lodovico will read you your rights.”

  Chapter 5

  Diversity teemed yet separation continued. Fairfield County had the richness of New York, the poverty of Caracas; the wind of the end of summer, the chill of a winter over the horizon; the bright light of a hopeful morning, the black water of the lightless night; the American Sea that was Long Island Sound, open, reaching from sunrise to sunset and a brackish cove in Norwalk at the End of the World Marina.

  Southern Fairfield County—sun and sand, tar and fences. A checkerboard: Greenwich, rich and white; Bridgeport, poor, black and Spanish. Stamford—north and south—well off and white; east and west—laid-off and black. Darien, it’s opposite Norwalk, its opposite Westport. Fairfield, worried that Bridgeport’s bursting poverty will sweep across it like a giant wave out of Long Island Sound.

  High-priced houses, drive-by shootings. New college graduates creating new service sector jobs; drop-outs unable to find low-paying factory jobs lost to the third world. The third world arriving on the door step; the first world throwing open its arms in the name of multi-culturalization and low-cost labor for low-skilled service jobs. America’s native black children only able to find minimum wage jobs; America’s new minorities competing for those same jobs.

  Joy, beauty and happiness. Hate, envy and drugs. The second world confused; the middle class missing.

  Curtis Strong Jr. was lost; father killed, son in jail. Nothing made sense. How could a life begun so well be ending like this? Curtis was behind bars, shielding a friend who never had the courage to come forward and save his own friend. Where did friendship begin; when did it end? How could you continue to be true to a friend who was not; why would you?

  After CJ had been arrested, his mother spoke with her part-time employer, Jonathan Barnes. Frightened but having no one else to ask for the type of help CJ needed, she relented, swallowing her pride.

  “Mr. Barnes, may I ask you a question?”

  “Why yes, Mrs. Strong,” Barnes said as he relaxed in his library, two days after the murder of Augusto Santos.

  “Well, it’s about my son, CJ. There was a crime…the other night. A young man was stabbed, and he died.”

  “Yes, was that over on the West side,” Barnes replied barely looking up.

  “It was. Well, Mr. Barnes, the police came to my house yesterday. They arrested my son; they think he did it,” Louise Strong said, now crying.

  “What!” a now startled Barnes replied, standing suddenly and putting his arm around Louise Strong. And rather uncharacteristically, he asked, “How can I help?”

  He walked her to a chair in the study, she sat, sobbing uncontrollably. “CJ didn’t do it Mr. Barnes; I know that. He told me he didn’t, but the police say they have a witness who saw CJ.”

  “Where is he now, Mrs. Strong?”

  “In jail,” she said with a plea in her voice.

  When he found that CJ did not have a lawyer he said, “I will talk with my attorney, and we will represent CJ. Do not worry about this; I will help you.”

  After CJ had been in custody for several hours on the night of his arrest, there was agreement by the arresting officers that they had the right man. Here’s the usual robbery-murder perp: caught, eyewitness ID’d from the lineup, comes from a broken home—father shot and killed while attacking a cop in a pool hall. What else could we expect? Maybe a signed confession.

&nb
sp; “But why the hell won’t he confess?” Detective Lodovico complained to his partner. “All the time we get these kids to confess. Why not this kid?”

  “He’s locked into this position,” Detective John Walsh was saying to the arresting officers, Lodovico and Foley. “He says he came upon the guy and tried to help him. Just like his old man, tried to put a pool cue over my head. Well, that didn’t work and neither will this bullshit. We’ll break him.”

  “We will,” Lodovico joined in, adding, “especially since the eyewitness didn’t see any other figure in the alleyway.”

  “We need to make the case air-tight, and the confession will do it,” continued Walsh. “What we got looks good. We have the knife. We have the eyewitness. And while the eyewitness didn’t actually see the stabbing, she did see the Strong kid leaning over the body. Nothing stolen from the dead guy was found at Strong’s house. His sneakers have the dead guy’s blood on them. Work on the kid some more; I’ll work on the eyewitness to help her memory. Get a lie detector for the kid, then call a PD for him; he’s got no money for a lawyer.”

  Two days later, assistant DA Paula Johnson was even less impressed. “Detective Walsh, you have a very marginal case here. This kid has never been in trouble before. Your guys tell me it’s unusual not to be able to get a confession when you’re offering a kid who did it the kind of plea bargain you went ahead with, without my agreement. And still you want me to put three months of my life into a case this weak. Why?”

  “Paula, he did it. What was he doing in the alley? The witness recognized him. He denied being there at first but admits now that he was there. Says he saw someone do it, saw him run, and makes up the story he went to help the poor bastard. He’s lying; I’m telling you,” Walsh concluded, almost pleading.

  “Detective, I need more evidence,” Johnson demanded, impatiently.

  More evidence appeared. The eye witness’s memory became clearer. She now remembered seeing a shiny object being raised back and forth, two or three times, like a knife, into the victim.