No Safe Place (9 page)

“They’re saying your father’s a murderer,” Michael repeated, “and your fooking friend Liam won’t touch it …”

When Liam Dunn decided to support the black mayoral candidate, Kenneth Gibson, against Hugh Addonizio, Kerry could not understand.

There were murmurs in the bars, hard faces, threats on Liam’s telephone to murder his sons and give his daughter to a gang of blacks. Liam went about his affairs, taking no overt notice of the fact that business at Dunn’s Tavern was off, that fewer people spoke to him, that a popular ward leader, Paul Slattery, was making the Sunday rounds to talk of running against Liam when his council seat came up.

To Kerry, the bars felt like a gauntlet. But he stuck by his godfather out of loyalty and anger at how some people shunned him. Kerry would apologize to no one.

At the end of one tense Sunday, Liam took Kerry to the same bench in Ivy Hill Park.

“I hear the boxing goes better,” Liam said. “School, too—no more Ds, and not a fight to your name.” He patted Kerry roughly on the shoulder. “All that, and you begin to understand politics as well. No telling how well you can do.”

Thinking of Jamie, and then the hostile faces in the bars, Kerry clenched his fists. “I’ll never run for anything.”

“No need to,” Liam answered. “You’ll find the thing that’s right for you.” He paused for a moment. “But, about me, don’t think that what you’re seeing is all there is. It’s just something that people
need
me to go through.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re scared, so they’re angry, and they want me to tell them it will all go away—the blacks slowly moving into Vailsburg as friends talk about leaving, the crime they feel spreading, the loss of their own power, which began well before they noticed. But it would be stupid to tell them that hating blacks is an answer. Let alone a program.” He turned to Kerry. “Telling the truth when it’s hard is what political capital is for. Unless you want to be an errand boy.”

But how can blacks be worth it?
Kerry thought. Finally, he said, “It seems like people hate you.”

Liam looked at him. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

Firmly, Kerry shook his head.

As Liam stood, restless, Kerry sensed the pressure beneath his godfather’s air of calm. “Do the right thing, Kerry, and things tend to come out right in the end. But the first is the only part you control. And sometimes going to bed square with yourself is a day-to-day kind of thing.” For the first time, Liam smiled. “Of course, some of these fools can’t count. Like Slattery.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I may need black votes going forward, but blacks also need some of mine. And that the victory margin Paul Slattery thinks he’s tallying is moving to the suburbs.” Liam’s eyes were distant, sad. “Don’t know there’s any man can stop it—me included. Your brother James is well out of this. But then I wonder if he didn’t see it coming.”

“What?”

“The end of things, this life we have in Vailsburg. Slow but sure.” He paused again. “Not a burden Jamie should have on his mind, running for state senate in Princeton. A nice, safe, liberal place like that.”

Suddenly Kerry had the sense that Liam had talked to James, and recently. In the next instant, he understood that a policeman father found to have murdered a black youth not only would make life terrible for Kerry and his mother but could do Jamie’s career great harm. And then the last piece fell into place. To his father’s arrogant pleasure, the most vocal members of the black community had suddenly dropped their demand for his indictment. Liam’s new allies …

Kerry clutched Liam by the sleeve of his coat. “Did
you
save my father?”

For a time, Liam appraised Kerry with what, beneath the heavy lids, seemed a very intense interest.

“It’s as I said,” he finally answered. “Do the right thing, and things tend to come out right in the end. That applies to Michael too.”

The night James Kilcannon won election to the New Jersey State Senate, he barely acknowledged either parent. It was in keeping with how he had gotten there—going away to Princeton; becoming a leader of anti-Vietnam demonstrations; casting his lot with the reform wing of the party. To his supporters he was attractive, articulate, and the antithesis of machine politics. They did not know or care about his family.

Nonetheless, Michael and Mary Kilcannon drove to attend Jamie’s victory celebration. Jamie was plainly uncomfortable at this; his most extended mention of family was of Kerry. Remarking on his brother’s age, the victorious candidate grinned and said, “You’re next, Kerry—if you can get your grades up a little.” The clip was notable enough to show on TV: the handsome new state senator was himself only twenty-four.

Watching Jamie on television, Kerry scowled; it had been weeks since Jamie had spoken to him, and he saw himself as a prop. Kerry was much more concerned with the race between Gibson and Addonizio for mayor of Newark, on which Liam Dunn’s future rested.

The night of the election, Liam’s house was guarded by police. The week before, someone had lit a brick doused in gasoline and thrown it through a window.

Liam had been reluctant to have Kerry stay with them, let alone go out with him that night. But Kerry insisted. “You say this is history. I want to see it.” So he went with Liam in the back of a squad car driven by a tight-lipped policeman to the victory celebration for Kenneth Gibson.

The exultant crowd—some white, mostly black—was filled with a sense of unleashed energy; though black voters were now the majority in Newark, no black man had ever been
elected mayor. Watching with Liam as Gibson declared victory,
Kerry felt an answering sympathy that surprised him; the pow-erlessness of these people had been taken for granted, and now they would have their day. The streets near City Hall were filled with celebrants.

“You’ll never again see a white mayor of Newark,” Liam murmured on their way home. When they arrived, Liam’s house was quite safe; Vailsburg was quiet as a tomb. Liam said hardly a word.

The next month, with the mayor-elect’s support, Councilman Liam Dunn became chairman of the Essex County Democratic Party. Liam’s adversary, Paul Slattery, never ran for anything.

At sixteen, Kerry Kilcannon fought in the Golden Gloves.

Jack Burns had held him back as long as he was able. But Kerry had grown to one hundred forty-five pounds stretched over five feet ten inches; he had fought in exhibitions, trained tirelessly. This was the only way he could know how good he was.

His father and mother came to Kerry’s first match, part of a crowd numbering a few hundred—Michael somewhat contemptuous of his slender son’s chances, Kerry’s mother unsure if she could watch. Perhaps, Kerry thought bleakly, it reminded her too much of home.

His first opponent was an Italian boy, Joey Giusti. Shorter and barrel-chested, Joey tried to push Kerry against the ropes and batter him; through the earholes in his head protector, Kerry heard the cheers of Italians as Joey threw punch after punch. Kerry simply burrowed into a crouch and took them—on the arms, the shoulders, the top of his head, everywhere but the
chin—as Joey’s partisans roared and Kerry’s father shouted, “Fight, dammit, fight.”

At the end of round one, Kerry had thrown three punches.

Sitting on his bench, Kerry made himself ignore his father’s disgust and the puzzlement of the crowd. “Okay,” Jack said. “I think he’s punched himself out now, and he’s taking you lightly. This is your round.”

The bell rang, and Joey almost ran across the ring. Kerry could read the contempt in his eyes, the eagerness of a bully.

As Joey uncorked his first left hook, Kerry ducked. The left hand, a little slower now, sailed over his head, then Kerry hit the Italian boy with a left jab to the nose.

Whack.

Joey blinked, stunned, and Kerry hit him with three more. Blood began dribbling from Joey’s nose.

Whack, whack, whack.

When Joey covered his face with his gloves, Kerry started on his ribs.

Left, right, left. Sweat flew off Kerry’s face as he drove punch after punch into Joey’s midsection. The boy gulped, swallowing hard, and his weary arms came lower.

Kerry shot a left jab to the nose again. The shock ran through Kerry’s arm. There was a fresh spurt of blood, and suddenly the referee was between them.

In the next three fights, Kerry never had to use his right hand to the jaw.

He and Jack were saving that. The lesson Kerry had begun learning was that training counted, discipline mattered, and strategy paid off—he must last however long a fight had to last. It occurred to Kerry how different he was from the twelve-year-old brawler, not just in skills but in attitude. The pride he felt was new, and he carried it quietly.

Not so his father. “You’re finally good for something,” Michael said with heavy-handed jocularity.

When it turned out that Kerry’s opponent in the finals was a black boy, Marcus Lytton, Michael was full of interest and advice. “I’ve been watching this kid,” he told Kerry. “Flashy, with no guts. Hit him hard, and he’ll fold up like a cardboard box.” For encouragement, Michael Kilcannon put two hundred dollars on his younger son and made sure that Kerry
knew it.

When Kerry entered the ring that night, the gym was filled with blacks and Irish.

A small fight broke out, and the cops dragged away two drunken adults, one white and one black. Kerry could feel the city’s tension simmering in the ring. He told himself to concentrate on Marcus Lytton.

Kerry was as prepared as he could be. When Lytton threw his right, Jack had advised, he left himself open for a split second—enough time for Kerry’s own right to do real damage. But the main thing was to keep the left jab working, keep Marcus off him, pick up points.

When they introduced Kerry, the Irish began cheering.

For a moment, everything stopped. Kerry could feel himself and Marcus in the ring, spotlighted in the darkness, the focal point of passions far bigger than they. Then the excitement became part of him: his heart pounded, blood sounded in his temples, his slender frame filled with an energy that waited to be used. He stared at Marcus’s smooth body, close-cropped hair, serene, almost sweet face, black impenetrable eyes. The bell rang.

Before Kerry reached the center of the ring, Marcus hit him with a three-punch combination.

Kerry’s head snapped back. He had never seen hands this fast, had no time to think. Marcus was all over him now—left to the head, right to the stomach, a quick sideways step, then a right to the jaw. Each punch was stiff and had a purpose: Marcus Lytton was not going to punch himself out.

The Irish had stopped cheering.

Marcus hit Kerry in the stomach and followed with a punch to his left eye.

Reeling backward, Kerry knew at once that the eye would close. Marcus came forward.

Kerry ducked a left hook and shot a jab to Lytton’s mouthpiece, and the round ended.

He walked back to his corner, the cheers resounding for Marcus, and sat on the bench. Jack squirted water on his head. “You’re going to have to get off first,” Jack said. “Jabs in his face, then look for the right. You can’t lose another round.”

As soon as the bell rang, Kerry was across the ring. He jabbed Marcus once, then twice more. Marcus looked
startled, and then Kerry staggered him with a right to the forehead; lower, Kerry realized, and the black boy might have gone down. Then they were at each other—punch after punch, ducking, punching again, blocking, Marcus clipping Kerry’s face, Kerry banging the other boy’s ribs. The round ended with the blacks and the Irish on their feet, fists raised in the air.

Kerry had never felt so tired; it was as if they had fought the last thirty seconds underwater. The pummeling to his forearms, used to block punches, was making them stiff and heavy. His ribs ached.

“Good job,” Jack said soothingly. “You took that round, so this is the clincher. Keep him off you, and look for the right.”

When Kerry stood, the Irish stood with him and began chanting.

“Kerry, Kerry, Kerry …”

“Kill him.”
Suddenly Kerry felt the hopes, the hatred, the frustration of a city and an era his neighbors thought was dying. There was a sourness in his stomach.

Marcus hit him with a short right hand.

Kerry stepped back, to the elated screams of Newark blacks, righted himself, and hit Marcus coming in. As Marcus’s head snapped, Kerry felt the Irish stand again.

“Kill him,”
the voice yelled once again, and Kerry recognized it as his father’s. Kerry’s lip was bleeding, his left eye almost shut. Blind will kept him going.

Marcus bore in with a murderous glare and hit Kerry with a three-punch combination. It had become personal: somewhere in the next terrible minute and a half, weathering a rain of punches with his head ringing and his legs unsteady, Kerry learned who was better.

“One more minute,” Jack called to him. “Knock him out.”

Kerry ducked a punch, pivoted, and hit Marcus in the stomach with everything he had.

Marcus’s eyes widened in astonishment and pain, and then the mouthpiece flew from his gaping mouth.

The whites screamed with frenzy. For a brief moment, Kerry saw the punch he had to throw—the right, directly to the black boy’s exposed mouth. The fight could end there …

“Bring the right,”
his father bellowed.

Kerry’s right hand froze. The punch, when it came, was a moment late, bouncing off Marcus’s upraised forearm.

The crowd moaned.

For Kerry, the rest was slow motion. Marcus pedaling backward with wounded eyes. Kerry pursuing with leaden arms and legs, an instant too slow, as if the messages from his brain were taking detours. The final bell. The referee raising Marcus’s hand in victory. Blacks standing. Whites quiet in their seats.

The ride home was quiet too—a few words of consolation from his mother, relief that it was over. From his disgusted father came one weary question: “Why are you so afraid to bring the right?”

Kerry said nothing.

He never fought in the ring again. But for several weeks, Kerry went to the gym and punished the heavy bag until his arms gave out.