57 pages • 1 hour read
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
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Parts 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “Baggage” - Part 6: “The Gray Area”
Part 5, Chapter 12 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, racism, and death.
Jackie was unhappy when Rob took a job at Essex County Airport as a baggage handler, pointing out that the job did not even require qualifications. Rob, however, was attracted by the job’s travel benefits, and he used his free flights to look at potential properties. Still, he was unable to find another suitable investment.
The Burger Boyz had high hopes for Rob’s real estate plans. Tavarus lived in a cramped apartment with his son and girlfriend, Darlene. Curtis disliked his marketing job and had no prospect of promotion. Meanwhile, Flowy longed to leave Newark. However, in 2007, Rob’s property investment plans were shattered when the housing bubble burst. He then began using his free flights to travel to other countries. He and Hobbs spoke a couple of times on the phone, but both were not completely honest with one another. Rob talked about his travels without mentioning that he was a baggage handler. Hobbs did not tell Rob that he had failed to sell his second novel to a publisher or that Rebecca had experienced three miscarriages.
Rob’s friends could not understand the way he mistreated his girlfriends. While he was reliable and supportive in platonic friendships with women, he was cruel in his romantic relationships, often disappearing without explanation. Rob began flying regularly to Miami, picking up marijuana and concealing it in lavender-wrapped packages inside his Timberland boots. He would book his return flights when he knew a friend was at the airport’s scanner station.
In April 2008, Rob visited Rio and woke up in a favela shack. His wallet and clothes had been stolen, but he was relieved to see that he still had all his organs. After returning home, Rob vowed to Jackie that he would do better and take care of her. However, Jackie told him to focus on his own future.
Part 5, Chapter 13 Summary
Rob and his girlfriend Ina often visited the shooting range, and Rob suggested she should buy a gun for her own protection. When she applied for a license, Rob asked Ina to buy several handguns and claim that they had been stolen. Rob planned to sell them on the black market. Ina refused, realizing Rob had manipulated her. Rob then visited Oswaldo, who was close to earning an MD in Philadelphia. Rob asked him for the contact details of students he could sell drugs to. Furious, Oswaldo ordered him to leave.
Rob and Hobbs started conversing via Facebook. Hobbs and Rebecca finally had a baby daughter after expensive fertility treatment that left them in debt. Since then, Hobbs had been a stay-at-home dad while unsuccessfully trying to write another novel.
Tavarus and his family moved to the second floor of 34 Smith Street. He and his brother had opened a cafe selling sandwiches and burgers but were struggling to get by. Rob and Tavarus came up with a scheme to buy the increasing number of abandoned foreclosed homes at a wholesale price. They would renovate the properties and sell them back to the city, making a profit and revitalizing the neighborhood. However, Flowy, Curtis, and Drew were skeptical. Nevertheless, at Smith Street, Tavarus and Rob worked on their business plan every night.
Rob refused offers of administrative positions at the airport. However, he accepted a promotion to the super tug crew, driving vehicles that towed the planes. When he revealed to a friend on the crew that he went to college and was a teacher, the rest of the staff began calling him the “Professor.” However, noting Rob’s angry response, they reverted to calling him Peace.
One day, Rob made a mistake while closing a plane’s cargo bay and dinted the door. Rob said nothing about his error but the damage triggered a warning light, preventing the plane and its passengers from taking off. Surveillance footage revealed that Rob was responsible, and he was asked to perform a drug test. He refused and left the job.
Part 6, Chapter 14 Summary
Rob lived off unemployment checks and the rental income from his house. Planning to apply for a graduate Leadership Development Program at Johnson & Johnson, he asked for a friend’s feedback on his Statement of Purpose. However, when she suggested that he cut the section describing his foreign travels, Rob was resistant and defensive. Despite applying for a variety of jobs, he had no success. Oswaldo, who was working as a counselor for impoverished and abused children, advised Rob to cut his hair and buy a respectable suit. Rob did not take this advice. Oswaldo believed Rob had the same issue as many of his teenage clients: He could not see that many of his friends were a “negative influence.”
In December 2010, Rob began working for a drug dealer named Amin. His job involved converting marijuana to Sour Diesel and delivering it. Rob reasoned that when he got to graduate school, he could stop working for Amin.
Part 6, Chapter 15 Summary
Curtis revealed he could obtain 50 pounds of bulk marijuana at a discount price. The Burger Boyz could potentially make $400,000 from the deal if Rob converted the marijuana to Sour Diesel, and they then sold it. Rob and Tavarus liked the idea, but Flowy and Drew were against it. Rob argued that the deal would be their “gray area” on the path to success (351). He stated that all great men, including Biggie, Tupac and several presidents, had compromised their morals in the early days. Flowy pointed out that Tupac and Biggie were both murdered, but eventually, he and Drew agreed to go with the plan. Rob justified the decision to his girlfriend, Rene, saying he wanted to “provide” for her.
Rob asked Oswaldo to lend him the $4,000 he required for the deal. Oswaldo reluctantly agreed but stated their friendship would be over. Converting the marijuana to Sour Diesel in the basement at Smith Street was a time-consuming process. Also, Rob had not considered the logistics of selling 22,500 units of marijuana. Tavarus could not be a courier as he already had a record for possession. Meanwhile, Curtis and Drew were reluctant to bear the risk. Consequently, Rob hired four young men. One of the employees, Kamar, implied to customers that Rob could not be trusted, referring disparagingly to his Yale background. Rob confronted and fired Kamar outside 34 Smith Street.
Kamar contacted members of the Double II Set and told them Rob was selling in their territory. The claim was untrue, but Rob began sleeping in his car with a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest to divert danger from his friends and family. Curtis and Drew considered abandoning the project, having made back their initial investment. However, Rob said he had talked to the Double II Set and resolved matters.
On May 19, 2011, Rob picked up Curtis’s son Christopher from school and then returned to the basement to work. Curtis and Tavarus then heard a car pull up outside.
Part 6, Chapter 16 Summary
Curtis heard Rob open the door on the lower floor to see who had arrived. He also heard men force Rob back down the stairs to the basement. Taking Rob’s gun, Curtis descended the stairs toward the basement, where an armed man in a ski mask shot at him. Curtis’s gun jammed, and the men swiftly left. In the basement, Rob lay dead from gunshot wounds. When the police arrived, they confiscated the basement’s contents and took Curtis into custody. Jackie discovered Rob had been taken to the hospital but could find out nothing more about her son’s state. The next morning, the police informed her that Rob was in the city morgue. After identifying his body, she went to work.
Part 6, Chapter 17 Summary
Jeff Hobbs learned of Rob’s death through a Facebook message from Victor Raymond. He attended the funeral at St. Mary’s Church, which adjoined St. Benedict’s campus. Friar Leahy presided over the service. Over 400 mourners had traveled from all over the world, including Yale students, professors, and residents of Newark. Hobbs recognized some of them as the former “stoners” from Rob’s room—they were now lawyers or bankers. Rob was buried with his father, Skeet, and Jackie maintained her composure throughout the service. The Burger Boyz honored Jackie’s request and did not attend the funeral. Instead, they held a ceremony in the backyard of 34 Smith Street.
The police did not find Rob’s killers. Soon afterward, The Newark Star-Ledger published an article emphasizing Rob’s significant achievements despite the manner of his death. Online responses to the article varied from pronouncing Rob a “thug” to sympathizing with his hardships and noting how many young men he inspired as a teacher.
Jackie rebuffed the Burger Boyz’s repeated efforts to contact her. A month after Rob’s death, his family and friends gathered at Chapman Street to celebrate what should have been his 31st birthday. Jackie finally cried when the cake was brought out. Again, the Burger Boyz commemorated the occasion at 34 Smith Street, launching lanterns into the sky.
Parts 5-6 Analysis
Parts V and VI of the memoir chronicle the downward spiral of Rob’s life, culminating in his death and its immediate aftermath. Hobbs uses third-person narration to convey multiple perspectives on Rob’s choices. Jackie’s point of view is explored as she struggles to understand her son’s decision to take a manual job at the airport instead of going to graduate school. The memoir conveys her inevitable feeling that her personal sacrifices were wasted, as Rob’s education failed to carve out the pathway to success she desired for him. Meanwhile, Rob reflects: “When he was a kid, before St. Benedict’s or Yale, an airline job would have been a solid career path, as it was for his cousin Nathan” (288). The observation underlines Rob’s resentment and rebellion against the expectations his Yale education created in others and himself.
Rob’s slow detachment from traditional career paths is illustrated by his changing use of his airport job’s travel benefits: Researching property for Peace Realty turns to indulging his wanderlust and concludes in smuggling drugs. Hobbs emphasizes how Rob’s behavior becomes increasingly self-destructive. His risk-taking escalates to dangerous levels, as seen when he is robbed in an area of Rio that is notorious for homicides and illegal organ harvesting. His self-sabotaging tendencies are also evident in his romantic relationships, which he deliberately destroys before they become serious.
Most significantly, Rob’s actions illustrate how he compromises his moral integrity by exploiting those close to him. His attempt to coerce Ina into selling weapons on the black market is uncharacteristically manipulative. Furthermore, Rob knowingly sacrifices his friendship with Oswaldo in his pursuit of drug deals. The memoir illustrates the consequences of his unwise choices as Rob becomes unemployed and unhoused, sleeping in his car in a bulletproof vest to avoid the potential repercussions of his drug dealing.
In these final chapters, the motif of 34 Smith Street serves as a symbol of stagnation. Despite their youthful aspirations, Rob and the rest of the Burger Boyz circle back to where they started. The transformation of the house’s basement into a drug lab represents misdirected potential as Rob uses the scientific knowledge he gained at Yale to make Sour Diesel. Hobbs emphasizes how a space that was once characterized by its domesticity and stability becomes a hub for dangerous criminal activity. Hobbs juxtaposes Rob’s caring gesture of picking Curtis’s son Christopher up from school with his immediate return to making marijuana in the basement, showing that Rob is oblivious to the conflict between family responsibilities and his dangerous activities. Ultimately, the basement becomes the scene of Rob’s murder, with “the chalk outline of Rob’s body” serving as a reminder of the violence that occurred there (383).
After Rob’s death, 34 Smith Street symbolizes how Rob’s friends and family are divided by the nature of his passing. The Gamble family’s former home becomes the site of an alternative memorial ceremony for the Burger Boyz, who are excluded from the official funeral. The lanterns they launch into the sky in Rob’s memory create an image of transcendence over the neighborhood that Rob and the Burger Boyz failed to achieve.
The memoir’s final chapter returns to Hobbs’s first-person perspective as he reflects on Rob’s life and death. The author’s observation that mourners at the funeral comprised “one of the most diverse collections of people [he]’d ever seen” highlights Rob’s positive legacy (387). The mourners numbered more than 400, which is tangible evidence of Rob’s ability to enrich the lives of others and form meaningful social connections that transcended race, class, and nationality. Weighing up online responses to Rob’s death, Hobbs argues that all of them oversimplify the reasons for Rob’s journey from a brilliant Yale student to the victim of a drug-related homicide. Some point to greed and the financial lure of drug dealing as reasons for his downfall while others blame systemic socioeconomic factors. The author argues that neither extreme captures Rob’s complexity as an individual nor the combination of factors that led to his death, and this is what he has attempted to set forth in this memoir.
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