Authors: Tom Connolly
The Adored
By
Copyright ©2015 by T.R. Connolly
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Cover Illustration: “Dream Maker,” Klisha Bomopigamago (Roberta Giallo)
For my wife Kathleen who has made all things possible with her love and her strength and her devotion to our family.
-To Sister Julie Marie who encouraged me when I was 13 and said, “Thomas you should write.”
-To my reading group who sent me back to work when I thought I was almost there – thanks Maureen Connolly, Barbara Geraghty, Judy Flagg and Mary Blackwell.
-To the Darien Library Writer’s Group who tormented me with endless ways to improve my stories.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Postscript
Epilogue
Epilogue II
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Chapter 1
John Walsh, the police officer who killed Curtis Strong, described it as, “self-defense, a terrible accident.”
Curtis Strong had known Willie Stevens for thirty years, ever since they were two years old, living in the same crumbling row house on Henry Street on the Waterside peninsula of Stamford, Connecticut. The neighborhood was not much then, mostly Italian tradesmen, but by 1995 it was worse, owned by slum lords and developers, all waiting for Stamford’s redevelopment to continue in this area. It was bleak, devoid of spirit. Willie and Curtis still lived in the neighborhood, which was 80 percent black at the time of Curtis Strong’s death, a death that citizens of the neighborhood called legalized murder.
Friday night was Strong’s night out with his friend. He would leave work at the Clairol warehouse, walk the seven blocks home through old industrialized Stamford and have dinner with his wife and son, Curtis Jr. Then he would walk the eight blocks to the pool hall on West Main Street where he and Willie would drink beer and play pool until 11:00 p.m.
The pool hall was dark, four tables, lit by four lights, and around the room were chairs where friends of a lifetime of poverty sat in the dark talking and drinking beer. Drugs were prevalent on West Main Street, in the bars and in the pool hall. Drugs first showed up as draftees from the Vietnam War returned with their habits and increased again as soldiers returned from the Gulf War, in less numbers than Vietnam, but with the same drug addictions. The police had always winked at the illegal sale of beer in the pool hall, but a wave of drug related crimes in the area brought greater scrutiny to the establishment. The drugs were something Strong was aware of but oblivious to. He and Stevens were both veterans but had done their time without drugs and had come out of the service with only a thirst for a good night out drinking beer and playing pool.
This night all four tables were in use, and players emerged from the darkened sidelines to place their quarters on the table to play the winners of the current game. Joe Howard ran the pool hall. Howard would just as soon spit on the floor as say hello to his customers, and most times did when they greeted him. He had two tables for singles and two tables for doubles. Willie and Curtis always played doubles and rarely spent fifty cents playing pool for three hours. The challenger paid, and Joe Howard would rack the balls and take the quarter. Most Friday nights they barely spent five dollars between them, usually betting beers for winners, which Joe Howard would get from the cooler and charge the losers $1.50 a bottle.
The headline of the Stamford Advocate read, “One dead, one seriously injured in accidental shooting by police at Westside pool hall.” It had started simply. The two young black men who challenged Willie Stevens and Curtis Strong to the next game on the pool table were high on something other than beer. They had been abusive in victory earlier at the other doubles table. Joe Howard told them to pipe down, and they gave him some lip. Willie stepped in and invited the two to put their mouths to work “putting up some bread on the cue.” They decided to take on Willie and Curtis, who were considered unbeatable before 10 p.m. but easier after several beers had gone down. It was ten thirty on October 28, 1995, and the challengers were beating the old pros. As the younger of the challengers, Jesse Marks, the one with the scar beneath his left eye, drew his stick back; it hit the arm of a player at the other doubles table, causing him to miss a shot. And causing him to remark, “Hey, asshole, watch what you’re doing.”
At the moment that Jesse Marks smashed his stick against the temple of the curser, a pair of white police officers entered the pool hall on a “routine drug patrol,” as the Advocate stated the next day.
A fist fight erupted between the two players, and the police attempted to break it up. When the larger of the two officers threw the young pool player on top of the table, slamming his head onto the slate surface, his playing partner grabbed the officer’s arm. The other police officer, John Walsh, grabbed his gun and said, “Back off nigger or you’re dead meat.”
Willie Stevens became incensed and stepped forward. “Hey, watch your mouth you white shithead.” The officer spun left at a forty-five degree angle and saw Willie advancing towards him. Curtis Strong, sensing the situation had gotten out of hand, rushed to try to grab his friend before he did something stupid. The officer jerked a half step further left on seeing Strong advance and fired a bullet into Strong’s heart at a distance of five feet.
Chapter 2
Reading the Advocate’s account of the incident the next day, Jonathan Barnes remarked to his wife, “What the hell is wrong with these people. Look at this, the guy gets killed in a fight at the pool hall and leaves his wife with a twelve-year-old boy, our Parker’s age. This place on West Main Street is a cesspool, yet these men leave their families at home and go there to drink and do drugs. I can’t understand it. I tell you, Margaret, we will live to see the day when Barnes Construction demolishes that whole blot on the city. That and the hellhole they live in right across the water.”