When he’d broken up with his girlfriend boasting how he’d left her stranded at a tavern, exactly what the bitch deserved for disrespecting him, there was Mom shocked and demanding to know why he’d do such a thing, she had met Abbie and Abbie seemed like a nice girl, and Jerr came back at her, “Fuck ‘Abbie is a nice girl.’ You don’t know shit about ‘Abbie,’ Mom. So mind your own fucking business. There’s no ‘nice girls’ just different kinds of pigs.”

Mom was so shocked by Jerr speaking to her in such a way, not just the disrespect, the insolence, but also the meaning of his words, the loathing for her, she could not reply but stumbled away to another room.

No nice girls just different kinds of pigs.

AGAIN AND AGAIN, WHY.

But it was like nice girls, pigs—there was no why.

You would say, the Kerrigan boys had not been brought up that way, and that would be true. And yet.

Going back to a time when our father had attended South Niagara High there’d been incidents involving white boys and darker-skinned boys, especially following Friday night sports events, but these were usually squabbles or altercations between sports teams, rival schools. Rivalry with Niagara Falls High, Tonawanda High, South Buffalo. Some of these teams were predominantly white, and others were predominantly black. South Niagara had integrated teams, our coaches liked to boast. Boys’ teams, girls’ teams. Football, basketball, softball. Swim team.

Cheerleaders? That was another story.

No incident had involved Hadrian Johnson, who was on both the varsity basketball and softball teams in his junior year.

The previous year, when Jerome Kerrigan Jr. had been a senior, he’d known Hadrian Johnson slightly, as he’d known a scattering of African American boys at the school, but there’d been no animosity between them—none at all. So Jerome Jr. insisted, and so it seemed to be true.

Lionel would deny “animosity” too. Any “race prejudice”—not him.

They would insist, they admired black athletes—Mike Tyson, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan. Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders. And many others.

They’d been aware of Hadrian Johnson on the high school sports teams for who had not been aware of Hadrian Johnson? Not that Hadrian was a brilliant player, usually he was just very good, very reliable, the kind coaches can depend upon.