Peace grew up just outside of Newark, NJ, the son of a single mother who, though she kept in contact with Peace's father, wished to maintain a distance between the world in which she raised her gifted child, and the drug selling lifestyle led by his father. When Rob was seven, his father was arrested for the double homicide of two women living in the same apartment complex. Skeet's trial was unfairly delayed and badly prosecuted, but the murder weapon having been found on him sealed his fate and he was sentenced to life in prison. Rob's mother Jackie took Rob monthly to see his father and as he got older, Rob maintained the visits on his own, often giving his time and talent in assisting his father in possible appeals.
Rob pushed himself hard, for his father, in assisting with his legal actions, for his mother in excelling at school and later at water polo at his private college preparatory school. Rob managed all this, eventually earning the school's highest honor. His introduction and then speech at a senior banquet caught the eye of a wealthy alumna who offered to pay for Rob's college education.
While not his first choice a series of unlucky breaks led Rob to miss an application deadline for his preferred college led Rob to matriculate at Yale where he met the author. Rob balanced a course load in molecular biology, a spot on the water polo team, and eventually, a side hustle of selling marijuana to the mostly white co-eds at school.
Following graduation, Rob was intent on two things: travelling to Brazil and returning home to live among his friends and family. But these two things left him somewhat adrift after a family friend entrusted to keep Rob's college savings safe, spent the money Rob had depended on to get set in life. Without many options, Rob signed on to teach high school biology at his alma mater in Newark. But this endeavor quickly left him dissatisfied as he was not prepared for the limited means such teaching provided and cut short his ambitions to travel. He moved on to a job with Continental Airlines as a baggage handler in order to take advantage of the free standby flights afforded to employees.
Rob took advantage of this perk for years as he traveled around the world, but a equipment accident led to a request for drug testing which Rob declined having been a habitual user of marijuana since the age of 14. Losing this job was a turning point for Rob as the meager means with which he had been eking out his life withered up and he became desperate for a way to make money. So he went to what he knew, selling marijuana. But with gang front lines and aggressive territory protection, Rob became an instant target.
His death is tragic but so much more so because of how much he meant to so many people rather than a trope of wasted potential, though that is part of it too. I wonder if he had access to more social capital and a more robust system of advisement following graduation, if he would have been more able to reconcile his desires with his realities. He tried to be a protector and provider to so many, selflessly giving of his time and money even to those who never reciprocated. There is something child-like in this desire of the person Rob wanted to be and the way he tried to go about being that person. What a senseless tragedy that his life was cut so short. What a touching and moving tribute Hobbs has prepared for his friend.
4/5 Stars.
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