A Chance in the World

Mike takes Steve to Southeastern Massachusetts University. Mr. Sykes is a popular, funny, beloved teacher with long hair. He asks Steve to call him John. As they leave for John’s home in Westport, Steve remembers a quote from one of the books he received from Mrs. Levin: “There are other ways that people live in this world” (104).

John has a cot for Steve to sleep on in his living room. That night in the dark, whenever Steve hears a car on the street, he goes to the window, worried that it might be Reggie. 

John invites Steve to stay with him until he finishes high school, which places Steve in an unfamiliar position: The only things he has to focus on are his college admissions and experiencing normal teenaged life. He remembers going to his first movie, a screening of Footloose. He makes friends easily, especially once he begins sprinting for the track team. Steve falls in love with a young woman named Alicia, but his primary focus is admission to Boston College. John encourages him, as do John’s parents, Theresa and John Sykes, Sr. When he visits John’s parents’ house, Steve is touched to find that they have put a picture of him on their wall.

However, he still feels haunted by the Robinsons. He has frequent anxiety and nightmares. Now that he has the opportunity to focus his efforts, the search for his birth family preoccupies him as well. He wonders, “Where had I come from? What invisible forces had created my life, my unlikely last name—Klakowicz—and the mystery that was my past?” (111).

Boston College accepts Steve’s application in April 1985 and grants him a full scholarship. During his first weeks at college, Steve does not fit in. He does not want to participate in the hard-drinking lifestyle of his dorm mates and finds that his skin color and last name make him a curiosity to other students. They ask him, “What are you, exactly?” (114), and he doesn’t know how to answer them. Steve is intelligent, but he struggles with time management and organization, realizing that he lacks a solid foundation for college courses. His self-doubt makes him lonely, and he is aware that he has no real home like the other students. During the holidays, he stays in the dorms while other students visit their families. 

Steve gets a job on the janitorial staff, which will pay him and comes with free lodging. The custodians turn out to be a valuable group of mentors for him. He aspires to their hardworking natures, and the camaraderie they share. The men—named Dave, Sumner, Tony, and Jimmy—are wise in a way that doesn’t require a college degree. When Steve tells them that his first year was difficult and that he is considering working with them instead of continuing his studies, they make him promise that he’ll stay in school. 

Steve returns to school after the summer. He starts to enjoy classes, particularly philosophy. His questions about identity lead him to think more deeply about the history of African Americans. He sees the movie Eyes on the Prize, a documentary focusing on the civil rights movement. New Bedford’s role in the Underground Railroad fascinates him. He admires W.E.B. Du Bois’s emphasis on education as a route to effective leadership. As he learns more about his cultural legacy, Steve finds that his relationship with other college students begins to transform. He no longer has any patience with people who question his African American heritage simply because he is fair-skinned.

In the fall, Steve joins the black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi. The fraternity’s motto is “Achievement in Every Field of Human Endeavor” (122). Service projects in the community are mandatory. Steve applies himself to the fraternity’s mission and becomes the “Undergraduate Brother of the Year” (122). During the summer, Steve becomes an Upward Bound Program tutor. He continues seeing Alicia, and his life is relatively stable. He forms a close friendship with a student named Tim Palmer and his family. Despite all the history and small successes enriching his life, Steve wants “[m]y own story, my own history, my own home to return to—not that of the Jesuits, or of the fraternity, or of Tim’s and Alicia’s families.” (123). 

Steve is a senior when Betty calls him from the hospital one night. Steve knows that the situation must be serious. Steve remembers that he told her God would judge her and punish her for what she and Reggie did to him and other children. Now, because she is in pain, he is calm with her when he tells her that she was wrong about him. Betty hangs up. She dies soon afterwards, a result of her diabetes, and Steve never learns what motivated her to call him. 

Steve graduates on May 22, 1989. Jonathan Kozol’s commencement speech calls attention to the half-million homeless children in America: “These children have done nothing wrong. They committed no crime. Their only crime is to have been born poor in a rich nation” (127). Steve agrees with everything he says. Steve is self-conscious when each name is announced. The other students have family and friends clapping for them, but he has no one. He walks to the stage after hearing his name, thinking, “The reason I have never been comfortable with the Klakowicz surname is because this is not my real last name” (128). He decides that, now that school is over, he must learn the story of his family. To start, he goes to New Bedford after graduation. 

Alicia breaks up with Steve the summer after college. He misses her and her mother, and he is overcome with new feelings of not belonging to anyone. He tells Ruby Dottin that he wants to find his parents. Ruby wonders if there are things that he is better off not knowing, but Steve will not relent. The next day, a speaker talks to the children during a class. The speaker knew Kenny Pemberton, and Ruby says she’ll ask him if he can tell her anything useful. Steve meets the man, whose name is Russell Almeida. He used to spar with Kenny, and he is certain that Kenny was Steve’s father, but Steve does not believe him. Russell asks Steve to visit him on Friday; he has a picture that will change Steve’s mind.

On Friday, Russell shows Steve a picture of Kenny when he was Steve’s age. The resemblance is undeniable, and Steve believes him. Russell then tells him about riots in New Bedford in 1970. He does not know the circumstances of Kenny’s death but verifies that his body was burned in the funeral home. He also tells him that his father dated white women and mentions a woman named Evelyn Brown. Many adults feared Kenny, but children loved him. 

Steve is conflicted in his feelings about Kenny. Kenny might have been his father, but he also abandoned him, resulting in the miserable years at the Robinson home. He was alive for the first five years of Steve’s life but was not a father figure to Steve. Steve recalls Russell saying that Kenny would have been proud to see the man he now was. Steve does not believe Russell would have the right to take credit for anything good about him.

In April of 1991 he calls Mike Silvia. Mike tells him that his mother’s name is Marian Klakowicz. Mike also tells him, after making him promise that he won’t tell where he got the information, that he has siblings. He also tells Steve that he has been reading his case file. He does not give him details but says that his life was very difficult before he got to the Robinsons. He is warning Steve that what he learns, if he keeps investigating, will be unpleasant. 

Steve calls information to see if there is any evidence for his grandparents, the Murphys, having lived in Pucker, New Jersey. He cannot find the name Klakowicz in any phone directories. Weeks later, he tries again. After telling his story to a phone operator during a call, she tells him that there is a town called Tuckerton with a listing for a J. Murphy. He takes the number but doubts that it belongs to his grandparents.

When he calls, his grandmother Loretta answers and tells him that they have often thought of him over the years. His mother died years earlier, but his brothers Ben and Marc reside in New Jersey. She does not know where Joni and Bernie are. She reveals that he had a twin sister named Starla who died shortly after their birth.

Steve’s phone call with Loretta lasts for several hours. She is the second wife of his grandfather, Joseph Murphy. Loretta gives Steve a biography of his mother. Her name was Marian Klakowicz. She dropped out of high school after her freshman year, married a man named Rudolph Klakowicz in February, 1958, and Steve’s brother Ben was born in New Bedford when Marian was 20.

Marian drank heavily, and Rudolph was often unemployed. They separated by 1960 and had little subsequent contact. Marian often left Ben with acquaintances and vanished for days. Joseph, worried for Ben’s safety, took him to New Bedford to live with him and Loretta. Marian continued to struggle with drunkenness. In 1962, she was pregnant again with Steve’s brother, Marc. Two years later, his sister Joni was born, and Joni had a different father than Ben and Marc.

Steve and Starla were born on June 15, 1967. Starla died of a brain hemorrhage after five days. For years, Marian struggled to repair her life and her relationship with her parents. She regained care of Marc and Joni, and by the end of 1968, she was pregnant again by her new boyfriend. By 1970, Marian’s progress stopped and she was involved with Kenny Pemberton. Joni and Steve began their years in foster care, and Joseph and Loretta took charge of Marc. Bernard, the latest child, stayed with Marian.

In September of 1971, Marc was placed in the foster care system when his grandparents could no longer manage the expense of raising him. Three years later, Bernard was also in foster care. Marian died at 40 years old in an apartment. She was smoking, and a fire had just started when the superintendent broke down the door. It was unclear whether the smoke killed her or whether it was her alcohol addiction. 

Steve is saddened by his mother’s story but elated at the survival of his siblings. A reporter named Susan calls him to do a story on his search for his missing family. Mike Silvia learns the location of the people who raised Joni. The woman who adopted her is named Muriel. Muriel tells Steve that Joni has been searching for her missing siblings for years. Joni is now living in Biloxi, Mississippi. Muriel warns Steve that Joni’s past trauma—which occurred during her earliest years with their mother—has damaged her. The New Bedford Stanford-Times prints Susan’s story the following day. A caption accompanies Steve’s photo: “Quest pays off: After 21 years he has a family” (153).

Steve receives several calls from people who knew Kenny, and he starts to schedule times to talk with them. However, the story has upset Kenny’s family because they do not believe that Kenny had children. Ruby Dottin receives similar calls. Even though the conversations might not lead where Steve wants them to, she gives him the phone number for Kenny’s sister, Geraldine. 

Steve visits Geraldine, who goes by Gerri. As soon as she sees him, she knows that he is from their family. He tells her about his background and about Marian. His grandmother was Cape Verdean, which accounted for the color of Steve’s eyes.  

Gerri tells him Kenny’s story. Kenny was one of 14 children. In 1956 the family home burned down. The children were divided among various houses in the aftermath. When Kenny was 15, his mother died of a “coronary occlusion.” That is when Kenny began boxing. By 1971 he was enmeshed in the drug trade as a heroin user and dealer. He began robbing other drug dealers so he could get high on their product.

He tried to quit using heroin but was unsuccessful. Gerri tried to help him more than once, but her efforts weren’t enough to stop him. On the day Kenny died, he was trying to reach Gerri. She couldn’t connect with him because of her work schedule. He left a message with one of her coworkers, saying that he needed to tell her something important. She never learned what it was. The hospital called her that night because her number was in Kenny’s wallet when he arrived. 

Kenny’s brother Warren is disinclined to believe Steve’s claims. Warren says that if Kenny knew what was going on at the Robinsons, he would have saved Steve, released the other children, and killed Betty and Reggie. Steve has been sure that Kenny knew he had a son, but now he is less sure.

Warren takes Steve to Kenny’s grave. The tombstone is plain and covered in dust. Steve washes the slab with water from a spout and a bucket from his car. Warren starts to cry and tells Steve that after Kenny’s death, other members of the family received frightening calls from people saying that they would kill them to take revenge on Kenny. He blames Steve for bringing the memory of his dead brother back, but Steve tells him that he has every right to find his father. Warren tells Steve that Kenny would be proud of the man he is. Steve thinks, “I was never his to claim. Despite the newfound sorrow I had for Kenny and his fractured family, I still could not bring myself to forgive him” (167). 

In August of 1991, Steve meets the rest of his family in Freehold, New Jersey. He drives several hours to the Freehold mall where he will meet Marc for the first time. He is surprised to see that Marc is a tall, white man. Steve is unsettled by the fact that they have no resemblance to each other. They drive to Marc’s girlfriend’s house, where Joni is waiting. Joni is emaciated and has dark circles under her eyes. Steve can tell at a glance that she has been traumatized: “Rarely had I seen someone’s life experiences so clearly written up his or her body. In the short time it took for her to reach me, I thought, She looks like a prisoner of war” (171).

Marc remembers Steve. Their mother would leave them for long stretches. He asks Steve if he has a scar on his left foot, and he tells him that he cut it looking for food in neighborhood garbage cans during one of Marian’s absences. Joni joins them at the kitchen table and rocks silently, fighting back tears. She remembers the constant hunger of childhood and that a man was always touching her inappropriately when she was six years old. She looks at Steve and says, “You’re not black. You can’t be” (173). She shouts it and then goes to her room and slams the door. Later, they go to a mall with Joni and her boyfriend, Mason. She ignores Steve and sits at a different table. When Marc and Mason leave so that Steve can talk to Joni, she admits that the man who molested her was black. Steve says, “Whoever that monster was, he had nothing to do with me or anyone else who is black” (176).

That evening they meet Ben, Steve’s other brother, at a restaurant. They talk about Joseph Murphy and how difficult post-war life was for him. Joni begins drinking vodka and announces that she and Mason are getting married. She quickly becomes drunk then furious when Marc tells her that she has had enough to drink. When she goes to the bathroom, Ben tells Steve that their mother acted similarly. Joni leaves with Mason. Steve, Marc, and Ben agree to stay in contact. A week later, Steve calls Joni to check on her. She tells him that she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore because he is black. Steve writes that it is the last conversation they have, as of 25 years later. 

The family’s situation and the lingering effects of Marian’s neglect sadden Steve. Ben was so disturbed by Joni’s state that he distances himself from the family, and Marc vanishes. Joni refuses to speak with Steve, and his attempts to contact Bernard lead nowhere. Steve tries to move past the Pemberton story, now that he has learned the truth about his past. As part of his new life, he changes his name to Pemberton, leaving Klakowicz behind, since it was never his real name. He writes, “I wanted the name Pemberton as a legacy that I could pass on to my own children someday” (183).