A Rip in Heaven

Tink, Kathy, and Tom Cummins share the kids table with their cousins Julie, Robin, and Jamie Kerry. The next day the Cummins family is set to drive back home to Gaithersburg. Julie is a 20-year-old poet and soccer star, and both Tink and Tom adore her. Kathy idolizes Robin for being a vegetarian. The kids play cards before moving to play outside. Ironically, the nine-year-old Jamie behaves the most maturely, while the older adolescents “embraced their last vestiges of childhood” (6).

Tom asks his father Gene if he can go out with Julie that night. Gene denies his request, and Tom sneaks out. Tink wants to go with him, but Kathy convinces her that they will never be able to sneak out with him successfully. Tink is described as the constant “dreamer,” while her sister Kathy is more “grounded and sensible” (8). Nineteen-year-old Tom nervously waits outside until he is sure his parents are asleep.

Julie and Robin pick Tom up, and together they go to see the poem that Julie has spray-painted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. The adolescents have no idea that St. Louis has the third-highest metropolitan murder rate in the country and that imminent danger awaits them.

Cummins explains that on this night, April 4, 1991, Tom is changing from a deadbeat high school student to a fireman and professional, thanks largely to Julie’s influence. She makes him more confident expressing himself and has helped him grow as a person. He has turned from an apathetic, wannabe punk to a more stable adult.

His father Gene grew up very differently, obedient and responsible. Gene has a difficult time understanding his son, and this has given them a somewhat strained relationship, although Gene has never given up on Tom. Gene has worked as a Catholic deacon and eventually became the official chaplain of the fire department. Gene and Tom have since found common ground in their mutual interest in firefighting. Tom began a work-study program with the county fire academy, and his grades and outlook have improved significantly.

Tom’s parents once paid for him to take a trip to Florida with his cousin Julie, who was in college. He supported her interest in poetry, and she encouraged him to continue with the fire department. They shared their deepest secrets with each other. That week with Julie was “a crucial bridge between adolescence and adulthood” (17). Yet as Tom felt a “refreshing maturity and perspective” after that week, he “wept like a child” on the train ride home (17).

Tom and Julie continued to support one another, talking on the phone and sending letters. She sent him poems and song lyrics, and their friendship only grew after the Florida trip. On the night of April 4, 1991, Tom knows that Julie is his favorite person in the world.

Julie is a petite, energetic girl with untamable curly hair. She is a leader but also makes mischief. She enjoys having serious conversations about injustice and revels in speaking her mind. She is best friends with her sister Robin, and they both love music, poetry, and activism. Together they once raised $600 to buy food and Christmas gifts for two needy families in St. Louis.

Robin is also a petite, beautiful girl. She follows her sister in many things but remains her own person. She believes in karma, responsibility, and the basic goodness of all people. With Julie, she has done volunteer work at the Salvation Army, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace. She once punched a bully in the jaw to defend another kid.

On the road to the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, Tom reflects on how fun of a week he has had with his cousins and his sisters. He remembers that Julie gave him a card three days ago. On the front was a poem about friendship, and inside Julie wrote to Tom that she loved him, that she could never forget him. She asked him to remember her.

They approach the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, and Julie reflects on how much she loves the bridge. She is “at a bridge in her own life,” “crossing over from childhood to adulthood” (28). She wants to share this beloved place with her cousin Tom.

Earlier that night, in Wentzville, Missouri, Marlin Gray drops off his girlfriend Eva at a friend’s house, telling her he will be back in an hour or two. He picks up Daniel Winfrey, an awkward 15-year-old with long hair and acne who has only recently started to hang out with Gray, who provides him with drugs and alcohol. Gray is a tall, large, 23-year-old man. He is the youngest of six children and is “used to getting his way (31). Growing up, he created an image of himself in his mind as an imposing leader, a handsome, charismatic man whom people naturally follow. Cummins highlights the idea that Gray’s demeanor is a deception, an act that everyone believes.

This is Winfrey’s first outing with Gray, and they head to St. Louis to pick up Gray’s friend, Reginald Clemons. Clemons is a thin, tidy 19-year-old. Clemons was always a respectful child who one of his mentors once described as a follower. Cummins interjects that the word “follower” is the “key to understanding Clemons’s psyche and the role he was about to play in a brutal and vicious crime” (33). He assimilates to whatever environment he is currently in. Unfortunately, he has surrounded himself with the wrong kind of people.

One of those people is Antonio Richardson, Clemons’s 16-year-old cousin. Unlike Clemons, Richardson grew up in a poor and broken household subsidized by food stamps. Cummins describes Richardson and his family as “just plain bad news” (34). He abandoned school, was charged with theft at 13, abused drugs and alcohol at 15, and was frequently abandoned for extended periods of time by his mother. Richardson enjoyed spending time at Clemons’s stable, tidy home.

On the evening of April 4, 1991, Richardson and Clemons meet Gray and Winfrey at Clemons’s house. Neither Gray nor Winfrey have met Richardson before. They get along well; Gray acts as the leader and Clemons as the quiet but stable influence. They soon go to another friend’s house, and Clemons loosens up. They drink beer, smoke marijuana, and by 11 they leave their friend’s house. Gray suggests they bring the party to the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, and the others agree to go.