Friday, July 21, 2000
Petey: A life not forgotten
A year after his death, he lives on in the memories of many
By Jeff Carlton
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The mail hasn't stopped coming for Petey Greene, even though he is dead and buried.
For a year now, Vanessa Greene has kept every bit of mail that has come for her son, Anthony Michael Greene: college brochures, recruiting mail from the Army and Navy, endless credit card applications. Most heartbreaking, Mrs. Greene says, was the student loan money that came through from Northern Kentucky University.
She returned it. But everything else, anything with her son's name on it, she keeps.
She stores it all in a box in the basement. It is one way for her to remember her son, a standout basketball player at Newport High, a promising young college student and a split-second hero who, a year ago today, was shot to death trying to stop a fight.
A basketball tournament in her son's name August 12-13 will raise money for scholarships for Newport High students. So far, 12 teams have signed up for the tournament, paying $150 a team.
And tonight, she will host a candlelight vigil for family and friends at her Newport home and later in the Linden Grove Cemetery, where her son rests.
The vigil marks the passing of exactly one year since a bullet tore through Petey Greene's 18-year-old heart.
His sister, Andrea Greene, 21, wears a tattoo on her forearm of her brother's face. The inscription reads: “Only the good die young.”
“How do you measure a man's life? By his successes. Everything Petey did he was successful at,” says Dan Grob, a father figure who has lived with the Greenes for about six years.
Petey played basketball at Newport and received offers from Cincinnati State and junior colleges in Florida and Illinois. Last year he was MVP of both his team and the Campbell County Invitational Tournament, and he was an all-region player.
His coach, Scott Draud, now head coach at Dixie High School, said Petey was the best player he ever coached. Petey was going to try out for the Northern Kentucky team, Mr. Draud said.
“He was always improving his game,” Mr. Draud said. “I feel his best days of basketball were still ahead of him.”
Though basketball was a big part of Petey's life, it wasn't his only interest. He was interested in art and had left behind charcoal sketches of butterflies and one of a wolf, which Mrs. Greene says is her favorite.
He also was a devoted video game player and watched cooking shows and the Home Shopping Network, Andrea recalls with laughter.
Petey wasn't perfect, of course, but his flaws all seemed benign. Mrs. Greene says he always tried to get out of doing dishes, for example, and didn't like taking out the trash. Sometimes Mrs. Greene would walk in the door after working second shift at her nursing job, and Petey would immediately ask what was for dinner.
But mostly, Mrs. Greene says, Petey enjoyed life. He stayed busy working at a carwash, and he attended field trips with the Boys Club because he liked seeing new places. The only place he would refuse to go to was the zoo.
“I don't think he liked to see animals caged up,” Mr. Grob says.
The last day of Petey's life was brutally hot and sultry. Petey had quit his job at a car wash about a week earlier and had gotten hired at the airport. The job paid better and included free flight benefits.
His last meal was dinner at Burger King. Mrs. Greene, Petey and his sisters had tried to get in at Applebees and then T.G.I. Friday's, but the waits were too long.
After dinner, Andrea says, she and her brother headed to the projects on Third Street in Newport to hang out with friends. Andrea, Petey and several friends played a game called Black Magic.
Andrea would visualize an object in her head, such as a car, and then ask Petey a series of questions to see if he could guess what she was thinking. She would say, “Is it a clock? Is it a house? Is it a stop sign?”
Petey would answer no to each question, until she picked an object that was black, such as someone's shoes. The next object she would mention would be the one she was actually thinking about, and Petey would answer yes. All of their friends were amazed.
Eventually Andrea and Petey let the others in on the game's secret tip-off and the novelty wore off.
The night Petey died, friends went to the 900 block of Isabella Street to hang out, and it's there they ran into Mark Dean.
Mark, Petey and another friend in the group, Gabe Krull, all had worked at the car wash. Gabe was dating Petey's sister, Angelique.
That night, Gabe and Mark argued about some money that had been stolen from the car wash, and Mark stormed off.
He returned around 10 p.m. with a friend, Michael McIntosh. Though just 17 at the time, Michael already had five felony convictions on his juvenile record, including theft and a stabbing that left the victim's lung collapsed.
Andrea described her brother's murder.
“(Michael) had a gun and put it at Gabe's head,” Andrea says, re-enacting the event recently at the murder scene. “Gabe backs up away from him and then Petey gets out of the car and says, "What's going on?'”
Petey walked up behind the gunman, telling him not to shoot. Michael shot at Gabe but the bullet grazed his cheek.
Petey tried to wrap him in a bear hug. Michael fired blindly over his shoulder, piercing Petey's heart.
Michael ran, and Andrea cradled Petey in her arms.
At the hospital, where the Greene family was officially informed that Petey was dead, Angelique, now 20, kept saying, “Tell him to get up. Tell him to come with us.”
A few days later, Mrs. Greene received the items found in Petey's pockets: his driver's license, $5.30, and the results from a drug test Petey had picked up that day for his new job.
His new employer made him take the test. Petey came up clean. He was sup posed to start work the next day.
About 1,500 people showed up for the funeral at the high school, and in a way they haven't stopped coming since.
Mrs. Greene keeps a book at Petey's grave for visitors to sign and leave messages. Each book is about 200 pages long. On each page, a visitor has left a message, something like, “Happy Birthday, Petey. I was thinking about you today, and I miss you so much.”
Three of these books have already been filled.
Of course, the family has received less than friendly visitors as well. In mid-April, about two weeks before Mr. McIntosh's trial began, “skinheads” started driving by the Greenes' house, staring and sometimes yelling racial slurs, Mrs. Greene and Mr. Grob say.
This activity has continued almost every day since, they say.
The jury convicted Mr. McIntosh in just three hours. He received a life sentence. He won't be eligible for parole until July 2019, when he is 37.
Andrea says Mr. McIntosh recently tried to write a letter to Mrs. Greene but she didn't want anything to do with him.
“You can't bring him back,” Mrs. Greene says. “The damage has been done.”
So tonight, candles will be lit at the home on Isabella Street, just 50 yards from where Petey fell.
And the family continues to stockpile memories. A painted portrait of Petey hangs above the mantle, and tables and walls are covered with framed pictures. In the basement, Mrs. Greene keeps all the flowers and candles left at Petey's grave, as well as the boxes of mail addressed to Anthony Michael Greene.
Next month they and their friends will put on the Petey Greene Memorial Scholarship Tournament on the outdoor basketball courts at Newport High.
The proceeds go into a scholarship fund. Each year, Petey's family will select scholarship winners. The Greenes have already picked four winners for the 1999-2000 school year.
“He would have continued his basketball career,” Andrea says. “Since he can't do it, we found a way for him.”
The deadline to sign up is Aug. 2. For more information, contact Vanessa Greene at 261-2494 or Jeff Stowers at 356-8907.
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