CATHOLIC BOYS

"A harrowing tale of sexual abuse and murder. . .Aficionados of "Law & Order"   will like this book."
                         ----New Jersey Star-Ledger
  

 SYNOPSIS: A character-driven suspense thriller set in the Bronx in 1960. Alex Ramsey, a housing detective grieving for the death of his son, hunts a killer who targets teenage boys.
 

Published by Livingston Press.  Available at bookstores and online at Amazon.com and other e-tail outlets.

From the novel’s prologue:

The air smelled of rotting fish.

            The girl, breathing through her mouth to avoid it, heard the river gurgling at the

edges of the mudflats, and beyond that the whoosh of cars on the parkway towering on

cement buttresses above the swamp grass.

            In the firelight she began to undress--her top first, a white jersey that fit tight, and

then her shorts, hooking her thumbs inside the waistline and pushing down, first one side

then the other, a motion more jagged than she intended. She had done it before and they

liked it, even though she wasn’t yet graceful like the women in the movies. From the

shadows at the fire’s edge, they cheered her on.

            Baby, baby! Sweet baby!

            Her shorts fell to her feet and she kicked free of them. Naked now, she stood

waiting. She was thin with small breasts that she apologized for by hunching forward

The heat of the fire warmed her back. Damper, cooler air from the river tingled her arms and

legs. Usually they played these games in the hallways but she liked the thrill of this, outdoors, only several hundred yards from the housing project, swamp grass and mud sucking at her toes, boys calling to her from the shadows.

           A song played inside her head: come to me baby, whisper in my ear. . . . She

closed her eyes and let her body drift with the music, this way and that, far across the river and the swamp grass that in her mind went on and on forever--until hands wrapped around her arms, thick and calloused hands that squeezed through to her bones. It hurt a little but she kept her eyes closed while the hands brought her down to the grass and mud.

            Spread ‘em, honey, a voice said.

            She did as she was told, opening her legs and lying back so that the grass tickled 

and the rank smell of mud bloomed around her. Her boyfriend, the leader, tall and hard in his

black leather jacket, shoved a boy toward her. She didn’t know his name but had seen him

around: playground, candy store, wherever. He was pale, thin as she was, shaking like he was cold, like it wasn’t  hot-as-hell June.

            Faggot here’s got something to prove, her boyfriend said.  He shoved the boy again.

Don’t cha? Don’t cha? The boy stumbled but regained his balance, bent double, arms

flailed back. Her boyfriend grabbed his neck and squeezed, the boy making gurgling noises

like the river, her boyfriend squeezing tighter, shaking him harder as she watched the kid’s eyes bulge like they were filling with air; for a moment she thought they might pop, spitting

blood and membrane all over her.

            Don’t cha?  

            The boy was kneeling now, his narrow face wagging between the knobby posts of

her knees, her boyfriend forcing him down until his face was flush against her, wiping

like a rag across hair and the folds of her crack, the boy coughing and choking.

            He a faggot homo pole-sucker, or a man?  Which one? Which one?

            A man, the boy said, choking, barely getting the words out. A man like you.

            Prove it then.

            Her boyfriend let go of the kid’s neck and the others came forward. Two of them held the boy while the others ripped open his belt and yanked his shirt and pants off. He crawled to his knees and cringed like a dog. And then the kick came: her boyfriend’s black shit-kicker on his butt, sending him sprawling on top of her. Prove you’re not a faggot. Prove it!

            She watched him prop himself on his hands like he was going to do pushups

over her, his eyes focused on her throat or neck, anywhere but her face. He froze there

propped like that: soft between his legs, shriveled up. Her boyfriend shouted, Prove it,

 homo fucking pansy.

            The boy’s eyes shut tight. Lips clenched, neck veins taut, he began to move: slow

at first then faster, up down, up down, up down: crying now, but faster faster, his soft

flesh squashing against her thighs. He held her tighter and tighter and she squirmed to

free herself, sliding side to side; but he clung to her, sobbing and pumping harder than ever,

too hard, way too hard she was thinking--what kind of a freak are you anyway?--and then he

was pushing his face between her breasts like he wanted to crawl inside through flesh and

bone to somewhere deep and dark and quiet and then he quit everything except the sobbing,

louder now, too loud she thought for such a skinny kid.

            She tried to push him away--he was disgusting, no man at all, not like the other

guys, strong and hard before she even put her mouth there--but she didn’t have to push

very long because the other boys were dragging him to his feet, pulling and shoving him.

He was spinning between them, between punches and kicks, words and groans, faggot

faggot faggot faggot, spinning spinning, a thin lithe shadow colliding with the larger

shadows of the older boys, get him get the little faggot. No chance--he had no chance at

all--and for the first time that night she felt both fear and sorrow rise inside her like trapped

birds.

    There was something helplessly soft about the boy: for a moment against the river’s dark motion his body seemed to glow, the firelight like a fading sun setting on his skin.