Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:00:32 -0600
From: michaelpete@hushmail.com
Subject: Promiscuity and Purpose 9

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CHAPTER IX

CHANGE OF LIFE

Since I hadn't any, it was necessary to buy suitcases for my trip. So,
after a day long check up of my car and another day to withdraw four
thousand dollars in cash from my bank, farewell visits to my parents and
sisters and a long lunch with Ned, I left my home-town for Canada, all my
hand tools locked securely in the trunk and cash in a money belt, inside
the drivers seat and under the mat in the trunk. The plan was to stay in
Toronto until the case was well enough along that I needn't receive any
calls from Sergeant McNally.

The next two weeks were boring beyond my worse fears, boredom exacerbated
by grief over Jamie's murder. I saw eight movies and attended a barely
interesting folk music festival. There were long expensive calls to my
parents and sisters, Tim and Ned, most of which made me more homesick
rather than less. The pain I felt over the effective torture inflicted on
Jamie as he lay helpless, tied down in his bed, kept me from sleeping for
more than a few hours at a time.

To make matters worse, McNally told me the case against Marsha Grant was in
limbo.

"Her lawyer got the judge to put off a court date to give her time to see
what really happened like maybe Jamie died of cancer or something. It's a
bunch of crap but that's what they do. The lawyer keeps delaying a court
date in hopes potential jurors will forget the initial newspaper and TV
stories which were very bad for his client. And, he knows that, in a case
like this, over time some of the witnesses will lose interest or have
second thoughts about testifying. I'm thinking about the guards there
especially, the nurses too. The hospital wants this to go away so they'll
let their employees know clearly how they feel. The lawyer, and Grant too,
are probably hoping you'll do something stupid and blow your
credibility. That would make the case for her and there'd never be a
trial. Whatever, this trial isn't gonna happen for months so just take it
easy, enjoy your vacation. Be a tourist. The guys working on your houses
are going gangbusters. They're gonna be done easy in a couple of weeks so
you can sell the houses and have a nice chunk of cash to live on and invest
when you get back."

"So, realistically," I asked, "when do you think that's gonna be?"

"Gees, Steve, I don't know but probably six, eight months like I said
before. Maybe you can go back to school, take some courses in something."

Canada did have some pleasing aspects. It was, is a beautiful
country. Toronto was a clean city and a lot bigger than where I came
from. There were nice boys to look at and, as I found in a newspaper
article about a man who'd been caught with a nine year old girl, the age of
consent was just fourteen. I could have sex with all the kids that age as
long as it was consensual. The problem was where to find kids who weren't
yet hairy beasts, interested in being done, or just being company.

Patty told me about a newspaper article on the case which seemed very
positive toward my role in the events and condemning of Marsha
Grant's. However, Grant was out of jail on a token hundred dollar bail,
not, she said, a very good sign.

"I don't think anything's going to happen to her except maybe probation. In
a year or two, she might even get back into social work."

I began touring the city, seeking particularly the working class
areas. Nowhere did I run into the kind of poverty found in my home town,
not even close. There were ethnic areas for Italian, Greek, Chinese and
others but all appeared to be at least lower middle class. Maybe that was
why they could have such a low age of consent. Guys like me weren't going
to find a hustling scene. Well, at least I didn't.

	While educational opportunities abounded, work was another
matter. There were a number of large real estate managing firms but visits
to three turned up few possibilities.

	Frustrated, I called Ned and told him I was returning to the U.S.,
to New York City.

"Why not?" he commented. "How's the bitch gonna find you there? And I'll
bet you can find plenty of work there." Later on in the conversation, he
mentioned, "Mike, that guy who drives that green Dodge."

	"I know him."

	"Well, he told me a couple times about this friend of his who lived
in New York. I'll see if I can find him and ask. Maybe he'd be willing to
introduce you to his friend."

	With that possibility, a greater possibility to earn a living as
well as getting my mind off Jamie's murder, I broke the rules and returned
to New York planning that all calls would be from me to Walter with some
excuse that I had taken a cheap apartment with no phone. Best, from reading
stories about them in the newspaper, I knew the Big Apple had a slew of so
called slum lords with hundreds of properties each. Surely there'd be work
for me.

The surprise, though, were the amounts requested for renting even a simple
apartment. I took a rented room in a relatively inexpensive hotel in
midtown Manhattan with the intention of visiting some slum lords and see if
a deal could be made such as living in an apartment while I remodeled
it. That didn't work but one agent did offer me a combination if I could
demonstrate my skills. The deal was an apartment that required substantial
work plus doing paid repair work in that area of town.

The proficiency test was to replace an apartment entry door and frame. The
door, its hardware and lumber for the frame were provided along with paint
to complete the task. It took half a day but immediately convinced the
agent, Roy Esterhaus, that I was a competent carpenter.

The apartment offered was several blocks northwest of the famous Times
Square. It was formerly two offices with two rooms each in a relatively new
two story building at the end of a block occupied almost entirely by five
story housing, infamous tenements, each with four apartments per
floor. From what I could see that first week, in my half of the long block,
all the inhabitants were Hispanic.

Although it did have two bathrooms, there were no plumbing facilities or
adequate electrical outlets for a kitchen. Water and drain lines and
electricity for a stove would have to brought up from ground level in a
building with no basement. There was no gas into the building. A lot of
work was needed but nothing I couldn't handle. Basic, well used,
inexpensive furniture was provided. Rent was two hundred twenty-five
dollars a month but free that first month while I did the remodeling. At
that point, I could pay the rent and stay in it or take on another,
possibly more interesting apartment. However, as I got to know improved the
place, all that moving around seemed less appealing.

The repairs I was implementing were soon based on the apartment remaining
my home until I could return south.

I got right to work on a list of needed materials.

"You can plaster too?" asked the agent when I handed it to him.

"And plumbing, electric, set tile, roofing, you name it."

Since everything there in Manhattan cost more than back home, I upped my
hourly calculations then found out payment was by job not time spent on
it. The amount paid for painting was almost double what I
expected. However, that was done principally by a Greek man who, with a
crew of three fellow countrymen, could complete an entire four or five room
apartment with bath in a day. I didn't like house painting all that much
anyway.

On my third night in the apartment, I called Ned just to talk, rightly
assuming he was working either days or late night. I hadn't yet told him of
my move south.

"Some of our friends are asking where you went."

"What'd you tell them?"

"That you were so upset about Jamie dying that you decided to leave the
city, maybe even the country."

"They all know what happened to him at the hospital?"

"Nobody's mentioned it. Your name's in each article but I don't think
anyone has made the connection. They don't know your last name and probably
don't realize that Steven is the same as Steve. None of `em use Jamie's
name. Anyway, I don't think any of the kids read newspapers, except for the
funnies and maybe some of the sports, nah, not even that.

"Everyone thinks Jamie just died of his injuries. Anway, I haven't heard
anything about him for days."


The grief and homesickness that were weighing increasingly heavier on me
were somewhat ameliorated by being very occupied, then the realization that
I'd made more money in five days than during a month on the Rash
properties.

Then came the real surprise. I suppose it's important to say that I'd
always assumed that most large cities had similar hustler scenes making
mine nothing special so I probably should have expected what I found.

On a Saturday evening, about ten days into my New York experience, I walked
one block over to and down Eighth Avenue to Forty-Second Street where I
turned left toward the famous Times Square with the intention of
sight-seeing, taking in the bright lights. What I found right there at the
corner were two boys, a blonde and a light blonde, both about eleven or
twelve, who gave me a look I immediately recognized. To be frank, it made
me nervous. I needed to stay out of trouble. Not knowing a scene and
partaking had to be risky so I smiled and walked on. That didn't work. The
almost blonde walked up and asked for a quarter. I found one in my pocket
and handed it over with a "There you go."

"Where you from?" he asked, right hand in his pocket but over his crotch,
massaging what was inside.

"Chicago," I lied.

"You got a place to go?"

"Not tonight. Maybe next weekend."

"C'mon, only three each. His is big, you'll see."

Were others watching our little get together? I started moving away.

"Sorry, can't tonight." Weak kneed answer if there ever was one.

"When? We're here every night." It was school vacation time.

"Like I said, maybe next weekend. See you." Pissed at myself for not
keeping my mouth shut and just moving on as any other non-BL would have
done, I picked up my step but spotted two more, another blond and a Latino
younger than the first pair, crossing over up ahead through the traffic to
my side, their eyes glued on me. This was crazy! Someone had to be
observing this. When they planted themselves in front of me, then walked
backward, I did a quick diversion around them. It worked. They made no
attempt at contact.

A couple of early teens stood near one of the many movie theaters arrayed
along the street, one with a toothpick in his mouth. Both raised their eyes
seductively at me and smiled. I pulled my eyes away and quickened my step.

Then, just before Seventh Avenue, there were three more pre-teens leaning
against a wall just past the last movie theater. We made eye contact. One
was plain, one nice and the middle one a real doll, another Billy
Turner. The latter pushed himself off and started my way. It was hard to
take my eyes off him.

He nodded at me then walked along side.

"Wanna go, just me or one a them too? You in a hotel? I know one if you
want."

Another smile and, "Sorry, just sight-seeing. Some other time." Why
couldn't I just say `No!'?

"I can show you around. I know everything around here. What ya wanna see?"

"Look, I appreciate the offer but I really wanna do it alone. Thanks
anyway."

"Next time, huh?"

"Yeah, some other time."

"I'll be here tomorrow."

We were crossing Broadway.

"Maybe."

Instead of going straight, well, I was kind of going straight, I turned up
Broadway crossing back over Seventh Avenue and down Forty-fifth Street
straight home, all the way nervously admonishing myself to stay away from
Times Square, worried that I wouldn't be able to. Back in the apartment,
feeling guilty and unfaithful to the memory of Jamie for just looking, I
examined my feelings for a while, finally deciding that sex, even with
pretty, experienced boys, wasn't what I really wanted to do at that
time. The memory of Jamie was still much too strong, almost like he was
watching me. And, I had to avoid any potential problems that might affect
the prosecution of bitch Grant.

I spent Sunday working on the apartment's bathroom, installing a shower
stall and new sink then completing the ceramic tiling that had only been on
two sides of the re-installed toilet. That night I hung the new light
fixture and put up a nicer medicine cabinet than the one real estate agent
budgeted, having paid the difference out of my pocket. The one normally
bought at an Eighth Avenue hardware store where the company had an account
was way too small and cheap looking for my tastes and needs.

My next eye-opening experience was in the basement of a five story
tenement, three doors down the block from my newer but flimsier apartment
building. Doing some electrical work near the boiler, I surprised three
young teens, maybe fourteen or fifteen, who I assumed had been beating off
the way they were struggling to make their pants look normal as they walked
quickly out of the dark back. One was still bucking his belt.

I grinned and said, "Go on back and finish what you were doing. I'm just
gonna be up here."

As they moved into the light, it was clear they were Latinos which wasn't
surprising since, from what I'd seen all the people in my end of the block
were from a variety of Latin countries.

The one raised his hand as if to say, don't worry about it, but then one of
his beat off buddies said something in Spanish. They stopped and spoke some
more in hushed tones, occasionally looking over at me. I put my tool box
down and was examining the breaker box that needed another circuit when I
heard them head back. The one who seemed the leader nodded with a smile
when I looked. They were very quiet about what they did because I didn't
hear anything from the dark basement rear until perhaps twenty minutes
later the boys walked out, their leader saying, "Thanks" in English. His
expression carried more than gratitude, possibly suspicion as to my
orientation.

It was during my third week that the agent, in an apartment that needed a
kitchen sink re-installed, made an unwanted pitch. "You can make even more
money if you want but, you gotta share the wealth."

One didn't need to be a New Yorker to know what that meant. He wanted
kickbacks, something I'd never had to deal with as my contact had always
been with owners.

The worry about taking kickbacks or not has always been completely unfair
to workers in my situation. We depend on the agents for work. If we don't
kick back, we don't get any work or very little. I told him I needed time
to think about it, that it was something I felt very uncomfortable doing.

"Why? Old man Mandel's richer than any of us'll ever be. You probably think
I make good money but I don't. Anyway, everybody does it. In New York, you
either give or take. It's like housing inspectors. They get paid, you get
approved. They don't, you don't. You go try and find work with any property
management company in this city and that's the way it is."

I didn't want to argue with him so again requested time to think about it.

"Your choice, my friend." A threat if there ever was one.

It was something I needed to talk over with someone close. There was no
doubt that Ned would say go ahead and pay so I called Patty.

"He's stealing from his boss and you'd be helping him," was her initial
reaction. Then, "You think he won't give you any work if you don't give him
what he wants?"

"Maybe not none, but barely enough to get by, maybe not even
that. Everything's so damn expensive up here."

"I suppose you couldn't talk to anyone else at the company. Why not talk to
some of the other contractors and see what they do?"

"I'm betting they pay. Most of them do crappy work. I've seen it. I could
never bill work like that. And, if I talk to someone above this guy, even
the owner, they'd find a way to get me out, then probably tell the agents
in other companies."

"Ever think about going after smaller customers, you know, like small
businesses, maybe restaurants or clothing stores?"

"It'll be just like down there, there are a bunch of licenses you gotta
have plus setting up a business. All that would take months and a lot of
money neither of which I have right now. Okay, I probably have enough money
but it's for investing in houses back home. Time maybe I have too but, even
after all the paperwork's done, all the time it's gonna take to find
customers when there are so many people already in the business." What it
would be like sitting around fretting over what happened to Jamie was also
in my mind.

"I either pay this son of a bitch or sit around until after the trial, if
there ever is one."

"Ever think about just going to work for somebody?"

"What do I do about references? And if somebody checks me out, word might
get back to Grant's lawyer."

"Steve, that's ridiculous. How is she gonna hear anything about you getting
a job in New York?"

"Actually, I'm more worried about the D.A. I'm supposed to be out of the
country."

"I still don't understand that. What do they expect you to do around here,
murder somebody?"

It took me a week to sort through the reasons for the rationalizations I'd
voiced with Patty. In the back of my mind had been the freedom I didn't
want to give up. I'd been my own boss since I was eleven, at least as a
worker. Also mixed up in this was the ability, as my own boss, to go off at
any time in pursuit of boys. Talk about addictions!

I agreed to give up ten percent of my checks to the corrupt company rental
and maintenance agent. There'd be no way to cheat him since he approved all
my bills. Now larger bills for more work would be more easily approved. I
did promise myself that I wouldn't cut any corners or turn in any job not
up to my own standards. Roy Esterhaus, the agent, often laughed at my
overzealousness, as he saw it, but it helped me maintain my self respect as
a tradesperson. Ned called to inform me that the remodeling of both
houses was complete and Jake wanted his money. I mailed Patty a sizeable
check which she turned over to the man.

Two weeks after accepting the status of crooked businessman, I had an ad in
the newspaper for employees, all of whom would be working `off the
books'. Since I hadn't a legally set up tax paying business, I couldn't
register any employee as such since that would require collecting a
withholding tax and social security, something I couldn't turn in, not
being a registered company. I was, in effect, a black market operation,
bothersome at first but less so as time went on.

Five weeks after getting into the real estate repair again, I had three
employees, a second vehicle, and was handing in bills several times as
large as any presented to Mr. Rash. Calculating it over a year's time, it
was definitely more lucrative than buying, fixing up and selling houses.

There just weren't any boys knocking on my door.

Then, that week, both houses I owned back home were bought by a single
company. The price paid was a bit less than I'd hoped for but still
included a respectable profit. I requested payment by ten checks in roughly
equal amount so they could be deposited in separate checking accounts
thereby avoiding interest by the Internal Revenue Service. That was another
chink in my honest guy façade. I was a tax evader though not entirely
intentionally. As in New York, setting up a company was a pain in the ass
that carried a number of requirements that would be difficult with repairs
for my slumlord clients, like doing electrical work without a
license. Additionally, for some reason I never fully understood, Mr. Rash
had insisted on paying me in cash. I assumed it had something somehow to do
with hiding income but who knew? Naturally, I never asked.

In New York, I was no longer a jack of all trades, but finally able to
primarily be a carpenter, a trade I enjoyed, and leave the rest to my
staff. My plumber was a slightly bent Irishman, John McLeary, who didn't
always make it in on Mondays. He prided himself on putting `adjust water
level' on all his work reports. What that meant was that he'd bent the
float ball rod, or not, to have the toilet tank fill up more or less.

The second was Guido Santoni, a fast talking US born Italian who did
electrical work and even had a journeyman's license. He was my most
proficient employee, turning in timely professional work that he was
justifiably proud of. I never asked him why he wasn't out making twice as
much money with some union contractor. There was no doubt in my mind he was
avoiding either an arrest warrant or an angry ex-wife.

Finally, there was Anthony Yanga, a big Jamaican, probably illegal but a
great worker, who did all kinds of odd jobs like replacing broken windows
and light fixtures. Gradually I learned that his wife had left him and
their three boys, then four, six and eight. Unable to care for his children
and work, he'd had to put them in a Staten Island children's home which he
visited every Sunday. He was banking every spare dime in hopes of soon
taking his boys back to Jamaica where he would start his own business with
his savings. When I asked him how long he expected to be staying around, he
wasn't sure but at least another year.

Let me tell you something about what we were doing. You can imagine we
fixed building problems, everything from lights out to a leaking roof, and
I mean everything. Just think about all that one might find in any house or
apartment, the plumbing piping and fixtures, everything electrical, heating
systems, doors, windows, floors, ceilings, walls, roofs and chimneys. Most
of the damage was the result of tenant abuse, something that dramatically
changed my attitude about New York's infamous supposedly cheap, nasty
slumlords. Joshua Mandel, the owner of the company I was working for, took
immediate action on all complaints, no matter how obviously tenant
caused. A few examples: Lights out – bulbs all burnt out. Window broken
– from the inside. Hole in the wall – a fight between husband and
wife with a cocktail table rammed into the heavy wooden wall. Bathroom sink
fell off the wall – well, let me tell you about that one.

It happened on a weekday afternoon, four buildings up from mine on the
fourth floor. Water had cascaded through floors and ceilings all the way
down to the basement. The building super turned off the water then rushed
down and banged on my door. He was lucky I was in. McLeary was finishing up
a job on Forty-Seventh Street. There was no way he was going to work after
five without the never authorized overtime pay. I called the office to get
a job number, grabbed the tools and plumbing items I expected to need and
went with the super.

The apartment was a disaster. Water had flowed out of the bathroom into the
hall and two bedrooms. Apart from the water damage, the whole place was a
mess: dirty walls, clothes tossed all over in the bedrooms, windows
unwashed and so on. The woman and a couple of her children were soaking up
water with towels and a mop, using the bathtub and kitchen sink as
recipients.

"It just fall off the wall and water everywhere," complained the
woman. "How come they got bad sinks like that? They gotta give us a good
one." She had a heavy Hispanic accent with the Caribbean stacatto. I had to
think about what she said to put her words together.

"Well, don't worry. I'm gonna fix it."

The old porcelain sink was broken into several pieces. I gave the super a
purchase order to buy a new one and other items at the Eighth Avenue
hardware store and got to work. Fortunately, there were old but good
galvanized tees inside the wall so, with lots of WD40, a loosening oil for
pipes and threaded fasteners like nuts and bolts, I was able to twist the
pipe nipples out and replace them with new pipe and fittings from my
kit. After installing new shutoff valves, I went down to the basement and
turned the water back on,

When I got back, a boy about nine or ten was filling the bathtub. His
mother shouted out something in Spanish which he rejected. She came to the
door and continued her demands which he again calmly refused. In English
she told me to forgive her `bad boy' and came in to drag him out, turning
off the water as she did. Calm ended.

He screamed, "I gotta take a bath! I ain't over there." He was pointing to
where I was working by the valve end of the tub.

With the opportunity to see a naked boy, I told his mother, "It's
okay. He's not in the way."

She said something to him that sounded nasty and left shaking her head,
pushing the two younger girls out of her way. The boy walked over and
closed the door in their faces then, completely unabashedly, began
stripping off his pants and shirt. He wasn't wearing anything else. It was
difficult not to look. He had a very nice rear end and slim but well formed
legs.

As he stood by the tub opening the faucets, as though unconscious of my
presence, I was able to see his cock, a wonderfully long slim thing
dangling past a tiny ball sack almost flush against his groin. I looked up
at his face. Full concentration was on getting the water right.

After climbing into the tub, he slid up to my end and inquired, "What you
doing now?"

"Taking off the old sink supports. What's your name?"

"Juan Carlos."

Unscrewing the cast iron support, not looking his way, I asked, "How old
are you?"

"Nine but I'll be ten soon."

"When?"

"Next year, I think. How old are you?"

I turned his way. "Whatta you think?"

He stood up displaying a nice chest and flat tummy and, of course, that
long peter of his. "Uh, twenty-five?"

"Thanks, but I'm thirty-one. You go to school?"

"Uh huh. I'm in the third grade." He knelt back down then lifted himself up
to belly button level and watched me examine where the sink supports had
been. One was obviously damaged.

"That's `cause my fat sister Sylvia was mad at Karina and got up on the
sink and was gonna jump on `er but it broke and she got hurt. Cut her knee
and stuff. Mom made `er go stay in `er room."

There went his mother's lie.

I filled out the first part of my job report as I waited for the super to
return.

"What're you writing on that?" asked the naked nine year old.

"Just what time I got the call, where it was, what I found."

"You gonna tell `em my sister broke it?"

"Of course."

"My mama lied, din't she?"

"Maybe she's worried she'll have to pay for it but she won't, at least I
don't think so."

I'd never heard of a tenant being charged for damage they'd done to an
apartment. One family was finally kicked out after a number of drunken
brawls during which around a thousand dollars of damage was inflicted on
the walls, kitchen fixtures, and, as usual, the windows.

Evicting someone, especially a family, out of an apartment in New York City
was and is still one horrendous project. Extensive documentation of damage
had to be produced plus police reports. I had to personally testify in
housing court in a couple of cases.

It took the super the better part of another half hour to return with his
purchases. Meanwhile, I'd suggested several times that Juan Carlos wash
himself though I'd have loved to have done it myself. He did me the favor
of turning this way and that as he did, allowing great views of every
aspect of his shiny wet or soaped up body. Never once did he comment about
me watching him. He even smiled a couple of times but there was not the
slightest indication that he saw anything sexual in my visual examinations.

I put on the new sink supports half an inch to the left of the originals to
have solid wood to screw into. As I was finished the third screw on the
first, Juan Carlos, damp but rinsed, got of the tub and came up close
behind me to watch, dripping water on my back.

"Can I do one?" he asked.

"This is pretty hard screwing, Juan Carlos but, here, let me start one and
you can try." Yeah, I caught the double entendre of my words.

His stringy muscles flexed solid but he couldn't budge the screw driver. "I
can't," he said with a frown. "Can I hold `em for you when you put `em in?"
He was speaking of the screws. Nasty me, I was thinking of something else.

"I don't think so. I might slip and hurt you."

"Then can I hold your thing so it's not on the floor and you can get it
easy?" That almost initiated a hard on.

I agreed and handed him the screw-driver as I tapped in the next screw with
my hammer.

As I worked, he squatted beside me, his worm hanging down almost to the
floor. It was hard to keep my eyes on what I was doing, amazing I didn't
hurt myself.

Juan Carlos didn't dress until we were done, the new sink in and working,
and I was about to leave. "Can I carry some of your stuff for you?"

His mother said something sharply to him. He ignored her. "Can I?"

I looked at his mother who shook her head. "Maybe next time, Juan Carlos,
okay?"

A frown.

The super was long gone so I had to find him for a signature.

By the way, seeing naked children, mostly boys, in apartments when I worked
was hardly something new. It had happened at least a dozen times but
usually only briefly. A few were very eye catching like another nine year
old in a tee shirt that only made it to his belly button and who played
with his little hard on while I replaced a light fixture. The only girl was
about four. It was those sightings that lent some spice to my work.

Inevitably though, the draw of those pretty, willing boys down on Times
Square became too much to resist. It was still summer and hot. Both
situations were why I let go of my upstairs apartment and made a deal for
the free long term use of one of the huge two sided tenement
basements. Rent was taking care of the building's oil fired boiler and
water heater, a far more time consuming job than I'd imagined but still
cheaper than rent.

Over three weeks during my free time, I got to work fixing up the far side
of the basement from the entry door and boiler. Doing all the work myself,
I installed kitchen and bathroom water and drain piping then poured a new
concrete floor over all but the back quarter. On the other side I enclosed
the area around the boiler with a block wall and fire door leaving ample
space for any work including the removal of boiler tubes. Alongside the new
room, I left space for a hallway through to the back possibly unconsciously
thinking of the teen beat off buddies.

Returning to my living side, I put up four inch block walls for the
bathroom and kitchen then, after installing all the wiring and boxes for
switches and receptacles plus a bathroom ventilation system, put ceramic
tile on all the walls and floor including a sunken area in the bathroom for
a large open shower, big enough for three with drains both in and out of
the shower so kids could splash to their hearts content with no harm being
done. A third of the register on the air vent was actually a spy port such
as Ned and I had put into the bedroom walls back home. On completing that
including all the plumbing fixtures, medicine cabinet, a floor to ceiling
mirror beside and another four feet piece over the sink I got to work
making high and low maple kitchen cabinets using a newly purchased table
saw and table router that would also serve in my work. The latter took
almost three weeks due to a heavy work load.

With the cabinets and sink installed and plumbed in, a new refrigerator and
other appliances in place, I turned to the bedroom and living room. Placing
a mirror in the bedroom ceiling was a temptation that common sense
eventually nixed.

The front portion of the boiler side was gradually becoming a functional
shop with a large sturdy work-bench, three metal cabinets for secure tool
and parts storage, larger table tools and supplies like toilets, sinks,
piping, lumber, plaster, cement, etc. The plan was to build a block wall
with double doors to block it off from kids and anyone else coming to my
apartment. Sadly, it eliminated the possibility of a place for the teen
beat off buddies.

The front thirty feet on the apartment side of the basement was left for a
future playroom with a pool table, something I'd wanted since I was a kid
even though I'd only played a few games in my life. And, of course, the
boys would like it.

A return to my hometown was no longer of interest. Jamie wasn't forgotten
but a certain amount of acceptance of reality was settling in. That
included greatly lowered expectations regarding what would eventually
happen to Marsha Grant. The case against her was foundering, bogged down in
legal maneuvers and growing pressure from political friends of the hospital
that the matter be dropped. Even McNally was becoming pessimistic.

By the first of July, most of the basic work was done and furniture
purchased, allowing me to abandon my corner apartment and come live in the
refurbished, cool, but still to be completed basement home.

Back to Juan Carlos for a moment: Every time he saw me on the street, he
ran up asking if he could go with me, hold tools, be helpful. The third
time, his mother was upstairs leaning out her window. She called down to
tell him to quit bothering me, or so I was told by a teenage girl
nearby. Juan Carlos shouted something back that was immediately translated
as, "Shut up. You can't tell me what to do!" He glowered at the translator.

To the amusement of those nearby, I sternly told him, "You should never
talk back to your mother like that. No boy who's as rude to his mother as
you are is ever going anywhere with me, understand?"

Were I to have spoken that harshly to many of the boys back home, I'd have
received a `Fuck you!' in return. Juan Carlos noticed the spectators,
dropped his eyes and marched off arms folded, head down. One older man
congratulated me as others nodded approval. It was then that I admonished
myself never to have sex with any area boys. Were one to get angry with me,
I could go straight to jail if locals didn't lynch me first.

What Juan Carlos did do was reinforce my yearning for a close relationship
with a boy I could counsel, help with his studies and do fun things
with. The loss of Jamie Pazorsky was a constant presence in my psyche, even
when I was recollecting other sex partners enjoyed over the years. Was
there something possible that was as promising as what could have been with
Jamie if Marsha Grant hadn't murdered him?  .  With the knowledge that
experienced hustlers rarely could become that kind of exclusive long term
companion, it was still possible to resist the temptations down on Times
Square. It seemed more likely I'd chance upon someone while I worked in one
of the apartments or on the local streets, much as happened with Juan
Carlos, a boy I doubted would ever be talking to me again and might even
become an enemy as he grew. The prognosis for him as a teenager was dire.

Also helpful in staying home at night was the steady growth of my business
and having the privilege of seeing three more naked boys, one a very good
looking ten year old named Felix Aragon. He'd been on the way to take a
bath when I announced that the water was going to be turned off while I
replaced a leaking shut off valve to the kitchen sink. Completely bare and
unperturbed by the interruption of his plans, he came in to watch, making
the job take twice as long as necessary. Remember, this was in 1961.

I diplomatically found there was no man in the house by asking his
mother. "What time does your husband get home so I can show him what to do
next time."

Nonetheless, work and delightful sightings could only put off cruising for
a few weeks.