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Over the years I fixed him up with many tricks and he valued my friendship. In some odd sort of a way he eventually looked upon me as a sort of confidant. The ceaseless pain in his leg turned him into a bit of a recluse. Cole shared a lot of his innermost dreams, desires, and fears with me. He was insecure and uncertain about a lot of his friends, often suspecting them of maintaining a friendship purely because of his fame. He wanted so much to be liked simply for who he was. He was especially introspective after he and I had indulged in a night of sex. Cole loved to suck me off and then have me fondle him until he reached his own orgasm.

One day he asked me to help him find out how his closest clique of so-called allies really felt about him. The plan was that he would throw a dinner party at his home, offering an ideal opportunity for him to find out what he wanted to know. He invited a group of twelve or fourteen people comprised of married couples and single men and women, all of whom had known him for a long time. I was one of them.

Cole’s home was opulently furnished. He had a huge dining room table that could easily seat all the guests with room to spare. He asked me to come over in the afternoon and help with the preparations for the dinner and for his exercise in plumbing the true depths his friends’ love and loyalty. To achieve this he intended to hide and eavesdrop on them. But how to do it? The plan we came up with was to cover the dining room table not with a conventional tablecloth but with three large white bed sheets. We laid out the sheets and then covered them up with flowers, place settings, tableware, glassware, and other accoutrements to conceal the pleats in the sheets. The sheets were made to hang very low over the sides of the table, reaching right down to the floor. No one could see anything underneath the table, where there was room enough for someone to hide undetected. It was arranged that when the guests arrived that evening they would be welcomed by the butler, who would show them into the drawing room for drinks prior to dinner. Apologies would be made by the butler at the front door for Cole’s absence. Each guest was to be informed that Cole was a little overworked, that he was feeling tired, and would join us all at the table later for dinner.

While we chatted over cocktails the large doors to the dining room remained closed. Unseen by his guests, just prior to dinner, Cole secretly hobbled into the dining room through another door and crawled beneath the table. Squatting as comfortably as he could, he positioned himself so that he could overhear everything that would be said around the table. Then the butler threw open the doors between the dining room and the drawing room. He cleared his throat and announced that Cole was still not feeling well but that, as dinner was ready, we should take our seats around the table and that Cole would join us in time for dessert.

By then everyone was suitably loaded, happy, hungry, and more than ready to sit down and dine, despite the absence of the host. Nameplates indicated where everybody was to be seated. I was placed at the left center of the table and as soon as I sat down, Cole, unseen beneath the table, inched himself over by my feet. The food was brought in and we began to eat. By prior arrangement Cole and I had figured out a complex system whereby he would pinch me or touch me on the ankle or calf if anyone spoke about him. Depending on how and where he touched me I would enter the conversation and try to elicit more details from the person speaking. If he wanted me to encourage someone to expand on what was being said about him he would only have to touch me on my knee and I would try to throw the discussion open to all those present. From his invisible place on the floor Cole was directing nothing less than an inquisition into the loyalty of his friends. As the wine flowed inhibitions and discretions were cast aside and everybody talked quite a lot about their host.

Most of the remarks were complimentary. There was much praise for him. But every now and then a critical or bitchy remark would be made. Needless to say, Cole remained under the table, taking it all in. By the time dessert was served he had still not made an appearance, but by then nobody cared. For Cole it turned out to be a most revealing evening. His only complaint as I woke up in bed beside him the following morning was that he was suffering from excruciating pain in the stump of his leg from crouching beneath that table for almost two hours. I no longer remember what judgments or opinions he made about his guests that night. The fact that I cannot recall the details is not only because so much time has passed since that evening, but because secrets and seclusion were typical of Cole. But despite his insecurities and doubts I always found him to be an easygoing kind of guy. However, even though he confided in me, I don’t think I ever really fully understood him. I don’t think anyone did.

For whatever reason, people have always found me easy to trust. I guess I’m a good listener, and I always take people on their own terms. Maybe some of that comes from being exposed to quite a wide variety of people at an early age. I was an adventurous kid in a big city.

A
fter we left the farm in Illinois we spent a few months in Joliet, where Dad was working at the Stateville Penitentiary. But it wasn’t long before he and Momma decided to get a divorce. In 1933, me, Momma, Donald, and Phyllis moved to Chicago, which was probably the most exciting metropolitan area in America at the time. It had undergone major reconstruction and development since the Great Fire of 1871. Streetcars clanged everywhere. New buildings pierced the skyline downtown and on the wide boulevard that snaked along the shore of Lake Michigan. Although we were still in the throes of the Depression, and money was as tight as anywhere else in the country, in the Windy City life crackled in all its infinite variety. Yes, there were breadlines and soup kitchens and beggars, but in addition to all the hardships that everyone endured many folks still managed to eke out a living and some even found cause to laugh and to look on the bright side of things. Chicago was a great place for an inquisitive, healthy young fellow like me to begin to discover big-city life. We took up residence in a small apartment on Oakwood Boulevard near Thirty-ninth Street, which was in a relatively poor neighborhood in the South Side.

Our new home was barely big enough for the four of us. Don and I shared a bedroom, tinier than anything we had before. Phyllis and Momma shared an equally cramped room. Don and I kept our secondhand bikes chained up downstairs in the dimly lit lobby of the building. The hallways were stuffy and moldy and a timer turned the lights off after ten minutes. A rickety staircase led up to our apartment, where Momma took on work as a seamstress. She also found piecemeal employment outside as a cleaning lady or by doing sewing and baking for people in their private homes.

We kids were enrolled at Oakenwald Elementary School on South Lake Park Street. I adapted quickly enough, but I was itching to help Momma bring in an extra dime or two. I couldn’t stand seeing the way she had to slave away to support us. I really wanted to go out and find some kind of work of my own to augment her income. That’s when I discovered my entrepreneurial side. A few weeks after arriving in the city I got myself a part-time job delivering and selling newspapers. This job allowed me to visit many areas in and around Chicago, some very wealthy, and others not at all. I carried the
Chicago Tribune
and the
Chicago Herald Times,
each of which sold for two cents. The profit margin for me was so small that I had to sell at least a dozen papers before I made a single penny. But I was thrilled to be earning something. I worked hard at it every single day after I got out of school. I would race Don home on my bike, forego lunch, hurriedly finish my homework, and set out on my beat. I was good at what I did. I sold a lot of newspapers and soon I began including the
Saturday Evening Post
in my inventory. This bumped up my profits but it was hardly enough to help Momma buy the groceries we needed so I expanded my activities. I saved up a little bit of cash and invested in a shoe-shine box, brushes, and shoe polish, making my services available as a combination newspaper deliverer and shoe-shine boy.

This double role started taking me to new and interesting places. With Momma’s permission I began going downtown, where I stood outside bars and movie theaters, shining shoes for a nickel. Because I brought in much-needed cash Momma allowed me to stay out late at night. As my profits accumulated I could give Momma enough money to buy food for the whole family and still have some change left over to indulge in a few of the things I enjoyed doing.

My buddies and I loved the movies, but a ticket cost ten cents. So a dozen of us would hang around outside the theater on a Saturday afternoon just before the matinee began. One of us would buy a ticket while the rest of us hid outside the emergency exits on the side or at the back of the building. As soon as the guy with the ticket had distracted the attention of the doorman the others would yank open the emergency-exit doors and dash inside. This invariably set off alarm bells but once inside the dark auditorium we were very difficult to spot. If the ushers went in with flashlights to find us some of us might occasionally get caught and thrown out but most of us would settle low into our seats and stay for the whole show. I loved the movies. I secretly harbored a wish about one day getting to meet those larger-than-life movie stars who stared down at me from the big silver screen. I especially fantasized about Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Mae West. Watching those beautiful women made my crotch bulge.

A
CROSS THE STREET
from where we lived on Oakwood Boulevard stood the Holy Angels Catholic Church. The priest who ministered there began to appear outside the church to watch me as I set out on my shoe-shine and newspaper route every day. He had obviously taken an interest in me. Leaning against the jamb beneath the cornice of the doorway, casually attired in slacks and his clerical collar, he would stare at me as I passed by. He was a slim, plain-looking man, probably in his early forties. At first I tried to avoid his gaze but it didn’t take more than a few days before our eyes met, and then he smiled. Somehow I knew there was more behind that friendly gesture than a mere greeting. That hunch was borne out the next day as he motioned to me to come over.

“How’s it going, son?” he asked.

“Oh, fine, Father, thank you,” I replied, setting down my load of shoe-shine box and newspapers.

Approaching me, he said that he thought I worked too hard. We shook hands, introduced ourselves, and then made small talk for a couple of minutes. As I picked up my things to leave he invited me to come over that evening for some soup.

I told him that I might be too late for that as I usually only got back around midnight. This didn’t deter him at all. He told me that he would be up, working on next Sunday’s sermon. He said I should come in through the side door of the rectory. He’d leave it unlocked for me.

That invitation opened up a whole new world for me. Young and healthy enough to be driven crazy by his oath of abstinence, the Father ached for release. I mean, just think about it. What’s a poor celibate priest going to do? Bark at the moon and jack off in the backyard? No, the guy yearned for company, for some kind of sexual partner. And so it was that night after night when I came back from my newspaper delivery rounds and my shoe-shine gigs I would slip in through the back door of the rectory of the Holy Angels Church. In the privacy of his quarters the priest would fondle me and then have me stroke him to orgasm. He also liked to have me lie naked in front of him and slowly caress my own stiff cock while he masturbated. Eventually he plucked up enough courage to introduce me to a form of sensual pleasure that I had not been aware of until then. Even Jim Peterson never went as far as that with me on the farm. I speak of fellatio or, to dispense with formalities, cock sucking. I was still not sexually mature so I could not reach orgasm when he tried it on me, but he still loved nothing better than to suck on my penis.

Just as I had felt about my experiences with Joe Peterson on the farm I found none of the priest’s likes or preferences in any way abhorrent. I never questioned them. They seemed perfectly normal to me. I figured that if it felt good and provided pleasure, why not enjoy it? That only seemed logical. Do you get what I mean?

At the end of the evening the sweaty, satisfied priest would saunter over to his trousers, which he had carefully hung up on a rack at the foot of his bed, dig into his pockets, and, smiling, hand me a few coins as a token of his gratitude. The change came in very handy. Very handy, indeed. In fact, it always amounted to a lot more than I had earned selling newspapers and shining shoes that evening.

I felt no shame, no guilt, no remorse for what I had done. In fact, I derived an undeniable sense of satisfaction knowing that I had brought a little joy into someone’s life. I saw nothing wrong in that. As far as I could see, our bodies were designed in a certain way and there was no doubt in my mind that sex was essential for one’s emotional, psychological, and physical health. Hell, even priests needed it.

News traveled fast, especially in a tightly knit community of sexually starved young and middle-aged men who had sworn themselves to celibacy. Within weeks of my first session at Holy Angels Church, nearly every Catholic man of the cloth in town knew about me. It wasn’t long before I was seeing more than twenty of them, each and every one in desperate need of sexual gratification. They all willingly handed over small piles of loose change just so that they could spend a little time with me. As my reputation within the archdiocese of Chicago spread, the range of activities in which I became involved diversified. Other than fellatio the most popular sex act that I engaged in was what I can only refer to as “mock penetration.” A lot of male homosexual sex invariably involves anal penetration. I was far too young to anally accommodate an erect adult penis at that time so I resorted to the next best thing. If the priest was very excited I simply pinched my legs tightly together and he would thrust his dick backward and forward between them. If there was time I would try to increase his pleasure by smearing Vaseline, cold cream, or baby oil on the insides of my thighs. This always ended in the desired result.