I was thirteen when he walked up to me on the street, asked he could speak to me discreetly and asked if he could suck my cock. I said no and walked away briskly.

I’d see him periodically since then. He was a middle-aged man, not particularly good looking but he spoke in a calm, flamboyant voice. It was hard to tune him out when he spoke.

He had a penchant for young boys. He surrounded himself with them. Sometimes he’d hold court with a handful on a tenement stoop. I suppose some of them let him suck their cocks and I learned later he paid for the service. I don’t remember being offered money.

Years after our encounter, his body was found in an alley full of garbage between two burned-out abandoned buildings. He was stabbed multiple times in the chest and his throat was slashed. The neighborhood was abuzz with this news but kept the sordid details behind closed doors. The killer was never found.