Monday afternoon, Lester was waiting outside when I left my after school class with Cholito.
`Yer father wants to see you. And he's been waitin'. So you gotta come now.'
I had something else in mind for the last couple hours of the afternoon. `Tell him I'll come around six.'
Lester grabbed me by the shoulder. He was bigger than me having grown since the previous fall but even bigger kids knew better than to grab me by the shoulder. It could get a guy hurt.
`Get the fuck offa me!'
He did. `Look, your old man's been waiting for you since a couple hours ago an' he says it's important.'
`Shit! Shit!' I had an inkling what it was going to be. If I didn't go, some people were gonna start calling me chicken, a fag. The old machismo was still there. I begged off with Cholito and went with Lester.
I was right. It was another burglary. Ray had already written a note full of bullshit to my mother.
`And what about my homework?'
`You can do it on the way. We got a long ride ahead of us.'
The job was in Philadelphia but we first had to go to Delaware to some guy's house to pick up something. We were on the road for almost seven hours including three hours at the house in Delaware where my biological father and the man made plans and drawings. I did my homework there.
In Philadelphia, we parked on the street then walked two blocks to the back of an old office building. A building employee let us in a fire door. On the eighth floor, we walked down a corridor where the inside man let us into an office. He opened a window. Ray leaned out and looked up.
`This is as close as I can get you,' said the inside man.
`You said two stories, this is three.'
`That's what I thought but they got new doors and locks upstairs and they ain't giving us keys. We can't even get on the floor. They got some outside outfit doing the clean up.'
`Why can't we get up on the roof?'
`Like a drum. No way. This's the only way.'
"Jesus! C'mere Junior.'
I went to the window. He lifted me up and showed me the wall. It had decorative brickwork with ledges crossways and large grooves up. If it had been at ground level I'd have climbed it for fun. Up here was a different story.
Well, asked my biological father, can you climb up this? I'll put a rope on you in case you fall.'
I started to look down. Hoolihan grabbed my chin and kept it up. `The secret, Junior, is don't look down, just up. There's a open window about thirty feet up, right over us. You can do it, can't cha?'
I was scared silly but couldn't say no after that long trip and with five men staring at me.
He gave me my instructions. I was to climb up and in the window. Inside to the right, there was another office that had a safe in it. He handed me a paper with the combination and crude drawings of the dial and arrows showing which way to turn it and how many times. In the safe was a metal box full of cash. The money was dirty. They guy couldn't complain. Once I had the box of cash, I was to pull up the rope tied to me and put the metal box in the bag at the end of the rope. Then he explained how I was to get back down.
Hoolihan already had a harness made up to fit over my shoulders, around my chest and between my legs. I made sure it was on right. If I fell, it would have squeezed my balls to mush. They tied a rope to the back and I went out the window.
Ray patted me on the ass and said, `There's two guys on the rope. I'll be sitting out here to catch you with two more guys holding onto my legs. You start to fall and we got you for sure.
I tried to think like John Wayne or whoever it was climbing the cliffs in that movie about World War II. then remembered it wasn't John Wayne. I sat in the window trying to think who.
'C'mon, Junior, let's go,' ordered my biological father.
The columns were along side the windows. The ledges ran horizontally above and below each one. The hardest part was getting over the ledges but I'd be able to stop and rest at each one. There were six ledges to be crossed, the last one at the supposedly open window. My heart pumped a little harder at the possibility the window wasn't open. Going up was one thing. Coming back down if I couldn't get the rope inside that window would be far more dangerous. I started up.
The gaps between the bricks were a brick height wide or about three inches. That was three inches for foot and hand grips, plenty really. I got easily to the next window ledge and wiped my hands on my pants. Inside was lit by hall lights. It was new and modern with furniture and walls of different colors. Two ledges later I was over twenty feet above where the rope came out of the window. If I fell from here, I'd probably get knocked cold hitting a wall before they could stop my fall. I'd be too far out for Hoolihan to catch me. Sweat was all over me, including my hands.
One more floor. Kenny popped into my mind. Had he ever done something like this? It was obvious to me that I had taken his place on jobs that needed someone small and athletic. I was my biological father's second choice after Kenny. Was he finding out I was better than my former lover? Wouldn't Ray Hoolihan be pissed if he knew Kenny and I had been sucking and fucking each other? I smiled and looked down at my biological father, catching a glimpse of the street far below. It snapped me back to reality.
The dust on the bricks helped by sucking the moisture off my fingers, giving me a better grip. I kept my body straight up and down, bending my knees outward as I raised each foot to the next brick, six slow inches at a time. Light was coming out of the window that was supposed to be open. I stopped and listened for any indication that someone was there. Only silence. I inched up to the ledge and pulled myself high enough to lean over and look in the window. At first, I thought it wasn't open then realized it was all the way open. Neat, I thought, nobody from below would ever notice that. I climbed in.
First, I pulled the whole length of rope in through the window. The door to the office I needed to enter was locked but had a glass panel. I took a heavy glass ashtray off another desk, holding it in newspaper from the same desk to avoid leaving fingerprints, and broke the window. It made more noise than I expected. I waited and listened. Nothing. Inside was the safe as described. It opened first time thanks to the clear instructions. My little sister could have done it. The box wasn't metal but cardboard with the top folded cross over. Inside was a lot of money. Fifties and hundreds in stacks secured with rubber bands, just like in the movies. I couldn't resist. I stuck a wad of mostly hundreds in my pants under my shirt. I wished I were wearing underwear.
I pulled out the bag and removed the damp rags inside. I lowered the bag with the box full of money to the hands below. Then I went back to the safe and wiped down where I'd touched it, then the same at the window. I ran the rope around a three inch heating pipe that ran floor to ceiling and tossed the loose end back out the window. With the rags between my hands and the window sill, I crawled back out the window onto the ledge and tugged on the rope. I felt the end tied to me tighten and let myself slide slowly off the sill. They brought me down faster than I appreciated.
In seconds I was in Hoolihan's arms. He pulled me inside, one arm around my waist. Holding me facing the window, he unhooked the vest, reached inside my shirt and pulled out the money I'd hidden there. I expected a smack on the head. None came. He didn't say a word. Quickly, he pulled the rope until it came loose of the pipe and back through our window. He was the last out, pushing me in front. Nothing was left behind.
Hoolihan acted as if nothing had gone wrong until we were back on Forty Sixth Street two hours later. As we got out of the car, he grabbed me and whispered in my ear with all the venom he had in him, `You try that again and I'll cut off a finger.'
Inside, he was calm again. 'Here's fifty bucks. From this,' he patted the box of cash, 'your mother's gonna get money each month to take better care of you, buy you clothes and shit.' He smiled and put his hands on my shoulders. 'You did really good tonight, Junior. You're a natural like your old man. You learn good and you'll be a kingpin one day, one rich motherfucker.' He patted my cheeks and left. I was pissed. The son-of-a-bitch had taken in a hundred thousand of dollars or more and I got fifty and promises. Fuck him, I thought, I can do better on the square and without worrying about getting busted or falling a hundred feet. Hustlers caught by the cops, which almost never happened, just got taken to the station and had their parents hauled in to get them. That and a lecture about men who killed little boys. I'd never heard of anybody getting kidnapped or killed. A few kids got big dicks up their ass and then didn't get paid but even that was rare. But nobody ever got hurt bad. Burglary, on the other hand, was a year minimum in a reformatory and a record as a juvenile delinquent, a whole different thing. Fuck Ray Hoolihan! Fuck Mickey Spillane! Fuck the Westies!
I slept naked while my clothes were washed and went to school with three hours sleep. I was groggy before recess. Cholito was worried I was sick. Mr. Martinson suspected I'd been up all night, `and considering there is really nothing good for eleven year olds to be doing in the middle of the night, you've got me worried, young man. And this isn't the first time. I had my doubts about the noisy neighbors story last time. What are you into?'
My head wasn't clear enough to come with anything creative. `Just family stuff. No problem.' I was awake enough to chalk this up as another reason not to get involved in any more crime with my biological father.
Mr. Martinson sent me home to sleep. Cholito came by in the afternoon and told me Martinson had asked him if he knew anything.
'I din't tole him nothing.' I'd have hugged him but my sisters were down the hall in our doorway watching.
Brenda tried to stop me but, sleepy as I still was, I had something I wanted very much to try with Cholito, my deferred plan from the previous afternoon.
Stopping to pick up a paint can full of water, I led my friend to the basement.
'I can't tell you where I learned about this but you're gonna like it a whole lot,' I told him as we undressed. 'But, first, we gotta get really clean.'
The ever willing Cholito let me wash his cock and balls with the extra water I'd brought and soap I kept there as lubricant for my nearly abandoned anal pleasure toys. However, when I started to wash his asshole, he didn't try to stop me but asked, 'you ain't gonna fuck me are ya?'
'Not like that, it's different.'
'Do I gotta do it too?'
'Nah, only if you want like always.'
I rinsed off the soap and pulled us down and into a position for sixty-nine. He didn't resist or hesitate, taking my cock in before I got to his. His warm mouth and tongue engulfed my peter completely, tightly. He'd been thinking about improvements. I moaned so he could hear my pleasure from what he was doing.
I licked his abdomen above his crotch, circled the base of his solid long dick with my lips and tongue then sucked in his balls. With gentle tugging, I pulled him on top of me and pushed his knees up along side my ribs. He stopped sucking but stayed full on me, probably concerned about what I had in mind for him.
I licked his perineum ball sack to rectum, thigh to thigh. He sucked me, but tentatively. Gradually, I let my tongue go from grazing his hole to passing over it to slowing at the opening and pressing inward. He stopped sucking again. I pushed the tip of my tongue inside his pucker. Cholito didn't tighten, allowing me entry. I'd never done this before so wasn't aware of how hard I would have to push. For some reason, probably Bill's apparent ease of entry, I had expected to slip right in. Cholito waited. I relaxed my tongue then pushed in again, getting perhaps an inch past the pucker. Cholito flattened his stomach harder against mine. I retreated then pushed harder still, fucking his ass in and out with my tongue. It was hard work but the sensation of being inside him and the feeling on my tongue of the tight fleshy muscle and soft inside was new and delightful. Cholito sucked without moving his head.
My tongue began aching slightly from the exertion. I pulled my head away for a quick rest. Cholito reached back and pulled my head back into his crack. That was nearly as great, maybe better, than the joy of being inside him. He liked it. I forgot the weariness of my tongue and slithered back in, going for greater depth, wondering if I was approaching his pleasure spot. I tightened my embrace and tried to force more of me in. He tightened his mouth around my cock raising my passion another notch. I locked my thighs on his ears and started a slow mouth fuck.
Finally, the strain on my tongue was too much to go on. I slipped out and lifted him so I could get back to that snakelike tool. He straightened his legs, arched to give access and pushed full in the moment my lips were around the tip. How I loved that great cock. I didn't have to do a thing. While running his head up and down and back and forth on mine, Cholito fucked my mouth fiercely. We were mere seconds from orgasm. I went first, as usual. He followed with one of his unique series of almost snapping throbs. When he could cum, he would probably be able to fire his sperm across a room.
After holding my cock in his mouth for a few minutes, Cholito let me go and asked, 'I don't gotta do that to you do I?'
'Nah. How was it?'
'You can do that any time you want, but I don't really wanna.'
'Don't worry about it. Ready to go again?'
He dropped his head down on my cock and pulled his knees back up.
When I phoned him Thursday evening, Bill had no problem with Cholito coming along Saturday, or that's what he said. He sounded okay about it. I'd know quickly enough from how he acted once we were all together.
Friday night mother came home from work with two hundred fifty dollars she said my biological father had sent her. The messenger, a white boy named Lester who told her he knew me, said the amount would be monthly from that time on. Mother told us she didn't believe it but sure wouldn't turn it down if it came.
That took the edge off the anger with my biological father, but I was still determined not to be dragged into any more risky burglaries.