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STONECROP! In the Baltic Street neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York, in the late 1960s he'd begun to acquire a reputation while still in junior high. He was Stonecrop the cop's son. Sometimes, to those who knew his family, and his father the NFPD sergeant, he was Bud Jr.
But you never called Stonecrop by that name. You never called Stonecrop by any name. You avoided Stonecrop, even looking at him. You didn't want Stonecrop to look at you, to register you in what would appear to be his dim-flickering yet vigilant consciousness, as you would not want a predator of any species, a shark for instance, to register your existence. In our childhoods, that early instinct to survive by becoming invisible.
By the age of twelve Stonecrop had grown to a height of nearly six feet and a weight of one hundred eighty pounds and he would continue growing through adolescence. Even among the big-boned Stonecrops he was distinctive. He had the build of an upright, engorged blood sausage about to burst its casing, and his face was of that hue, hot and hard. His natural smile was a grimace. His head suggested the density and durability of a concrete block. His hair, stone-- colored, was brutally shaved at the back and sides of his head (by a barber who happened to be an uncle) and was short-cut at the crown, harshly stubbled as a winter cornfield. His eyes were small, steely and alert and antic as pinballs, His discolored teeth were spade-shaped and his nose had been flattened at birth, and could not be broken or made to bleed by any blow. It was said of Stonecrop that already in elementary school he'd begun to sprout ominously thick, wiry hairs on his stocky body. His cock grew weekly. In the boys' locker room it was observed to be always semierect; the other boys soon learned to avoid looking at him with the instinctive terror of an individual armed with a three-inch penknife confronted by an adversary with a machete. Yet, in the presence of girls, Stonecrop was withdrawn, aloof or indifferent. Girls said of him he made them shiver.
Stonecrop was the youngest son of NFPD sergeant Bud Stonecrop, a locally known, controversial...