somehow screw up and embarrass my mom and dad. Over the years my parents never pushed me to go to mass, saying they didn’t want to pressure me into religion, but thought I should make up my own mind. I got a good feeling from the old-fashioned church we attended, and sometimes went there at lunchtime to sit in a pew and enjoy the silence and warm protection I felt there. That church was a refuge during turbulent times in my youth—and I got quite angry when I went back there a few years ago and saw its beauty had been destroyed by an ugly, misguided renovation.
While my dad didn’t push God on me, his fondest dream was that I would become a professional baseball player. By the time I was three, he was putting a bat in my hand and teaching me how to hit. I quickly came to share this passion, and devoted every spare second to the game. I attended Queen of Peace Parochial School and played baseball for the Catholic Youth Organization every April. The rest of the time I played in pickup games after school; in the summer, I was out on the field with my bat from sunup to sundown, just for the fun of it.
As I got a little older, I got involved with a street gang, the Falcon Boys. Compared to the gangs I see now as a cop, ours was almost laughably tame. We never shot or stabbed anybody—and didn’t even carry weapons. Sometimes we’d get drunk and have fistfights with another local gang or get into some minor mischief around the neighborhood. I was afraid to take it any further than that, because my dad took me aside one day and said, “If the cops ever bring you home, I’ll break both your legs!” Being the kind of guy he was, I saw no reason to doubt him. His guidance was more powerful than any peer pressure, so even though my friends and I were a bunch of obnoxious little punks, I never got in any real trouble. In fact, thanks to my father’s warning, I was scared witless every time I saw a policeman!
Although I wasn’t much of a student—and certainly was no intellectual—I was an avid reader. When I was thirteen, I found a bookstore where I could get used books for a quarter apiece, and I eagerly devoured everything I could get my hands on about police work and the occult. When I heard the owner of the store telling another customer that he was going to the police academy, I thought he was incredibly lucky to be a cop chasing bad guys, just as I’d seen in the movies. At night I’d sit in front of the TV and watch cop shows, but every Saturday night it was Creature Feature and Thriller Theater for me. While I couldn’t get enough of these shows, they frightened my little sister Lisa, who always left the room when they were on. Though my young mind didn’t understand everything I was reading and seeing, I knew that some of the horror stories must be true.
My favorite books were about a pair of real-life psychic researchers named Ed and Lorraine Warren, who have been investigating the supernatural since the late 1940s. This couple, founders of the New England Society for Psychic Research in Connecticut, became internationally famous in 1972, when they were asked to investigate bizarre phenomena at West Point, the U.S. Military Academy. An Army major there complained that a general’s residence on the property appeared to be haunted: His family often found that someone—or something—had rifled through their belongings or stolen valuable objects, yet no intruder could be found. A wet spot on a kitchen cutting board refused to dry, no matter what was done about the dampness; and an invisible force kept tearing the sheets off one of the beds.
Using her psychic ability, Lorraine inspected the building and detected several spirits. In one bedroom, she clairvoyantly felt the presence of President John F. Kennedy, to the amazement of onlookers who knew that he had slept there. In another room, her mind’s eye saw a bossy female ghost that she identified as the culprit in these mysterious happenings. She learned
While my dad didn’t push God on me, his fondest dream was that I would become a professional baseball player. By the time I was three, he was putting a bat in my hand and teaching me how to hit. I quickly came to share this passion, and devoted every spare second to the game. I attended Queen of Peace Parochial School and played baseball for the Catholic Youth Organization every April. The rest of the time I played in pickup games after school; in the summer, I was out on the field with my bat from sunup to sundown, just for the fun of it.
As I got a little older, I got involved with a street gang, the Falcon Boys. Compared to the gangs I see now as a cop, ours was almost laughably tame. We never shot or stabbed anybody—and didn’t even carry weapons. Sometimes we’d get drunk and have fistfights with another local gang or get into some minor mischief around the neighborhood. I was afraid to take it any further than that, because my dad took me aside one day and said, “If the cops ever bring you home, I’ll break both your legs!” Being the kind of guy he was, I saw no reason to doubt him. His guidance was more powerful than any peer pressure, so even though my friends and I were a bunch of obnoxious little punks, I never got in any real trouble. In fact, thanks to my father’s warning, I was scared witless every time I saw a policeman!
Although I wasn’t much of a student—and certainly was no intellectual—I was an avid reader. When I was thirteen, I found a bookstore where I could get used books for a quarter apiece, and I eagerly devoured everything I could get my hands on about police work and the occult. When I heard the owner of the store telling another customer that he was going to the police academy, I thought he was incredibly lucky to be a cop chasing bad guys, just as I’d seen in the movies. At night I’d sit in front of the TV and watch cop shows, but every Saturday night it was Creature Feature and Thriller Theater for me. While I couldn’t get enough of these shows, they frightened my little sister Lisa, who always left the room when they were on. Though my young mind didn’t understand everything I was reading and seeing, I knew that some of the horror stories must be true.
My favorite books were about a pair of real-life psychic researchers named Ed and Lorraine Warren, who have been investigating the supernatural since the late 1940s. This couple, founders of the New England Society for Psychic Research in Connecticut, became internationally famous in 1972, when they were asked to investigate bizarre phenomena at West Point, the U.S. Military Academy. An Army major there complained that a general’s residence on the property appeared to be haunted: His family often found that someone—or something—had rifled through their belongings or stolen valuable objects, yet no intruder could be found. A wet spot on a kitchen cutting board refused to dry, no matter what was done about the dampness; and an invisible force kept tearing the sheets off one of the beds.
Using her psychic ability, Lorraine inspected the building and detected several spirits. In one bedroom, she clairvoyantly felt the presence of President John F. Kennedy, to the amazement of onlookers who knew that he had slept there. In another room, her mind’s eye saw a bossy female ghost that she identified as the culprit in these mysterious happenings. She learned
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