Catholic Boys

Two years ago, when Alex Ramsey lost his son, his wife took to gin and he lost his job with the city police force. Now he's working as a security guard for a burgeoning high-rise apartment complex, figuring the worst he?ll encounter will be marital disputes and drunks. But the body of a boy just the age his son would have been is found beaten, raped, and hung by a river flowing through the grounds. Graffiti in Building Five indicates more is to come. Who's responsible? A local motorcycle gang? Teenage hoodlums, the Brando?s? A delusional fisherman? Or is the conspiracy more pervasive?

Philip Cioffari is Professor of English and Director of the Performing and Literary Arts Honors Program at William Paterson University. In 2006, he won the second annual Tartts Short Fiction Prize. His short stories have been published in Playboy, North American Review, Michigan Quarterly, etc. His first independent movie was Love in the Age of Dion. He has directed and written plays off-Broadway and off-off Broadway.