Mele’s Musings: Coming Of Age Meant Confronting Darker Side Of Human Nature

In the summer of 1977, I had a paper route delivering The Daily News in the Bronx to almost 100 customers, many of them older. One of them was Mr. Norton, a tough-talking, grizzled New Yorker who frequently sent me to the deli to get him a six-pack of beer. He was a shut-in and an avid reader of The News, so when the papers started to pile up outside his door, I grew alarmed. It took a while, but I finally got the attention of the security service that patrolled our buildings and was there when the officers broke into his apartment. In what was an appalling lack of discretion, the officers asked me — a 12-year-old — to come inside and identify his dead body. Mr.