‘I saw things little boys shouldn’t see’: the fall and rise of Reverend Bill Paige
- From angry youth to rebellious, hard-drinking detective to Young Life minister helping other troubled kids
- Discovering his biological mother was not the abusive woman who had raised him but his ‘cousin’ left young Bill with authority issues
Mobster mom: I was born in 1947. I grew up in the Bronx, New York, with my mom, dad and two cousins; AB, who was five years older than me, and Betty, who was 15 years older. I’d heard that Betty had a kid, but I’d never seen the child.
My mom, I found out much later, was involved with organised crime; she was a bookie. She was also very angry and abusive towards me. She never hugged or kissed me, she often beat me. My father was a courier for the Post Office. He never beat me. We lived in a part of the Bronx that not many black people lived in before urban renewal, so most of the people I grew up with were white.
Mom and dad, and a couple of aunts and uncles, lived in two family houses. We always had money, but I never knew where it came from. It obviously wasn’t from what my dad was earning. Betty lived a very promiscuous lifestyle and I saw things little boys shouldn’t see.
When I was 12, we moved to a house in New Jersey but kept the house in the Bronx. We also had a place in the Hamptons, Long Island. When I was 13, I came home to find my mom’s friends in the house. They said, “Bill, we have bad news, your mom had a massive heart attack and died today.”
Mad, glad or sad: I took my dog for a walk and cried. I didn’t know whether I was mad or glad or sad, but I felt sure some of the craziness would change now. When I got back, AB asked why I was crying. I told him it was because mom had died and he said, “So what? She’s not your real mother. Your real mother is Betty.” That’s how I found out my biological mother was the girl I thought was my cousin.