How it Happens

I was 15 and it was a Saturday afternoon and as a good Catholic boy, an altar boy, I went to confession.
I'm pretty sure the priest knew who I was despite the screen that separated us.
I started out the confession as normal and got to the point where I had to get the heavy burden of my horrible sin off my chest.
I told the priest that I masturbated.
He let me know what a serious deal this was and offered to discuss it with me in the rectory after confession was over.
Probably the only thing that saved me from any abuse was that I was too embarrassed to meet him face-to-face over the issue.
It's interesting to note, that he quit the priesthood a few weeks later to be a shoe salesman.
I wonder how many of my classmates fell for it.
As an addendum, I remember that as an altar boy who served Mass before classes began, we often wondered whether the priest was going to show up for the morning Mass on time. I would often have to go to the rectory door where the housekeeper would inform me that the pastor would be there shortly.
Of course, he had been drinking. We all knew that. Adults did that.
The next priest was interim, and interestingly enough was a friend of the family, Marv Josaitis.
Marv's brother Norm was a priest, also, who went to Rome to work. I don't know what happened to him after that, but a few years later, Marv quit the priesthood and married.
Took up teaching religious studies at college.
Never told us what went down that the former priest quit over.

Update:
Wow. And he passed in 2015.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Grand-Silence-Former-Catholic/dp/1613466781