My mother was living in the upstairs section of the Gay Street House. While I was upstairs packing my things to leave, my father's girlfriend Kay walked up the back stairs – she wanted to show me a baby she had.

After I had seen the baby, I walked up to the attic to fetch some clothes, and while in the attic, I heard an altercation break out below between my mother and Kay – apparently my mother didn't want Kay upstairs where she (my mother) was living.

I descended the stairs from the attic and walked out the attic door. As I walked through the hall toward the upstairs kitchen, Kay (standing on a chair and glaring at me) began screaming at me. I became irritated and asked her in an angry manner why she had to start an argument now when she and I had been getting along so well together. I became more and more angry until I seemed to be losing control.

I abruptly grabbed a large jar of green pickles sitting in the kitchen and hurled them down the back stairs into the first-floor section of the House (the section which had been rented out as a beauty salon). The jar made a thundering crash as the pickles smashed all over the floor. When my father suddenly appeared on the scene, I immediately regretted what I had done.

I walked down the back stairs into the beauty salon and found a woman standing there looking at the mess I had made. Lucy (the owner of the beauty shop) continued working in the next room on one of her customers in a vain attempt to ignore what had transpired. As my father meekly watched, I began cleaning up the mess. When I started to put the slop into a trash can without a plastic trash bag in it, he suggested I put it in another can which had a plastic bag.

After I had finished, my father and I walked out onto the back porch and I asked him if he were going to remove Kay from the upstairs. He seemed reluctant to do so. I became emotional and threw my arms around him. He looked more my age than ever and he didn't really resemble my father in appearance – he looked more perhaps the way I would look when I would be his age. He was thinner and taller than normal; he was also smoking a cigarette. I held him tightly at first and then at arms length. I sputtered, "If you let her move upstairs I'll never come back here again."

I immediately regretted what I had said, but it was too late. When I told him to look at how close our ages were now and how closely we resembled each other, he seemed sad and confused. I held him close and pleaded for him to stop smoking cigarettes. When I asked him if Kay was going to be allowed to usurp my mother's place upstairs, he indicated she would.

We walked out into the alley behind the House and he asked if I knew anyone who could perform an abortion. I asked him who needed the abortion, but he wouldn't tell me. I immediately assumed Kay was pregnant. Apparently he was seeking an abortion for her, even though the child couldn't possibly be his since he had long ago had a vasectomy and was unable to have more children.

Copyright 2011 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com