I was lying in the living room of the Gay Street House thinking about going to El Paso to practice law. I was beginning to get a little low on money and the idea seemed appealing. In fact, I relished the idea of reading legal cases again; I had not read any for quite a while and I thought it would be interesting.
I might need to borrow some money along the line. I wondered who I could borrow from, but I could not think of many people. I might be able to borrow about $500 from my old law school friend, Brian, since I had once loaned him some money when he had needed it and he was now doing well in his legal practice, but I really did not want to borrow the money. Plus, I had not written Brian in quite a while, although I had promised him a while back that I would write him. I needed to write him a letter.
I thought I heard a knock at the front door. I thought it might be my father, although I knew he was supposed to be away while I occupied the House alone. I opened the door but found no one there. I did, however, find a two-page flyer with a rubber band around it lying in the doorway between the screen door and the main door. In the window of a car parked on the street I noticed the reflection of someone walking around the side of the house apparently headed toward the neighbor's house to deliver more flyers.
I picked up the flyer, walked back inside and sat down. But instead of looking at the flyer, I picked up a newspaper and began reading an article about Halloween which talked of a parade to be held in Portsmouth. Although I did not quite understand the article, I did see that it mentioned that people who dressed up for Halloween by wearing a patch over one eye could then go into any house they wanted to on Eleventh Street in Portsmouth and act as if they were robbing the house. The article said the dressed-up robbers should try to get as much as they could from the people in the house. The idea appeared bizarre to me and I thought someone could be shot if they tried to rob a house like that. How odd that Portsmouth would allow such a thing.
The article talked about the parade and mentioned that fireworks usually took place, but this year the city council had decided it was actually against the law to have fireworks in the city. So they were going to have an event where there would be color, but no explosions.
Someone had also prepared some food. As I imagined the food, it visually appeared on the table in front of the couch where I was sitting. There was a trifling amount of food in a two-tiered bronze pot and I thought there was so little food because Portsmouth did not have much money. I thought of Atlanta, Georgia and how the streets there were probably so well-cared for, but in Portsmouth not even enough money could be raised for a little food.
I could hear the television playing in the next room. It was on the "The Newlywed Game." The husbands were asked what would happen if for some reason they were forbidden to have sex any more. The first three husbands seemed to think that would destroy the marriage, but the fourth husband said something like "Give love a chance."
Although the husband who had said that seemed much more spiritually oriented than the other husbands, the audience seemed to think he was rather eccentric.
The wives were then asked the question, "Do you think Christmas is going to be more enjoyable this year now that you're married than it was last year before you were married?"
All the wives seemed to think Christmas would be better this year. I listened to some other questions and I finally walked into the room where the television was. On the television screen I saw the couple whose husband seemed spiritually eccentric. He appeared to be only about 25 years old and had curly black hair. He kissed his wife who was wearing bright red lipstick. They seemed to love each other. The wife mentioned that she thought she and her husband belonged to each other and it was a really good feeling.
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