While standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room of the Gay Street House, I was talking with someone and noticed my father listening; to shock him, I mentioned I had been suspended from the practice of law. He immediately looked concerned and I somewhat jovially added that the suspension was only for failure to pay my bar dues and that by simply paying $50, I would be automatically reinstated.
I was only going to stay in the House for a short while. I was on my way to my Cabin where I was thinking of spending a couple months. But my plans for the future were rather hazy and I felt somewhat uncomfortable with them. After leaving the Gallia County Farm I might do a little legal work in Texas to make some money and then spend some time in Mexico. I seemed to be developing a pattern of living between Mexico and my Cabin and practicing law on the side. But my heart wasn't really in the law practice and I felt somewhat dissatisfied, although not completely uncomfortable, with the way I was living.
A party was going on in the dining room a party. My mother was there and she mentioned to me that Beatrice Clark, my fourth grade teacher, was in the room. My mother thought I should talk with Clark. I could see Clark's large head of snow-white hair on the other side of the room, but I didn't feel like talking to her. Someone mentioned that William Douglas (who I knew was a US Supreme Court justice) was present in the room and that apparently the father of another US justice was also there. My father was busily pouring drinks from a large pitcher from which drops of condensed water on the outside fell in profusion.
I walked outside. I didn't really want to talk with the Supreme Court justices. What could I say to them? Ask them if the laws on abortion would change since the composition of the Supreme Court had changed? I hadn't kept up on the issues. Ask them if the Court should become more active in taking cases which had traditionally been left to the states? Or maybe anti-trust laws? But the justices would be so imbued with the intricacies, I would probably not even know what they were talking about.
I just didn't feel comfortable discussing matters like that anymore. The idea of taking part at the party simply didn't appeal to me. I wanted to be in my Cabin, out in the midst of nature, alone. I still felt somehow connected to the law and its issues, but at the moment, more important matters seemed to be pressing and I wanted to head for the Cabin.
Copyright 2003 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
