The Peacock 64

 "It was a year later, when Dad finally could tell me what Kenny was doing for a living.  It was inescapable, since there was no way it could be hidden from me.  We had been for dinner at my uncle and aunt's in the West End, when young boys and girls were plying their survival sex trade on the streets in that neighbourhood.  My uncle, a faithful Christian himself, was also intolerably righteous.  Or maybe righteously intolerant.  He and his wife were part of a coalition of concerned neighbourhood citizens called Shame the Johns and their goal was to get all the sex workers and their clients out of their neighbourhood.  For understandable reasons, of course.  But this became quite a bone of contention between the two brothers, especially given my father's fondness for Kenny.  Of course, my Uncle Bob really tried to empathize, but also emphasized to my dad that if it were happening on his own doorstep, then how much fondness would he still have for Kenny or anyone else involved in the trade?  Even though I wasn't yet eight years old, I already had a pretty good grasp on what they were talking about. 

"We were just leaving my uncle's apartment, and walking towards the car.  There were a couple of sex workers out, a boy on our side, and a tall woman on the other.  Then I heard a man's voice, Kenny's, shouting out, "Jim!"  Kenny, whom we hadn't seen in a few months, came bounding across the street on his stiletto heels.  I was awestruck and mesmerized.  Here was this elegantly attired, Hollywood glamourous woman, tall, gracious and so beautiful, and she was talking to us, she was talking to me, warmly, but in Kenny's deep male voice.  Of course I knew it was Kenny, and over the months of his dinner visits we had really grown to love each other, and I really wanted us to take him back with us in the car to our sheltered little home in that prestigious Westside neighbourhood where we lived protected from all those horrors.  Dad was warm, very friendly with Kenny, then gave him a big hug before we left him there on the corner.  Dad didn't have to explain to me a single thing, and I even said, when he tried to speak to me from behind the steering wheel, that yes, I know.  Yes, I already know, Dad..."