Ralph's Amazing Disappearing Act It had been a warm summers day and Ralph and I had been playing in front of the building as we were too young, me about six, and Ralph about four, to play around the corner out f sight of our parent bedroom window on the top floor of 1530 Brook Ave. We had been outside for most of the day and knew if we went upstairs we had a pretty good chance of being told that we could not go back out so we resisted our thirst as long as we could so we could stay out, but as the day grew hotter Ralph's thirst over road his fear of staying upstairs and he announced to me that he was going up for some water and relief. I said I'd stay down and wait for him to come back before I would go up thinking that if he came back down I knew it would be safe for me to go up. My wait for Ralph turn out to be longer than I expected for it seemed like and hour had passed before my thirst and bladder too forced me to risk going upstairs as did Ralph. I resigned my self to the fact of being upstairs and playing with Ralph was much better than being out side with out him. As I was going upstairs I heard Ralph call me but his voice was distant but I heard it clearly.I walked over to the banisters and looked over and called him but saw no one and heard nothing. I immediately thought Ralph had learned a new trick either how to throw his voice our greater still how to turned invisible or was looking at me through some magic portal. As raced upstairs thinking he would be in the house and would tell me how he had preformed this marvelous trick. As I reached the third floor I heard a baby crying and the voice of one of the tenants in out house a man called Jesse. I panicked for Jessie was paralyzed on one side of his body and limped with his left arm raised and his left hand frozen in a claw like fashion. He had protruding teeth in over sized gums and spoke with a speech impediment. I was terrified of him from the time I first saw for fear if he touched me I would become like him. My first memory of him was as we were first moving upstairs he stepped out of his apartment and called to me, " Hey little boy come here I got toys you want to see them? " Over the years he became a friend of my fathers and had eaten at or table but I never got close to him for my fear that he could reach out and touch me with that crippled hand. As I was going up the first landing to the fourth floor I passed the window which was open and heard the baby crying again, saying , " Let me out, let me out. " And heard Jesse saying, " You don't come out until you learn to behave yourself and do what I tell you to do. " I walked over to the open window and looked out and saw Jesse sitting by his window looking out onto the lower roof of the bed factory and could hear the kid crying and Jesse was repeating, " You gonna stay right there until you learn to listen to me. " I though to myself even then, " Who in the world would let Jesse take care of a baby? " then he looked up and saw me and I raised my hand to wave at him. He jumped back from the window and I felt awful for I knew he thought I was going throwing something at him as some of the kids in the neighborhood sometimes did, so I stood there and waited for him to come back to the window. He eventually peaked back out and I waved to him and said, " Hi Jessie " He waved sheepishly back and said " Hi " and I continued on upstairs. The next time I was to see Jessie he had went blind in his left eye and I felt better that I had waved to him in friend ship the day before. When I got up stairs i was surprised to find that Ralph was not upstairs and asked my mother where he was. " I thought he was with you! " she said. " Ralph left me downstairs about an hour ago. " I said. " Well you go back down stairs and get your bother Chuck and find Ralph or I will beat you both!" As I was going down stairs Mr. Sloan, the superintendent of our building came upstairs with Ralph. My mother tore into him and told me to go get Chuck and come right back upstairs, by the time I returned with Chuck the smoke had cleared and the house was silent. I asked Ralph where he had went and how had he been able to talk to me with out being there but he was mad with me for getting him into trouble by coming upstairs and asking where he was, he said nothing to me in fact he was to say nothing to me or anyone for the next three weeks I assumed he got the whipping of the life time. In fact it took a whack in the head with a doll from my baby sister Janet enraged because he wouldn't speak to her to get him to start crying and then start talking again. We would not speak of the events of that day again until over thirty years later when I was telling Ralph the story of Theresa through the key hole. Part Three