Looking in Windows

Oh, come on, don’t pull your shades down!

I walk a lot at night. Insomnia is what my wife used to call it. Whatever. I don’t even try to sleep anymore at night. It’s useless. My head hits the pillow and all systems are go. Now I come home from work, have something to eat, catch a short cat nap on the couch and then I hit the streets. Any weather. I’m fine. I dress for it.

All those sterile new condos they’re throwing up around here; those are the people who do leave their drapes open. Showing off empty rooms filled with overpriced status symbols. Who cares?

It’s you, my neighbors, you’re the ones I want to watch.

No, don’t get like that. I mean, if sex happens and all, that’s fine, but that’s not what I’m looking for when I peer into lit windows at night.

Rooms. We live in a city of rooms. Rooms piled up one top of another way up into the night sky. Blocks of warm light spilling out. Figures moving sometimes. A hand I’ll never see touches a switch I didn’t know existed until a light goes out. Or comes on. I would like to stand and stare up at so many of those windows but I know better. I grab my treasured glimpses and keep moving.

I’m out at night a lot but when I’m home, I leave my curtains pulled open. Fair’s fair, after all, but I don’t imagine anyone’s much interested in my nondescript pad. The wife used to hang “art” on the walls but after I moved here I didn’t see the point.

I’m out in any weather, as I said, but it’s just so much better in the summer.

I walk through neighborhoods, judging their livability. I had a good friend once who got placed in housing for people with AIDS and was stuck living right near Times Square. What a godawful place to live. But I will say that a block away in Hell’s Kitchen, there’s some prime window action that goes on.

Like tonight. I’m seeing arms flailing around and know that there’s some kind of altercation going down. Aww, look at the cuddlers there on the second floor. Yeah, there’s action around here. I keep moving.

Neighborhoods change quick around here. Not even three blocks from all that energy and I’m on one of those weirdly hushed streets; the ones with a whole flight of steps up to the front door and carved lions’ heads over the doors.

Ground floor windows would obviously offer the best views but there aren’t many who live on the ground floor that don’t pull their drapes and shut the likes of me out. So, I consider myself a connoisseur of your second story windows, specifically corner windows. There’s just this nice feeling I get when I see someone, anyone really but a pretty young woman is always appreciated, moves away from one window and I can see her in the next one.

Third floor windows are ok. But because of the angle, you can’t make out much. Tops of cabinets. Lighting fixtures which aren’t much to look at in the places I like to walk. People in this city, they don’t come over and look out their windows as often as I’d like. Or, at least, that’s how I used to see things.

My right knee is bothering me again. Dammit. I used to be able to kind of walk this thing out. It might be bothering me when I started walking but I’d just keep going and eventually it’d be ok.

Yes, yes, I do have favorite windows and even favorite streets of windows.

Brownstones are by far the best in my opinion. Like the ones here on this street. Windows like this are so much more interesting than those floor to ceiling walls of glass that turn some rich shit’s living room into a stage revealing plenty of nothing. Like I said: boring.

I want to see people’s lives.

I like it when the rooms are a little messy. But I also like this one place up here on the right. Look at that painting. Wow. Really striking work and it’s been on that wall for, what, eight years? At least. This is a street where people stay put. I can look in the same windows every night for years and be comforted by the same arrangements and lighting.

Lighting is important. I don’t care about it for myself and have no problem with my own single overhead bulb with the old tan shade. But when I’m looking in windows, the lighting matters a lot.

Because of the knee, I’m doing something I usually try to avoid. I’m stopping. Leaning against this light pole and studiously not looking into windows. Too obvious.

I can’t help but see someone coming to “my” window, though, the one with that great painting. It’s a woman so I’m really careful to be looking on down the street. Time to move on, knee, let’s get it together. I put my weight on it. Wow, I may need to go on out to the main drag and hope for a bus.

Not good to be seen limping. So, I wait just a bit more, keeping my weight partially on the knee to let it get used to what I need it to do. She’s still there. I can tell without looking. Watching me, making sure I move on. I’m going, I’m going, lady. Chill. There. She’s gone.

Ok, knee? Ok.

I start on towards the corner. The knee is ok, not great, but ok. I’m still going to hope for a bus. It’s late so we’ll have to see. I’m not quite to the corner and am not even a little surprised to see a police cruiser slowly easing over to my side of the street.

“Evening, sir.”

“Evening, Officer.”

“You live around here?”

This hasn’t happened in a long time. It was a lot more common when I was younger (I’ve been looking in windows a long time) but I’m out of practice. This question is the make or break.

“No, Officer, I’m just out for a walk.”

“Kind of late for a walk, isn’t it?”

Time to play up the harmless old guy schtick.

“Yes, sir, I suppose it is. When I can’t sleep, I find that walking helps.” I’m about to say something about how I was just heading for home but stop myself. Fuck these jerks. I’m not breaking any laws.

“Where do you live?”

Here’s where I need to take it real easy. I’ve gotten myself into trouble in the past at this point and I’m too damned old to be sitting in Central Booking on a Thursday night because I can’t control myself.

“Not far.” I nod to my interrogator and his sidekick and start walking, suppressing the limp as best as I can.

“Excuse me, sir, I’d like to see some ID.” He’s had to raise his voice. He won’t be happy about that. I sure am not.

I swear to God I’m gonna get a copy of my driver’s license tattooed on my forehead and then the sons a bitches can just look me in the face and be done with it.

Since I want to get home alive, I first tell the officer I am reaching for my wallet and then hand him my oh-so-fucking important ID. The knee is having none of this and I find myself leaning against a lamp pole again. I suppose it makes me look something and I give not one fuck right now.

While the public servants busy themselves electronically, I’m left to, what else, look in windows. There’s my art lover, hanging out by the window again. She sees me looking and quickly fades into her warmly lit room. Damage done, my friend, go back to your safe little nest.

As many times as I’ve walked this street, I’ve never had the leisure to just stand here and look. Who knew my antsy friend with her finger on 911 would be the one to give me this lovely opportunity.

Most of the buildings on this street are old brownstones, elegant and reserved, with those tall, tall windows. I always imagine those to be windows that absolutely hemorrhage heat in the winter and the people behind them to be the type to tap the thermostat up a couple of notches. What do they care? These are rooms with crown molding lining the ceiling and archival lighting for the art.

I see someone coming back to the window. Not my snitch. A man. He leans on the window sill and fixes me with a stare. Or at least I imagine that’s what he’d doing by the angle of his head. He’s back lit so I can’t see his face. But the guy is dogging me for sure and I’m thinking: knock yourself out there, bub.

“Ok, sir, you can go now.” The officer hands me my plastic piece of Free To Go and pauses. Here it comes. “Probably pick another street for your nightly walks. Ok?”

“Yes, Officer.” Years I’ve been doing this, saying this. I keep the edge out of my voice and start to limp off.

“You ok, sir?”

Someday. Someday I’m going to turn around and let these motherfuckers have it.

You’re asking me if I’m ok? That’s the question is it? Let’s see. No. The answer is No I Am Not Ok. But here’s a news flash for you, Officer, you’re not ok either. Difference is that I know it and you’re still cruising along thinking you got this. You got nothing.

“Yes, son, I am ok,” I just had to say it, call him that. Nothing he can do about it except get the fuck back into his cruiser and move on to harass the next guy.

And he will.

Meantime, I lift a hand to the son of a bitch in his window. He’s not ok either.

Not that I’d tell him or that he’d believe me.

© Remington Write 2019. All Rights Reserved