The Sheila Variations

The Window

He got off work at sometimes 3 in the morning. He was never the type of person to just go home and go to sleep like a normal upstanding citizen. He was like a baby, struggling to stay awake, just in case he missed something. When others said, "Okay, I've had enough. Time for bed" he would look at them as though they spoke Swahili. He did not understand EVER being able to say "I've had enough." I'm a big fan of "Okay, that's enough", so it is odd that he and I would have lasted so long. But we did. I was always saying, at 2 in the morning, while we were at some random pool hall, or hanging out at the improv club, "All right, that's it. I'm going home", and he would look at me as though I were speaking in a little-known dialect of the African Bushmen. Home? "That's it"? I'm sorry. I don't speak that language.

We had our own rules. Very few people got our dynamic. For example, I stalked him once, via Haiku. Story here.)

He's the one I was all weepy and panicky with when I had a fever of 103 and the heat wave in Chicago was going on, and I was moving to New York in a month.

"I will be ROBBED of saying good-bye to you!" I stated on the phone, in tears. "ROBBED!"
He would murmur something comforting, "You just need to get well - Don't worry - we'll see each oth--"
"ROBBED. I will be ROBBED."

We had our own rules.

Which brings me back to the window. The title of this post.

He was manic when he got off work. He couldn't slow his brain down. He was a completely nocturnal animal, and he always wanted to see me but I was always asleep in bed. Sometimes, with a bit of pleading (ahem - badgering, and harassing) he would get me to meet up with him after work (uhm - DAWN) - but that was rare. Our relationship occurred on his nights off. Like I said: we had our own rules. Judge us not. We loved each other.

We lived a couple of blocks away from each other off of Southport, in Chicago. My apartment was on Wayne Street, and we lived on the first floor. The living room windows faced the street, and my bedroom window (as well as Mitchell's bedroom window) faced a narrow alley that led to our backyard.

So one night, he got off work. It was 3 a.m. He was so manic, and needed to let off some SERIOUS steam before he could face going home. Obviously, he needed me for that. He and I, on his nights off, would drive up and down Lake Shore Drive in his car, like maniacs, careening towards the curve with the Drake Hotel ... just driving. Not going anywhere, not even talking to each other, just driving. Then we would go out to breakfast at 5 a.m. at some greasy spoon. But on this particular evening, I was sound asleep in my bed. And he just COULD NOT DEAL with this fact. He needed to see me. He needed to kiss me and roll around with me. Regardless of the hour, and regardless of the fact that I was FAST ASLEEP. It was imperative.

This is pre cell phones, by the way. He knew where I lived, obviously. So he got it into his bright head that he would sneak into the alley and knock on my window. This way he hoped that he wouldn't wake up the entire house (I lived with 3 people) ... and he would only scare ME half out of my mind. He would never ever have rung on the doorbell at 3 a.m. Not his style. But skulking around beneath my window like a criminal? That seemed fine to him.

So he drives to my house, and parks. The street is silent, empty. He can't wait to see me. He tiptoes through the alley until he is beneath what he believes to be my window. He knocks on the window. No response. He waits. He is skulking in an alley. He doesn't find this odd. He knocks again on my window, this time a little louder. Still no response. He is bummed.

He must accept that I am fast asleep, and so he gives up. Dejected. He skulks out of the alley, and as he hits the front yard - the porch light comes on. His heart leaps (I'm describing his emotions in such detail, because he eventaully described them to me - in a blow-by-blow 25 minute monologue) and he stands on the front lawn, grinning up at the front door like an idiot. Expecting to see me come out at any moment, bleary-eyed, in pjs, and pissed. Please remember - it is 3 o'clock in the morning. He stands there, eagerly, waiting to see my irritated face - Instead he sees a nervous hand pull back the curtain, and a small face peek out. A small terrified face. It is not my face. It is also not the face of Ken or the face of Mitchell, my 2 roommates. It is another face.

Then - the horrified realization dawns on him: He went to the wrong house. He went to the house next door to mine. And he just knocked on a stranger's window at 3 o'clock in the morning, scaring them half out of their mind.

He is absolutely horrified at his own behavior. Of course, by the next day, he realized the humor of it - and when he told me the story we both laughed until we cried.

Then came his next attempt to knock on my window. It was, again, 3 o'clock in the morning, and he just felt that he couldn't go straight home. Even if all I did was say to him, "Dude, I am asleep, and you are in so much trouble with me right now for waking me up at this hour of the night ..." that would be better than nothing for him. (This story is occurring to me as even funnier than it normally does. If this guy sounds like some neurotic stalker - that is completely not correct. He was a big beefy goofball, loud, brash, funny, crazy - He and I just clicked on this very deep chemical level. I don't relax with many people, and I relaxed with him. He trusts NOBODY. And he trusted me.) So he decides to try again, only this time he doesn't choose the wrong house. He has learned his lesson, after terrifying my next door neighbor.

He pulls up on my street, and parks. He chooses the correct alley, and skulks through it like a criminal, making his way to my window. (Oh, just to add to the joke, because it will be relevant later: He always wore this jacket that he loved which he called a "banana picker's jacket" and I never knew what that meant, except that obviously banana pickers wore the thing, but was there some other folk-tradition behind it? No idea. He wore that thing until it was in rags. He LOVED it. It had all these different colors on it - it was very crazy and unconventional - and the 4th time he started telling me about how cool his "banana picker's jacket' was - I finally had to say, "Dude. I got it. You love the jacket. Please stop talking about it. You're driving me crazy." Anyway - the banana jacket - with its many different colors on it - will be important later in the story.)

He skulks beneath a window. This time, though, he decides that the knocking thing is actually not good - because it's too potentially scary. He decides what would be LESS scary to the person inside would be for him to open the screen window and hoist himself uninvited into the house. Yes. He thought that that would be a LESS scary option. Also: he felt that it would have more comedic potential. He was alllll about comedic potential. And boy, was he right about that one - because Mitchell and I STILL laugh about what occurred in the next 10 minutes.

He reaches up on his tiptoes, and quietly opens the screen. He knows he could be arrested at any moment, but he can't stop himself ... he also can't WAIT to see my reaction to him crawling through my window ... he thinks it will be hilarious. He hoists himself up onto the sill, and starts to struggle through the window.

Only to find that he has broken into MITCHELL'S room and not mine. He got the wrong window.

Mitchell wakes up, it is darkness, and he hears the sounds of someone CLIMBING INTO HIS ROOM FROM OUTSIDE - so he turns on the light - ready to scream - only to see who it is. My goofball half in his window, half out - looking up at him with this really apologetic look on his face.

Mitchell bitched him guy out, in a hissing whisper (although Mitchell, being Mitchell, could already feel the comedic potential of the entire event ...), "You are the biggest asshole I have ever met! You just scared the SHIT out of me!"

"I am so sorry ... I was looking for Sheila ..."

Again: he's HANGING half in and half out of the window ... saying ... "I was looking for Sheila ..."

I can't stop laughing. Like: and how is that at all socially acceptable?

Mitchell hissed at him, FURIOUS, "She's in the next room!!" Then Mitchell caught a glimpse of that dad-blasted multicolored banana picker's jacket, that we both got so sick of, and Mitchell couldn't stop himself. He said, emphatically, "Go, go, go, Joseph ... to the other window."

"Joseph" then embarrassedly disappeared into the night. How do you apologize for crawling into the wrong window at 3 a.m.?

The thought of him saying, dangling his torso into Mitchell's room, "I was looking for Sheila" still makes me laugh.

Okay. Now we'll cut to my room. I sleep soundly through this whole drama. And wake up to see A DARK FIGURE STRUGGLING THROUGH MY WINDOW.

I almost pissed my pjs. It was primal fear. Sudden, swift. I opened my mouth to shout - and he hissed into the void, still struggling at the window: "IT'S ME! IT'S ME!"

Believe it or not - although it took me a good half-hour to come down from the terror - I already knew what a funny story this was going to be. But I needed to bitch-slap him within an inch of his life before that. So I did. I got out of bed, and pulled him into my room, and yelled at him (in a whisper, of course.) "Do you have any idea what it feels like... to wake up and see a dark figure ... are you OUT. OF. YOUR. MIND???"

"I know. I didn't want to wake anyone up. I just wanted to see you."

"Uhm ... doorbells?"

"Then I would wake up your whole house."

"You're a lunatic."

But then he told me the entire saga - of going to the wrong window TWICE - and ... I couldn't stand it. It was like Waiting for Godot. He just wanted to see me. But he kept going to the wrong window.

A couple other times that summer, he would come to knock on my window. It became something I expected. We never planned it, though. We never said, "See ya at my window!" I just knew the nights he worked, and I knew he would probably want to stop by, on his way home. We lived so close to each other. It was a 5 minute walk or something like that. I would fall asleep at 11 p.m., thinking, "I bet he'll 'stop by' tonight." And lo and behold - at 3 am, I'd hear a little tap-tap-tap that would call me out of slumber. I even got used to waking up and seeing a dark figure climbing into my room. Which is rather frightening if you think about it. "Hi, there, you - how was work? I was expecting you!" "Huh? Lady, I'm here to rob your house." "Wha ... AHHHHHHHH!"

I'd be asleep, I'd hear a commotion, I'd wake up to see a crazy-haired figure in a banana picker's jacket hoisting his way over my sill. Just to say Hi.

One horrifying time, his clambering through the window didn't wake me up, and what DID wake me up was him crawling into bed with me. I hauled myself up from oblivion - only to find a dark figure beside me IN MY BED taking me into his arms. Again: I opened my mouth to scream, and - ohmigod - the dark figure put his hand over my mouth!!! Of course, he immediately hissed into my face, "It's me! It's me!" - his hand over my mouth. Then, naturally, I had to beat him about the head and neck for making me think he was a rapist. A gentle rapist, to be sure - gently taking me into his arms - but a rapist nonetheless! He took the beating, laughing hysterically - saying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

One night, after I heard the tell-tale tap-tap, I got out of bed to tell him I had an audition early the next morning, and "now was not a good time." As in: "Hi there. Now is not a good time to break into my room, thanks."

I don't know why I remember this early early morning meeting between him and I so vividly but I do. It was summer. It was probably 5 o'clock in the morning. No light in the sky yet, but the air trembled with greyness, and a softness ... which let you know that dawn was coming. I could see his face. It wasn't darkness. I was in my pajamas, and I went to open up the screen window to say hi to him. He stood in my alley, his hair black and crazy, smiling up at me. The air was so soft. There was something piercingly sweet about the hour of the day. It was summer, but because the sun hadn't risen yet, everything was dewy, and cool, and grey.

I whispered, sadly, "I really have to keep on sleeping. I have to get up early."

He said, good-natured, "Oh. Okay. You know me. I just wanted to say hi."

I was above him, he was below me. The position had undeniable Romeo and Juliet connotations, even though I don't think Romeo wore a multi-colored banana picker's jacket, and I don't think Juliet wore glasses and I'm pretty sure she didn't have bed-head. But it was a mini balcony scene. There was something poignant and beautiful about it.

I said, completely in love with him at that moment, his smiling face, I even loved the banana picker's jacket: "How was work?" I couldn't resist. I always had to talk to him.

He told me some stories from work, standing in my alley, in the dark that wasn't quite dark anymore. He made me laugh. Niceness exhaled off of him. It felt like we were the only two people awake in Chicago.

I said, "I would love to talk more. But I have to go to sleep."

He stood on tiptoe - I leaned out of my window - down to meet him - we kissed. It had a weird archetypal feeling to it. Like I had seen such an image on a tapestry somewhere (only it involved a castle, or a moat - not an alley and a first-floor window.)

That was always what it was like with him. From day one. Our own rules, we could not describe it to others, and I wonder if people reading this - who don't know me from Adam, and only know this guy from what I tell about him - are thinking: "God. What the hell was going on THERE and why would she put up with that?" I can't describe it any better than this: He crawled through my window at three o'clock in the morning (after going to the wrong window twice) because he needed me. Just to see me. Or kiss me. Or talk to me. Whatever it was. He needed me.

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