It was a drizzly, chilly evening in early March, 1974, and I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, listening to Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” for the umpteenth time. I had nearly worn out the grooves on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and I was studying the albums’ lyrics when I heard my cat, Katrina, meowing pathetically outside on the window ledge. “Poor thing,” I thought, “she wants to come inside where it’s dry.” I had to be discreet when letting Katrina into the house, as my parents were none-too-fond of indoor animals. “But Katrina is my cat, and I won’t let her out of the room,” I reasoned silently. I opened the window, and she dove onto the bed, her gray-blue fur glistening with tiny rain beads. Private admission into my bedroom was a little secret Katrina and I shared, as we had since I was eight years old and Katrina was a fluffy gray kitten.
Soon Katrina was reclining comfortably on my belly as I lay stretched out on my bed. As I stroked her warm fur, she began kneading my sweater. “Katrina,” I stared vacantly at the ceiling, “I wish we could trade places and I could live outside.” She purred knowingly in a zen-like trance. As the strains of “Harmony” faded out, I opened the window and placed Katrina back on the ledge, carefully closing the sash. Fortunately the rain had stopped. I watched as she gingerly leaped sideways from the ledge onto the roof of the carport, then scrambled down the dogwood tree to her lair in the garage below. Papa John had constructed a little door for Katrina to take shelter in the storage closet, so I imagined she’d repair to her room. As I watched Katrina land lightly on the concrete floor of the carport, a thought suddenly occurred to me. “If she can do this, why can’t I?”
I had formed theory; now I needed to test it. After dinner I searched in the backyard shed and found some rope, which I sneaked into the house under my baggy sweater. I wasn’t confident I had Katrina’s dexterity, so I decided to rig up a safety device, lest my leaping or climbing skills be impaired. Later that evening after my folks were asleep, I tied the rope around one leg of my bed and finished it in a half-dozen half-remembered Girl Scout slipknots. I gave the rope a hard tug; the bed didn’t budge. “So far, so good.” I thought, but still I waited until after school the next day to perform Phase Two of the test.
Seconds after the two-thirty dismissal bell rang the following day, I was unlocking my ten-speed bike. By two-forty-five I was tossing the rope onto carport roof. I knew I had one hour at best before Papa John would bring my brother home from school, so I needed to work fast. It was easy to hop up on the window ledge from my bed, but the metal frame of the storm window pinched my sneakers as I crouched on the ledge. The sloping roof of the carport was about four feet below my window, at about a 15 degree angle to the right; the vertical drop, I calculated, was about fourteen feet. Lightly grasping the partially-coiled rope. I leapt straight out to the right, aiming toward the peak of the gabled roof. I made it easily. “This is great!” I thought. A short clamber down the tree, and I was on the ground! The next part, I knew, would be crucial, since gravity was my assistant during the descent. I jumped, grabbed the lowest branch of the tree, its rough bark scuffing my palms, and shimmied up. Soon I was back on the roof. I grabbed the rope in my left hand, but decided at the last minute that if I really stretched I could grab the edge of the sill. In one final heave-ho, I pulled myself onto the ledge and through the window, scraping my belly on the rough brick on the way, but tumbling safely onto my bed. I had passed my test! Now I was ready for the world.
On the way to school the next morning, I told Kelly about my newly acquired skill. “That’s fantastic, Freda!” she enthused. Kelly’s bedroom was located directly over her carport, and since her house backed up to a large slope, the vertical drop from roof-to-ground was less than three feet. She could sneak out of her house easily. Now that I also had a means of escape, we could plan to take in a late show at the Cardinal Theatre. I could hardly wait for the weekend to come.
When Saturday finally arrived our plans ran into an unexpected glitch. My parents were going to dinner with friends to eat Chinese food, then coming back home to play bridge. This meant I would have to wait until their company left, which could be as late as eleven-thirty, the same time the first of the double-features was set to start. Kelly and I agreed to meet at midnight, and now I was worried my parents wouldn’t be settled by that time. I sat in my bedroom, nervously watching the clock as the hours and minutes ticked by. At ten past eleven, my parents’ company left, which meant my folks would need to go to bed quickly for our plan to work. I could hear them talking in the kitchen as they rinsed glasses and put them in the dishwasher. Soon Mother Joyce was in the bathroom preparing for bedtime; I had memorized her routine. Within minutes, my Dad was upstairs getting ready for bed. I turned out my light and lay in my bed listening to them talking. Their light went out at precisely eleven-forty-six. Now for the final all-clear signal: Papa John’s snoring. I waited and watched the clock. Eleven-fifty-three: still no snoring. Eleven-fifty-eight: nothing. Finally at twelve-oh-one: snoring. By twelve-oh-five I was out!
Kelly was waiting in the carport. We exchanged silent smiles and swiftly walked down Macon Place toward North Hills Plaza. Nighttime made everything seem strange. As we passed quietly by well-lit houses, we could sometimes catch a glimpse through a window- the bluish flickering light of a television, the yellow glow from a kitchen. At the end of Macon Place we cut through the woods, which seemed brighter than one would suspect during the daytime, as streetlights and houses cast shadows as we passed under the trees. Soon we approached North Hills Plaza- again through the woods, under a chain link fence, and around the back parking lot, where the neon Kwik Pik sign glowed red and blue. We purchased our tickets and arrived just before the second feature- Woodstock– was set to begin. Of course, the object of our exercise had nothing whatsoever to do with watching the movie. We were there to be seen, and soon we had connected with several other intrepid Junior High Schoolers who had either lied or sneaked their way out of their suburban houses, or whose parents didn’t monitor the whereabouts of their thirteen-year-olds.
We managed to sneak out several weekend nights thereafter. Once I panicked when my Dad, on one of his housecleaning jags, came zipping through my bedroom with the vacuum cleaner, narrowly missing the rope that lay coiled under my bed. Other than that incident, I managed to elude detection. That changed, however, within six weeks.
Papa John and I were having one of our “knock-down, drag-out” fights. He had been snooping through my room, apparently worried I might have cigarettes or more dangerous contraband in my possession. Apparently he had read my diary. I discovered this flagrant privacy violation one afternoon when I’d arrived home from school and found my diary, normally zippered, lying unzipped on the floor. Our argument centered around the fact that Papa John, admitting to the privacy violation but defending himself on the principle of parental rights, told me he was responsible for my comings and goings. “OH NO!” I screamed. “YOU’RE WRONG! I can do what I want, whenever I want AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME” “Oh, YES I CAN AND I WILL!” he yelled back. “NO YOU CAN’T!” I replied, and so on and so forth until I bellowed, “WELL, TOO BAD!” “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I already go to the Late Show whenever I want” I snorted.
Suddenly the discussion changed palpably. I sensed he was raising the ante. “And just how do you do THAT?” he asked. “I just walk out” I said. “No. You. DON’T.” he said deliberately. “Yes. I. DO.” I countered. “Prove it.” he said simply. “OK, I WILL!” I yelled dramatically, yanking the rope out from under the bed and blithely hopping onto the roof of the carport. I all but swung from the dogwood, landing on both feet. As I stared up at his flat face in my window, hands on my hips, I got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had lost.
Next morning I awakened to a loud noise. It spluttered, then suddenly the high-pitched buzzing drone was deafening. I sprang out of bed, looking out the window to locate the source of the commotion. As I looked down I saw Papa John standing beside the dogwood tree, chainsaw in hand, shearing off its lowest branches. Soon it was all over. The dogwood was history, as was my short-lived freedom.
It’s very good Freda, very lively.
It would be interesting to hear the same story from Papa John. (poor Papa John, the rebellion was against him)
Yes, poor Papa John. He was always proud of winning that fight, though! Mom and Dad had very different approaches, but together they won the war against my rebellion (as you shall read….ha ha)
Freda, I just read your Sympathy for the dogwood. Well written and made me laugh because now that everyones grown up, I’m hearing stories I never knew about. You kids had a way of making life interesting for yourselves. Thank God we as parents didn’t know then. We thought you kids were angels! Good story. Gerry Pilos