1. I was 12 years old and my room was perfectly square and my bed was perfectly aligned on the south wall so my body would be directly under the perfectly square window with the dirty screen. It was fucking hot and I needed to be as close to the fresh air as possible to temper my suffering through an infestation of lady bugs and humidity.
There was absolutely no wind the night the horse got out so I could hear the gravel in the driveway crunching under his heavy hooves. That's the sound that roused me from sleep and caused me to shoot up out of bed and run into my Mom and Dad's room to share the Important News.
He was just having some driveway weeds and grass for a midnight snack. I knew he'd bolt as soon as he saw us coming to rally him back into his pen, so the Metcalf family had to have a strategic plan of action. It felt special and secretive and cunning, sitting around the table under a dim light while we schemed about how to get the horse back in a delicate manner.
2. Three years ago my bedroom window looked out to the neighbor's brick wall just a few feet away but separated by a deep ugly trench that had fallen prey to rain storms and College Ghetto trash: a broken lawn chair, someone's sock, a soggy empty case of beer. The porch to the left must have been no bigger than about four square feet, but somehow all three neighbor boys managed to fit on it at once.
They usually went on their "porch" to smoke cigarettes and either simultaneously call home or laugh about something apparently hilarious consistently at 3:00 a.m. The smoke would waft into my room where its bony claw crept around and through my nostrils and into my lungs, poisoning me while I slept.
3. The next window overlooked a grassy courtyard bound by an uneven sidewalk and hedges too nicely pruned for the neighborhood which was comprised mainly of bro dudes. In the backyard was a hidden gem where someone spent a lot of time manicuring a tidy and lush flower garden. The grass grew long in some corners and it smelled like wet wood and dirt.
I don't really have any real memories of that window though. What I do have is a wince and a belly twinge when I think about how long I stared out that window waiting for him to innocently come home from work while I sat there with my hand on my face and pushed myself further and further into denial about what I knew was happening to me.
4. Now my bedroom window is made of new clean plastic and it has two locks on the top. I push the levers closed when I leave for the weekend and sometimes in the morning before I go to work. The neighbors tilled a strip of ground that happens to be in the direct center of my view out the window, and they took a long thin branch and stuck it smack dab in the middle of the plot.
The next day, I looked out my bedroom window to see that the plot was penned in by tall chicken wire.
The plot quickly became completely overwhelmed with weeds.
