The other night, I was lying awake in the dark, drowsily contemplating something or other, and aaaalmost asleep. Faint cries came from somewhere outside, and suddenly I was listening intently. There’s something about the sound of a human distress call in the night that acts like a cattle prod – I was up and and listening at the window within a second or two. I could hear a woman’s voice, either angry or fearful or both, calling out from somewhere down the street.
We live in a quiet, boring suburb. There’s usually no noise to speak of at night, other than the occasional amped-up stereo in some teen’s muscle car or a low-flying jet. So when there’s a disturbance, we suburbanites tend to notice it.
I stumbled around in the dark and went downstairs. Then went back upstairs, thinking if I needed to call the police, I’d probably better have my glasses on so I could see if anything was happening, and I might need some pants on if I had to talk to the officer at the door. “Otherwise, he might not take me seriously,” I thought muzzily. Oh, I was wide awake, but the brain cells were not yet firing in a coordinated fashion conducive to rational thought.
Suitably attired and equipped with specs and a cordless phone, I disabled the alarm so as to not to unleash hell in the form of an ear-splitting siren, opened the sliding door, and stepped out on the patio.
It was about 2:30. Nothing seemed to be happening. Although I’d distinctly heard a woman hollering “No! Go away!” a few minutes before, now a suburban silence had descended on the neighborhood.
Well, silence of a sort. You know how when a sound editor on a film or TV comedy wants to indicate silence, they’ll add just a couple of crickets chirping? This was like that, except it was more like a chorus. No locusts, thank God – they make a Dog-awful metallic buzzing racket, but we didn’t have any swarms near us.
Barefoot and with phone in hand, I stepped into the grass and walked toward the street to see if I could hear or see anything, then stood and listened intently.
The crickets sang, and then all around me I became aware of the soft hum of air conditioning units – the big, whole-house fans – turning on and off. The air was sweet, a little moist, and the grass was soft and came to my ankles because we’ve had a fair amount of rain in the last week. It was pleasant to just stand there and listen and watch and be part of the night. I heard faint voices coming from down the street, but they were calmer, so there was no need to dial 911.
Just an argument, and it was over. Not like the one night there was a small-scale riot out in front of the house because some high school kid’s party got out of control. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, I could go back to bed. A car door slammed down the street, and the engine revved angrily, getting the last word in before fading away in the direction of some other quiet neighborhood. That’s it.
Thing was, I didn’t really want to go back inside. It was nice to be out there in the night with the crickets and the air conditioners, and all the peacefully sleeping neighbors tucked away in their middle-class beds.
It reminded me of when I was a kid, and the other kids in the neighborhood and I would arrange to “sleep out” when there was a full moon, and we’d meet up and hang out in one guy’s treehouse, reading comic books by flashlight and walking around looking at the moonlight. About four of us, various ages between 9 and 12 or so. We’d talk about doing pranks like egging cars or TPing, but never really did anything about it, other than playing egg toss games and attempting to swipe rolls of toilet paper. It was cooler to be outside than to be inside our older, un-airconditioned houses. It seems bizarre now, in this age of abductions, but I can remember doing this at least 3 times or more, over several summers. Sometimes I’d go out alone and just walk around the neighborhood for an hour or so, long after midnight. It was quiet and there was no one around, and it was quite safe although it felt like an adventure. I can’t imagine any parent in their right mind knowingly letting their kids do that now, of course.
Finally, savoring the cool swish of grass on my feet, I walked back toward the house and went back inside. Slept better than I have in a while – the night air and listening to the silence of the suburb calmed me so that I could finally sleep.
