Light On

It doesn't seem so long ago that I would come home from a night out with my girlfriends and see a light on in the front bedroom window of the house next door. It might be 1:00 am or 2:00 am but most nights, that light would be on. I would knock on glass pane gently and slide myself behind the rose bushes and wait for the shuffle of his feet and lifting of the blinds. After a few seconds to let his eyes adjust to the light, there would be recognition, a brief smile and the window would rise.

My friend's bedroom was equal parts fascinating and slovenly and I loved it because it was so uniquely him. Modest in size, twin bed, hardwood floors, desk with a computer (this is back when not everyone had computers and if they did, the machines took up the whole desk and some of the floor) and clothes half in and half out of the closet. Desktop and bookshelf space was at a premium, cluttered with disassembled Rubik's cubes, magnets and batteries, Physics books and Charles Dickens, paper airplanes, paper clips and paper balls. He was always collecting things and dissecting them and analyzing them, a habit for which his room suffered but in which his brain reveled.

He would plop back on his bed and say hello, the easy greeting of a best friend. We might have discussed the night's events or not, maybe we talked about school or family or some television show. He probably asked me some philosophical question about the social contract and I probably rolled by eyes and told him about the new drinking game I learned. With my arms propped on the window sill, my head and shoulders inside his room and the rest of my body still sharing space with the rose bushes, we would just hang out. Sometimes I climbed through the window, sometimes not. Sometimes I stayed there for hours, sometimes for minutes. Sometimes we just watched each other for things unsaid.

Once or twice we toyed with being more than friends. Toyed is the right word since we were too young to do anything other than play at it. Try it out briefly and see how it felt. One summer we held hands on the couch every opportunity we got. We never discussed it and it ended as quickly as it started. His first girlfriend bothered me, not her but the fact he was sharing his life with a girl other than me. He was always there and as I got older I felt that if we wanted to pick things up, we could. He was a permanent fixture in my life and I in his. Until he wasn't.

Those foggy nights hanging out at his window seem like yesterday but were actually 25 years ago; three times as long as which he and I were neighbors but I can still recall the comfort of seeing his light on at 2am.