KnifeMissile

After a short absence (which I didn't declare 'cause, seriously, that's just melodramatic), I'm back, at least for the time being. While I was gone, I had revealed to someone a personal story of mine. Except for one small aspect, it's really not too personal, it's just that I had never told anyone this story. Now that someone finally knows it, I feel like I can reveal this story to a bunch of strangers, including the Tilted Forum Project...

When I was a teenager, I had learned of a meteor shower forecast. I'm not sure I had ever seen a shooting star, before, much less an entire meteor shower, so I was keen to see this one. Although it would have been a lengthy walk, I technically lived within walking distance of the Leslie Street Spit which would provide me an ideal place from where I may observe this phenomena. It jutted deep into Lake Ontario and is as far away from city lights as one can be from downtown Toronto. I have always been a natural night owl so my only problem was escaping from home.

Clifton House for Boys was a group home whose goal was to prepare young men for adult life. Thus, there were plenty of rules to teach discipline and responsibility. At least, that's what they would have us believe. Upon further reflection, one can see that many of these rules are for the benefit of the home, rather than the residence, as we're called. For instance, we had to adhere to a strict curfew and bedtime. Few adults stick to such a rigid schedule, as I can attest to, now. However, what such a schedule does is allow the home to employ a skeletal "night staff." The day staff employed about a dozen full time employees but the night staff consisted of only two, one of them being a day time worker, alternated so that whoever worked a night shift didn't have to do the day shift, too. Employing two workers was much cheaper than employing the full staff, making the home cheaper to run.

There were two problems to overcome in my escape.

The first was the alarm system. Beside every exit in the building was a keypad. After curfew, the alarm for the building is armed and can only be disarmed by entering the correct code into any of these keypads. This includes the door to the balcony but, luckily, there were screenless windows that opened out onto it. I could simply climb out of one of those and hang-drop from the balcony without injury. This would make it impossible for me to return until morning, when the alarm system is turned off so that we can leave for school. I would have to stay out all night but, after a childhood of delinquency, I've become quite adept at pulling all-nighters.

A more serious and my second problem is the night staff. Specifically, the hourly room checks. Every hour, on the hour, a staff member must check every room in the building. I suppose that, with twenty teenage boys of questionable character, one might be afraid of vandalism or some other form of mischief and that this procedure will help curb that. These room checks would happen even during the night, while we all slept (or tried to sleep). With scrutiny like this, how am I to escape unnoticed? Actually, staff dedication to protocol shouldn't be overestimated. It's quite tedious to check every room in a facility the size of a small university dormitory, especially when doing so every hour, day after day, yields no surprises. I've noticed that the night staff resented working the graveyard shift and I have spent many nights lying in bed, watching the clock, observing staff truancy as I tried to fall asleep. My feeble deception may actually fool the few cursory glances they might pay my room and, even if it didn't, what's the worst they're going to do to me? A week of room restriction was worth a once in a lifetime meteor shower!

So, on the night in question, I stayed in past curfew to dine on a hefty snack before bedtime. I lied in bed, waiting for a roomcheck to happen. It would be problematic if I were caught outside my room past bedtime, so the safest time to sneak out of the building was just after room checks, when the staff member doing rounds would return back to the staff office to perform some other, administrative, duties. The first check happened shortly after 1:00 AM, so I waited fifteen minutes to allow the staff to finish this round before preparing my descent down to the balcony and to freedom! I snuck down the smaller of the two stairwells and crept across the main floor to the balcony, crouching low enough to duck under all the door windows to avoid possible detection. Once I was hanging from the balcony, I knew I had escaped. They would have had to chase me across the wooded park to get me then.

Of course, no such chase ensued. I took a leisurely but brisk pace across the park, across Riverdale, past the Gardiner highway, out onto the spit and into the lake. The autumn night was colder than I had anticipated so I hid from the lakefront wind in one of a pile of concrete pipes, used for constructing sewers. Its circumference was almost as wide as the pipe was long and it was lying on one end, standing up conveniently toward the sky. I felt a bit like Tycho Brahe, observing the heavens from my pre-Industrialized observatory.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected but I only saw a couple of glimpses of what I thought might have been shooting stars. I tried my best to remember to wish upon something each time I saw one. Sometimes my wishes were vague, like general happiness or successfully completing future goals, and other times I made them rather specific, such as Holly having a crush on me (she didn't). I was always like that: trying a variety of approaches to see which one was most effective.

I made it back home just as the sun was rising. I had to carefully loiter outside the home, out of sight from the front door or any windows. I had to periodically check the front door to see if it were unlocked and risk getting caught each time. I was never up early enough to know when the front door was opened nor if such a schedule even exists. Eventually, I did see the door pushed ajar and that was my cue to sneak in. I waited a few moments for whomever to go about whatever business would take them away from the front door and quickly moved through the building, up the stairwell, onto my floor and into my room. Nothing had been disturbed so I just set my alarm clock, undressed and slipped into bed to catch a little sleep before getting back up to be late for school, that day.

As far as I know, no one had ever noticed that I was gone that night. If they had, they never bothered mentioning it to me. I think snarking out that night was worth the effort but perhaps not for the shooting stars...

Somehow, I can't help but think that this story works far better as prose than as an oral anecdote...

Charlatan

I like this story. I'd love to see it developed.

PS: Welcome Back

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Halx

I was hoping your revelation didn't involve Jesus. I am pleased.

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snowy

Welcome back, KnifeMissile, and thanks for sharing your story.

Your avatar hypnotizes me...rightfully so.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

KnifeMissile

Thank you but I'm not sure what you mean. For a personal anecdote, it's very well developed... unless you think the story is fiction...


Speaking of which, what if my "revelation" were that Jesus was fiction?


Thank you for the kind welcome, everyone...

Crack

If Jesus was fiction, how do you account for the myriad of personal accounts that were properly taken into offical record?

Hey look, my ass can speak!

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

KnifeMissile

I'm guessing that you don't understand the meaning of the word "if..."

Incidentally, I agree with you. Apparently, your ass can speak...

SSJTWIZTA

sounds like my days in "Corner Stone"

only our windows were locked and armed.

It sucks that the shower wasnt what you expected, but at least you got out of there for a bit.

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First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for me And there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemoller

genuinegirly

Seems a frustrating environment to grow up in. What a special memory.

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Merlocke

. o O (if there's no God, then who pushes up the next tissue?)

Your escape artist skills are commendable - however it's a shame that they wouldn't just let you watch the meteor shower. Such a simple pleasure, a simple request to bring such happiness without harming others should never be denied.

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-=[ Merlocke ]=-

KnifeMissile

It wasn't so bad. I gamed the system a lot 'cause I'm the rebellious sort. I didn't grow up there, I was just there in my teen years before moving out on my own. Harder than living at the home was living with the understanding that no one personally cared about me...

Charlatan

What I meant was, I'd like to hear more. The whole scenario seems like an interesting chapter in a larger book.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke