Another knocking on the window at night story…

When I was 14, I dated a boy who was 19 who lived in the country about 45 minutes away from me. The age difference wasn’t so shocking to my parents because he was a good boy from a good Christian family. Mostly we went on group dates or hung out at each others’ houses or went to church functions together. We were both still very innocent.

He had grown up on a chicken farm, but his family was mostly running a farm supply store now. Once he stopped by my house with a truckload of pigs on their way to the Eskay factory in Baltimore. He had to park in front of my suburban home facing downhill so the pigshit didn’t drip out onto the street.

I shared a bedroom with my sister, Kay and we had our own private phone line in our bedroom. My parents got tired of the phone always being busy in those days before IM, texting, e-mail, call waiting, and cell phones. Kay was trying to continue a relationship with a forbidden boyfriend and was talking on the phone in the middle of the night. (Aren’t the forbidden ones the most alluring?) She’s the sister that I slept with for at least a month after watching the first “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” movies, which might explain the wrong conclusion to which she jumped that made the whole incident turn crazy.

I woke up to Kay vigorously shaking me, her voice shaking with urgency. She hissed, “Someone is trying to break into our room right now!” Of course I believed her. It was probably a psychopathic killer with a hockey mask and a hatchet. We were moments from grisly murder. We crawled out of the room and into our parents’ room. Kay reported the incident to our suddenly alert parents. My dad looked out of his window, saw something that confirmed the report, and called the police. I was terrified.

My sister and I were huddled with my mother on the bed while my dad dressed and paced while waiting for the police to arrive. He kept looking out the window, checking for the psycho who had threatened his family.

The phone in our bedroom started ringing. I was not about to answer it and hear the taunts of the crazed, would-be murdered. Kay was not about to answer it because she was afraid it was her boyfriend that she had been talking to when she saw the mysterious hand reach around and knock on one bedroom window and then the other. The incessant bell-ring of the phone added to the tension of the moment.

Remarkably, the police arrived. I went out on the driveway with my dad and heard him describe, for the first time, the van he saw pulled away when he first looked out the window.
“It was a white utility van with a Purina symbol on the side,” he reported.

I blanched. I felt weak with instant nausea. I didn’t want to speak, but knew I had to and quickly. I took a step closer to my dad and the officer and sheepishly admitted,
“My boyfriend’s family owns a Purina store. They have a van that matches that description.”

The officer looked from me to my father and, in an act of great mercy, did not yell at me and did not laugh. His facial expression did change as he was trying to subdue his amusement.
“I think I’ll leave this to you, sir,” the officer nodded to my father and put his notebook away. He was shaking his head as he got back in his black and white patrol car and drove away.
My dad followed me into the house. I can’t remember if I called or he called, but my boyfriend’s parents were called. They thought their son was sleeping at the firehouse where he was a volunteer.
The phone in my bedroom started ringing again.
“Answer it!” my mother urged, still too close to the incident to find it amusing yet.

“Hi Sweetie. It’s Dale,” he started right away. “Hey, don’t tell anybody, but I was just over at your house. I thought maybe you could sneak out and meet me, but I couldn’t wake you by knocking on the window.”
“Dale,” gheez, what a terrible night this was turning into. “My parents know, your parents know, and the police are looking for you.” I had visions of police cars surrounding him at the pay phone.

His parents were so humiliated; they didn’t want him to ever show his face in my town again. He had to apologize to my parents. I don’t remember what punishments were meted out for the incident. We did date for another year after that. He never knocked on my window in the night again.