Peeper

My wife was out of town recently and I didn't close our blinds the entire time she was out of town. I wonder what people must think who see my life from our large living room window. I imagine it's some combination of entertainment and boredom if they watch long enough. 

I didn’t start out this way, no sir. I didn’t begin with shoes suctioned inch-deep in mud, fogging up my neighbor’s windows. Peeping doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual process that got me here.

It began a few days after my kids got me Rex. Rex is half poodle, half black lab: a “labradoodle” they told me. My kids are well-meaning and they were worried about me after their mom passed, but I was fine. I didn’t so much miss her, but I missed the things she made me do like go to the symphony, chew sugar-free gum, watch Law  & Order (I don’t even know what channel it’s on), and wash the toilet from time to time.

In a way, my children are to blame. I’d never had any bad habits until I started walking Rex everyday. I’m even a flosser if you can believe that! The day it all began seemed innocent enough. As I waited for Rex to finish shitting, I watched a young man do a handstand in his living room. On another walk I saw a mother spank her child, then at a different time there were two men--identical twins--practicing a dance routine in top hats. Eventually I found myself watching mundane people doing mundane things like type at a computer or eat dinner until Rex would tug at his leash and we’d continue along our way.

A year ago, Rex died after eating an entire Rose bush. I didn’t miss him so much, but I missed our walks. So one day I just sort of went out and meandered around the block alone.   

I’m not sure the woman’s name, she was always the “widow in the California rancher” to Rex and me. I’m not sure how long I was staring at her, but when she saw me looking up at her from down on the street, I waved and smiled. Her bobbed silver hair stayed firm and rigid as the rest of her frame before scowling and closing the drapes. She’d outed me.

    I know, I know....some sort of shame-filled knot should have welled deep inside and pushed up my throat....but it didn’t.
    On my next walk, I waited until the cover of darkness and made a routine. Microwave dinner with the newly divorced father at 7pm, Law and Order with the widow in the rancher at 9pm, watch the woman with the beige trim around her windows cry on the phone at 10:30, and finally--the news at 11 with an old man sleeping in front his television. And here I am now, fogging up the window of a man who may as well be me in 10 years. Watching him breath and adjust his hips so his slouching paunch rests easier between his legs. I don’t want his sordid secrets or to know anything about him really. I’m just doing the same thing he is, aren’t I? Coping.