The Open Window

A friend of mine asked, “how is life in the city?” She knew I was living with my daughter temporarily in a bustling neighborhood in Chicago.

“Fine,” I told her, commenting on the energy of the city, that is always markedly different from life in the suburbs.

And I related the story of the locked park, which I posted about recently.

But then I asked her if she remembered Friends and the periodic references to “naked guy.” (She didn’t. She doesn’t have a television.)

Maybe you remember. The neighbor who could be seen cavorting about naked. And the Friends crew would peer at him, and comment. Actually, he was called Ugly Naked Guy, and they commented on his obesity.

Well, where my daughter lives, there’s a naked couple (not obese).

I was sitting on the porch, eating breakfast, and I noticed across the alley someone taking a shower. And the bathroom window, right over the tub, was wide open!

It was a pleasant day. I understood wanting windows open instead of being cooped up with the air conditioner humming away.

I went back to my granola and thoughts. But I looked up again. The woman was taking a long shower, soaping herself slowly.

Hmm, I thought, I wonder if she knows . . .

But then I looked at all the windows in her apartment. None of them had curtains or any kind of window treatment.

And the shower went on.

Then it dawned on me.  The now window treatments, no translucent glass on the bathroom window—it was intentional.

My daughter confirmed this. “Exhibitionists,” she said.

And I thought about the building behind mine in the suburbs. An apartment building also. Quite surely if someone had consistently, intentionally been on display, phone calls would have been made, complaints lodged. The police would have appeared.

But here, in the city, the police have more important things to do. Or maybe the residents have more important things to do. And they either notice or ignore. Comment or not. But no one calls the police.

One of the differences between life in the city and life in the suburbs.