The Curfew Alarm

 When I was quite little, I remember waking up when the curfew alarm sounded. It rang out every night at 10:00p.m. I had no idea what it meant. At first it startled me. It was just a sound I grew accustomed to.

  As I grew a bit older, I often watched the older kids play outside until dark. My house was situated on the corner of Crystal Lane and Fernwood Drive, and there was an empty lot across the street. All the kids migrated to this popular spot in the neighborhood. Back then, it seemed that darkness=bedtime, so I never got to see them play flashlight tag or even disperse for the night with the wail of the curfew whistle. I always had to come inside and take my bath way before the other kids. I felt short-changed. I wasn’t tired. When I would have to go to bed, after my “Now I lay me down to sleep” nightly ritual, I would hoist myself up to my bedroom window and watch the older kids play.

 Since I was a hyper little chihuahua, I was never sleepy. I would watch the older kids play and got to see what house each one ran to when the curfew whistle rang.  I always then waited for the cops. My mom said that “nothing ever good happened after 10:00″ and that “the cops would come and arrest the kids who stayed out past 10:00.”  I had to see this.

 I have no idea how many nights I stayed up that one summer, watching for a cop car to drive down Fernwood Drive. Even though the kids were in their homes, how would a cop know that unless he checked?  It never happened. I never saw a cop car around 10:00p.m. I would watch for the car with the window rolled down and the spotlight shining toward the empty lot. But, it never came. I really think those kids could have stayed out later. 

    I always wondered where the alarm was located, because our neighborhood wasn’t near a fire station or anything. It was very loud. I wanted to find out where the wailing alarm was coming from, but I would have to wait until I was 18. I didn’t want to wait. I  was about 9, I believe, and I needed to know now. My mom wasn’t much help.

“Vickie, I don’t know where the curfew alarm is………..I don’t think it is at someone’s house. That would be too loud…………….No, Vickie, it’s not at Mr. Moon’s house…… He wears a hearing aid because he can’t hear……….No, not because the curfew alarm is in his living room……No, Vickie, I am not going to  ask him and I am not going to drive around when the alarm goes off to see where it is…….Because I’m not…….”

 She was no fun. I was curious  to know who had the curfew whistle. Someone was sounding it every night.  I asked my dad. Dad’s knew more stuff about how things worked. He told me that there had to be a siren horn attached to the outside of the building somewhere. Now, see, that gave me something to work for. He thought that it was on a building way downtown. But, then, he added, like he was curious, himself, “But it sounds so much closer….”

 The next day, I made a sandwich and I don’t know what else, and took a brown bagged lunch with me. I was going on a trip around the neighborhood in search of the curfew horn. I had a tiny notebook and was going to draw and X marks the spot when I found the source of the curfew whistle. I was determined. I was in third grade and I was old enough to explore.

“Vickie, what are you doing?……………..Oh, no you aren’t……..Because you are too young to go traipsing (she used that word a lot) around the neighborhood by yourself……No, you can’t go……..Well, because I said so…….Vickie, don’t look at me like that…..” She would always cross her arms, but manage to inhale her Salem cigarette while trying to explain why I wasn’t allowed to do something.

 I did get permission to walk around where she would be able to see me.  I knew she wouldn’t watch me, not when she could be sitting in her housecoat, smoking her Salem’s and drinking coffee. So, I strayed a bit farther. Like over to Mr. Moon’s house. I don’t think Mr. Moon liked little kids. Or maybe he didn’t like little kids looking through his kitchen window. He was like Mr. Wilson to my Dennis the Menace.  He thought the curfew whistle came from downtown. And then, he too, said, aloud, “But, it seems awful loud to be downtown.”

Soon afterwards, or maybe a year or two, I don’t remember, Mr. Moon had a massive heart attack in his front yard while mowing the grass. I remember a lot of the neighbors huddled around him, waiting for the ambulance. Some one said he was blue. I don’t know why I remember that. I just knew I had to stick my head through the huddle and see a blue person. I had nightmares for months after that.

 As I grew older, my friends and I would hang out on my front steps during the summer. As evening grew to night, we would catch fireflies and do cart-wheels and play flashlight tag. The 1960′s were a great time. The curfew alarm still rang out everynight at 10:00p.m. I was now one of the older kids. I was allowed to stay outside until the curfew alarm. Sometimes the mosquito bites drove us indoors. But, most nights, we were on my steps, in my front yard, or playing kickball under the street lights.

 One night, we decided to push the curfew limit. My brother and sister and several others were hanging outside, in the empty lot across the street, where there were a pair of concrete steps that were taken off of someone’s (ours) back porch and hauled to the empty lot. It was great. We had a place to sit up off of the ground. Someone in a car stopped that night. Probably to ask for directions or to abduct us.

“Hey, kids, it’s 10:05. Go home.”

It was the cops. I was astonished. All of those times I stood at my bedroom window, waiting for the cops to arrive to see if those kids had gone home at 10:00, and then never came. The one time we stayed out until 10:00pm, the cops showed up.

I loved it.