Boy trouble

Long, long time ago, when I was still young and dreaming about moving to the United States and still living with my parents I used to go out with my friends every weekend. We had a pretty neat disco about 30 minutes from our house and we would go there every Saturday evening.
At one of those Saturday nights I ran into an old flame of mine. We dated a couple of weeks in high school until he got a car (the car was MUCH MORE fascinating than I, and so I got traded in, so to speak)... it was about 1 am in the morning…

He already had a couple (as in plenty) of beers to drink and he was remembering the good old times (before the car that is), I agreed with him and soon he suggested that maybe he should come over later that night. He said he would come by at 1 am. I told him that was impossible because it was already 1 am, maybe he should come by at 3 am?… Ok, he said, “I’ll come by at two.” (Like I said, enough beers)…

“No Joey, it is already 1 am, by the time it is two I’ll be still here dancing and who will open up the door for you….”. He finally got it (or so I thought) and told me he would come by my house at five in the morning. That was all right with me, I figured he would go about this business drink some more beer and would have forgotten all about me and our so called date the second he turned around…

I got home at about three in the morning and got myself into bed and slept like a rose…

Until 2 minutes past five that is…

I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, but something woke me up. My window was at the back of our house and the last part had a flat roof. You could climb via the gutter onto that flat roof and you would stand right in front of my window…

In Holland you have some kind of heavy shades on the outsides of your windows, to protect you from the sun and… intruders. It’s not really a shade (but I don’t have a better word for it right now) but you can open in half way to let a little bit of sun in or all the way, usually during the day. I had mine closed during the night except the last 4 slots so a little bit of light would come in.

There was defiantly some scratching going on. And I could see movement true the slots…

Oh my gosh, somebody is trying to get in the house!?! I COMPLETELY freaked out and thought about my little talk with Joey! And I thought, “O MY GOSH, HE DIDN’T!!!!!!”

I snuck out of my bed, commando style, with my tummy on the floor and my bootie sticking up, crawling, and opened my door so I could slip true without too much light shining in from the hallway (otherwise Joey would know I would be on to him)… And there was NO WAY i would let him into the house!

My mom and dad slept downstairs and I got to my mom’s bed side. “Mom… MOM, there is somebody outside my window!!!” She woke up a bit and looked at me funny and told me I had a bad dream… I said “No, no bad dream, there is somebody outside my window and want’s to come in!!!” "It was scratching at my window shades!!!" She sat up in bed and told me maybe it was a bird… “A pigeon perhaps!?!”

“NOOOOO MOM, I think it is Joey….”

My mom looked at me if I just came from another planet and turned around to wake up my dad.
“Wim, wake up! Leontien thinks’ Joey is up on the roof”…
My dad was awake in an instant! He pretty much jumped out of bed, and RUN to the outside door! I had NEVER seen my dad so incredibly mad.

I stayed inside too ashamed to go and see Joey, because I DID tell him he should come over, I just never ever thought he would really take action (being as drunk as he was)!

If my dad had a baseball bat he would knocked Joey of off the roof. Instead he yelled:
“GET DOWN" and "WHAT THE F*&^%*CK ARE YOU DOING UP THERE!?!” (in Dutch, but with the same effect)…

Joey refused, and yelled back that he was trying to find a dry place… It was after all raining cats and dogs that night…

After 10 grueling minutes Joey finally got off the roof and my dad told him to go home.

After my dad got home and put on dry clothes he looked at me and asked why Joey was up on our roof…? I told him, “I don’t know daddy…”

I found out later from friends that Joey refused a ride home at two in the morning, because “he needed to be somewhere” and WALKED the 4 miles to my house in the rain.

He also refused to talk to me for a good year and a half.

I did find the nerves to tell my mom and dad what happened (eventually) and now almost 15 years later we still think about the crazy boy that would climb up on the roof to come see me...


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