The Summer Judy Fell Out of a Window, My Hair Turned White

One minute we’re kids shouting at her window and the next she’s airborne and everything gets quiet and small.

Photo by Kasuma: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kids-playing-at-the-beach-106258/

Note: We were twelve, maybe thirteen, straddling that awful middle place — no longer children, not yet women. I didn’t know that pain can get lost in someone’s hair. But that’s what happened.

This story isn’t neat. It’s not linear. But this is the second essay in the story collection I’m FINALLY working on: Here Comes the Sun. This is the final draft of an essay I’ve been working on since 2022.

The summer Judy jumped out of a window my hair turned white. I was twelve. We stood on the street yelling up at her window, calling her name. Where are you? Are you home? Can you hear us through the glass? We know how her mother liked to keep the windows shut, doors locked, lights out. We called out Judy’s name like a sermon, like a song. That’s how we did it back then — we were screamers.

Who had a dime to use a payphone when a dime was this close to a quarter and a quarter got you a bag of Dipsy Doodles? We liked licking the salt and the grease off our fingers. After ten minutes we shrugged our shoulders and made our plans. Let’s go to the pool. Let’s get the ice that stained our mouths blue and…