Cross Section of a Voyeur

        When I was 6, my dad took me to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. By then, Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle had been a permanent fixture in the former World’s Columbian Exposition Palace of Fine Arts for 39 years. If I had known any of its history then, I wouldn’t have cared once I saw miniature perfection. The castle was plucked from my dreams, hermetically sealed, and placed in a perfectly dark room that made the edges of the universe expand endlessly as I shrunk and discovered each chamber. My curiosity filled me with a thrill that felt like sinning. I must confess that it’s been almost forty years and I still chase that high.
        Forgive me. For I am sitting in my basement with a warm kitty on my lap listening to the worst day of someone’s life unfold on the  police scanner. It’s not very nice down here. Silverfish and centipedes scurry when the fluorescent lights ignite and every time it rains hard, rivulets run to the drain in the lowest spot of the painted concrete floor. There is a ghost down here and she seems nice. Thankfully, she never comes upstairs. I wonder what she did to deserve an eternity below?
        I’ve always been curious about the secrets hidden in houses, especially in their basements. Joints, shared. Dirty laundry, cleaned. Pittsburgh Potties on mini cement stages encore for spiders. A child’s steps quicken as the shadows between the risers morph into skeletal hands poised to grab his ankles right before he runs out of the dark. 
        An ancient plaid couch waits for dirty deeds that come when the rest of the adults are asleep and unaware of what secrets Uncle Ed makes the cousins keep. Real monsters drink Irons at the homemade Steelers bar in the corner. Things are pickled. Fermented. Buried. Things never forget what happened here. Move over so I can see.
        I’m not cleaning or writing or one of the thousand tasks that endlessly fill my should-do list. Chores can wait, because this developing story hits harder than anything on my list. Before the dispatcher switches to a secured line that my scanner can’t access, I hear the address. My laptop is open faster than bullets fired from one hand, but entering two heads.
        Who needs a Fairy Godmother when you have Google Maps? I type out the address and take a deep breath. Exhale. Another. I think about what this feeling of excitement says about me. Exhale……. I don’t want people to die. Inhale. I’m not that far lapsed as a recovering Catholic. I think I am a good person because…don’t we all? Justify all the way to rock bottom, I guess. I press return as I exhale.
        Curb appeal oozes out from between the keys like grape juice, clinging to my fingers as I explore. Oh, I can tell what sort of neighborhood this is. Schadenfreude takes over as I drag and drop the yellow figure to begin Street View. The gray colonial is beautiful and well-taken care of. Dozens of large orange pumpkins line the walkway. I imagine the basement, comparing it to the one I currently inhabit. If I could see a cross section of this adult-sized castle, what would I see? I click the transparent arrows on the street until I have a view of the garage and sliding patio doors. Doors that as of 10 minutes ago, were battered open by SWAT.
        I consider my next move. I will look up the owners on the county property site. Once I have names, I’ll Google them. Obviously next is criminal records on the UJS Portal and, of course, you can’t forget Instagram and Facebook. That’s when I see it. Between dentless garage doors that probably go up and down like mine don’t, I see a large flag showing a profile of a Dalmatian. Underneath in bold red is her name. ALICE. 
        I imagine Alice on a recent Friday night, lying at their feet as they watch a movie in the finished basement. When SWAT barreled in, did she run? Is she the sole witness to the crime? Maybe she got her paws messy in the warm puddle seeping out from under the bathroom door. Why do I feel worse for the dog than I do her owners who just lost their lives?
        I look down at the warm puddle of purr in my lap and feel a clunk on the back of my head. It’s not unlike the kind my dad would offer when my brother and I would do something utterly boneheaded. It wasn’t ever hard enough to physically hurt but to this day I’m still recovering from the shame reverb. It resurfaces to check I’m still human and not yet a ghost sentenced to eternity in a stranger’s dingy basement.

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        Clouds shift and sunlight beams through the south-facing glass block windows. The sleepy boy in my lap lifts his head and focuses somewhere far away and behind me. 
        “Yeah, buddy. I felt it too.” 
        The storm has passed and it’s time to feed the dogs. 
        “Let’s go upstairs. While we still can.”