Shutters

Shutters

Eyes narrow, brow furrowed, head slightly down, and arms folded she steamed down the sidewalk. The small crowd of twenty-something men all stared as she came closer following the sidewalk that they blocked so obliviously. As she got about fifty feet away she stepped out into the street to go around them. That’s when the words came. “Hey baby. Where you goin’?” “Damn, honey, you fine.” “Ain’t she though?” She rolled her eyes and kept the same pace past the moronically catcalling bunch.

After many such occurrences during her teenage and now adult life, she had learned to have a hard, unapproachable stature in an effort to ward off the aggressive, disrespectful and hormone charged men that she inevitably had to encounter. Alone or in groups they had no problem yelling out invitations and what they considered compliments. Of course, it was much worse when it was a group. There seemed to be a competition between them to see who could get her attention and break her stride. Sometimes they would even run up beside her and start talking, so close sometimes she could smell the cheap cologne. She refused to respond, never wanting to give them the satisfaction after treating her that way.

The problem with her developed defensive technique was that it didn’t work. The buffoons continued to eye her and call out obscene gestures no matter how mean she felt she looked. To them, she looked like a collection of parts that was such a magnificent development that if they did get her attention it would mean bragging rights for weeks. Her dark hair and smooth tanned skin framed and encased a face and body that anyone, including the jealous women at her office would call stunning. What they all wondered though was why she never had a boyfriend. They never heard her talk about dating anyone. They would speculate and make jokes that she was a lesbian. She knew that’s what some thought, but it didn’t bother her. She felt that was no reason to feel shame.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to date. She craved companionship and good conversation. She wanted to feel the warmth of a man’s touch against her skin, to feel held and cared for by someone she trusted. She tried going to bars and clubs, but she encountered the same sort of purposefully one-sided conversation and bad lines that she did walking down the street. It seemed to her that everyone had lost their minds after the age of twelve.

To fill the void created by her lack of human company, she volunteered. On Saturdays twice a month, she would go to the animal shelter and volunteer to bath the dogs and cats that had been picked up that week. The cute little fur balls, looking frazzled after a good lather would shake and wiggle once she let them go, getting her wet from belly to toe. In the afternoon she would sit with a few of the no longer musty dogs individually playing and cuddling with them so that they would learn to trust people and become good pets for another affection-deficient individual.

The other weekends of the month she volunteered to have calls routed to her phone from a poison hotline. She was comfortable with this human interaction, because she couldn’t be seen. No one ever ogled her through the telephone line while frantically trying to determine if there son was going to die from drinking a pint of paint thinner that had been diluted by white paint. “He thought it was milk! Should I make him puke? Ugh, too late.” In a calming voice she would tell them exactly what to do. She felt good about herself for helping, for making someone’s discomfort dissipate.

On the corner near her building was a small bookstore that she sometimes visited. She would buy a coffee from the little café next door and browse until she found a cover that caught her attention. She wouldn’t pick one up or read the jacket liner unless it pulled a particular reaction from her when she read the title and saw the cover art. Unless she let out an audible “Ooh!” she wasn’t even bothering with it.

On one such occasion, she picked up a book with a picture of a woman from the waste down wearing striped red and white stockings to her knees, a pleated skirt and fabulous shoes. The title evoked a warm happy feeling too. With a deep breath, inhaling the oddly pleasant aroma of old paper, she headed straight for the cash register. There was a guy behind the counter with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye happily waiting on a man in his fifties who was buying a couple of plastic wrapped magazines. She knew what was coming, so she put away her excitement and put on her “don’t talk to me” expression. When the man reached to put his wallet back in his pocket he caught a glimpse of her, which gave him a bit of a start. He turned and said, “My! Aren’t you a pretty young thing?” Without waiting for a reply, he turned for the door. “I guess they never grow out of it,” she thought.

She placed the book on the counter, not looking at the attendant, who said, “Good morning,” so pleasantly that it took her by surprise. “Oh, good choice! I really enjoyed that one. When the cover and title are germane to the content, it makes the first few pages so much more satisfying. Don’t you agree?”

She felt her guarded posture begin to release. She looked up thinking about what he’d said. A few seconds passed before she responded, well past the normal time for a person to respond. “You know, I’ve never really thought about that.”

“It’s just that I feel when the title seems bright and cheery and the words on the pages seem dark and ominous it’s completely confusing.”

“That really does make a lot of sense. The last book I read was like that,” she said nodding her head and contorting her mouth to show that she was truly considering it. She unfolded her arms and picked up a magnet from a stack on the counter. It read, “A book is a window into the mind of the author. Please open your shutters.” She let out a short laugh. She could sense that it made the cashier smile and looked up to see it.

As she walked toward the door with new book in hand, she felt open, unassuming. It was nice to be able to laugh in public. She looked back at the cashier and said, “Have a great day!” They both smiled as she pushed through the double glass doors into the white light of the day.