The Curtain Mystery

In my youth, the old man in the corner house on my block never opened his curtains. All the kids in the neighborhood feared him, his dark, scary house and, most of all, his hermit ways. What went on behind those closed curtains was the subject of great speculation and a topic of many a lazy summer afternoon conversation in Mulberry Grove, Illinois.

After I grew up and met people from other towns, I found out that our Mr. Dogeater, as we called him (I suppose it’s not hard to guess what was the most purveyed myth about what happened behind the closed curtains), was not a unique character. Every town has at least one Mr. Dogeater. Larger towns probably have several.

I often think of Mr. Dogeater – his actual surname may have been Glowaski – when I open my blinds to welcome a new day. I never found out why he refused to open his curtains. Mr. Dogeater died when I was twelve, taking his secret to the grave with him. The mystery still haunts me. Well, maybe it doesn’t haunt me, or trouble me, or even give me pause, but it does make me say ‘hmm’.

One part of the curtain mystery may have been revealed to me recently. I was hard at work writing my next critically acclaimed short story, in my usual fashion of staring out the window and wondering if I would ever complete the story and, if I did, if anyone would ever publish it, when two cute little girls suddenly caught my attention.

I recognized the girls because their mother is a worker at one of the nearby outdoor restaurants that I frequent. Manila, like most cities in the Philippines, is replete with outdoor restaurants that resemble a carnival booth. The booths have a foldout ledge for the patrons to eat on. Some even have a chair or two. The children’s mother, as is the case with most Filipinos, can’t afford day care, so she brings the children, who are on summer break from school, to work with her.

I took notice of the five-year-old and seven-year-old girls when the youngest one was hanging from the gate of the vacant lot across the street from my apartment. She had scaled the gate and was on her way into the lot under the watchful eye of her elder sister. After landing unharmed, she pulled her pants down and squatted in front of the gate. Her sister then walked away.

Ninety eight percent of the lot is shielded from the view of anyone on the street, but not those in adjacent buildings, by a combination of buildings and tall tin walls. The only area visible to pedestrians is just behind the wire mesh fence, the area in which the little girl was now squatting in full view of all passersby.

I was watching the scene play out, wondering why she would choose the public viewing area as the place in which to take care of her business, when I suddenly noticed something dangling from the young lass. No, she wasn’t! She couldn’t be! She then jiggled a bit in a side-to-side motion and the dangling particle dropped to the ground. She was! At the moment of impact, she rose from her crouching position and began scouring the lot for what I assumed to be cleaning material. I assumed correctly. She located a piece of paper from a nearby pile of trash, swept it through the dirty region and pulled up her shorts.

Her business complete, she scaled the fence and went back to be with her mother. I closed my curtains.