Window Dressing

WINDOW DRESSING
By Gary Starta

Filbert Rupert Whitmore fiddled with the tie hanging loosely around his neck. The blue-colored accessory could not be persuaded to form into a tight knot. Well, at least
not while it was under the guidance of Filbert. Whitmore - who was dubbed wit-less by both his friends and enemies – feared the uniform violation might result in his termination of employment from the Grab & Go grocery store. However, that concern would pale in comparison to the bigger picture that Filbert was busy painting that day. This picture would not be the kind hung in a great museum like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This picture would most likely find itself sandwiched amidst the slap stick type of comedy found on the cartoon channel.
Filbert was not exactly the first man you went to if you wanted the job done right.

Hell, Fil wasn't even the man you would go to as a second choice, come to think of it.
Whitmore didn't have to count on an ill-fitting tie to define his character. His big nose, large-framed eye wear and shoddy bowl-like haircut were quite sufficient, thank you very much. You didn't have to stretch your imagination too far to realize that this visual
exposed Fil to the harsh and heartless ridicule of his peers. Former high school classmates Dan Schoenfield and Arty Vandermark were just two of these peers who would make sure Whitmore got his daily dose of abuse. This unfortunate happenstance caused Fil to become a big believer in fate. Every time he was about to bumble a project or carelessly knock something off of a desk, Dan and Arty were right there to offer sarcastic barbs and shameless smirks. The pair often provided a haunting sort of landscape to the canvas Fil was busy creating. The accident prone Cranburytown native was often involuntarily in the forefront of these life portraits whether they occurred in school or in a public place.
It was 1997 and 24-year-old Filbert Whitmore was once again auditioning for the starring role as the hapless clown. This time his stage was the Grab & Go grocery store.
The picture he was hard at work creating would result in another job termination as well as the howls and shrieks of laughters from onlookers. If this scene were painted, it would be a mural of caution: “Warning - multi-tasking by Filbert Whitmore is hazardous to your health.” Fil's task was to stock the shelves with lemon and lime flavored soda. Little did he know, the fruit-flavored soft drink would again cast him in the lime light.
Fil's boss, Mark Magarro, never felt comfortable leaving his very incapable worker alone. Magarro made Whitmore wear a wireless headset so he could monitor his
employee's actions. The store manager reasoned even a limited form of audio babysitting was better than nothing. Magarro frequently cursed himself for being a
friend of the Whitmore family. This second degree of separation meant Mark was obligated to hire Fil. Magarro theorized - in an vain effort to retain his sanity – that maybe
the boy would just stay on for the summer and then enroll at a college.
But who was Mark kidding? Who was so gifted that they could teach Filbert anything other than science fiction trivia? Whitmore's penchant for rattling off factoids about
Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine were successfully gnawing away at Magarro's stomach lining. “How can he retain so much knowledge about space fantasy and not remember to punch out after his shift?” Magarro would often cry to no one. If Fil were present, he probably would have reminded Magarro that in deep space, no one can hear you scream.
And so it was, be it back in high school or at Grab & Go, Filbert Whitmore retained his title as the screw up. Don and Arty had just finished leering at the pornographic magazines (which Grab & Go kept securely away from their grasp behind the counter) when their attention deficit span kicked in like clock work. “Come on Arty, let's go and see if we can harass Wit-less,” Don suggested while sticking his finger through the plastic casing of a box of Drake's Ding Dongs he had no intentions of paying for. This devious act was caught on the store's surveillance monitor; but Magarro let it go figuring it was not worth the effort to prosecute the hoodlum. This act of fate made it possible for the two boys to once again become the backdrop to Fil's latest piece of work. As Schoenfield and Vandermark rounded the corner of aisle seven, their faces lit up like a fireworks display as they caught Whitmore playing stock boy.

“Hey wit-less, give me a dew,” Arty yelled in reference to the ad campaign of the bottled soft drink Fil was unloading. This interruption startled Filbert who fumbled to retain his grip on the 64-ounce thirst quencher he was about to put on the shelf. Whitmore's penchant for sweating did not aid in him in this endeavor. The bottle slid from Fil's hand and playfully bounced off his foot to the delight of his small, but attentive, audience. Whitmore muffled a groan as he did not want to further enhance the boy's enjoyment of his theatrics. “You always did have a flair for the spas-matic,” Don joked while silently congratulating himself for the clever replacement of the word dramatic in his taunt.
Fighting to regain his composure, the bullied store clerk bent down to open the next carton of bottles. He was just about to stock the next bottle, when he noticed the third shelf was completely filled. He would now have to put the bottles on the top shelf which was slightly out of his reach. Filbert opted to ignore better judgment which came in the form of a small paranoid voice in the back of his mind. The voice urged him to use a step stool for the task. However, another more authoritative sounding voice in Fil's head overrode the logic of the smaller voice. “Be cool, man. Just put your foot on the second shelf and use it to prop yourself up,” the authoritative voice commanded. Fil decided this would be the wisest course of the action if he were to shut the mouths of his detractors.
So without further hesitation, Filbert pounced upon the second shelf with both feet – apparently he did not heed the authoritative voice which only recommended putting one
foot on the shelf – and proceeded to rock the poorly constructed mantel. As the disastrous incident was about to play itself out, the store's intercom system blasted Linda

Ronstadt's version of “Heat Wave.” However, it would have been more appropriate if the song had been entitled “Geek Wave” as Fil's ineptness caused the entire shelf to sway briefly in the opposite direction. The unannounced relocation of the shelves instantaneously evoked a mixture of anger and dismay in one elderly shopper. The shelving then quickly retracted itself to an upright position – but just for one desperately hopeful second. When the second was up, the entire structure began to rock back towards the stunned clerk who fought to support both himself and the shelves contents in one heroic battle against gravity. The battle for supremacy was quick. Gravity had won hands down to the delight of Don and Arty – who just happened to be in the right place at Fil's wrong time. Not only did all the bottles evacuate the shelf like parachuter's from a plane, scores of other unrelated products also fell in a free fall to the ground. As the bottles tumbled upon Whitmore's fallen body, bags of kitty litter, cans of bug spray and containers of anti-freeze competed to produce the loudest din in the aisle. This din was heard by Mark Magarro, who didn't have to speak through a head set to figure out what just went down. When Filbert had completed testing Newton's principle, Magarro chose to lash out in frustration at his fallen employee. “You're fired!,” Mark yelled in a moment of triumphant exaltation. Magarro knew he would have to console Whitmore's parents regarding the termination; but for right now, he would take comfort at ending Fil's reign of terror at Grab & Go. As Magarro turned away from his damaged goods, only one thought flashed through his mind. “What in the name of friendship made me hire a boy who was named after a hazel nut?” And presto, another piece of work in the day and life of Filbert Whitmore had been captured in portrait form via the store's video surveillance

The next five years of Fil's life were essentially carbon copies. Whitmore toiled at many odd jobs, never seeming to find his niche in life. His few comforts were science fiction and music. When he was not polishing his Star Wars figurines, Fil listened to his favorite rock band, Rush. Fil identified with the group's 1980's hit, Subdivisions. A lyric in the song seemed to sum up Whitmore's life: “Be cool or be cast out.” Fil had been cast out of coolville despite his best attempts to gain residency. When he was in his senior year of high school, he parents allowed him to throw a party in his backyard. Fil sported dark sunglasses and a tie dye t-shirt on that day. He wanted to prove to his crush, Andrea Leonard, that he was not going to win the crown of class geek. Fil was just about to approach the girl of his dreams when his mother changed the CD on the stereo system from Metallica to Paula Abdul. Alas, Fil would graduate as class geek with honors as
the genre switch did not soothe the savage beast – or in this case – the savage teenager.
Somehow, the bubble gum sound of a pop icon just can not summon the same amount of courage a young male requires on his first courting attempt.
The year 2003 was not a carbon copy year for Fil. This was the year that Fil found a love interest despite his bumbling ways. Working as a toll booth collector on the Garden State Parkway, Whitmore soon found himself obsessed with the girl who chose his lane every day of the week for six months straight. For the first three months, Fil could only identify this mysterious woman as the girl with the curly auburn hair who drives a gray Nissan Sentra. One day, Fil handed the woman a note along with change. It simply read:
6


“I think you're beautiful.” The woman driver was stunned as no one – not even her parents - dared describe her as beautiful. The woman continued to choose Fil's lane after
she received the note. “Well,” Fil reasoned, “she could always pick another lane or subscribe to EZ Pass (an automatic toll paying system). I guess she is about the only person left on this planet who is not repulsed by me.”
In two more days, the pair finally started to engage in verbal conversations (mating among speechless Neanderthals probably resumed at a quicker pace than this). The woman's name was Catherine O'Brien. “Hey, you've got the same last name as one of my
Star Trek heroes,” Fil proclaimed. Despite this faux pas, Catherine stood her ground and did not run in the opposite direction. Apparently, Ms. O'Brien didn't care if the world saw Fil as a nerd. When Whitmore confronted Catherine as to “what her attraction was to him” (again another social blunder), the thirty-something woman only alluded to seeing
him in another light. Fil did not press his love for further explanation even though he could not quite understand her answer. This prompted Fil to consult with his father, Wallace Whitmore. Wallace simply explained that Catherine meant she could see into the window of Fil's soul. “It's what on the inside that counts regarding the success of a long term relationship. Why look at me and your mother. Together for nearly fifty years and still going strong despite our physically-challenged appearances. So you see, Catherine
likes you, for you. That may be the strongest kind of love. I think you also see something in Catherine the rest of the world may not see. And that's all that counts, son. The pretty hair, the beautiful figure and the vanity that goes with it – all that is just window dressing.”

The next year Catherine and Fil were married.
*
On the planet Delam, the Delamites were pondering just how they could contact the inhabitants of Earth without launching a full scale war. Technologically speaking, the
Delamites were about 500 years more advanced than 21st century Earth. However, their social evolution was another matter. The subject of contacting another species was a very controversial and sensitive subject for this race who had not mastered diplomacy.
The Delamites had found a way to travel great distances over two hundred years ago through the use of a black hole. During this time, they discovered there was intelligent life on Earth. The Delamites utilized the black hole to traverse from their home world in the Andromeda galaxy all to the Milky Way. Like Earth, their planet also rotated around a sun. Also like Earth, two other planets were positioned between their planet and the sun. One of these planets would later be cataloged as the planet Ceres by an Earth astronomer in the 22nd century. That astronomer would pronounce Ceres as the first planet which could sustain human life. Delam could also sustain human life, but this planet could not be detected from Earth because of an anomaly which would later be defined as mirror matter. Debates raged on during this interim as whether a technologically superior race should contact a population that had not even invented air travel. In the late 20th century, the topic of contacting the far away neighbor became heated again when the Delamites discovered satellites and space stations were orbiting Earth. Many Delamites were opposed to contact because wars were still breaking out on their planet. “Why should we be so eager to make new enemies from another galaxy?” one politician argued.

Proponents of contact argued that the use of the black hole made space travel relatively inexpensive. “What have we got to lose?” they argued. Opponents knew lives could be lost. They had studied Earth culture and knew its people could also be warmongers if given the chance. Movies such as Independence Day and War of the Worlds reinforced this paranoia.
The Delamite governments finally agreed to the idea of making first contact stipulating that it must be done covertly. “You must enlighten small groups of people of our intentions. Any attempt to introduce ourselves on a grand scale will surely end in disaster. The Earth videos clearly warn us not to deal with the leaders of their governments. These leaders will either draw weapons upon us or conspire to hide our existence.” Delamite astronauts then went to work on evaluating just who their first contact groups would be.
The astronauts began studying other types of video to try to determine if a less aggressive breed of human existed. Their first glimpses of humanity filled them with despair. The astronauts witnessed countless cases of road rage as they monitored several major highways of the United States. But one film caught the attention of astronaut Bim Sul.
Sul made a soft chortling sound – which was the equivalent to the human chuckle – when he reviewed a transmission taken from a New Jersey toll road. “Who is this individual who keeps dropping the offerings motorists hand to him?” Sul wondered aloud.
This inefficient, but docile-like creature, had peaked Bim's interest. So much so that he
took the image of the human and downloaded it into a data base. He then commanded his
cataloging system to search for any other films containing a likeness of this man.
Lo and behold, there were dozens of these movies thanks to surveillance cameras which
had been positioned at malls, apartment complexes, airports and grocery stores. Bim spotted the same individual on these tapes doing the following: knocking over a product display; ringing the wrong door chime over and over again until an older human female doused him with a container of water; being chased by an angry family at an airport after
he mistakenly took their luggage from baggage claim; and bearing the wrath of a mall employee who didn't take too kindly to the young man who spit out her food product sample. Bim had witnesses some of Filbert Whitmore's finest portraits. But these videos would not be coming out on a DVD collection anytime soon. Only Bim could see something in Fil that the rest of the universe did not – and it was not confined to slap stick comedy. The translation from Delamite to English closely resembled “kind spirit.”
Bim soon located Fil's name in his data base. He would begin his introduction process with this “kind spirit.”
*
Bim took great pains to make himself presentable to the humans. He had the gills – which protruded from his cheeks – surgically removed. Sul urged his comrades to do the same if the mission was to be successful. “We no longer breathe through this apparatus.
If we are to truly evolve on a social scale, we must be willing to part with some of our past.” After much hemming and hawing, the other astronauts consented to the operation.
The astronauts also had to learn to walk like humans. The Delamite's prided themselves on walking with an exaggerated posture. They stood so upright that their faces often appeared to be searching the overhead skies. “We have to learn to walk with our shoulders more hunched and develop a stride that makes our feet appear to shuffle along
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the ground. I've noticed a large segment of the Earth's male population walks with this
gait.” Bim also encouraged his crew mates to undergo a skin pigment treatment so their faces would not reveal their natural blue-colored hue.
Bim and his comrades would begin contacting Fil through the use of telepathy.
“If we start appearing in his dreams, he may feel less shocked when we actually come face to face with him,” Sul reasoned. So after three nights of making guest appearances in Filbert's dreams, the aliens decided the time was ripe for first contact.
“Oh my God!” Filbert screamed as three beings stood at the foot of his bed. Bim, Shala and Org simply walked into Fil's bedroom one night unannounced.
First contact had occurred on Saturday morning, June 18th, 2005 at 10:11 A.M.
“Don't be alarmed my friend,” Bim stated. He then awkwardly held his arms out to try to mimic an Earth welcoming gesture.
“Actually, I'm not so alarmed,” Fil responded. “I'm probably just dreaming of you guys again. I've seen you in my dreams the past three nights. It's probably a result of that
Lexx marathon I had been watching.”
“We are from no dream, or marathon,” Bim said. We are here to convince the people of Earth that the Delamites are here on a peace mission. We would like to interact with your species to enrich both our cultures.”
“You mean you're not here to abduct me?” Fil asked demurely.
“No. We are not here to take you anywhere against your wishes. Actually, there are
beings on my planet who would be less than thrilled to receive alien visitors,” Shala explained.

The sound of a door opening then invaded the room. Catherine was returning to bed after making a trip to the bathroom. “Who are you? Just take what you want and leave!” Catherine shouted at the men she thought were robbers. Bim, Shala and Org shrieked in horror. The female interrogator stood before them with a white creamy substance smeared all over her face and a towel wrapped around her head which resembled a turban.
“Is she your leader?” Bim asked Fil.
“No. But we better terminate this conference,” Fil suggested.
“I'll be baaack,” Bim awkwardly stated trying his best to mimic the actor he had seen in a movie called Terminator.
The three beings then scurried out the open bedroom window like rats evacuating a sinking ship.
“Just who were they? You acted like you knew them?” Catherine charged turning towards Filbert. “No secrets. Remember our wedding vow?”
“I swear I'm not keeping any secrets from you,” Fil retorted. “I think I have unwittingly summoned these beings to our house from all the hours and hours of science fiction I have subjected myself to.”
“Beings?” Catherine asked in disbelief. “I thought maybe they were from your bowling league. Well, at least they weren't here to cause us any harm.”
However, Fil was lost in thought and did not answer his wife.
“They weren't here to do us any harm. Isn't that right, Filbert?” Catherine asked again.
“Right. No harm,” Fil answered tentatively. Right now Fil didn't know what these
strange beings wanted.
*
Two days passed with no further contact. Fil began to reason that the whole event was maybe just a hoax. Maybe Schoenfield and Vandermark paid these guys to show up as alien intruders. “They're just out to mock me because I'm such a science fiction geek,” Fil theorized.
On Tuesday evening, the three beings made another appearance. This time, Catherine was out getting a manicure.
“Can you guys prove you're really these Delamites?” Fil asked. His suspicious tone made his three house guests quite nervous.
“I thought you trusted us, Fil” Bim said. “That's one of the reasons we chose you.”
“Chose me for what?” Fil asked again in disbelief. No one had ever chose Fil for anything. Not even when it came to choosing the softball team in middle school.
“You will be our ambassador. You can spread the word about us. Slowly but surely, your people will come to accept our arrival.”
After a pause, Filbert responded to Bim, “I'm not so sure that's a sound plan. The majority of our population are skeptics. I hear there's even a society. They don't believe in UFOs, crop circles or even the string theory – despite the evidence.”
“Then what do you suggest we do? Abandon the mission?” Bim said with a hint of dejection in his voice.
“Don't set a course back to Delam quite yet, guys. I think I have a plan.”
*

The next night, Bim, Shala and Org joined Fil at his Wednesday night bowling league.
“I've invited you guys here because I trust that you're who you say you are.” Fil spoke in a hushed tone while pondering if the aliens wore bowling shoes back on their home world.
“You mean you don't need to see a scan of our genetic coding? I can assure you it's quite different from yours,” Org stated with conviction.
“No, I don't need your proof. I can see a sort of light inside you guys. I trust you.”
“What is this light you speak of, Filbert? I do not detect such a presence,” Bim inquired.
“It's not a tangible thing. It goes beyond our five perceivable senses. My father explained it to me once concerning my wife's attraction to me. It's what you must find if your mission is to be successful. You have to be able to link with someone on a level which may be invisible to the ordinary sense of perception. Unfortunately, I will not be able to convince an entire planet of your existence; therefore, it is imperative that you learn how to establish this link independently.”
“I think I sort of know what you mean. I could sense that you were a kind person just from watching a video tape of you,” Bim said to Fil.
“Yes, that's what I mean. But I will believe you will have to start convincing the women of Earth of your existence.”
“Why them?” Shala asked anxiously. The alien could not get the menacing image of Catherine out of his head.

“And should we avoid those that have bath towels wrapped around their skulls?” Org asked before Fil could answer Shala.
“In answer to your first question, I believe women have the kindest heart of the human species. I am a living example,” Fil responded. “This wonderful woman named Catherine accepted me into her life – no questions asked. And in response to your second inquiry, I would avoid those women with towels wrapped around their heads. It means they're in the middle of a grooming ritual which you don't want to interrupt – trust me.”
“So if we establish a bond with these woman, you're saying it will be easier to convince the Earth population that we mean them no harm?” Bim asked Fil.
“You'll need to get into a relationship with them. That's the only way they'll really ever trust you. But once you do get a woman to become your girl, she'll go to the ends of the Earth to help you.”
“Well, what are waiting for? Where can we meet these girls?” Shala interrupted.
“Not so fast guys. First, your apparel needs a little fine tuning,” Filbert cautioned.
“Where did you get your clothes, Filbert?” Org asked as if the answer would determine if the universe was infinite.
“Dirt Cheap,” Fil answered. “But that store sells clothing for married people. You will need a type of clothing that will snag a babe. I suggest we take a trip to a designer outlet.”
The next day, the aliens found themselves shopping in a Secaucus strip mall. After four exhausting hours, Fil believed the aliens were finally fit to be boy toys.
“I thought you said physical appearance doesn't really matter,” Shala asked Fil while
admiring his appearance in a store mirror.
“It doesn't in the long run. But initially, the girls still want to see what's under the hood, so to speak,” Fil explained. “Once you break the ice, you can just focus on selling yourself with personality.”
“These hoods and sales you speak of are very foreign to me,” Bim interrupted. “The mating rituals on Delam are quite different.”
“Don't worry, you'll do just fine,” Fil said reassuringly. “And Shala, green is your color.”
*
Fil decided that on line dating services would not fit the bill. “You won't be able to detect that special light over a computer,” Whitmore explained to the chagrin of Shala – who still believed the human female species was quite capable of biting his head off.
“Well, if the only way to do this is face to face, then I suggest we find the area where these human females migrate,” Org said with resignation.
“They don't exactly migrate. Unless you count Ladies' Night at Charms. There you should find many single women congregating,” Fil explained.
The first part of the night was disastrous. The last part of the night was a repeat of the first part. Shala nervously began by approaching a red headed woman who wore a blue low-cut dress and open-toed sandals. “Do you come here often? I don't,” Shala innocently asked. The red head did not want her girls' night out to be desecrated by such a dim-witted creature. “You males are all the same. Just once, maybe you could come up with a more original line. But that would probably involve a being from another universe!” the
red head cried.
Org was next on the chopping block. His tact was to stare down his future mate. Org's wordless approach didn't fare any better. After staring at a petite brunette for five minutes straight, he found his vision had suddenly become obstructed by the approach of a burly six-foot-three club bouncer. “Leave the lady alone, perv. I'm warning you once.
And why are you looking at me like I'm from some other planet!” the bouncer demanded.
Org kept his vow of silence and quickly retreated behind his friend, Bim.
“Well, you're up next,” Fil said to Bim. “Our mission is doomed, Fil. I know you tried your best.”
“Don't give up so easily, my friend. Maybe you can simply ask a girl to dance. They all feel compelled to engage in this activity whenever possible,” Fil said encouragingly.
Bim felt a surge of hope pass through his veins when a voluptuous blonde-haired girl accepted his invitation. However, Bim's interpretation of dance was confined to his experiences on Delam. Bim proceeded to hop up and down like he was on a trampoline.
This bizarre act caused his companion to scurry off the dance floor. Bim then proceeded to make matters worse by trying to rebound from the awkward situation. He quickly asked three girls in succession if they were hot. “Are you hot? I'm looking for a hot girl.”
Bim finally got an answer to his question when one of the girl's boyfriends intervened.
“Yeah, she's hot and she's mine. So buzz off, freak.”
Fil waited for his companions to exit the club before launching into what some football aficionados would call a “half time” speech.
“What were you guys doing out there? Bim, you're not looking for hot girls. You're
looking for a very understanding girl. And Org, you've got to use some dialog. The strong and silent type approach is out. That will just label you as a stalker. Shala, I know you did your best – but maintain eye contact with the girl. You were looking at her feet.”
“The woman on Delam never expose their feet. I could not help indulging myself,” Shala said sheepishly.
“You don't have to explain, Shala. There are plenty of Earth guys who share your enthusiasm for bare feet – it's called a foot fetish.”
“So where do we go from here?” Bim inquired.
“Maybe clubbing is not your style. I know it's not mine. I never left my house on a Friday night until I met Catherine. So to coin an old Earth phrase, “I guess it's the blind leading the blind.”
“Then how do you propose we see?, Org asked Fil innocently.
“I'm at a loss. All I know is that the more you try, the greater the odds are that you'll find your girl. Don't take it too hard, I once had a buddy get a Cosmopolitan poured on his lap by simply saying “Hi” to a girl. I guess women are sometimes a slave to their emotions. You need to make the woman feel good about herself. Then she'll give you the time of day.”
“So you're saying we need to find some cheery, upbeat women?” Bim countered.
“Yeah.” Fil agreed. But deep down he knew this plan was also not foolproof. Whitmore knew better than anybody what it felt like to suffer from low self-esteem.
He finally reasoned that a coffee shop might provide a better hunting ground for his alien friends. “I know a good cup of latte' does a good job at raising my seratonin levels.

Maybe a woman under the influence of a caffeine buzz will be more receptive to your advances.”
Unfortunately, the woman at Cafe' Downtime were only interested in reading their newspapers and scanning their lap top computers.
“Well, gentlemen. I guess it's my way – the highway.” Upon announcing this declaration, Fil found himself being stared at by three alien beings who did not have a clue as to what he was talking about.
*
In the next three months, Fil managed to procure documents which convinced Homeland Security that his three friends were immigrants from the island of Ceylon.
After obtaining their work permits, Bim, Shala and Org applied to the New Jersey State Department of Transportation.
“Keep passing those notes out, gentlemen” Fil advised his three cohorts. As Bim watched a steady procession of vehicles approach his toll booth, he thought to himself, “It's going to take quite a long time to find the right woman.”
However, Fil was not quite as downcast as his three alien friends regarding the overwhelming task. “I have finally find my true calling. It may take a lot of hard work, but I know I can help find a peaceful way to introduce the beings of Delam to this planet.
In a few years time, Filbert Rupert Whitmore would finally find himself in a portrait which would cast a whole new light upon him.

THE END