A Brief History

Five years old: Accusations by Alison's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Lee, that she is not talking to the other children during block play.

Seven: After writing the incorrect answer to an arithmetic problem on the blackboard in front of her second grade class, Alison is approached by her stiff and shriveled teacher. Silently her bony hands grip Alison's shoulders for a good disciplinary shake in front of the class.


Eleven: Alison develops a crush on the swarthy, curly haired, raspy voiced Italian boy playing Dr. Doolittle in the school play. He notices her owl character enough to walk her home from school one day. Around the same time, Alison's fifth grade teacher responds to chaotic classroom behavior by ordering everyone to sit quietly and write an essay. The following day Alison feels a little proud as the teacher reads aloud her essay on “Why It's Important to be Quiet in Class” as an example to the other students.

Twelve: After her performance as an animal who can talk to a cute Dr. Doolittle and plus recognition as a competent essay writer, droplets of confidence begin to form like dew on the window to Alison's self awareness. Her dad changes jobs and moves the family to a new town where Alison vows to be a louder person. After the first week, the new classmates ask her why she never talks. She responds by sitting at the lunch table with the fat girl who regularly placates her devoted hecklers by handing out an endless supply of candy from her patten leather purse.

Thirteen: By the time Alison reaches eighth grade she has collected an entire lunch table of people with whom she can talk without wondering what they think of her. Peggy Lee, who is not related to Alison's kindergarten teacher as far as Alison knows, blows down Alison's house of cards.

“Look where I have to sit,” she whines while emphatically pointing to Alison's lunch table after being separated from her friends for misbehaving.

When Alison tells her parents about the lunch table incident at the dinner table, they try to encourage her to hate Peggy Lee but Alison doesn't hate her. She envies her ability to be popular and misbehave. She envies her so much that Alison's parents threaten to move the family again. This time they would move from the corrupt state of New Jersey to the innocent state of Iowa where Alison would have the opportunity to attend high school with farm boys and girls.

Instead of vowing to become a louder person, Alison forms a club for shy people.

During club meetings, talking is optional. You have the choice of either talking or writing notes on the slips of note paper in use before shy people discover email and social networking. Alison is mostly happy with her high school club yet she finds herself dreaming of the swarthy Italian boy who played Dr. Doolittle in the sixth grade play. It was so easy to slip into another character; a talking animal who could speak in front of an audience and wear a brown leotard that made her arms and legs feel graceful while her torso was covered by a pillow case covered in construction paper feathers. She was really pleased when Dr. Doolittle walked her home that time after play practice without any ulterior motives as some of the boys on her street who had, after saying mean things that made her feel vulnerable, pushed her into scratchy bushes and laughed.

Alison graduates from high school and attends the University of Iowa where a group of two thousand quiet students plan monthly shy peoples protests such as infiltrating the downtown bars after the biggest football game of the year. The shy students keep the bars hopping with orders of tea, soda and pizza while the beer revelers, furious with celebration after the University of Iowa beats Iowa Sate, wait impatiently for tables. During this protest Alison meets a film student named George by stepping on his foot as she backs into a dark corner table.

“I didn't see you there,” Alison said to the man with dark curly hair hiding behind his camera.

“No one every does.”

“Are you invisible?”

“I try to be.”

“Why?”

At this point George sits down at the dark table, orders a ginger ale and tells Alison about his goal to be a documentary film maker. He's created a list possibilities for filming people without being noticed.

Georges list:

dark corners of restaurants and bars

the back of a bus

the back row of a balcony

a sidewalk in broad daylight during bad weather

anywhere during a rock concert

sometimes in a crowded elevator

in bumper to bumper traffic

New York City during rush hour on the street or the subway

in the University library during exams



“Why not under a table, behind a recliner or from inside a closet?” Alison twilled her elbow length wavy hair around her finger.

“You don't want to get caught hiding. The point is not to hide so your not doing anything unacceptable.”

“Nothing that would make you stand out.”

“You've got it.”

“What do you do with the footage?”

That evening George showed Alison how to find little treasures of conversation snippets from a tape, shot earlier that day, of students smashed into a dorm room and spilling out into the hallway for a keg party. There was a keg leak and two inch beer flood on the linoleum floor covering people's feet.

“They don't even notice,” Alison looks at George.

“Don't you know that you're supposed to get so drunk after a big football game that you don't know the difference between dry feet and beer soaked feet?”

“I prefer being in control of my feet.” Alison is reminded of how much she liked her brown footed owl costume dancer tights.

“You can be in control of everything. All you need is a camera and editing machine.”

“Do you need an assistant?”



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