Who steals their smiles?

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

In pictures they're smiling. Check out the magazines. Notice the ads. Look at the pretty girl with the good-looking guy - no worry on her face, only a smile.

On TV it's the same, and in movies. Smiles, smiles everywhere. Everyone is grinning. Everyone is cheerful. Everyone is having a good time. This is what we are supposed to be doing - smiling, connecting, enjoying life.

But on the city streets there are few smiles. From Harrison Avenue to Federal Street, last Friday afternoon I saw just one. The smile belonged to a child. She was holding her mother's hand and as she passed, I smiled and so did she.

Life in that instant felt grand.

But before and after?

It was all reserve and distance and apprehension. It was life behind invisible bars: Lock your car. Lock your heart. Don't stare. Don't make eye contact. Walk purposefully.

A child should not smile at a stranger because strangers hurt children. A stranger can grab them from their mother's arms. A stranger can steal them from school, pull them from cars, even come into their homes. Ignore strangers, mothers warn.

Don't trust anyone, parents say.

A girl cannot smile at a boy, because what would he think? What would he do? A woman cannot smile at a man because the man might be crazy, might have a knife or a gun or friends around the corner. Keep your eyes on the ground when you walk past. Pretend he's not there. Pretend you're not afraid.

A man should not smile at anyone. Why smile? What's there to smile about? Keep your distance. Don't bother with anyone and no one will bother with you.

How did we get this way?

Look at babies in their cribs. They trust. They smile. They reach out.

So what happens to them? Who steals their smiles? Who furrows their brows and narrows their eyes and clenches their hands and hardens their hearts?

In a ladies room a young woman scolds her daughter, who is not more than 3. "You're a pain in the ass, more trouble than you're worth. You wreck everything. I should just leave you here. I'm sick of you anyway."

The child says nothing. She stares up at her mother with sad, round eyes.

At a McDonalds, a boy about 9 is carrying Coke and french fries out the door. An older kid coming in slams the door in the younger boy's face and his Coke and french fries spill. The older kid laughs. The boy looks as if he's about to cry. But he doesn't. He picks up what's left of his Coke, leaves the french fries on the ground and walks away.

A young man's car breaks down and another young man stops to help him - and robs him. A woman's best friend betrays her. A man walks out on his family. Someone is shot on a busy street - the papers call it a random killing. Someone is raped. Someone is beaten.

Little by little people - strangers, family and friends - wound and disillusion us. And little by little the infant we were grows into an adult who is afraid to trust.

"What's your name?" a small child will ask another child at a playground. "Wanna play?" and the pair will connect.

But a few years later, these same children will approach each other as warily as stray dogs, and a few decades later they will walk past each other on a city street, eyes on the ground, too alienated and too distrustful to smile or say hello.

From trust to suspicion. The smiles that came so easily, that were once automatic, are seen mostly in pictures now, in staged poses, while on the streets and in the world we walk with our eyes down and pretend indifference to hide our fear.