I opened the door for the locksmith. Possibly mid-sixties. Lint-colored spirals protruding out from under his snapped-brimmed cap. Trach tube in his neck. He inhaled deeply and put a finger to his esophagus. “I’m here to open your safe,” he garbled. Self-satisfied with benevolence, I allowed him into my home.

Graciously, I introduced to him my twenty-year-old son on the couch. We approached the staircase and the locksmith remarked, “You don’t look old enough to have a son that age.” The ease of which the comment slipped from his throat led me to believe this was his customary compliment, burnished to a glassy slipperiness from years of smooth talking. My kindheartedness was now mixed with a marginal depression over my apparent elderly allure. Arm candy at the senior center was not how I pictured my reentry into the dating realm.

The locksmith and I continued up the stairs, through my bedroom, and into the closet to my safe. He assessed my vain attempt at security and slowly revealed his tools. They were wrapped in a leather pouch, similar to a set of chef’s knives. “Why don’t you sit down beside me?” he asked. I obliged, anticipating the innocuous gestures of a man penetrating senile territory. He took another copious breath and plugged the medicinal hole in his gullet.“Are you single?” he inquired. His lack of conventionality was unexpected. Men customarily demonstrate their exceptional endowments and household worth as a prelude to the courtship dance: “See how virile I am? I just fixed your dishwasher, painted your bathroom, laid a floor! Any pipes needing unclogging?” His presentation of implements reminded me of the dentist in “Marathon Man.”

“Is this the safe?” he rasped, startling me. I said yes and explained I had lost the key and needed it opened. The locksmith probed about my marital status once more and I announced I was widowed. He mumbled with mock empathy that I was too young to be alone and needed to enjoy the companionship of men. The tone of his guttural cajoling unnerved me and episodes hoarded in the alcoves of my memory flooded in: The trip when I was twelve, alone on a Greyhound bus and the oily man sat beside me, trapping me by the window. He left his hand on my thigh for the entire ninety-minute ride as he queried me with calm eeriness. The incident that happened in my early twenties as I strolled alone down a residential side street. A gentleman in a parked car asked for directions and I naively strode over to answer. He was midway through his jack off.

Treading through my rip current of alarm, I informed the locksmith I wasn’t ready to date and the conversation was making me uncomfortable. He put forth a counterfeit apology. The safe had yet to be inspected.

When he finally displayed his expertise and cracked the safe, I requested a pair of keys. He went outside to get the supplementary mechanisms needed to craft the small devices. “I could take him,” I calculated. He’s slighter than me and obviously unwell. Plus, my college athlete son was just in the next room. Weapons, however, would alter the dynamic. Channeling my finest Olivia Benson, I peered out my door to commit his van to memory: boxy, white, plain, no markings. Archetypal abduction vehicle.

I contemplated the consequences of ending the service at that moment, weighing the acceptable balance of necessity to trepidation. The imprudent desire to have my valuables secure tipped the scales. We proceeded upstairs once more, taking my son with us.

My unsuspecting child and I reviewed the contents of the safe while the locksmith crafted the keys. My son later confessed he thought I requested his company to protect our family fortune: birth certificates, jewelry, spare cash and his father’s most precious baseball cards. He still viewed me with elementary innocence and wasn’t accustomed to observing his mother fend off suitors. The keys were completed without further incident and we escorted the locksmith down the stairs.

He went out to his utility van to get the invoice. “What was the price I was willing to pay to secure his departure?” I wondered. He reentered, presented the bill for his indecorous service, and asked to see me again. I marveled that he could completely disregard the stench of anxiety spewing from my every pore. Or maybe he perceived it as a pheromone? “Ballsy,” I silently diagnosed and then expounded once more that I wasn’t inclined to begin dating. He continued the inquisition undaunted, requesting a favorable Yelp review. “Absolutely no f’n’ way,” I pronounced privately. I informed the locksmith I would. The gentleman relentlessly advanced his offensive surge as I compensated him for my afternoon of apprehension: “Can I call you in a couple weeks? Will you be ready then?”

The trembling surfaced as I secured the door.

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Originally published in @HumanParts @Medium.com