Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

“It was worth it.”

“I don’t care. You made it out. That’s all that matters.”

A little more slobbering over each other and then he finally kicked us out of the car.

“Hold on,” she said as the car rolled away from us. “If you’re gonna look like that, I need to match.”

She bent over and ran both hands through her hair. When she stood back up straight, her hair was an unruly mess.

“Let’s go, Michael. Excuse me, Mikhail . It’s time for Phase Two.”

Michigan

July 1999

So after failing to open that lock… I didn’t think the day could get any worse.

Then it did.

When I was back to work in my hole, I took the envelope out from under my shirt and put it on the ground under the wheelbarrow. I started digging, throwing the dirt into the wheelbarrow until it was full. I rolled the dirt over to the woods and dumped it. Then I hid the envelope behind a tree.

I had worked for two hours straight under the brutality of the midday sun when I saw Amelia come out of the house. She didn’t come to me. She didn’t come anywhere near me. Instead she stayed on the little back patio, turning a crank on a big umbrella over a table until it was open.

Time for a water break, I thought. A perfect excuse to go over near her, to give her that drawing.

Before I could act, she was gone. Back in the house for a few minutes while I kept digging and watching. When she came back out, there were three other people with her. The dreaded Zeke again, plus one more guy with bleached blond hair done up in spikes, and a girl with hair dyed to look like pink cotton candy. The four of them sat down at the table, laughing and drinking from a big pitcher of ice tea or something. Cool in the shade of the umbrella, young and funny and goddamned perfect. They didn’t seem to notice me there at all, not more than twenty yards away.

I was thirsty as hell by then, but I didn’t dare go near them. I kept digging and trying not to listen to their laughter. When things got quiet, I looked up and saw the blond guy and the cotton candy girl kissing each other. Zeke and Amelia were sitting close now. They weren’t exactly kissing at that moment, but it looked like Zeke was staring into Amelia’s eyes and stroking her hair.

A few more minutes of talking and arguing and laughing, then more silence. I was afraid to look up again. When I finally did, they were all staring at me. No, worse than that, they were drawing me. The Lakeland High School art mafia apparently, all four of them, each with a pad of paper and a pencil. Watching me intently and trying to capture the sight forever. The young convicted juvenile probationer repaying his debt to society and to the family into whose house he had entered illegally. Miserable. Sweaty. Filthy. Barely more than an animal. A beast of burden.

“Don’t stop!” Zeke called to me. “This isn’t supposed to be a still life!”

More laughter.

I started to get dizzy again. The sunlight beating down on me so hard, for so long. I don’t know how I lived through that day. I really don’t.

When it was over, I retrieved my envelope from behind the tree, put it on the top of the pile, and then dumped my last load of dirt on top of it. A fitting burial.

I can’t overstate what that day had done to me. I really can’t. When I was new to the school and feeling like I had absolutely nothing, that was a bad time. But now it wasn’t just a matter of having nothing. It was having nothing and knowing exactly what it was that I didn’t have. What I’d never have. I had seen it in living color that day. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing it for one more minute.

Somehow, it all seemed to come back to that one stupid lock. Like if I had been able to open it, everything would have turned out differently.

Crazy, I know, but I fell asleep with that thought ringing in my head. The lock with the serrated pins. The lock that beat me.

I woke up. I sat straight up in my bed and looked around the dark room.

That’s it, I thought. That’s why I couldn’t open that lock.

I got out of bed and grabbed the first clean clothes I could find. It was just after 2:00 A.M. I rummaged through the things on my desk, found my handmade tools. The pieces of scrap metal bent into the right shapes. I put them in my pocket, grabbed the keys and a flashlight, and sneaked out of the house.

I drove across town on the dark, deserted roads. I had no business being out there, nothing beyond a simple idea so insane I couldn’t even begin to stop myself. I drove all the way to the Marshes’ house, seeing it now in the darkness as I had seen it the very first time. Only now I was alone, and I had a different kind of mission to accomplish.

I parked a good quarter mile away, left the car on the side of the road, and began walking. A regular, normal pace. When I got close to the house, I slipped into the backyard. I made my way back to the tree line, picking up the shovel on the way. I found the last mound of dirt I had made, then pushed the dirt aside, making my way down to where I had buried the envelope.

Careful, I thought. You don’t want to damage it any more than you already have.

When I found the envelope, I picked it up and brushed the dirt off. I stepped behind one of the bigger trees and switched on the flashlight. The envelope looked a little wrinkled, and of course it was dirty as all hell, but it had stayed pretty flat. I opened it and took out the picture and examined it carefully in the thin beam of the flashlight. The corners were a little dinged up. Some of the lines had been rubbed until they were blurry. Overall, though, it didn’t look too bad. Someday I’d have to write a letter to the company who made the envelope and thank them.

Now the tricky part. I turned off the flashlight and made my way to the house. I went to the back door, put my head against the window right next to it, and listened. Last thing I needed was Mr. Marsh standing in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator for a late-night snack.

Nothing. Silence. It was time to do this. I pulled out my tools and got to work on the lock. As I worked over the pins, I started to appreciate how good the locksmith’s tools really were. I would have given anything at that point to have them in my hands. But no, I thought. These will have to do. As long as I have the right idea, these will work.

Serrated pins, that’s what the man had said. If a mushroom pin had one notch, then a serrated pin must have more than one, right? That’s what “serrated” means. So instead of one false set on each pin, there were many. Like what, three? Four? Five?

It was time to find out. I set the back pin, started working my way to the front. All six pins set, go to the back again, set them all again. Here’s where you have to be so careful, just enough tension to keep everything in place. One tiny bit too little and you lose it, one tiny bit too much and you can’t feel it anymore. I worked through the second sets, got to the exact point I had gotten to before, with the locksmith laughing over my shoulder. This time I knew to keep going.

Back pin again, third set. Work my way to the front. Damn, it was like balancing a house of cards. You have to keep going, but it gets harder and harder with each one, and one false move makes it all fall apart.

I got almost to the end of the third sets, lost the tension, and felt the back pins start to give. So hard to keep the front pin set and go back and fix the back. I let the whole thing go, took a deep breath, shook out my hands, and looked around the empty backyard. I heard a motorcycle revving its motor, maybe a half mile away. I started over.

I got into the fourth sets this time, felt them all start to slip again. These amateur tools, I thought. These worthless hunks of scrap metal.