Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

When I got to the house, I went right around to the back, picked up the shovel, and got to work. The hole was getting close to a decent-sized kiddie pool now. I hadn’t even started the deep end yet, but hell, I wasn’t thinking about that today. I looked around for Amelia. She was nowhere to be seen.

I’ve scared her away. The whole thing was just so wrong and so stupid. I might as well just beat myself to death with this shovel right now.

I had to live with all these crazy thoughts for the next four hours. Another hot day, another half ton of dirt to move into the woods. I still don’t know how I got through it. When four o’clock came, I dragged myself to the car. This is it, I was thinking. I won’t last one more day here.

When I opened the door to the car, I stood there for a moment, not quite sure what I was looking at. There was an envelope on the driver’s seat. It was the envelope I had left in Amelia’s bedroom. I picked it up as I sat down behind the wheel. I held it for a moment. My heart was pounding. Then I opened the envelope.

It was my comic strip. Obviously a big “No, thank you” here. Return to sender. Your submission does not fit our needs at this time.

But wait, there was something more. A second page in the envelope. I pulled it out and looked at it. Another comic strip? More panels?

Yes. That’s exactly what it was.

Amelia had drawn page two.

Now, I don’t have to have it with me, all these years later, to tell you exactly how it went. I can close my eyes and see it again, panel by panel. Every little detail. She was a better artist than I was, that was the first thing I noticed. Maybe not in a technical sense, but in this medium especially, she had a natural ability to reduce everything down to its essentials without losing anything. Just simple, clean lines. Her face. My face. The shovel across my shoulder, one hand resting on the handle.

Her first panel was herself standing on the edge of the hole, saying, “You’d have to drop the act first.” Her exact parting words to me that day, which I had left out. Second panel, her walking away. Anger on her face. A dark cartoon squiggle in the air over her head.

Third panel, her inside the house. The dreaded Zeke, sitting in front of the TV with a bottle in his hand. His hair swung around his neck and hanging down to his chest. “What’s the matter?” he says. Amelia responding, “Nothing.”

Close up on Amelia. Zeke’s words coming from off-frame. “I think we should go to that showing tonight. Linda is so cool and I think she’s got so much talent and if we get there by,” and then the words disappearing behind Amelia’s head. She’s ignoring him completely, her own thought bubble reading, “Maybe I’m being too hard on him.” Him being me.

Next panel, more words coming at her from off-frame. “Are you even listening to me? What the hell’s wrong with you today?” Amelia standing up now, looking out the window, thinking, “We’re not so different, right? If he can talk to anybody , it should be me.”

Last panel, me as seen through the window. I’m bent over, picking up a load of dirt with the shovel. Amelia’s thoughts at the bottom of the panel. “Why does it bother me so much that he won’t?”

End of page. I sat there looking at it for a long time. Finally I looked up and saw Mr. Marsh staring at me from the front porch. I put the car in reverse, backed out of the driveway, and took off.

When I got home, I laid Amelia’s page out on my desk, studied it and read it over a dozen more times, still not quite believing it was real. Then I put it aside and got busy with page three.

Okay, what to do here… Maybe go to the second day I was there at the house. I wrote “The next day…” in the upper left-hand corner. What did she say that day? She told me I was wasting my time digging a pool, that nobody would ever use it. Then she got to the good part. I’ll start there.

So first panel, her watching me again. Wearing shorts and a T-shirt that day. “So are you going to talk today, or what?”

Next panel, me looking up at her.

Third panel. What did she say next? “I’m calling your bluff, okay? I know you can talk if you want to. So say something.”

Here’s where I took out my little pad of paper that day. Wrote down that I really, honestly couldn’t say anything. Gave it to her. That was what happened in real life, anyway. Here on this page, though, I could do anything I wanted to, right? I could make my own alternate reality.

So fourth panel. Me talking. Yes, me actually opening my mouth and saying a word out loud. On paper, it was as easy as drawing a dialogue bubble instead of a thought bubble. My first word after nine years of silence… She said to say something, so I did. “Something.”

Fifth panel. Surprise on her face. “You can talk,” she says.

Sixth panel. My answer. A little smile on my dirt-streaked face? No. No smile. Just the truth. “I can talk to you, Amelia. To you and nobody else.”

I wanted to keep going. I wanted to fill up ten more pages and give them to her, but that wouldn’t be right. It would be like dominating a conversation, something I’d never done, as you can probably guess. No, one page back from me and then it’s her turn again.

I went over the panels and filled in the details, trying to be a little more selective this time. Following Amelia’s example. The time flew by. Then, as I was about to set my alarm, I stopped and thought about what I was doing. You don’t have to break into her house every night, I realized. If you left the envelope in your car, she’d find it.

But then you’d have to wait an extra day. For someone who’s waited his whole life for something like this to happen…

No. Not if she knew to look for the envelope when you first got there every day at noon. She’d have four hours then to draw her own page and give it back to you. Assuming she’s still up for this. So you don’t have to take stupid chances anymore.

I knew it was the right way to play it, but at the same time I was disappointed that the idea made so much sense. That feeling I got when I picked that lock and stepped into that dark kitchen… I’d have to live without it for a while.

The next day finally came. I got to the Marshes’ house a few minutes early. As I got out of the car, I left the envelope on the dashboard, so there’d be no doubt where she could find it. All she’d have to do was look out a front window.

I felt the whole plan unravel when I went around to the back and saw the Lakeland art mafia sitting under the big umbrella again. Zeke was there with Amelia, along with the guy with the bleached-blond spikes and the girl whose hair color today had been switched from cotton candy pink to sour apple green. I did everything I could to ignore them, but I couldn’t help hearing the laughter, along with the unmistakable sound of one of them applauding my arrival.

I attacked the dirt for the next half hour or so. Whenever I dared to sneak a glance, Amelia seemed to be doing a professional job of not making any eye contact whatsoever. Finally, on my second trip back with the wheelbarrow, I noticed she was gone.

Another half hour passed. The remaining threesome kept working on whatever it was they were working on. The laughter faded with each passing minute. I caught Zeke staring at me. After another five minutes or so, he got up and went into the house. Ten minutes after that, he came out and said something to Blondie and Miss Green Hair. The two of them gathered up their things and left. Then Zeke came walking out to me.

“I thought I told you to stay away from her.”

I kept digging. I didn’t even look up.

“I’m talking to you.”

I stopped, cupping my hand to my ear like I was deaf. Then I picked up a shovelful of dirt and threw it into the wheelbarrow.