I language,” the video said, “tell the offender how you feel.” The subject was sexual harassment. Then violence in the workplace, a black guy and a white guy squaring off in a warehouse. This got an audience, and some of them looked and sounded like men I’d known but hadn’t wanted to.
Out front a battered rusty van pulled up and people were spilling noisily out before it had fully stopped. If they’d been racking parts, they were bent and dusty from it. Some went into the agency, some went into the bar next door, picking up speed. A sign said they cashed checks in there.
There was another agency across the street. The lights were out and the door was locked. I saw a couple of chairs inside, then just myself. A sheet of paper in the glass told you when the door would open. In Magic Marker it asked that you not wait around outside. There’d been complaints.
Across the street a bottle broke and let out laughter. I blinked and ground sand against my eyeballs. Tasted my mouth. If I was going to come back an hour before any shift I’d need some real sleep. The Magic Marker said two kinds of ID.
On the way back I passed a Burger King. I stopped, kept going, stopped, turned and went inside. Everyone was having it their way. All you had to do was push the little pictures on the register, but the only buttons on the customers were the wrong ones. Someone wanted the seeds scraped off his bun.
“I didn’t order any hair with my burger,” a woman was saying at the counter. I got an application and left.
I thought about going to the library—I’d developed the habit of reading while I was away—but I remembered where it was and today it was still too far.
Back at the Avenue a heavyset man was complaining at the lobby desk. Someone was in his parking space.
“There are no assigned spaces,” Mrs. Ivy said in monotone. “First come first serve, this is a recording.” I turned my back and faced the elevators.
“Are you in my space?” the man said loudly.
“He doesn’t have a car.”
I rode up to my floor and went down the hall. My hand was still shaking when I slid the key into the lock. Maybe it was the coffee. If I couldn’t sleep there was always fast food, or the library—or tomorrow, just not a lot of it. I turned the key the wrong way and it broke off in the lock. Suddenly it had been a long day and that felt like the end of it.
I felt sweat beading on my scalp, leaned my forehead against the door. I could lie on the floor and close my eyes. It would turn into a sidewalk beneath me. A trash can appeared, smoke rose out of it. I took some deep breaths and when I felt steadier I went back down to the lobby. Mrs. Ivy waited without looking at me. A sign on the front of the desk said TEN DOLLARS FOR NEW KEYS. NO EXCEPTIONS. She looked up.
I told her I hadn’t gotten any phone books. She said she’d take care of it and let me use hers. I looked through it, found something, went back up to my door.
I knelt down. You could see it stuck there in the keyhole, protruding slightly but not enough for me to grab. I reached in my pocket and felt the broken half still on its chain, then the chain, then the imitation Swiss Army knife from the kid at the Greyhound station.
I couldn’t pry the rest of the key out with the blade. There was a tiny pair of tweezers I tried then and it came out easily. I put the two pieces of key together in their own pocket. They clinked together like coins.
The shop wasn’t far, a block up and a block over in what had been designated a Historic District. A large black-brick building loomed next door with crenelated towers and a banner that said NOW RENTING. SECTION 8 WELCOME. On the other side a blood bank. The building across the street looked like it should have been condemned and maybe it was, but there were people in the windows and maybe they were, too. A deli store. Salvation Army. Brownstones. Some kind of urban development association with a big sign out front on a crew-cut lawn. A ragged woman came out of nowhere, hiked up her skirt and squatted behind the sign. She looked at a newspaper, then tore off a piece.
There was a safe in the window. Locks installed in cut-out door sections.
I went in and the door chimed. There was no one at the counter, no one else in the store. Someone called out from the back, a girl’s voice. She would be right with me. I looked around, at what hung above the counter, what was on the walls, but I wasn’t seeing it yet. The windows were dirty. I smelled dust.
“Can I help you?” She stood behind the counter, looking pressed. It wasn’t easy. I had to put it together . . . if she could copy one. Broken.
“Sure,” she said. “If it’s not all . . .” She made a face, held out her hand. She had a warm scratchy voice, almost a kid’s voice, the kind that called people sweetheart and honey, but she was pressed. I gave her the pieces and she held them together. “No problem.”
The walls that formed the corner behind her bristled with tiny hooks and on the hooks were hundreds of them, thousands, maybe, and I was close enough to see that they were all blanks, possibles, the edges straight and uncut. But the one she took came from a box on the counter.
“Kwikset,” she said. “Very common type.” She slipped on a pair of goggles, turned her back to me and put the pieces into a machine. There were a couple of stools in front of the counter but I kept standing. I couldn’t tell what she was doing but I watched her arms move. I watched all of her.
A high-pitched grinding you felt in your teeth. You could smell it. The door opened and a man walked in holding a newspaper. He sat down on one of the stools, unfolded the paper and covered his face with it. The dusty light crept toward him.
The girl switched the machine off. She blew on the key and inspected it briefly. The goggles sat on top of her head. She and the man with the paper ignored each other.
“A dollar forty-nine,” she said. When she gave me my change I asked her if she was a locksmith. The man made a sound.
“I keep the books,” she said. “I just help out up front as needed.” She hooked her fingers around the last two words. The newspaper rattled.
“You guys looking for help?” I asked. She didn’t answer, she was doing something with the register. I said it again, louder. Asked if they were looking for someone.
She looked at me. “Help?” she said. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe . . . I think he might have mentioned something.”
The man behind the newspaper said, “He did say something.” She went on like he hadn’t spoken. “He’s just so disorganized—especially lately. I mean you wouldn’t believe.” Just no time to take out an ad or anything.
“Could I fill out an app—” It got tricky again, a bubble of spit sealed everything in. I slowed down: or were they looking for . . . ex-per-i-ence? Someone with?
I had history but no experience.
“I’m not sure.” She held her chin. “I know we need somebody. I think he’s just looking for help right now.” Raised a finger. “One second.”
She went back in the back. The man on the stool read his paper. Locks hung from the walls in plastic packages, by themselves or in doorknobs or levers. Outside a man walking by the storefront, spooning lunch into his mouth from a tray under his chin. The light pushing harder through the dirty glass, the blanks behind the
