On Keys

On Keys

By Ashton Goggans

The Hasidic men that work at my apartment building have walked by me four times. They have seen me; I am wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and one sock and am curled up in the hallway on a discarded couch right in front of the office. They have seen me. I know they have. The office is on the same floor as my apartment--I have to walk past it to get to my apartment and every day for the first two-weeks that I was here I waved to the men with curly sideburns wearing funny hats. They never returned the gesture and so I stopped.

I have tried to sleep for three hours now but each time I am interrupted by doors opening and closing—taunting me.

“Why are you here?” A voice asked, pulling me yet again from sleep.

“uh, I’m locked out.” I said.

He returned inside the building and I could feel the warm air float out of the room and brush against my exposed left foot. He returned again a minute later, this time holding a cup of coffee. The steam rose from the cup and got lost in his beard as he lifted the cup to his lips.

“Where is the Super?”

“I called him. He said he’s in New Jersey.”

“And your roommates?”

“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of them.”

“I feel bad for you.” He said, and walked back into the office.

I grew up in a town that didn’t lock its doors. It could have, but didn’t have to. I never had a key to my house—ever. When we went on vacations we locked the front doors from the inside and my Dad climbed out the back window. He was the mailman, a rural carrier, and had been for twenty-five years before I moved to New York. I had run a skateboard park whose doors required a bundle of keys and never got comfortable with them; I lost them regularly and ended up finding a good hiding spot in the bushes by the front door to leave them. I had given up on my car keys some time ago, opting to risk leaving the keys in the ignition than carry them. I never had a keychain and found them odd gifts to give. They are intended to organize, and improve the appearance of, what amounts to nothing more than a jangling mass of distrust.

Then I moved to New York. I found an apartment with two girls from local art schools to live with. I did not bring a car to the city and was happy to not worry about it—parking tickets, gas prices, keys. However, the day after I moved in my roommate knocked on the door to see if I was in. She came in the room and handed me a bundle of keys. I took the jangling mass and marveled at its size. She began to explain them to me, one by one: “This one’s for the front of the building, you have to punch in a code too, it’s ****. This one is for the elevator to get up; it only works for the 5^th floor though. This one is for the front door’s top deadbolt. This one’s for the bottom deadbolt. And this one opens the door. Got it?” I exhaled the breath that I had been holding, “Got it.”

The next day I bought a keychain. It was not one of my best moments. The keychain looked like what climbers use when ascending cliffs, but it read very clearly “Not For Hanging”. It clipped to my belt loop allowing my keys to stuff into my back pocket. Luckily my Dad had informed me that the best way to keep from getting my wallet stolen was to keep it in my front pocket so there was plenty of room for the urchin of security; had both items been in there, my already bulbous ass would have crossed the line into absurdity.

Not a day went by that I didn’t have brief, unsightly, panic attacks the moment that I did not feel the bundle stabbing me in the ass-cheek. It was terrible. Add this to the stress of moving from the rural Gulf Coast of Florida to New York City and I was on the verge of a meltdown. However, curled up in a ball, my arms tucked into my t-shirt for warmth, with one sock on, in the middle of January, I was relieved to not have the vicious ball of faithless inhumanity in my pocket.