You hear click, click, click… sounding off tumbler pins engaging and pressing into place as the jagged mountainous edges of your finger-pinched key slide into position. With turn of hand and a ratcheting twist of the dead bolt lock in your front door, you hear a young boy’s voice from the park across the street. Looking over your shoulder, you find an older gentleman and young boy resting on a slatted park-bench near the street-side. Judging by the tender care and patience the man uses with the boy and the boy’s uninhibited respect and admiration for the man, they are undoubtedly grandfather and grandson. “What’s making that noise in your pocket, grandpa, is it your spare change?” “No, son,” grandpa says with a chuckling grin. “I have keys in my pocket.” “Keys… why do you have keys in your pocket, grandpa, I wish they were coins?” You notice the ridged and sharply pointed bulges in grandpa’s front right pant pocket, indicating exiguous stowage space for his ample key collection.
“Look here, son.” Grandpa leans with a twist in his hip to allow his forced hand into his front right pocket, pulling a ring of keys up and into the palm of his hand. Turning, you now face the scene of the two sitting in the park. The young boy earnestly looks to the bundle of keys jingling like an open music box in his grandpa’s lap. He remains quiet and observant as Grandpa wrestles back to comfortable sitting in a manner appreciable by weathered men of similar distinction and age. By now, the boy has forgotten about the belly-ache collection of candy he might buy with the expected coins from his grandfather’s jingly pocket. “Son, take a look.” Sounds of key-note music chime again, as he searches for the right key, shaking his head and tilting with each sifting of the key ring. “Ah, here it is.” Sunshine lights up a magnificent piece of art. You believe it to be a key, as you also realize you have crossed the street, yet uncertain a key could be so interesting and elaborate. A red-ruby sparkles from the blunt end of Grandpa’s key, as he holds it up to better light. “Son, this is a skeleton key.” Grandpa begins to tell the boy about skeleton keys and waves at you to join their seating, having noticed your taken interest. You notice the worn, polished edgings of ornate décor in the handle and along the upper half of the sturdy key’s shaft, well-defined by the deep and dark tarnishing of time wedged between each line. Only by the brilliant golden shine in the polished metal can you recognize the key to be made of heavy brass, or could it be gold? “This key is over one-hundred years old.” At the aggressive end, are four blocky, squared teeth protruding from the length of the shaft, like keys of a grand piano. “My great-grandfather passed this very key down to his son, who gave it to his son and hopefully, some day I will give it to you.” “What’s it for, grandpa?” Grandpa’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. With squinting eyes, he says,” This unlocks a lost treasure chest, far beneath the ocean, where an old pirate ship was wrecked in a great big storm. Waves crashed over its decks like thunder, breaking its wooden planks apart.”
The keys begin to ring some more as grandpa passes the old skeleton key to his grandson’s tiny hands. The little guy realizes how heavy it is a little too late, almost dropping it. “Oh, careful, careful, they don’t make keys like that any more.” Now pinched between the old man’s thumb and finger, you see a peculiar key, different from the skeleton key in the boy’s lap. This key is a bit smaller, but still intricately decorated. “This one goes to my old wooden desk, but the lock doesn’t work anymore.” The teeth could be confused with a black metal clover-leaf jammed into the end of the key’s stemming. Dark finishing on the surfaces of the desk-key are well worn and rounded, discernibly from many years of use and rubbing against wood, pocket lint, dirt and calloused fingertips. “Well, I suppose I don’t have much use for it anymore, anyway.” A set of ten little fingers carefully take hold of grandpa’s desk-key, allowing the boy closer study of its design and his grandpa’s engraved initials on one side of the rounded tail-end.
Grandpa is carefully arranging a collection of five similar keys in his right hand, as if there is certain order to be made in their relation to one another. Not nearly as dated as the previous keys from the pile, this set has a satin machined finish, similar in color to the hazy stretch in the upper portion of a sunset glow on the horizon, where the sky reaches an almost yellow metallic-white before fading blue into midnight. Visible fine scratches spider-web the flat surfaces where they have marked upon one another from the banging of stowage in close proximity, and with lasting impression. “Lot’s of memories behind these things.” Where a pinch on the keys is well-suited, tiny stampings distinguish the five keys, not one the same. Labels reading “1” “2” “3” “4” and “M” are identifiably buffed to a slight depression. Numeric keys are aligned accordingly, left to right in the palm of grandpa’s hand, with the “M” key falling just short of tipping past the edges of his finger tips. The stamped keys are flat as sheet metal in form, appearing hard and as durable as a stainless steel hammer. Each key is thinly grooved thumb to tip and has the expected incongruent geometry defining the cut teeth, which are found to be thinned from the main stock. Miniscule ridges along the flats of the teeth are barely visible to the naked eye under proper direct lighting. The ridges were left behind by sharp cuts of a precision cutting instrument, found to be much harder in material than the softer metals of a freshly toothed key.
“The ‘one’ key.... This one goes to box number one.” The “1” key is held precisely, balanced on point of its toothed end, centering on grandpa’s thumb and steadied by his forefinger atop the upper edge of the broader portion, making the stamped “1” easily visible. “Does that one go to box number two?” The boy’s pointer finger shoots out toward the “2” key still in palm. “Why, yes, Mikey, it does.” Proud laughter bellows out thru the park, as grandpa pats and rubs his grandson’s head. “What’s the ‘M’ box for, grandpa?” More laughter fills the park. “I don’t have a box just for that key.” Exchanging the four keys into his left palm to hold the “M” key in place of the “1” key, and in much the same manner, grandpa explains, “This is a master key. It can unlock all four of the boxes, not just one of them.” The young lad wrinkles his nose in upward confusion. Grandpa further explains, with a quick glance in your direction, “The numbered keys are kept together and unlock their own box. The ‘M’ key is kept in a very safe place in case I lose one of the other four keys.” His right hand shakes, just enough to emphasize its importance.
“What’s in the first box, then?” Grandpa conducts the key ring into tiny, crisp musical notations, looking for his grandson’s answer, and locates a clock key. From a firm fist, the bulky post of the clock key jets upward from grandpa’s fist, held only at its end by his curled index finger. The handle portion is flat and free of decoration other than its form in two rounded shapes mocking Mickey Mouse ears with center-punched holes, presumably for grip and string. The shiny and slightly polished shaft is crafted from quality-grade brass stock, marked by black smudges detailing a couple of finger prints. “This key is for winding up the antique wooden wall-clock in the living room.”
While passing the wall-clock key to grandson, the elder slips a piece of paper out from his shirt pocket. The young one promptly states the obvious, as children easily do, and says, “That’s not a key.” Only to be rebutted with, “Ah, but it is actually several keys.” To avoid bombarding questions in argument, grandpa is quick to explain the piece of paper is a list of passwords. He continues on in layman’s terms to explain how passwords can be considered keys in a way Mikey could understand with such clarity, attempted translation would be foolish. In the process, grandpa tells the boy he has written the passwords on paper so he does not have to “cut the keys” from memory every time he uses one. More likely true, the passwords only slip the old man’s memory from time to time, if ever, but the list lays tightly secure behind lock and key of box number three, should it be needed.
“Okay, now for the last box, box number four. I hope I didn’t lose it.” Grandpa becomes slightly unsettled and restless as he continues to thoroughly separate the keys left on the key ring and seems to be looking about the park-bench. Still searching, grandpa starts in, “Well, if I can find the darned thing, I will show you something my Father gave to me just before your father was born. He told me as long as I didn’t lose this, I could never lose anything else.” Grandpa is digging at something between the slats of the park-bench, but seems to be having a difficult time manipulating his arthritis-ridden fingers into position. With one quick motion, Mikey slips his narrow youthful fingers into the seat of the bench, finding a blank key. “Hey, you got it. Now don’t lose it. That will be yours one day.” Grandpa pats him on the leg reassuringly as he pauses for a brief moment to gaze the early evening sky. Something in his gaze let’s you know his brief moment was quite personal, and far more than a possible stretching of the neck. Into grandpa’s elaboration, he describes and illustrates how all keys are cut from a blank key. Wrapping up his stories in keys, grandpa realizes, “Look at the time, it is almost time for dinner.” The two begin sorting the keys, returning them to rightful locations, when Mikey has his own realization and remembrance.
“Grandpa, grandpa, I have a key! I have a key!” Mikey reaches down into the front of his shirt collar and shows his grandpa a house key still attached to a cord around his neck. Excited, the young “man” begins to explain how he can lock the door behind him when he leaves, and unlock it when he gets home. Grandpa listens to youthful explanations with perfect attention, so not to miss a single word his grandson has to say. Watching the boy position his “latch-key” out in front of him, cord still fixed about his neck, you drift a moment in thought. Remembering your first house key, you almost feel the sense of responsibility rushing through your veins when you first felt the cold brass touching the palm of your hand. Starting to realize you have also forgotten the wide-open front door, you are startled by piercing yelps. “Grandpa, grandpa, what’s in box number two!?” His grandfather is impressed with the exhibited attentiveness and patience, as he looks down and gently, with a slight grin and soft eyes, to say, “Mikey, my son, some secrets need to be kept safe until the time is right.”
