The Key

The Key(Carl Brooks) The Key
By
Carl Brooks

October seemed somehow different that year. Fall was pushing its turbulent breath through our small Texas town with seeming indifference to our readiness for it. The chilling wind had already foreclosed on the worn brick streets, evicting all but the most adventurous and hearty. My father was inside Brown's paint store selecting the new paint and wallpaper for our kitchen. Having little interest in such matters, I was content to sit on the high curb and watch dust devils sweep the gutters clean of debris. I had turned eleven years old that summer. It was the year Jeremy Choate died.
Reaching a level of discomfort, I left my warm spot of concrete to see what was keeping my dad. Just then, and distorted by the wind at first, a deep, guttural sound blurted from around the corner and out of sight. It was a human, mocking sound that I couldn’t quite identify.
"Honk!.. Honk!..UUUUUUDDDDDDNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"
I walked a few steps toward the noise, mildly curious as to what it was. Something about it seemed strange and unnatural. A loud, "UUUUUDDDDDNNNNN! UUUUUDDDDNNNNNNN!" again roared from the same direction, as I discovered the producer of this oral drama. As if by some invisible hand of sorcery, an unusually large dust devil appeared in the street near the intersection and in the direction of the sound. Barely visible within its violent, whirling mass was the partially exposed, eerie sight of Jeremy Choate moving very erratically. Whatever was happening I knew I wanted no part of it, so I instantly froze. It was almost as if a surreal wind from hell had deposited him at that very spot, at that very moment… just to test me. Screeching to a halt under the stoplight, he waited patiently for the signal to change, gave the proper hand signal, then, turned onto the street where I had been sitting. His legs were spread apart with his back artificially straight. His arms and hands extended in front of him as if gripping the steering wheel of an automobile.
"Honk! UUUUUDDDDNNNNNNNNNNN! "UUUUUUDDDDDDNNNNNNN!”
My mouth must have fallen open as I watched his movements. I had seen kids pretend they were driving cars before, but never in the middle of the street, and certainly never with so much dramatic accuracy. My parents sometimes talked about Jeremy, especially when they thought I wasn't listening. The kids I knew avoided all references to him, as you might with something scary that you couldn’t quite understand. He was surrounded by an unspoken myth and mystery. When a sudden and accidental encounter with him was unavoidable, we tended to give him a wide birth, as direct confrontation with him was totally out of the question. He was odd looking and different from anything any of us had ever seen before. They said he had a condition called Down Syndrome, and generally stayed close to his mother and away from other kids.
Stories about Jeremy were many and varied. With each telling, the contrived and gruesome descriptions of his behavior became more and more real to us kids. Some said that Jeremy's father was a demon, or even the Devil himself. Many of us thought Jeremy had to be at least related to the Devil, because he never seemed to get any older, or bigger, or change in any way… and then there were his strange physical characteristics. Some of the more adventurous kids at school believed that any exposure to him at all could have unknown, devastating consequences. We convinced ourselves to believe at least some of it, preferring not to get too close and having to find out first hand.
Jeremy was no more than four and a half feet tall, even though he was seventeen years old, but his feats of demonstrated strength were legendary. I had avoided direct contact with him, preferring to make my observations from a safe distance. But even from far away, he had a searching, knowing quickness in his eyes. He seemed to sense when others were staring at him. When he caught them, he'd stick out his thick tongue and run at them, grunting loudly, saliva dripping from his red mouth. Often as not, he simply hid himself, embarrassed.
Occasionally, when pushed too hard, Jeremy demonstrated his super-human strength if he found himself being observed a little too closely. Once, some kids cornered him outside the store where his mother was shopping and teased him unmercifully, each trying to out-do the others in cruelty. Confused at first, he lowered his head and stared laser-straight at the mockers. The teasing and chanting ceased for a moment, but started up again when no threatening action was taken in his defense. Then, out of sheer frustration, he grabbed the bicycle rack from in front of the movie theater and held it over his head for a full minute… as a show of force. I didn't understand anything about him, and I didn't care to try. I had avoided him totally and successfully… until now.

"UUUUUUUUUDDDDDDNNNNN! UUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDNNNNN! Honk!"
He shifted imaginary gears with his right hand and made sounds like tires screeching on the pavement, coinciding with periodic jerky stops and starts. The street was deserted except for Jeremy, the whirling wind… and me. Then, I saw his wild eyes catch a glimpse of me staring at him. He bulldozed closer, making a point of pretending not to look straight at me… but I knew he was aware of my presence. With his slightest threatening movement toward me, I was prepared to join my father in the paint store. I stood very still. If I moved now, he might take offense and do something drastic… and I didn’t want that. Of course I told myself that I wasn't exactly afraid of him, but there was no point in tempting the situation.
He chugged steadily down the street until he was directly in front of me. Then, all of a sudden he began to jerk feverishly as if something had gone very wrong with the imaginary car he was driving. At first I thought he was having some kind of fit or seizure. I instantly froze with fear and couldn't have moved, even if I'd wanted to. He made rapid chugging sounds, spitting spray onto the bricks in his path, then, finally coming to a halt. After mumbling something to himself and frowning with open concern, he pulled the make-believe emergency brake, opened the invisible car door and stepped out, carefully closing the door behind him. All the appropriate sounds accompanied his precise actions until his imaginary car became almost real.
Again, and just slightly noticeable, he moved his eyes toward me, displaying frustration and confusion in his face. He walked with deliberate, determined movements to the front of the car, made motions with his right hand as if tripping the hood latch, then raised the hood in a strained, exaggerated motion. I couldn't see my father anywhere in the paint store, as my mind searched for routes of escape. Just then, a good-sized dust devil swooped down from nowhere, pausing just before it reached us, then swept away everything in its path… everything except Jeremy, me, and the situation. Jeremy squinted his red eyes, laughing out loud as the whirlwind engulfed us both. The whole scenario was eerie as I stood frozen in time and place.
He shuffled to the front fender of his imaginary car and bent down, studying the contents of the exposed engine. He stretched out his stubby arm as if making an adjustment of some kind, then, reached into his hip pocket for a tool. I knew as little about cars as probably he did, but the difference between us was that I would have invented another one about that time, while he seemed to want to fix the malfunctioning one. He scratched his head in wonderment, then, worked with a singular urgency for a few moments, checking occasionally to see if I was paying attention. Then, he opened the car door all the way and stepped behind the steering wheel. His hand retrieved the key from his pocket as he guided it toward the ignition.
"R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R… R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R… R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R"
He pumped the gas pedal several times, then, mumbled something to himself. For a long half-minute he didn't move, except to run his hand through his disheveled hair and lightly bump his forehead against the steering wheel in frustration. Finally, he got out of the car with a stern deliberateness and looked at me... point blank. His head was tilted downward, but his eyes focused on me with a dedicated seriousness, singling me out for certain exposure. I quickly glanced right, then left, for a possible way out, but it was too late for escape. The look on his face paralyzed me and I couldn’t make my legs move. It was the same look I had heard about. The one he sometimes displayed just before attacking people. I was dead… and I knew it.
Jeremy jerked his head backward several times, motioning for me to come there. I didn't move a muscle. I couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to. Visions flooded my stunned mind with bloody scenes of him ripping off my arms and legs, or some other vile act. He must have been completely crazy, or else why would he pretend to drive that imaginary car, or what is worse, pretend to repair it. It wasn’t the pretending that disturbed me most. I did that all the time. My friends and I often pretended to be Roy Rogers, Superman, or some other character from the movies, acting out scenes we’d particularly liked from the Saturday matinee. I think it was the imaginary car that seemed so very unusual and out of place. He seemed bent on showing me that something about it was broken or at least not functioning properly. Not being able to fix it himself, he seemed to want me to do it.
This was an entirely different situation than I had ever encountered before. Jeremy’s physical appearance and strange behavior was disconcerting, yet my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to just walk, or run, away. I seemed to have been caught up in his web, as he clearly wanted me to help him with this problem, and at the same time was warning me not to fail at it. I felt a little like the character in a Humphrey Bogart movie that I’d recently seen - the one where he’d been shot and forced a doctor to take the bullet out of his wound at gunpoint. The doctor was in a very sensitive situation, and now, I was clearly the doctor.
When it became obvious that I wasn't going to my doom voluntarily, he came to get me, grunting and pointing toward the car stalled in the middle of the street. My options were limited at this point, so I went with him. He had me look under the hood and make some minor adjustments to the carburetor. Then, he got behind the wheel once again and turned on the ignition.
"R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R!"
Jeremy sat motionless behind the wheel for a moment. He emitted a deep sigh, then, lowered his head and stared at me like before. He opened the car door and motioned for me to get inside. The worried look on my face must have given away my reluctance to follow his instructions. When I showed no signs of mobility, once again, he came to get me. Gently nudging my arm this time, he guided me to get behind the steering wheel. I thought I was beginning to understand the game we were playing, but realized there was something more to it than repairing an imaginary car. Jeremy needed my help. He stood looking at me, trying to make his thick tongue form understandable words, but his grunts were indecipherable. Finally he reached into his pocket, retrieved the invisible key and handed it to me. My mind slowed enough that I became aware of the true intensity of his walled-up frustration. He was trying to communicate with me, but there were… obstacles. Finally, I took the key from his hand and inserted it into the ignition. I heard myself sounding “R-R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R!”
Jeremy’s face displayed a deepening anticipation, desperately urging me to understand this dilemma-in-pantomime. He clearly needed understanding with this problem and it was up to me to help him make things right again. Failure was not an option. I turned the ignition key once again and sounded,
“R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R… CHUG…! CHUG…! CHUG…! UUDDDNNNN! UUDDNNNNNNN!”
The engine coughed and sputtered at first, but was finally purring like a kitten. I looked straight ahead for a quiet moment, then got out of the car and stepped aside. In an effort to make certain he understood that the car was again running smoothly, I placed the palm of my hand to my ear, as if listening to the smooth running engine, smiled and gave him a “thumbs-up.” I’d hoped that my actions would solve both of our problems. He lowered his head and stared at me like before. Then, for just a second, his odd face widened into the largest, most disarming smile I had ever seen. It was as if everything in the world was suddenly running as smoothly as that old car. Whatever had been wrong… was now fixed… and we’d done it together.

"Jeremy? Jer-e-meee?" A motherly voice called out. "Oh, there you are. Come on Son, we have to go home now. It's getting late. You don't even have on your coat, and in all this wind too! Say goodbye to your friend." She looked at me as if to question my very presence there with her son.
Jeremy opened the car door, removed the key and handed it to me. When I didn’t respond, he opened my tightly closed hand and placed the key in my palm. Words tried to form in his mouth but nothing came out. Then it was… he did the strangest thing. He suddenly grabbed me with both arms and hugged me, very quickly and very hard. Before I had any chance to react, he ran to his mother, took her hand and walked away into the swirling wind. He turned once, lowered his head and stared at me, but this time I saw no threat in his gestures. When my father came out of the paint store, I was standing in the middle of the street, dust devils whirling all around me and holding an invisible key in my hand. I still have that key… and find myself using it often.
The End