The Complete Lockpick Pornography

by Joey Comeau

  I finish the application and take it up to the girl. She smiles and then looks past me at Clay. I smile. It’s all very friendly.

  “The pamphlet mentions that you provide extensive training,” I say. “What exactly does that entail?”

  “Well . . .” She pauses, smiles again, and launches into a pitch. This is something I was not expecting. It’s a sales pitch for the company. She tells me about their dedication to “quality training,” about the company’s “model.” The words come out with a practised ease, and it seems like she’s going to go on forever. I look over at Clay for help, but he’s still playing his game. She keeps going. The commitment to the dedication to our ultimate goal of satisfying the customer’s et cetera.

  I raise a hand to interrupt and put it as plainly as I can.

  “When do I get the pepper-spray training?” I say.

  She laughs nervously and tells me that pepper spray isn’t a part of their training program. What about karate then? Russian Special Forces knife fighting? Nope. I look past her at the poster on the wall. Skydivers in a circle, thumbs up, hurtling toward the ground, representing integrity or quality assurance or some business ethic. I begin to get that sinking feeling. You know the one — the one you got when you discovered your dad didn’t really fight crime, he just dressed up like that for conventions sometimes.

  “Is that all for today?” she wants to know.

  No, it isn’t, but what should I say? Won’t you train me to fight crime, to take an ass-kicking with a smile? Won’t you show me how to cripple a man twice my size using only a ballpoint pen?

  Of course they won’t.

  I don’t make a scene. I don’t flip over desks or threaten any lives. Afterwards, driving home with Clay, I think maybe I should have. Maybe that would have shown them my potential. The boss would have come out from a backroom and looked around at the carnage and said, “Why is this guy getting the regular application form? Let’s get him a taser gun and schedule him a training session with Tire Iron Pat.”

  After he drops me off, Clay goes to work, and I curl up on the couch to watch Die Hard. Die Hard is the greatest action movie ever made. There is no denying this fact. It is the father of all action movies. The mother. When action movies wake up in the middle of the night crying, Die Hard walks across broken glass in its bare feet to give them their bottle.

  The secretary calls me when I’m in the shower; I was thinking about Clay in a bloodstained suit, his shirt ripped open, his eyes distant and angry.

  “Would you be available for an interview with one of our detectives?” the secretary says. Detectives! My heart’s fluttering.

  “You’re damn right I’m available,” I say. I hope I sound like I’ve been sleeping in my car wearing a dirty wife-beater for a week, stinking like whisky. Would I have been available if she hadn’t used that word, detectives, or if I hadn’t been sitting at home watching Die Hard all day, memorizing every line of Bruce Willis’s dialogue? Sure. But now I’m available and excited!

  My mom calls after that.

  “You weren’t home this morning,” she says.

  “Clay took me out to where he works. He’s gonna get me a job as a security guard,” I tell her.

  “Is he there now?” she says.

  “No.”

  “I think you should ask him to marry you.”

  I almost drop the phone, and then I’m laughing.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “You two work really well together. He makes you happy, Clay. Why not put a ring on his finger?”

  I think about sliding a ring onto Clay’s hand, and his smile, and I get all gooey in the heart. This is why people get married, I think. They don’t think about these things practically; they just imagine the wedding cake. The way their boyfriend would look in a tuxedo. They imagine sitting old and crotchety together on the front step, canes leaning against the wall, a chessboard between them. Two men growing old together. And their heart feels like this, and of course it seems like a good idea.

  “If I get married, it’s not going to be for a long time,” I tell her. “I don’t even have a job.”

  “You’re almost thirty now, Arthur.”

  After that, I just sit on the couch thinking about growing older with Clay. About trying to find two wedding-cake toppers that would do us justice. Do they make Muppet wedding-cake toppers? I bet they do.

  The interview is later that day. My interview with the detective. It wouldn’t be accurate to describe him without clichés. He’s a barrel of man. He has a five o’clock shadow. He likes his women like he likes his whisky. Twelve years old and mixed up with Coke. That kind of guy! He shows me his licence, which says quite clearly, “Private Investigator and Private Guard Licence.” I am in the presence of pure badassery. His shirt is untucked!

  It brings a smile to my face, seeing that licence, knowing that it isn’t out of reach, knowing that someday soon I could be damaging public property in a high-speed chase through downtown. Beating down little old men with their own GOD HATES FAGS signs. I could be the one coming home stinking of booze, though I might skip the self-destructive alcoholism. I wouldn’t want to drive Clay away. But otherwise, I could be a loose cannon! A half-crazed maverick!

  I smile, and the detective smiles back.

  “You know, you learn a lot from this job,” he says.

  I’m on the edge of my seat already, but I lean even farther forward. Is this it? Is this where the music swells, and we cut to a training montage?

  “You learn how to read a person,” he says, and I’m all ears.

  Training. Extensive training.

  “Sure, you can get books and videos that teach you this stuff,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. He has thick fingers. A fist like a sack of oranges, if he needs it. I imagine he needs it. I want to believe that he needs it all the time. “But you’ll never make it far on theory alone,” he says. “This job will teach you how to read a person. You’ll do it every day. Your safety will depend on it.” And then he leans forward, so we’re face-to-face and I can smell the cigarettes on his breath, and he says, “You want to know what I can tell about you? Just from your body language?”

  Fuck, do I ever. I can only nod, mute with awe. Can he tell that I’ve never been close with my father? Can he tell that I watch movies to live life the way it should be lived, to jump from train to train with Harrison Ford because I would never have the courage on my own? To laugh every shitty thing off and just keep shooting myself out of cannons like Gonzo? Does he know that Steve Martin is my hero, or that I cried when John Candy died?

  “You’re a smart kid, for one,” he says. “You learn fast. You’re a good worker.”

  He keeps talking, and as he talks my heart sinks, but my smile never fades. I keep on smiling while he feeds me line after line. He tells me everything he thinks I want to hear. This is just another part of the pitch. Why is there a pitch? Why are they pitching me this job? Shouldn’t I be trying to convince them?

  I’m such an idiot. This isn’t going to be a job that will tolerate or encourage my loose-cannon idea of justice. This isn’t a job that will nurture and respect my violent yet tender-hearted individuality. This job won’t fix me, won’t give me the tools to handle myself when someone like Dave comes swinging, or when someone like Wallace shoves me.

  This is how great our company is. This is how great you are. Imagine how great it would be if you wore a uniform at night and patrolled construction sites for our company! Think of the possibilities, Arthur! Think of the spiritual enlightenment!

  And then he offers me the job, still leaning forward, gesturing with those thick, lying fingers.

  I nod. I smile. And I say, “Thank you, yes, I would like to come to work for you.”

  “Great,” he says. “Do you have time now for your training?”

  Training! My heart flutters against my will. He takes me into another room.

  And so this is training. There isn’t a single bottle of pepper spray to be
found. Training to these people means watching instructional videos with fellow new recruit Bob. Bob has joined up for some part-time work, and he doesn’t seem like the brightest knife in the shed. I’m getting the feeling that the shed I’ve stumbled into isn’t even meant for cutlery. It’s meant to store rocks.

  The material in these videos seems aimed at people trying to find work after suffering a stroke or major head trauma. Every point they make is repeated a dozen times. Stealing from employers is wrong. Yes, even if it’s just a pen. That means it is wrong to steal a pen. What about this blue pen? Yes, stealing the blue pen is wrong too. Yes, even if you’re poor, and your family needs the blue pen for Christmas dinner.

  Later on we’re treated to a dozen or so different “employee testimonies” about how great it is to work with the company. Now, let’s make something clear. It’s not that I don’t believe these are really employees. It’s quite obvious they’re real employees. There is no way in hell anyone would say, “No, let’s not use real employees, let’s hire some professional actors,” and then have the actors pretend to be idiots.

  But if they approached Clay to be in a video like this, I’m sure he’d say no. Maybe this is all they could get. It’s not very encouraging. My problem is that I’m not sure that my idea of a great job is the same as, say, someone with an IQ of 60. I don’t mean to say I’m better, just that we have different needs.

  My dreams of spunky sidekicks and dry cool wit in the face of adversity have faded. I am not going to be an action hero; I am going to be a rent-a-cop. Maybe one day an action hero will run past me, and I will be an innocent victim in the shootout.

  This is what’s left.

  I wonder what Clay is wearing right now.

  Chapter 7

  The scheduling guy gives me a brief description of the job site. He lets me know that I will be provided with a hard hat and a flashlight.

  “A big mother-fucking flashlight,” he says. Then he makes hand motions like he’s beating someone down with that Big Mother-Fucking Flashlight. For two glorious seconds his eyes bug out of his head, and his teeth gnash at the air as he tears into some make-believe crook.

  He’s my new favourite co-worker.

  Aside from murdering trespassers, I will be required to walk around every once in a while with my justice club and then call hourly reports in to the dispatcher. I have already begun planning ways to use this call-in procedure to keep myself entertained. Some possibilities are:

  a) Fake emergencies. This includes pretending that someone is breaking into the building, which would result in an exciting light show when the police arrived, and the chance to fill out long, involved reports, using made-up characters. These could also include fake murders, insisting that wet, shadowy, half-human figures beat someone to death with makeshift tools like big rocks and then dragged the bodies into the sewers.

  b) Disguising my voice differently with each call. To make this more fun, I could record my male and female friends saying things like, “This is Arthur, I’m out at the site, and everything’s fine,” and “I have a cold,” or “I don’t think it’s recording.”

  c) Pushing random buttons on the phone and not talking. If I do this when I am scheduled to call in, maybe they’ll panic. They’ll send someone out to save me, imagining that I’m lying in a bloody mess, too weak to talk, using the last of my strength to call my employers and let them know I’m taking a break. When they show up, hopefully with the police, I will say the phone is probably busted. To be on the safe side, I may bust the phone.

  I’m not really like a cop at all. I haven’t got any actual authority. If someone does show up to do anything bad, I am not allowed to touch them or interfere with them in any way. I’m a scarecrow. I’m like one of those plastic owls that are supposed to scare away pigeons, but that pigeons shit all over.

  I could be wearing a cheap suit with Clay right now. We could be waiting in the dark outside the office-supply store, tire irons shoved down our pants, waiting for Wallace to get off work. We could be on a plane, flying to the middle of God knows where to avenge a pimply teen.

  But instead I am guarding a construction site. Every hour I am required to walk around the building looking for anything out of the ordinary. As it is pitch-black, and I carry a big flashlight, I imagine that it would be pretty easy to hide from me. The only way I could possibly catch anyone is if they managed to hurt themselves while breaking in and were subsequently too injured to move.

  I am ever vigilant in my quest to defend the world from clumsy criminals.

  I have a co-worker across the street who is helping me adjust to the reality of being on-site (as opposed to what those idealists down at “headquarters” expect). I’m getting an education of what life is like “in the real world.” For example, “Behind the building is spooky as fuck, so don’t bother going back there. There aren’t any cameras to make sure you do your rounds, and nobody’s going to break in anyway,” he tells me.

  After work, I stop at the mall, and there’s Wallace, in line for coffee. He’s not wearing his uniform, and I realize this is the first time I’ve ever seen him without it. He’s wearing a button-up shirt and jeans. Just another guy in line for a coffee.

  He looks over and sees me and doesn’t smile. He doesn’t not smile either. He looks at me for a second, and then his gaze moves on like he hasn’t seen me at all. Suddenly I’m angry again. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I ran into him. I guess I would have expected the same smile or nod I would have gotten coming into work in the morning. The Wallace I had known while working there, before everything happened. No hug or anything — we aren’t ever going to be best friends — but some kind of acknowledgement. I didn’t expect this.

  This is someone who shoved me down the stairs when he found out I was gay. A split-second move, and a mistake he regretted. But that regret really was just about his job. Now that his job is safe, this is how things are. This is how they would have been if he’d found out that I was gay and played it cool. He looked right through me.

  I turn around and walk away. There’s a children’s store, and then a bathroom. Inside the bathroom, I kick the stall door. I kick it again and then I lean back against the wall and look at myself in the mirror. Good call, Arthur. That empathy of yours saves the day again. You think he’s gonna push another gay employee? Maybe, maybe not. But in the back of his mind he’s gonna think, Well, I could get away with it.

  The bathroom door opens and a man comes in. It takes me a second to recognize him. Adam Sambro, from high school. He nods at me the way men nod at each other and walks to the urinal. He hasn’t recognized me.

  I remember him in the cafeteria, telling jokes to his friends at the next table.

  “What’s the best part about date rape?” he said, taking a bite of cafeteria pizza. “The sex!” And everyone laughed. “Why is it depressing when a homeless woman gets pregnant?” he said. “Now she’s dirty and fat.”

  Adam Sambro, just another student-council kid. He never much stuck out to me. Except it might have been him who put a rock through the window of Mr. Payne’s car. It might have been Adam Sambro here who wrote FAGGOT on the side in spray paint. Nobody ever got caught, and nobody came forward. I don’t remember thinking it at the time, but I’m thinking it now. I’m sure I heard him laughing about it anyway. Just one more laughing voice. Everyone had thought that was funny. Fuck him. What is a person supposed to do when they come outside and find their car smashed?

  Faggot.

  Is this what I am?

  Is this how people see me every day, when I come to work and teach physics? I’m just the faggot teacher? Is this what the repair guy at the body shop is going to think about me when I bring this in? Is this what the other teachers are going to be thinking, even while they make a show of trying to find and punish whoever did this?

  When Adam Sambro finishes pissing and zips his fly, I’m ready. He turns around and I step into him. I put my hand on his shoulder, and I bring my k
nee up into his balls as hard as I can. He doubles over and goes down gasping for air. He’s not even looking up at me; he’s just fetal on the ground. I’m so angry. I don’t know what to say.

  “Faggot” is what I say. And then I turn and leave. I’m shaking. The doors to the outside are close. And once I’m outside, the road is close. The lights are green, and across the street there’s a row of houses I can cut behind. On the next street over, I start to jog. Then I’m running a bit faster. I start running as fast as I can, and I run until I can’t run anymore. Until my face feels tight and my insides are burning, and tears are streaming down my face.

  I call Clay at work and tell him what happened. He’s going to come and get me. He’s leaving work to come. I climb up onto playground equipment, and I sit with my feet hanging down. What if Adam Sambro is someone completely different now? Everybody is an asshole in high school. Fuck, what if he’s gay now? Oh fuck. What if he’s gay now and I attacked him and called him a faggot?

  Even if he’s not gay, I attacked him. I attacked him in the bathroom, a place where people should feel safe. He was taking a piss and then out of nowhere he was on the floor in pain. Nobody should have to go through that. We should be allowed to be safe. There should be places where we can be safe. Is he going to be afraid to go into public bathrooms now? Is he going to be angry? Is he going to feel angry and helpless and frustrated and is he going to turn around now and attack someone else himself?

  Why won’t Clay get here? I don’t like the way I feel. I need him here, putting his arms around me. Is he even going to want to put his arms around me? Is Adam Sambro still on that bathroom floor?