Elevator

His once-blue overcoat was stained with the work of the real world, straining at the seams from the worries of basic human existence.  We nodded the typical pleasantries as I stepped onto the elevator.

Almost over. Two more days. We can do this.

His english was halting and labored, but he kept up his end of the script for my benefit or, more likely, to assuage the awkward silence that inevitably bubbles for 20 seconds.  It's interesting how we feel a need to connect with someone that we've never met and likely will never see again.  I guess, regardless of what people might believe about themselves, the fact remains that there is an innate desire to identify with one another, even if for a few seconds.  Why else would we put on smiles and shuffle through small talk with strangers?  And we are all the same on an elevator.  The haves and have-nots are all, for a brief moment, just people trying to get to the next floor, too lazy to take the stairs.

Don't make eye contact, Julie.  We don't want that much connection.

The jangle in his pockets broke my concentrated analysis of the dingy buttons that had been pushed too often by unwashed hands.  The numbers could barely been seen.  Regulars like us knew to view it as a telephone keypad; Work in the middle, Home on the top left.  No matter how foggy my memory in the morning, those were never forgotten.

He pulled out a large ring filled with keys of varying degrees of authority.  His short fingers sifted through them until they stopped on a grey head.  Toyota.  I guessed a Camry.  The others fell in line with a shattering sound as the lone key held their weight.  How many stories that ring must hold.  Is he a landlord, dreading the argument with the college tenants about those holes in the drywall?  Does the tiny key open his daughter's dollhouse that he worked overtime for three months to afford?  It was a small price to pay to see her toothless smile again.  Kids always pick on the different one.  How many homes and friends have entrusted him to be the keeper of their secrets?  Did his neighbors even bother to send a thank-you note for that time he turned off their kitchen light during their summer trip to Yosemite?  His aged mother will probably need more milk.  It's easier for her to stay home to care for her husband, whose memory has long been lost to fictional events of another era.

I fished into my pocket to find my set of keys, past the cell phone and under a few pennies.  In the harsh fluorescent light I thumbed through the contents of my ring.  Cluttered with reward cards and loyalty fobs, a testament to my cheapness.  Yes, sell my personal information, but in return give me a 55¢ coupon on my next purchase of toilet paper.  Sure there were keys that opened things.  My office.  My house.  My car.  But these belied a sense of involvement in another set of stories.  There was an episode of the "The Cosby Show" were Cousin Pam talks to her date on the stoop of the Huxtable's brownstone.  "You can tell a lot about a man by the number of keys he has."

And you can.  Keys lock secrets and protect valuables, but they unlock varied angles of stories outside the simple 9 to 5 world.  They represent other people and relationships.  Heartbreaking and wonderful stories, all falling in line on a ring.