The Locksmith by Grey Wolfe LaJoie, is a short story that was published in The Threepenny Review #170. If I could hyperlink-hand-it to you I would, but you’ll need a digital subscription. This story is a gift that keeps on giving and if you can find it, read it. It appeals to me on several levels. The self-absorbed soliloquistic bike rides around town, punctuated by the petty details of horseshit customer service interactions, ring true.
loud and clear
right up my alley
day in day out
here are a few snippets:::
The locksmith is not allowed a driver’s license. He rides a bicycle from customer to customer, granting them entry. He likes to think about the number zero. He likes to think about time travel. He likes to think about shadows. He has watched many videos on each of these subjects.
The symbol for zero is meant to encircle an absence, a nothingness. But the unbroken circle comes also to connote, paradoxically, everything. This excites the locksmith greatly. He has learned much about zero. He has learned that mathematicians and physicists are unsure whether zero is real, whether it should be treated as a presence or an absence. It is an interpretive problem.
Since he was a very small child the locksmith has thought of time travel. There is one theory which accepts the flow of time as a cognitive construct. This is the locksmith’s favorite.
In particular, what the locksmith likes about shadows is that, although they occupy a three-dimensional area, we can see only a cross-section of them. The cross-section is a silhouette, a reverse projection of the object which blocks the light. But the shadow itself has volume, dark and imperceptible.
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