The Lock Artist

Chapter three introduces the second plot line, beginning when Mike is nine years old, “[r]ight after it [the traumatic incident] happened” (14). Mike has moved to Milford, Michigan, to live with his uncle Lito, his father’s older brother. He has been treated by doctors and therapists since his trauma and has been “pronounced more or less physically recovered, except for that one little oddity they couldn’t quite figure out. The not talking business” (14). He calls Milford “a working class little hick town” (15) that lies “about fifty miles away from that little brick house on Victoria Street [in Detroit] […] where my young life should have ended” (15)—offering a further detail about his mysterious childhood trauma: that he survived a near-death experience. Lito owns and operates a liquor store called Lito’s Liquors. He tries to connect with Mike, but the burden of the memory of the traumatic incident, along with Mike’s muteness, prevent him from bridging the emotional distance between them.

Mike recalls the time the liquor store was robbed. It was the year Mike moved in with Lito. Mike was sitting alone in the back room reading comic books when the perpetrator entered. It was illegal for a minor to tend the store alone, but Mike quips, “who was going to bust us? Everybody in town knew my story” (18); that is, the police would not punish the boy who famously survived a childhood horror. The robber confronted Mike at gunpoint, and Mike observed that the “gun in his hand, it was supposed to take the fear away […]. But it was doing exactly the opposite. It was making him so scared he could barely think straight” (19). Uncle Lito emerged and came to Mike’s defense, handing over the contents of the register drawer to the robber, who then escaped in his car. Reflecting on the event, Mike remembers, “I wasn’t scared myself. […] It’s the one advantage you have maybe, being scared all the time. When it’s time to really be scared, when all of a sudden you’re finally supposed to be scared…it just doesn’t happen” (20).

The Blue Crew criminals have brought Mike to New York City. A contact of theirs gives him a New York driver’s license with the false name William Michael Smith and false age of 21. An acquaintance of an acquaintance of the identity forger finds Mike an illegal living arrangement above a Chinese restaurant on 128th Street. Mike’s only belongings include a portable safe lock that he practices unlocking, paper and art supplies for his drawing, some clothes, his lock picks, and a box of color-coded pagers. The five pagers are white, yellow, green, blue, and red. The first four are the means by which criminals can contact Mike to enlist his services as a “boxman”—slang for lock picker. The red pager is reserved for calls from “the man in Detroit,” the terrifying crime boss who evidently owns Mike and receives a cut of the pay for every job Mike is contracted to perform. When the red pager goes off, Mike must report to the man in Detroit immediately. The Ghost has previously warned Mike, “You fuck with this man, you might as well go ahead and kill yourself. Save everybody the trouble” (22).  Mike worries that he might run out of money and starve before being contracted for another job. He makes a little income distributing menus for the restaurant downstairs. Once, while distributing menus in an apartment building, Mike encounters a man robbing one of the residences. The man grabs Mike and slams him against the wall, then escapes.

The next morning, the yellow pager beeps. The Ghost has warned Mike that the yellow pager is “the general number that just about any knucklehead could use to reach” him, and that he should “proceed with extreme caution” (24) when responding to those inquiries. Because Mike needs the money, he is less discerning, and he responds to the call. On New Year’s Eve, he meets a group of three men at a diner in the Bronx. Mike nicknames the apparent ringleader “Bigmouth,” because he is overly talkative, and the other two “Heckle and Jeckle.” (“Heckle and Jeckle” were cartoon characters—a pair of anthropomorphic birds—in a television comedy serial that aired from the 1940s to 1970s.)

While sitting in this public space, Bigmouth lays out their haphazard plan to steal diamonds from a wealthy man’s home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mike is highly skeptical but follows along. They drive to Connecticut, picking up another man—nicknamed “the Ox” for his muscular build—along the way. They break into the house through an open window and find a safe in an obvious spot behind a painting. Mike discovers it is actually unlocked, he but leads the others to believe he has unlocked it extremely quickly. They retrieve a bag of gems. Giddy over their victory, the men drive back to New York City, paying Mike $300 and promising him his cut of the diamond score quickly. Back in his apartment, Mike begins drawing a comic strip telling the story of the crime; this is intended for Amelia, the girl Mike loves, although he does not know how these pages will reach her. He is consumed with longing for her. The next morning Mike responds to a call on the yellow pager and reaches Bigmouth, who says, “We’ve got a little problem” (33).

Mike recounts episodes from grade school and high school. He attended the Higgins Institute, a school for children who are deaf or have other “communicative disorders”; Mike’s muteness lands him in the latter category. He learns American Sign Language and attends therapy with various trauma specialists who hope to heal him, but he is obstinate in his silence. He is offended at the common suggestion that he has suppressed the trauma and balks, “I was eight [at the time of the incident], and like any other kid my age, I knew exactly what was happening to me” (35). His memory of the trauma is painfully vivid. He elaborates, “Ten years later. I could still go back to that day in June for the simple reason that I had never left it” (35). He cynically believes that his caretakers “tried to help [him] so that they could feel better” (36).

After years of failed attempts to help Mike recover from his muteness, the Higgins Institute’s administration finally “kicked [him] out and made [him] go to Milford High School” (36), the local public school. Mike recounts an important episode from the summer before he transferred schools, during which he discovered the engrossing pastime of playing with the finicky old lock on the metal door of the liquor store’s back room. When Uncle Lito replaces the lock, Mike saves the old lock and plays with it, learning how its mechanism works and figuring out how to open it without a key. He fashions makeshift tools and derives deep sensual and emotional satisfaction from the intricate process of picking the lock. Mike reflects on the importance of this moment in shaping the years of his life since.

Mike reunites with Bigmouth, Heckle, Jeckle, and the Ox. Bigmouth explains that they discovered that the stones they stole from the wall safe were fake and valueless. Mike briefly admires the ingenuity of the fake safe in an obvious, cartoon-like hiding spot, “the perfect last line of defense” (40). Mike rides back out to Connecticut with the men. They break in, more carelessly and urgently this time, leaving no one on the lookout. Mike notices, “[t]he more agitated [Bigmouth] got, the more I felt totally calm” (41). The criminals ransack the house, searching for the safe until Mike is suddenly inspired to look under the rug under the master bed. There, he discovers an extremely advanced, unfamiliar safe built into the floor. Mike begins his methodical technique, but since this safe is not only locked but also very complex, it takes him a long time. The narration slips from past into present tense as Mike is absorbed in the emotional immediacy of his task.

He is one step away from opening the safe when he hears gunshots. One of the criminals, either Heckle or Jeckle (Mike cannot tell them apart), has been killed. Mike leaves the bedroom and tries to hide. He says, “I know this feeling. Sitting here and waiting. Trying to stay silent. This is familiar country for me” (44). This is a mysterious allusion to Mike’s childhood trauma: It will become clear late in the novel why this particular situation is triggering for him. He hears another gunshot and screams—another of the men has been killed. The shooter confronts Bigmouth, who begs for mercy. Mike observes that the shooter must be the homeowner’s private security. Bigmouth reaches for his belt, and the guard shoots him in the head. When Bigmouth dies, the narration switches back to the past tense. The shooter confronts Mike but pauses, surprised at how young Mike appears to be. Mike strikes him and starts running away. A second security guard apprehends Mike and places him in handcuffs. Mike muses, “It made me think back to the only other time in my life I had been captured like this” (46)—a reference to an event retold in Chapters 9 and 11.

With growing enthusiasm for his newfound hobby of picking the old lock from the liquor store door, Mike heads to an antique store to buy several more old locks to play with. “[L]earning by trial and error,” Mike comes to realize the craft is “all a matter of touch” (48), and he seems to derive sensual pleasure from this intimate, careful act. Describing the difficulty of his freshman year at Milford High School, Mike describes the “soul-crushing grayness” (49) of the building, noting it felt “pretty similar” (49) to the prison from which he now writes this memoir. After his years at the Higgins Institute, he is particularly struck by “the noise […] over two thousand kids with healthy, normal voices” (49).

In this environment, Mike feels “utterly lost and alone” (49), and he begins to contemplate suicide, pondering the effectiveness of different methods of taking his own life. He ultimately finds solace in his art class, where he discovers his innate talent for realistic drawing. Mike’s art teacher, Mr. Martie, notices this aptitude and transfers Mike to Advanced Independent Study in Art. In that class, Mike meets Griffin King, a classmate one year ahead of him. Mike notes that they are both unusually young for the advanced class, saying, “I was the only freshman, and he was the only sophomore” (52). Griffin becomes Mike’s singular friend and is drawn to Mike’s mysterious silence, his talent as an artist, and his good looks. Mike communicates with Griffin through limited gesturing, writing, and a few words of sign language.

During his junior year, Mike begins to notice the attention he is getting from girls around school because of his intriguing muteness and because he is “allegedly a decent-looking guy” (54). A fellow art student named Nadine pays him particular attention. Mike considers what it might be like to try dating without being able to speak and decides he is not “ready for that scene yet” (54). Mike starts to fiddle with combination padlocks on gym locker doors and discovers how to open them, feeling for sticking points as the gears turn and learning how the combination numbers are grouped. Mike demonstrates his talent to Griffin. One day when the school’s star football player, Brian Hauser, forgets the combination to his locker, Griffin volunteers Mike’s special skill. Mike is reluctant but performs the task. When he opens the lock, his audience of the school’s popular jocks is deeply impressed.

Having just been apprehended and handcuffed by the second security guard at the Connecticut estate, Mike is dragged back inside the house, where the first security guard (whom he just attacked) is pointing a gun at him. The second security guard appears worried that his gun-wielding partner, whom he addresses as Ron, is delirious from his shooting spree. They nervously take stock of the number of dead men and call the police. They leave Michael handcuffed alone in the room.

Michael notes that this is the second time he has been in handcuffs and remembers how simple the locking mechanism is. He finds a coke can, cuts it open, and fashions a makeshift pick, which he uses to break himself free. As he runs out of the house, he sees a fourth dead body—the other one of the Heckle and Jeckle duo.

Mike reaches a train station. When the next train arrives, he pretends he has emerged with the crowd exiting the cars. He finds a taxi, writes a note to the driver asking to be taken back to New York City, and pays the driver $150 in cash. Along the way he worries the driver will be tipped off about him being a criminal on the run, but he makes it back to his apartment in safety. When he arrives, the white pager is beeping.

On the last day of Mike’s junior year of high school, Griffin—who is graduating and about to attend art school in Wisconsin—invites Mike out to a party. Mike signals that he will drive Griffin’s car, since Griffin might drink. At the party, Mike finds Nadine, who offers him a bottle. He sips it. Nadine is affectionate and eventually pulls him in for a kiss. She invites him to another party with her and her friends. Mike accepts, knowing that this other party “was obviously the A-list party of the night” (69).

He and Griffin drive over to a rustic cabin. It is Brian Hauser’s home, and they notice a Michigan State Police car (it is revealed in Chapter 11 that Brian’s father is a state trooper). Brian greets Mike convivially—he respects and admires Mike since the episode with the combination padlock. Brian brings Mike into “the VIP Room” (70), where he is greeted by a group of the school’s most popular football players, including Trey Tollman, the quarterback, and Danny Farrely. Brian wants Mike to show off his talent, so Mike picks the lock on a glass sliding door in front of a crowd of rowdy, cheering peers. As usual, Mike notes the feeling of calm and clarity he experiences in this situation, despite the pressure and chaos. After he succeeds, Griffin pulls him aside and says, “All of a sudden, you’re the prince of Milford High School” (75). Brian, Trey, and Danny approach Mike, holding a large banner reading “MILFORD KICKS ASS.” They tell him, “We’ve got the most awesome idea, dude. You gotta help us out here” (75). Mike agrees, and the five boys—Mike, Griffin, Brian, Trey, and Danny—pile into Mike’s car. They are going to play a prank on the star football player of their rival school, Adam Marsh of Lakeland High School: They want to break into his home and put up the “MILFORD KICKS ASS” banner in Adam’s bedroom, and they need Mike to pick the lock. Danny equivocates, but Brian and Trey pressure Mike and Griffin to go with them.

Mike picks the lock on the door. Inside, Brian begins to worry, but Trey gets excited and smashes a large aquarium using a fireplace poker, causing far more damage and chaos than the others had bargained for. Mike rescues the fish and puts them in water in the sink. Although Griffin is urging him to leave, Mike feels calm and explores the bedrooms. In one bedroom he discovers a portfolio of portraits drawn on paper—several drawings of a middle-aged woman and one drawing of a young woman. Mike reflects, “This was a self-portrait. I was looking at Amelia’s face for the first time” (81). The sound of screeching tires shakes him from his reverie. He tries to escape out the back door, but two policemen tackle and arrest him. He notes that the feeling of being trapped and being sure of his demise is familiar from his childhood trauma. The policemen take him to the station.

In Chapters 2, 4, 6, and 8, Mike recounts his first two criminal operations as a safe-cracking specialist and employee of the man in Detroit. These chapters show Mike’s waxing confidence in his abilities and illuminate aspects of his worldview, especially his disdain for men who use violence or brute force. In the first operation, with the gang from the blue pager, Mike shows some insecurity about his inexperience, which will wane by the time he is on his second job. He expresses admiration for the careful calculation the blue pager gang has put into the operation—skill and planning rather than brawn and audacity. (The indelicacy of the yellow pager crew serves as a stark contrast.)

Chapter 2 contains Mike’s first description of the process of cracking a safe. The vivid detail and engaging narration he uses in this description reveal his passion for—even obsession with—this activity. When Mike encounters the yellow pager crew, their ineptitude seems to make him feel more self-assured as an elite and skilled criminal, and he emphasizes the distinction between his methodical, expert approach and their haphazard one. In various ways throughout these chapters, Mike expresses his anxiety about his ability to survive in this career: His squalid living conditions in New York City seem unsustainable to him, and he indicates that he would not cooperate with the yellow crew if not out of desperation for payment. When he eventually joins the white pager crew in California, his comfortable lifestyle with them creates a striking contrast.