I laminated Ringo’s letter and tacked it to my wall. Then I did some research on the Internet about the locks of New York, and I found out a lot of useful information. For example, there are 319 post offices and 207,352 post office boxes. Each box has a lock, obviously. I also found out that there are about 70,571 hotel rooms, and most rooms have a main lock, a bathroom lock, a closet lock, and a lock to the mini-bar. I didn’t know what a mini-bar was, so I called the Plaza Hotel, which I knew was a famous one, and asked. Then I knew what a mini-bar was. There are more than 300,000 cars in New York, which doesn’t even count the 12,187 cabs and 4,425 buses. Also, I remembered from when I used to take the subway that the conductors used keys to open and close the doors, so there were those, too. More than 9 million people live in New York (a baby is born in New York every 50 seconds), and everyone has to live somewhere, and most apartments have two locks on the front, and to at least some of the bathrooms, and maybe to some other rooms, and obviously to dressers and jewelry boxes. Also there are offices, and art studios, and storage facilities, and banks with safe-deposit boxes, and gates to yards, and parking lots. I figured that if you included everything—from bicycle locks to roof latches to places for cufflinks—there are probably about 18 locks for every person in New York City, which would mean about 162 million locks, which is a crevasse-load of locks.
“Schell residence… Hi, Mom… A little bit, I guess, but still pretty sick… No… Uh-huh… Uh-huh… I guess… I think I’ll order Indian… But still… OK. Uh-huh. I will… I know… I know… Bye.”
I timed myself and it took me 3 seconds to open a lock. Then I figured out that if a baby is born in New York every 50 seconds, and each person has 18 locks, a new lock is created in New York every seconds. So even if all I did was open locks, I’d still be falling behind by locks every second. And that’s if I didn’t have to travel from one lock to the next, and if I didn’t eat, and didn’t sleep, which is an OK if, because I didn’t actually sleep, anyway. I needed a better plan.
That night, I put on my white gloves, went to the garbage can in Dad’s closet, and opened the bag that I’d thrown all of the pieces of the vase into. I was looking for clues that might lead me in a direction. I had to be extremely careful so that I wouldn’t contaminate the evidence, or let Mom know what I was doing, or cut and infect myself, and I found the envelope that the key was in. It was then that I noticed something that a good detective would have noticed at the very beginning: the word “Black” was written on the back of the envelope. I was so mad at myself for not noticing it before that I gave myself a little bruise. Dad’s handwriting was weird. It looked sloppy, like he was writing in a hurry, or writing down the word while he was on the phone, or just thinking about something else. So what would he have been thinking about?
I Googled around and found out that Black wasn’t the name of a company that made lockboxes. I got a little disappointed, because it would have been a logical explanation, which is always the best kind, although fortunately it isn’t the only kind. Then I found out that there was a place called Black in every state in the country, and actually in almost every country in the world. In France, for example, there is a place called Noir. So that wasn’t very helpful. I did a few other searches, even though I knew they would only hurt me, because I couldn’t help it. I printed out some of the pictures I found—a shark attacking a girl, someone walking on a tightrope between the Twin Towers, that actress getting a blowjob from her normal boyfriend, a soldier getting his head cut off in Iraq, the place on the wall where a famous stolen painting used to hang—and I put them in Stuff That Happened to Me, my scrap-book of everything that happened to me.
The next morning I told Mom I couldn’t go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I’m sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What’s everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry—” “Who’s Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no raison d’être, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper…” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn’t leave while I was still going. “… domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity at school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years—” “Who said there won’t be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I’m optimistic” “Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren’t true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true.” She smiled, but in a way that wasn’t just happy, and said, “You sound just like Dad.”
“What do you mean I sound just like Dad?” “He used to say things like that.” “Like what?” “Oh, like nothing is so-and-so. Or everything is so-and-so. Or obviously.” She laughed. “He was always very definitive.” “What’s ‘definitive’?” “It means certain. It comes from ‘definite.’” “What’s wrong with definitivity?” “Dad sometimes missed the forest for the trees.” “What forest?” “Nothing.”
“Mom?” “Yes?” “It doesn’t make me feel good when you say that something I do reminds you of Dad.” “Oh. I’m sorry. Do I do that a lot?” “You do it all the time.” “I can see why that wouldn’t feel good.” “And Grandma always says that things I do remind her of Grandpa. It makes me feel weird, because they’re gone. And it also makes me feel unspecial.” “That’s the last thing that either Grandma or I would want. You know you’re the most special thing to us, don’t you?” “I guess so.” “The most.”
She petted my head for a while, and her fingers went behind my ear to that place that’s almost never touched.
I asked if I could zip her dress up again. She said, “Sure,” and turned around. She said, “I think it would be good if you tried to go to school.” I said, “I am trying.” “Maybe if you just went for first period.” “I can’t even get out of bed.” Lie #6. “And Dr. Fein said I should listen to my feelings. He said I should give myself a break sometimes.” That wasn’t a lie, exactly, although it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. “I just don’t want it to become a habit,” she said. “It won’t,” I said. When she put her hand on the covers, she must have felt how puffy they were, because she asked if I had my clothes on in bed. I told her, “I do, and the reason is because I am cold.” #7. “I mean, in addition to being hot.”
As soon as she left, I got my things together and went downstairs. “You look better than yesterday,” Stan said. I told him to mind his own business. He said, “Jeez.” I told him, “It’s just that I’m feeling worse than yesterday.”
I walked over to the art supply store on Ninety-third Street, and I asked the woman at the door if I could speak to the manager, which is something Dad used to do
when he had an important question. “What can I do for you?” she asked. “I need the manager,” I said. She said, “I know. What can I do for you?” “You’re incredibly beautiful,” I told her, because she was fat, so I thought it would be an especially nice compliment, and also make her like me again, even though I was sexist. “Thanks,” she said. I told her, “You could be a movie star.” She shook her head, like, What the? “Anyway,” I said, and I showed her the envelope, and explained how I had found the key, and how I was trying to find the lock it opened, and how maybe black meant something. I wanted to know what she could tell me about black, since she was probably an expert of color. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know that I’m an expert of anything. But one thing I can say is it’s sort of interesting that the person wrote the word ‘black’ in red pen.” I asked why that was interesting, because I just thought it was one of the red pens Dad used when he read the New York Times. “Come here,” she said, and she led me to a display of ten pens. “Look at this.” She showed me a pad of paper that was next to the display.
“See,” she said, “most people write the name of the color of the pen they’re writing with.” “Why?” “I don’t know why. It’s just one of those psychological things, I guess.” “Psychological is mental?” “Basically.” I thought about it, and I had the revelation that if I was testing out a blue pen, I’d probably write the word “blue.” “It’s not easy to do what your dad did, writing the name of one color with another color. It doesn’t come naturally.” “Really?” “This is even harder,” she said, and she wrote something on the next piece of paper and told me to read it out loud. She was right, it didn’t feel natural at all, because part of me wanted to say the name of the color, and part of me wanted to say what was written. In the end I didn’t say anything.
I asked her what she thought it meant. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know that it means anything. But look, when someone tests a pen, usually he either writes the name of the color he’s writing with, or his name. So the fact that ‘Black’ is written in red makes me think that Black is someone’s name.” “Or her name.” “And I’ll tell you something else.” “Yeah?” “The b is capitalized. You wouldn’t usually capitalize the first letter of a color.” “Jose!” “Excuse me?” “Black was written by Black!” “What?” “Black was written by Black! I need to find Black!” She said, “If there’s anything else I can help you with, just let me know.” “I love you.” “Would you mind not shaking the tambourine in the store?”
She walked away, and I stayed there for a bit, trying to catch up with my brain. I flipped back through the pad of paper while I thought about what Stephen Hawking would do next.
I ripped the last sheet from the pad and ran to find the manager again. She was helping somebody with paintbrushes, but I thought it wouldn’t be rude to interrupt her. “That’s my dad!” I told her, putting my finger on his name. “Thomas Schell!” “What a coincidence,” she said. I told her, “The only thing is, he didn’t buy art supplies.” She said, “Maybe he bought art supplies and you didn’t know it.” “Maybe he just needed a pen.” I ran around the rest of the store, from display to display, looking to see if he’d tested any other art supplies. That way I could prove if he had been buying art supplies or just testing out pens to buy a pen.
I couldn’t believe what I found.
His name was everywhere. He’d tested out markers and oil sticks and colored pencils and chalk and pens and pastels and watercolors. He’d even scratched his name into a piece of moldable plastic, and I found a sculpting knife with yellow on its end, so I knew that was what he did it with. It was as if he was planning on making the biggest art project in history. But I didn’t get it: that had to have been more than a year ago.
I found the manager again. “You said if there was anything else you could help me with, that I should just let you know.” She said, “Let me finish with this customer, and then you’ll have my full attention.” I stood there while she finished with the customer. She turned to me. I said, “You said if there was anything else you could help me with, that I should just let you know. Well, I need to see all of the store’s receipts.” “Why?” “So I can know what day my dad was here and also what he bought.” “Why?” “So I can know.” “But why?” “Your dad didn’t die, so I won’t be able to explain it to you.” She said, “Your dad died?” I told her yes. I told her, “I bruise easily.” She went over to one of the registers, which was actually a computer, and typed something on the screen with her finger. “How do you spell the name again?” “S.C.H.E.L.L.” She pressed some more buttons, and made a face, and said, “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “Either he didn’t buy anything or he paid cash.” “Shiitake, hold on.” “Excuse me?” “Oskar Schell… Hi, Mom… Because I’m in the bathroom… Because it was in my pocket… Uh-huh. Uh-huh. A little, but can I call you back when I’m not going to the bathroom? Like in half an hour?… That’s personal… I guess… Uh-huh… Uh-huh… OK, Mom… Yuh… Bye.”
“Well then, I have another question.” “You’re saying that to me or to the phone?” “You. How long have those pads been by the displays?” “I don’t know.” “He died more than a year ago. That would be a long time, right?” “They couldn’t have been out there that long.” “You’re sure?” “Pretty sure.” “Are you more or less than seventy-five-percent sure?” “More.” “Ninety-nine percent?” “Less.” “Ninety percent?” “About that.” I concentrated for a few seconds. “That’s a lot of percent.”
I ran home and did some more research, and I found 472 people with the name Black in New York. There were 216 different addresses, because some of the Blacks lived together, obviously. I calculated that if I went to two every Saturday, which seemed possible, plus holidays, minus Hamlet rehearsals and other stuff, like mineral and coin conventions, it would take me about three years to go through all of them. But I couldn’t survive three years without knowing. I wrote a letter.
Cher Marcel,
Allô. I am Oskar’s mom. I have thought
about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn’t
obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so
he will no longer be going to go to see you on
Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you
very much for everything you have taught
Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which
is weird. Obviously, there’s no need to call me
when Oskar doesn’t come to his lessons, because
I already know, because this was my decision.
Also, I will keep sending you checks, because
you are a nice guy.
Votre ami dévouée,
Mademoiselle Schell
That was my great plan. I would spend my Saturdays and Sundays finding all of the people named Black and learning what they knew about the key in the vase in Dad’s closet. In a year and a half I would know everything. Or at least know that I had to come up with a new plan.
Of course I wanted to talk to Mom that night I decided to go hunting for the lock, but I couldn’t. It’s not that I thought I would get in trouble for snooping around, or that I was afraid she’d be angry about the vase, or even that I was angry at her for spending so much time laughing with Ron when she should have been adding to the Reservoir of Tears. I can’t explain why, but I was sure that she didn’t know about the vase, the envelope, or the key. The lock was between me and Dad.
So for those eight months when I went looking around New York, and she would ask where I was going and when I’d be back, I would just say, “I’m going out. I’ll be back later.” What was so weird, and what I should have tried harder to understand, was that she never asked anything else, not even “Out where?” or “Later when?” even though she was normally so cautious about me, especially since Dad died. (She had bought me the cell phone so we could always find each other, and had told me to take cabs instead of the subway. She had even taken me to the police station to be fingerprinted, whic
h was great.) So why was she suddenly starting to forget about me? Every time I left our apartment to go searching for the lock, I became a little lighter, because I was getting closer to Dad. But I also became a little heavier, because I was getting farther from Mom.
In bed that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the key, and how every seconds another lock was born in New York. I pulled Stuff That Happened to Me from the space between the bed and the wall, and I flipped through it for a while, wishing that I would finally fall asleep.
After forever, I got out of bed and went to the closet where I kept the phone. I hadn’t taken it out since the worst day. It just wasn’t possible.
A lot of the time I think about those four and a half minutes between when I came home and when Dad called. Stan touched my face, which he never did. I took the elevator for the last time. I opened the apartment door, put down my bag, and took off my shoes, like everything was wonderful, because I didn’t know that in reality everything was actually horrible, because how could I? I petted Buckminster to show him I loved him. I went to the phone to check the messages, and listened to them one after another.
Message one: 8:52 A.M.
Message two: 9:12 A.M.
Message three: 9:31 A.M.
Message four: 9:46 A.M.
Message five: 10:04 A.M.
I thought about calling Mom. I thought about grabbing my walkie-talkie and paging Grandma. I went back to the first message and listened to them all again. I looked at my watch. It was 10:22:21. I thought about running away and never talking to anyone again. I thought about hiding under my bed. I thought about rushing downtown to see if I could somehow rescue him myself. And then the phone rang. I looked at my watch. It was 10:22:27.
I knew I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d’être, so what I did was I took Dad’s emergency money from on top of his dresser, and I went to the Radio Shack on Amsterdam. It was on a TV there that I saw that the first building had fallen. I bought the exact same phone and ran home and recorded our greeting from the first phone onto it. I wrapped up the old phone in the scarf that Grandma was never able to finish because of my privacy, and I put that in a grocery bag, and I put that in a box, and I put that in another box, and I put that under a bunch of stuff in my closet, like my jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies.