A step back in time November 6
I seem to be the proprietor of keys for our castle and the first sets I had made were fancy. Had I looked at the prices on the colorful lures I might not have shelled out the freakin’ $36 for three sets of keys but oh well. My tumblers are now turned with green keys stamped with yellow smiley faces.
Anyway, we needed a new set of keys for a visiting friend so I stopped by the closest and cheapest-looking shop that would make such items – an unassuming little shop on the corner of Mt. Pleasant and Lamont. It was like Cuba in there, what with the dusty shoe polish cans under the counter, the tarnished tools on the walls, the aging key-making and shoe-whatever machines, and I’m sure the building itself hasn’t changed much since the 1950s either. The man who greeted me was wearing dingy boots, dirty jeans, and an even grungier shirt. His flat-billed Washington Redskins hat was the only pristine part of his outfit. He was on the phone but still took my order and began cutting keys. Meanwhile the woman who was repairing some shoes near the back disappeared into a creepy trapdoor located in the middle of the bedroom-sized shop.
After settling a dispute (“How can I pick you up if I don’t have a car?”) he hung up (“Love you, Mama”), and started a conversation with me about the movie he was watching on a small TV resting on the counter. The movie was Shoot ‘Em Up starring Clive Owen and we were at the scene where Clive’s character takes a baby into a brothel to have it looked after by a sex worker/friend of his. He’s greeted at the door by a nun who is, of course, not actually a nun and her nun-dress-thing has no backside. I missed this at first because I was taking money out of my wallet to pay him, but before he would even let me hand over the cash he was like, “No no, man did you see that? I gotta rewind it.” The new looking DVD player was still sitting on its store box and he had to rifle through the box to find the remote. “I don’t think she’s a regular nun, man,” I said. “Oh, no way,” he said with a smile. He was certainly in no hurry so we talked about movies for a while until he remembered to take the money.
This guy was rad and I’m definitely going here for my shoe repair and key making needs from now on.