Free Keeper of the Keys by Perri O'Shaughnessy

now, the man who could have held on to his wife if he hadn’t been ripped out of the soil over and over when he was young, until he’d lost track of who he was and where he was, rolled himself up like a bad set of blueprints, and stopped growing.
    He closed the blinds and flipped off the light, trying to calm himself. Maybe Leigh and his mother had the definitive line on him: he had an unhealthy obsession with the past. Maybe he needed a good shrink to unload on for the next fifty years to work things out, inching toward a wholeness in minuscule increments.
    He couldn’t wait for that.
    Closing the door to his office behind him, he told Suzanne he would not be back. If she wondered why he wouldn’t be back, she didn’t say, keeping her head down over her desk, avoiding his eyes.
    Martin, like any sneaking skunk, had slipped off to some dark place.
    Ray was splintering. Nothing held him together anymore.
    In the parking lot below the building, he ran his hand along the hood of Martin’s Ferrari, admiring the amazing custom paint job, duotone black and blue, so swank the vehicle could be framed and hung on a wall as art. These designers shaped cars like jungle predators, tight-haunched and ready to pounce. Martin kept his baby spotless.
    Ray looked around; he was alone for the moment. He took a key from the immense collection in his pocket, choosing one that was particularly exotic and jagged, and then he ran it hard along the driver’s door, feeling a puerile burst of joy at the sight and sound of such destruction. It left an ugly metal scar, deep. Martin, with two children, a house in Brentwood, a beautiful wife, and many affairs under his belt, ought to appreciate the moronic gesture, since Martin frequently behaved moronically.
    Ray’s own sleek Porsche welcomed him inside, its pleasant cool air blowing around his legs and over his overheated face. He opened the glove compartment; yes, the keys from his childhood were nestled there like old friends. Real friends, sheltering friends. His hand flexed okay, no broken fingers. Martin hadn’t even fallen down. The anger that had propelled the blow had been so powerful it was remarkable that the blow hadn’t sent Martin sailing through the window.
    Ray drove through the dense maze of Los Angeles, along several freeways for forty-five minutes to reach the first address on his list. Ten keys on the ring gave him no indication which key fit what house, but he did have a certainty that each one meant something.
    Norwalk, Bombardier Avenue. The name must have derived from World War II, he decided, plodding up the stark, hot sidewalk. Strange thing to name a street. The Santa Ana winds had been blowing for days, and today the wind blasted furiously and randomly, crazy-making, pricking at his skin, insinuating itself, burrowing disturbingly underneath like unclean parasites. He forged on, wiping dirt from his eyes, excited and fearful at the same time.
    The block seemed deserted. The residents marched out to their cars at seven-thirty and drove through heavy traffic to office parks, where they would attempt to be productive. Then they drove home through heavy traffic to watch the hypnotic blue-lit object in the living room, where they attempted to forget their efforts of the day. The routine hadn’t changed since Ray was a kid. He looked at swing sets in the identical backyards, the scorched plots of grass in front, paint peeling along the gutters, roofs patched, an indescribable decrepitude in a place that must have seemed hopeful fifty years before.
    The builders of these subdivisions hadn’t thought a half-century into the future. They had thought: how fast can we get these things built? The ranch houses showed their lousy construction ethos. Or maybe Ray just knew more now.
    He didn’t know the exact number. As with so many houses in L.A. County, the numbers had changed over the decades. He tried to latch onto the right house based upon his memories of the place, but