Hank Belani was twelve years old, a gangling awkward youth on the edge of adolescence, a boy whose image of himself was rapidly becoming lost, obscured by the changes of rapid growth. It was for this reason — though he could not have explained his motivation if he’d tried — that he wore the lock. He had bought the lock in the five-and-ten on Third Avenue. He had paid a quarter for it. The lock had no practical value whatever. It was a miniature chromium-and-black ornament meant for decoration alone and not seriously intended as a safeguard for anything. It had come complete with two tiny keys. He wore the lock on the belt loop of his trousers, the loop to the right of his fly. Religiously, he unlocked it whenever he changed his trousers, shifting it from one trouser loop to the other, locking it again, and then putting the miniature key into the top drawer of his dresser, alongside the spare key. The lock was, for Hank Belani, a trademark. It was doubtful that anyone but Hank even knew of its existence. It had certainly attracted no attention until that day in August. The important thing, of course, was that Hank knew it was there, and for him it was a trademark.
The heat had rendered the boys on the block lifeless. They had matched War cards for a while — at that time the War cards showed the Sino-Japanese war and vividly illustrated the atrocities of the Japanese — but then had grown weary of even such limited activity. It was too hot to be flipping cards. Eventually, they all just stretched out alongside the brick wall of the grocery store and talked about swimming. Hank sat with the rest of the boys, his sneakered feet stretched out, lying on one hip so that the lock in his trouser loop hung suspended and caught the unblinking rays of the sun.
One of the boys in the crowd was called Bobby. He was only thirteen, but one of those kids who are very big for their age, with straight blond hair and a lot of pimples on his face. He was always picking at his pimples or saying, “I need a shave again,” even though all the other kids knew he didn’t shave yet, although he did have a lot of blond fuzz all over his face. The kids in those days hadn’t tipped to the luxury of dungarees. In the winter, they wore knickers with knee socks, and in the summer they wore shorts. Hank’s knees were always scabby in the summer, but all the kids’ knees were that way, because flesh and concrete didn’t blend too well. Bobby was wearing shorts. He had big muscular legs, well, he was big all over, and he had this thick blond caterpillar fuzz on his legs, too. Everybody was just laying there talking about swimming, and all of a sudden Bobby said, “What’s that?”
At first, Hank didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d been listening to the swimming talk and wishing he was swimming, and he was in a sort of hazy dream mood because he was so hot and because it was nice to just sit with the fellows and talk about swimming on a day like this.
“What’s that on your pants, Hank?” Bobby said.
Hank looked at him sleepily and then looked down to where the lock hung on his trouser loop. “Oh, that’s a lock,” he said.
“A lock!” Bobby said.
“Yeah, a lock.”
“A lock!” The idea seemed to repel and fascinate Bobby. He turned to the other boys and said, “He’s got a lock on his pants,” and he laughed his curious laugh, a mixture of a man’s and a boy’s, and he said again, “A lock!”
“Yeah, a lock,” Hank answered, not seeing at all what was so peculiar about the darn thing.
One of the other kids started talking about how to do a jackknife dive, but Bobby wouldn’t let it go. He brought his voice up a little higher and he said, “Why you got a lock on your pants?”
“Why not?” Hank said. He was not angry. He just didn’t want to be bothered. It was much too hot to be going into why he did or didn’t have a lock on his pants.
“What’re you lockin’ up?” Bobby wanted to know.
“I ain’t lockin’ up anything.”
“Then why you got the lock?”
“’Cause I want the lock.”
“That seems pretty stupid to me,” Bobby said.
The kid who was explaining the jackknife said, “The whole secret is how you get the jump on the board. You got to spring so that...”
Bobby said, “That seems pretty stupid to me,” a little louder this time.
“Hey, you mind?” the other kid asked. “I’m trying to explain something.”
“Well, it seems pretty stupid somebody should have a lock on his pants,” Bobby persisted. “That’s the first time in my life I ever seen anybody with a lock on his pants, I swear to God.”
“So don’t look at it,” the other kid said. “If you don’t spring right, you can’t get to touch your toes. Sometimes, you get these boards where...”
“You wear them on all your pants?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, all my pants.”
“You change it from pants to pants?”
“Yeah, I change it from pants to pants.”
“That seems pretty stupid. It looks pretty stupid, too, you want to know the truth.”
“So don’t look at it,” Hank said, repeating the other kid.
“Well, I don’t like it. That’s all. I don’t like it.”
“Well, who cares what you like? It’s my pants, and it’s my lock. So if you don’t like it, who cares? I don’t care.” He was beginning to feel a little frightened. Bobby was much bigger than he, and he didn’t want to start a fight with a boy who could kill him. He wished desperately that Bobby would let go of the conversation. But Bobby wasn’t in a mood to let go of anything. Bobby was having a real good time.
“Whyn’t you put the lock on your shirt, too?”
“I don’t want no lock on my shirt.”
“Whyn’t you put it on your underwear?”
“Whyn’t you shut up?” Hank said. He was beginning to tremble. I’m not afraid, he told himself.
“Whyn’t you stick it on your pecker?”
“Oh, come on,” Hank said. “Shut up, willya?”
“What’s the matter? You nervous about your damn lock?”
“I ain’t nervous at all. I just don’t want to talk about it. You mind?”
“I want to talk about it,” Bobby said. “Let’s see that damn lock, anyway.” He leaned over and stretched out his hand, ready to touch the lock, ready to have a closer look at it. Hank backed away a little.
“Keep your hands off it!” he said, and he wondered in that moment why this had to be, why he couldn’t be left alone, and he felt the trembling inside him, and again he told himself, I’m not afraid, knowing that he was afraid, and hating the fear, and hating Bobby, and watching the older boy’s face break into a malicious grin.
“What’s the matter? I can’t touch it even?”
“No, you can’t touch it,” he said. Come on, stop it, he thought. What do we have to fight for? Come on.
“What’s the matter? It’s gold?”
“Yeah, it’s platinum. Keep your hands off it.”
“I only wanted to look at it.”
“You said you didn’t like to look at it. So keep your hands off it. Go look someplace else. Go look around the corner, why don’t you?”
The lock hung from the trouser loop, steel and fabric wedded together. Bobby glanced at it. And suddenly he reached out for it, grasping the lock and pulling it, ripping the trouser loop, clutching the lock in his closed fist. Hank was too shocked to move for an instant. Bobby was grinning. Hank hesitated. The gauntlet had been dropped. Trembling, fighting to keep the tears from his eyes, he got to his feet.