I Had The Key

click image to enlarge

My daughter called me last night and told me to go outside and look at the stars, because there was an alignment of the moon and two planets.

It was late. I stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the sky. I live in the bad side of my town.

A police car came by and pulled up next to the curb where I was standing, but the policeman didn’t say anything to me.

Across the street a black man was walking along with his head shrouded in a hood. As he passed, the police car pulled away and stopped on the other side of the street next to the man in the hood, but he just continued walking along. A moment later the car drove rapidly away, and at the corner put on its lights and siren. I wanted to shout over to the man in the hood, “Don’t you feel relieved?” But I didn’t.

I looked back at the moon, and at the aligned planets. I thought, “Yes, now I have the key!”:

All this is all in my picture. There is the key, and at the bottom there is myself, the black man, the police car and a tree. The moon and planets are there also but they are behind the key, so you cannot see them.


Dimensions: 5.25” x 3.75”
Materials: 23 K Gold, on prepared paper
Signature: An R in the bottom right and full signature on the back: Richard Britell , May 15, 2002
Collection: Don and Maggie Buchwald, NYC