“Elevator”

By Jeffrey Tidwell

A tall young man in a coffee black, 180 thread count suit tapped the wooden heels of his shoes against the floor tiles in no particular rhythm as he waited for the elevator. He stood before the double steel doors starring at the tall, potted plants lining the hallway and pondering whether they were real or polyethylene or perhaps some other type of plastic he had never heard of, when his thoughts were interrupted by the vibrating of his Blackberry, glowing through his wool pockets, emitting an obnoxious factory default ringtone aptly titled “Nuisance.” 

“Hey Pete,” he answered sportingly in an attempt to draw a faux sense of friendship with a co-worker he couldn’t stand. “I told you I’d have the report for you Monday, I just left and I’m on my way home now.” The elevator door parted and he stepped inside, pressing the first button while he listened to his assistant manager’s incessant bitching.

“I told you I’m not even in the building. You’ll have to wait until Monday.” He lied as his phone thankfully lost its signal in the tons of cement and steel casserole of the forty story skyscraper. “Thank god for shitty reception.” He laughed, as he slid the phone back into his pocket.

The rest of the elevator ride was uneventful, the businessman stood in the same place daydreaming about his impending weekend getaway, oblivious to the other passenger silently standing behind him until somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor, when the lights went out and the entire elevator came to a violent halt, knocking him to the floor.

“Shit!” he said picking himself up from the floor. “It’s 5:30 on a Friday, I shouldn’t even be in this building right now.”

“Must be a power outage.” An old voice behind him said.

“Well that’s great, I’m supposed to be going out of town.” The businessman pulled his phone back out and fumbled at its buttons. “And no signal.” He put his phone away and after a long moment of silence turned to face his new acquaintance.

“What’s your name?” Ha asked.

“Gary. And yours?”

“Patrick. Patrick Moor.” He said, extending his arm for a handshake, only to realize that it couldn’t be seen in the darkness.

“What do you do Mr. Moor?” Gary asked quietly.

“I work up on the eighteenth floor in accounting. I’m the general manager for my department. How about you?”

“I work in auxiliary services.”

“Auxiliary services, huh.” Patrick said, unsure what else to say to the stranger.

After a long awkward silence, he stood up and fumbled at the control panel. “Isn’t there an emergency phone or something? Here we go… Dammit!” Gary futilely poked and held down the button repeatedly with no response. “I swear nothing around here works. This place is such a shit hole” He said, slumping halfway to the floor and leaning his weight into the wall, afraid to dirty his suit.

“You’d be surprised how often this stuff breaks around here. I’m the one who always gets stuck hearing about it and has to report it, but they never fix anything.” Gary said.

“I believe it. God I hate this place. Hey don’t tell anyone this or anything, but I’m working on getting a position across the street. “

“It’s safe with me.”

“Jesus, I hate this place.” Patrick continued, “I can’t believe I’m still working here. I’m surprised I haven’t even gotten fired yet. Hey, you’ll like this, remember how we had that Hawaiian shirt day last week?”

‘Yeah.”

“Well my department had this luau thing too and we had these pineapple trays and cake and everything in the breakroom, and do you know Rob Brigford?”

“No.”

“Well he’s one of the board directors, a total dick. Anyways, I sat my cake down in a chair while I got some coffee and then he stopped by and get this- he sat in it. You had to have been there, he was wearing this brand new Ralph Lauren cashmere suit and he sat right in it. And it got everywhere. It was all over him and the floor and everything, it was priceless.”

“Really, I think I heard about it…”

“That wouldn’t surprise me, it was classic.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“The best part is he still has no idea who it was. I mean I do shit like that all the time around here, That one was an accident though. But I get away with so much shit.”

“Really?

“Yeah, it’s usually really subtle stuff though, like it’s some kind of physical manifestation of the discontent I have for my job. Like in the bathroom, I always draw graffiti and swastikas and shit all over the walls with a sharpie. I mean they do such a shitty job cleaning those things that it’s probably a good thing, because it makes them give them extra attention. Like there’s never any toilet paper or anything and like the other day all the toilets were out of order. I mean, what the hell is that? Do they actually expect us to go down to the next floor to just to take a piss? I just pissed in the drain in the middle of the floor? Have you ever done that?”

“No.”

“Well let me tell you something, it’s amazing. I came in Monday and they had the stalls open again, but I can’t stop doing it. Its fucking addicting, you’ve got to try it sometime.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I do it all the time now.”

Suddenly the lights hummed on and the elevator dropped down to the next floor, opening its doors.

“Shit that’s bright,” Patrick said standing up as his pupils shrunk, adjusting to the light.

“Well, I’ve got to get off here. I’ve got a long night ahead.”

Patrick turned around to see Gary in a dirty, paint stained, navy jumpsuit pushing a garbage can in front of him as he walked into the hallway. Patrick just stared at him in embarrassment as the metal doors closed behind him.