Suspended Between 3rd and L
Heather Crow, of Burman, Crow, and
Bishop Law, tapped her expensive Jimmy Choo’s impatiently as she waited for the
elevator to return from the 20th floor back down to where she stood on the
13th. She had just come from an irritating meeting with one of her firm's “high
profile” clients. Her temper still broiled from the sheer sexist ignorance of
the CEO’s son. She'd hoped that once she had made partner, these experiences
would become nil; that once she had made partner she would have finally gained
the respect she deserved after fighting and sacrificing so much of herself to
reach her goals.
She had taken on a calm, patient air and had tried her best to explain to the
insufferable asshole why they couldn’t do X and why Y was a better solution
with this delicate situation. When the elevator finally dinged she hastily
stepped in, hardly glancing around at the already somewhat full load. Full for
her, at least—she usually would have waited for the next and emptier car. But
she had been thinking longingly of the stiff glass of whiskey she was going to
pour herself when she got back to her office.
She turned her back on the four people, already trying to avoid eye contact,
and pushed the lobby button. The metallic doors closed slowly on the ugly
polyester carpet and fake 13th-floor plant, and Heather let out a small sigh of
relief. At level six, the elevator stopped again and an older, stylish
gentleman in his mid-sixties and expensive Armani suit stepped casually into
the elevator and repressed the already lit-up button for the lobby. Her eyes
were drawn to his face immediately. Tanned, skin kindly touched with age, a
fashionable salt and pepper beard framing a full set of lips, his black hair
touched with slate gray at the temples. He looked as if he had just stepped out
of a men’s fashion magazine.
Briefly, Heather tried to remember if floor six was owned by a men’s
fashion magazine. As a high-profile lawyer, she came into contact with a lot of
rich and self-important men, but they all paled in comparison to this
gentleman. Was it normal to feel slight dampness in her underwear?
Heather primly shuffled with the rest of the occupants to make room in the
diminishing space, shifting her legs in her black pencil shirt unconsciously
trying to hide her embarrassment. She fidgeted with her brown leather briefcase
and stared at the red digital floor numbers dinging past above the doors.
Resisting the urge to tap her shoe again, she was now keenly aware of all of
the bodies around her.
She had always hated elevators. Every time she got in one the small voice in
the back of her head would say, ‘What if you get trapped? You’ve forgotten
to pee before getting on, again. What if the elevator drops? What if the walls
begin to close in on you?’ And she would suddenly become very aware of her
bladder and extremely conscious of the tight walls. But that was only one small
part of her anxiety, the other was that ever since she’d been a small child,
she’d hated tight spaces.
Her older brother had locked her in the
linen closet with a chair and had left her there for hours, no matter how much
she had screamed and cried. He had laughed and left to go hand out with
friends, while their parents had been out running errands. She had finally
exhausted herself and had fallen into a fitful sleep. It wasn’t until dinner
that night that her mother had actually started to worry about where she
was…her brother finally revealing she was in the closet upstairs. He’d been
grounded and his video games had been taken away for a month, but the damage to
her psyche was done.
A deep voice coughed beside her, the gentleman
next to the buttons. A deep voice that reminded Heather of the late Alan
Rickman’s said, “So,” he paused then continued, “I bet you all are wondering
why I’ve gathered you here.”
Heather turned her head towards the man
with a bemused grimace on her face and watched his clean manicured thumb press
the emergency stop button. The elevator jolted with the flickering of the
lights, forcing the occupants to gasp and stumble into one another. The faux
jazz that was playing through the elevator speakers came to stop. Heather
dropped her briefcase, putting her hands out as she stumbled into the man
behind her.
“What the fuck man!” A young
androgynous teenage kid dressed in a take-out uniform from Jimmy Johns called
out from against the corner.
Heather glanced at the Jimmy Johns kid
as she hurriedly straightened herself, distancing as much as she could from the
burly man she had stumbled backward into. He’d raised his hands at her with an
apologetic expression as if to say, ‘hey, sorry, not my fault,’ then turned his
attention towards the richly dressed gentleman next to the buttons. Heather
picked back up her briefcase and squared her shoulders importantly, but paused.
She wanted to judge the situation she had just found herself in and appraise
the other occupants before reacting.
The man she’d knocked into had on deep
blue jeans and a plaid workman’s shirt and pale timberland boots, his blonde
hair and beard stubble was fashionably styled; a camera case slung over one
broad shoulder. A faint smell of cologne hung about him, but she couldn’t place
the brand. Heather decided to call him Mr. Burly Hipster.
An older, out-of-shape, graying woman
next to the back wall wore a pink pantsuit that did nothing for her. She
sniffed sharply and raised her chin to say something, when the younger woman
next to her, perhaps her daughter, put a calming hand on her forearm. Heather
could foresee the younger woman’s future in her likeness to the graying woman.
Mrs. Dumpy and Daughter it is.
Mr. Burly Hipster pointed at Mr. Suave,
as Heather had decided to call the gentleman, a hint of a southern drawl still
present in his speech, and said, “Care to explain why you have stopped the
elevator, Mister...? We all have places we need to be.”
Mr. Suave clicked his tongue disappointingly and replied with a condescending
smile, “Have you forgotten so easily, Trevor?”
Mr. Suave leaned casually against the buttons, his left hand in his pocket, a
perfectly plucked eyebrow raised, “Have all of you?”
Heather stared at him blankly. He
briefly met her gaze and she felt a jolt of unease slide up her spine.
“Well no wonder why you’re all
wondering—”
The kid scoffed and muttered, “Give me a break. Stop your power play man, and
let us off or—”
“—Or?”
Mr. Suave grinned like a wolf and
Heather instantly wondered how she could have possibly found him attractive
earlier. Now that he was talking to them, there was something off and very
wrong with his face, but she couldn’t place what it was.
“Or I’ll call the cops!” The kid pulled
out a cell phone and waved it flauntingly at Mr. Suave.
“Go ahead, Charlie. Do it.” Mr. Suave
dared.
Heather didn’t like this. How did this
man know these people’s names? How did he know that Mr. Burly Hipster was
called Trevor and the kid’s name was Charlie?
The Jimmy John kid, Charlie, glared,
and opened their phone pressing 911 onto the keypad, then stared at their phone
baffled.
“No service,” they said to the elevator
weakly, “I thought 911 was supposed to always have service...”
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Dumpy said in a high
girly voice that didn’t match her width, “I don’t know who you think you
are—”
“Yes, you do, Susan. You know exactly
who I am.”
She sputtered, flabbergasted, and
looked around at her fellow passengers for help. The daughter muttered, “Mom,
hush.”
A small prickling was starting at the
nape of Heather's neck and a funny vague feeling was beginning to spread from
it, wiggling into her consciousness like an earthworm in newly turned soil. Mr.
Suave turned his dark eyes onto hers. They were cold and emotionless, not
matching his bright wide smile.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Heather.
Very unlike you. I would have thought you’d be the first person in this
elevator to call me out. Definitely not Trevor here. But you could never miss
an opportunity to show off in front of a beautiful woman, isn’t that right
Trevor?” Mr. Suave laughed. “No, I imagine you’re beginning to remember our
bargain, aren’t you Heather? The bargain we made all those years ago— when you
were studying for your LSATs— where I found you crying into your beer at that
tiny bar you used to frequent. Well, it’s time for you to pay up, Heather. It’s
time for all of you to pay up.”
Heather pushed through the people and
backed away from Mr. Suave until her back hit the cold hard metallic surface of
the elevator wall. She was shaking her head.
“No—” she cried. “No, no, no—that
wasn’t real—no”
A memory, a memory of a forgotten
terrible night, was surfacing like a shark from the deep dark depths of her
subconscious, looming towards her with its rows of teeth. The elevator
speakers which had previously cut out sputtered back to life, now emitting
blues, Robert Johnson’s song Crossroad.
I
went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I
went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy, now, save
poor Bob if you please"
Dawning horror had come over the faces
of the other occupants as their memories began to surface. Memories that had
been buried in the dead of night and hidden in deep dark woods never to be seen
again. Except now, those memories reappeared and had been placed in shallow
graves, resurfacing to claim them.
Ooh,
standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride
Ooh-ee,
I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, babe, everybody passes me by
Mr. Suave howled with laughter as he
gently pushed himself away from the elevator buttons. A new button, red and
glowing hot as if it were on fire, had appeared under P2.
Standin'
at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' down
Standin'
at the crossroad, baby, eee-eee, risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin' down
“Times Up!” Mr. Suave cackled with a
toothy grin, “Times up, isn’t that right, Heather!” And Mr. Suave pushed the
red button marked H. The elevator jerked and plummeted into a freefall with the
screams of everyone inside. When the elevator’s doors dinged merrily at the
lobby, they opened onto an empty car, the speakers finishing the song before
returning back to pleasant jazz.
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, babe, I'm sinkin'
down
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