Going Up

Going up (The Ninety First Floor)
By J S Starlight
The sophoric four am air seemed to smother us as we stepped forward at the “ding”, and into an elevator from the grand lobby of the World trade center. “we” was A gray suited business man, dress clothes covering his somewhat chubby body up to a long neck that held a snakelike head and almost nonexistent hair line, a thickly brown haired, t-shirted 30 something with a computer bag, me, and a petite Mexican maid that all of us pretended not to see.
We step into the elevator almost in step, glumly, blearily, and silently, as if marched by an unseen guard. Computer guy slouches against the wall calmly, half asleep and pretending he is right out of college still.  The business man, who to me gives of an unfiltered air of sleaze, steps away with a disapproving look, hitting the button for floor 97 while staring almost violently at his watch.
Hmm. That’s where my interview is. I wonder if- I hope not. The maid seems satisfied too, but computer guy halfheartedly punches the 91 button on the other side.
Polished steel doors close, and a feminine, mechanical voice with an uncalled for amount of cheer blares out of unseen speakers.
“Going up to… floor ninety one”
The elevator lurches, and we are off…. And then we aren’t.
The elevator has stopped maybe two feet into it’s rise, and it’s professional, sterile lighting dims.
For such a small change, the panic and chaos that seems to rip through all of our brains is somewhat unnecessary.
“We ask that you do not attempt to exit the elevator at this time. Service should resume momentarily. We at the World trade center are sorry for your inconvenience.”
What annoys me the most is it’s continued amount of cheer and sprightliness- though I cannot expect a computer to know that it is four AM, and that I will now be late for my interview. Oh well. Who schedules an interview for four thirty in the morning anyway? Muzak begins to pour from the hidden speakers.
We stand in dumb anticipation for five minutes, until computer guy breaks the silence. “Fuck it. This is stupid. Repairmen start work at eight, like normal people. We might as well take a seat. This will take a while.”
The irony is not lost on me as we all pretend we didn’t hear him, to no avail. Computer guy proffers me his hand. “I’m Tom.”
I reluctantly shake it. His handshake is strong, steady, and reassuring. “Jennifer.”
The suit refuses Tom’s proffered hand. “You may call me Mr. Garcin”. His voice is cold and disdainful, as if he does not deserve to be trapped in here with these undesirable plebeians.
The maid is not offered Tom’s hand, so I awkwardly offer her my own, feeling her frail hand and baggy skin. She is older than I realized.
“I am Maria Esteban.”
Tom picks up the thread of conversation that had been dashed to the ground. “It’s nice to meet you all. Come on, take a seat.”
He picks a corner back from the door, and I sit by the door, to his left, as Maria sits to mine. Mr. Garcin refuses so sit, standing yet straighter in his corner, eyes completely focused on his watch, veins thickened almost visibly.
“Sit down, Mr. Garcin, unless you are so far above the rest of us.” Garcin doesn’t answer, but still Tom’s voice is light, almost playful, yet an almost cruel smile forms on his face as the words like honey continue to drip out of his mouth.
“Garcin… Garcin… Now where have I heard that name before? Ah yes! You’re the one who embezzled those pension funds dry a few years back! Now that, that, was a heist!”
Garcin’s face finished its slow change to bright red, and he snapped back as if bit in his thick New York accent. “I didn’t steal anything, and I’d thank you not to say I did! It was just one bad investment!”
Tom laughed. “Yes. Just one “bad investment” into a company anonymously owned by your infant grandson! I hack for a living, Mr. Garcin. Trust me, I found out. It wasn’t even hard! I bet you had to pay that “computer expert” witness of theirs a pretty penny, eh?”
Garcin Snapped back, trying to draw our eyes back to Tom, and off of his suit. “No! And a hacker for a living! How is that supposed to be legal?”
Tom grinned, voice not nearly as light now, though I could tell he was enjoying this. “Ever seen It Takes A Thief ? It’s a bit like that, except with computers- oh, and I didn’t get caught. But back to the point-how much did you end up making off that?”
No answer came. Mr. Garcin stared with eyes as steely as the door at the fake tile wall, face’s color turned from bright red to ghostly pale, fists clenched and shaking.
Tom’s grin remained on his face. ”Don’t worry, old man, you aren’t the only one in this elevator who has done something wrong. In fact- tell you what. Mr. Garcin, Jennifer, Maria, I can tell we will be in here for a while- and though I can hear something of a bustle outside, I don’t think we will be overheard. So, I challenge you to a game. Your dirtiest, deepest, darkest secret- mine for yours. We’ll all have dirt on each other, and it ought to be fun!”
Mr. Garcin stuttered.”Pr-Preposterous! I refuse!”
Tom chuckled. “Oh, but Mr. Garcin, you already went and started the game! Sit down, you might as well. It’s my turn now.”
Garcin was shaking as if he was exhausted. Tom ignored him.
“So, you know how two years ago, Y2K was all anyone in the tech world talked about? The firm that employed me almost went bankrupt. I would have lost my job. Well, my wife was a big part of that. She was a journalist, and had top digs on the thing from her hacker husband. Well, about six months before 2000, we went on a vacation to Dover, to see the white cliffs. Poor Sarah had a tragic fall. I tried to stop her, really, but well, that was that. And look! Y2K is gone, and we’re all just fine!” Tom now wore a doleful expression of mourning and innocence that we all knew was false. The temperature in the elevator seemed to drop below freezing.
Murderer.
Garcin is suddenly pounding on the elevator door. “Help! I’m trapped in here with a psychotic murderous bastard! Help!”
Tom laughs again.” Psychotic? That’s not very nice at all. I’m not insane. And they can’t hear you, by the way. The wall is too thick. Perhaps you didn’t kill anyone directly, but I do wonder- how many people do you think starved to death on the streets because their pensions were whisked away with the flick of a pen?”
Garcin continues to pound on the door with decreasing vivacity.
“Fifteen thousand pensions drained from America, Mexico, France, Germany, South Africa… Do sit down. You are giving me a headache.”
He does.
Perhaps ten minutes passes in dead silence.
Garcin was right. Tom was psychotic. I suddenly wondered if I would survive the hour.
“So, Maria, kill anybody lately?”
Maria points a finger accusingly at Garcin, speaking in a thick Spanish accent. “You killed my husband.”
Garcin roared. “FOR THE LAST TIME! I AM NOT A MURDEROR!”
Tom’s laughter filled the elevator once again as Garcin’s echoes fade. “So good to hear that that will be the last time you deny it. Maria, please continue, in all gory detail. How did Garcin kill your poor hubby?”
Two murderers.
Maria speaks through the beginning of tears. “He work for American gas station. He was auto repair man. His pension was ripped out from under him, so he robbed a store to feed family. He was killed for it.”
Garcin’s face lights up. “Ah, so I didn’t kill him!”
His denial angers me. I speak, bringing down the entire might of my high, twenty year old voice. “Yes you did! It is your fault he couldn’t support his family! And even if you didn’t, there are thousands more like him! You are worse than Tom!”
Tom seemed to be the only one enjoying this. “Now now, let’s not quibble about who is worse than whom. So, Maria! What have you done? I know you have done something, don’t deny it. I tell, you can’t even keep a straight face.”
Maria shakes her head. “I have done nothing.” We can all see the lie.
Three murderers.
No. Four.
“Sure you haven’t.” Tom shakes his head. “What about you, blondie? Any bodies in the ground because of you? ”
I shake my head and laugh nervously. I have barely begun my red faced denial when Tom laughs in my face.
“Oh, out with it, my little plaster saint! I can see the light of it in your eyes. You can’t hide the shame forever. It will see the light of day someday, you can be sure of that, and better here than anywhere else!”
I am silent as tom mutters.
“They say we all have skeletons in our closets, but four murderers in one elevator… wowie wow.”
Ten more minutes pass in silence. It is five thirty in the morning, an this elevator is impossibly hot.
“Five years ago, I was involved in an… abusive relationship with… with my uncle”
Tom pats me on the shoulder. “Oh my… Jennifer, Jennifer. That’s not your fault. I wouldn’t even condemn that as murder. Nobody should have to suffer that.”
I shake his hand away. “No! I wasn’t strong enough to.. to…” I sob. “so I ran away… I couldn’t have them find me, I was too ashamed… The town drunk was knocked out in- in the alley behind a shop-catfish, we called him- he loved the stuff. So- I – I found a knife, and…” I sobbed again, and try to compose myself.
Tom encourages me gently
“I cut my arm, and tore out some of my hair- emptied the cash from my wallet, and I wrapped his hands around the lot.”
Silence
“He was executed yesterday, on Tuesday the eleventh, at nine in the morning.”
I sob.
Tom roars with laughter, his grin resembling a growing wide
“Twenty year old pretty blonde girl frames homeless man for murder! Ha! Except you would have been – what- Sixteen? Seventeen?
I sob. “Fifteen.”
“Fifteen! You were that devious at fifteen? I can’t wait to see you at thirty! Ha! Except, my little Jennifer, you got one, teensy, tiny detail wrong.”
I look up through tears, in obvious confusion, at his Cheshire grin.
“Today is Tuesday, September eleventh.”


Part Two
Going Nowhere
Garcin asks me the next question. “So why haven’t you gone back?”
I sob even harder. “I can never go back! I framed an innocent man for murder! And I can’t face… I can’t face my…”
I trail off, suppressing memories of unmentionable pain, voices screaming of defilement as a broken jaw whose scar I will always bear hits the cold, tear wetted tile floor. And yet Catfish had been so kind to me, too. He had been a world war two vet, one of the first African Americans to fight in the US army in equality. I remember that He used to tell me war stories when I would skip school or whatever- He drank his PTSD away, but was always kind and even good for a conversation.. Catfish did not deserve his fate.
“So what will you do now? I can hire you, if you like.
Garcin’s face is soft, his voice gentle, something that I could tell was very uncharacteristic of him.
Tom’s, however, was as unforgiving as ever.
“Trying to atone, my good King Claudius? Don’t bother doing it that way. After all, we all know the answer to the famous question- that one cannot be pardoned and yet retain the offence. No, the only way to atone is to cop to it and pay back those who are still alive, and you aren’t about to do that, are you?”
Silence reigned as my tears rained on the fake tile floor. I think hard, trying to stay afloat as the silence threatens to drown me in memory.
I was right to run, or at least justified. I should have called out my Uncle, but I just… couldn’t. But Catfish- actually Marvin Jones- had taken the blame for a crime that nobody had committed. He didn’t deserve the four years in jail he had already suffered, and he certainly didn’t deserve to die. But I couldn’t go back… Not after all this time…It was too late. I probably couldn’t stop the execution if I tried. Sorry, Catfish. You’ve been caught.
It is six thirty when Maria blasts us out of the blue.
“I poisoned the bastardo who shot my husband.”
And just like that, we are all murderers.
Tom nods, grin seeming to fill the elevator as he relaxed against the wall. ”Well, that was fun! Everyone feel better now?”
No one responds. How did this even happen? What could induce us all to show our true colors, here in this broken down elevator of all places? Was it our lack of sleep? Our lingering Paranoia of death by elevator? Honeyed words of a man who wanted a show? Our mutual hatred of the constant Muzak that still filled the fake marble elevator siding?
Was it our guilt? Our shame?
Everyone may have skeletons in their closets, but not everyone killed someone to put them there.

Catfish. He hadn’t been a bad person by any stretch of the imagination. Why does he have to die so I can be free? It’s not fair But he will die.
Because I am a coward.

It is eight ten by the time we here a knocking on the elevator door.
“This is the repair man! Anyone in there?”
We all chorus yes as loudly as possible.
We should be excited. We are free.
I wonder what Catfish is doing right now? How does one prepare for the electric chair?
It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. If I went back now I would be slapped with fraud, and Catfish would still probably die. There was probably no way to stop the execution. And above all I cannot face my uncle again. No, what is done is done. The thing to do now is forget it ever happened. Forget today ever happened.
But one thought enters my head.  Why am I worth any more than Catfish?”
I’m not, but I am a coward.
The door pops open with a ding, and an old, African American man with gray hair pops his head in the door as lights brighten themselves, and the round of Muzak restarts itself.
“Elevators workin! Yall still goin up?”
We nod as one.
“Alrighty then! Up you go!”
Is it just me, or is he somewhat disappointed? The door closes behind him.
“Wait!”
Is that my voice?
His head pops back through the door.
“Yes?”
“Can- I want out please.”
“You bet, sweetheart! Here, let me help you get down from there”
Strong arms pry the elevator, and I jump onto them. They set my on my feet like I am a child again.
I check my watch. Eight thirty. I might have time.
“Thank you- oh, sir, do you know where- who-”
Tom laughs from the inside of the elevator I have left. “She wants to know where they fry crooks.”
The repairman shook his head.”1128 Washington Street. Twenty minutes from here, in a good cab. No what in the world would make a pretty thing like you go there?”
I don’t answer, by shaking legs moving faster than I think they ever had before.
“I’m coming, Catfish! God, don’t you dare let him fry!”

The man who had fixed the elevator chortled under his breath. “You neither, kid.”
He looked at the three tired and reserved faces in the elevator. “Yall still going up? Alrighty then.”

The doors closed as a New York cabbie pulled away, driven hard by the promise of triple the usual fare.
A cheery voice once again blared from overhead speakers.
“Going up to… Floor ninety one.”
And five minutes later…
“You have reached… floor ninety one. “
“You have reached… floor ni-”