break

In a small office building, there is an elevator used by most to navigate six floors of cubicles, desks, offices, and the occasional lounge. A company that employs at least fifty operates from the third and fourth floors. Although it would take only six small flights to climb from the lobby to the third floor, the building’s sole staircase is tucked away awkwardly behind the security guard’s desk, hidden by a single grey steel door marked with indecipherable stickers depicting stick figures fleeing an array of particularly aggressive crosses and lines. The stickers are colored bright yellow and red, and the security guard is rarely cordial, so the elevator manages the bulk of the company’s operatives and their vertical travels.

Between the hours of 7:30 to approximately 8:25 in the morning, on weekdays of course, the elevator whisks loads of sometimes one, often two or three individuals with starched collars and pointed ties of gratuitous width up to the third, and occasionally fourth floor, usually finishing the journey with moments to spare before it is requested once more by a steadily populating queue forming atop the beige carpet of the lobby below. Within the elevator's mirrored stainless steel walls, pleasantries are exchanged, and egregious conversation is often made over the pushing of the “close doors” button.

Between approximately 8:15 and 9:00, the steel box’s clientele morphs to a slightly more lax standard of dress, featuring poorly ironed cotton, skinner neckties, and the occasional pastel hue dotting an intern’s trousers or a rising prospect’s socks. Talk is more jovial, but still assuredly pointless as they clamber onto the platform and stab at the “3” button uselessly. It glows warmly and lifts them up to the day’s endeavors.

Few stragglers enter the double sliding doors of the elevator past 9:15; although there are no punch-cards at the company, timeliness and punctuality are held to a considerable professional standard. A last-minute rep striding into the office at, say, 9:37, would undoubtedly be greeted with widened eyes and sideways glances, but the occurrence is rare. The men with wider ties would likely hold a careful gaze at such an individual through the blinds of their offices, small rooms lining the perimeter of the third floor’s mass of cubicles with coveted window views of suburbia, but direct face-to-face reprehension is scarce.

In the postliminary hours of the morning, the lobby becomes quiet and the gaze of the security guard is less often averted from his styrofoam coffee cup. On certain days, a small crew of two or at maximum three men dressed in light grey bodysuits emerges to vacuum and steam the carpet, protecting its trademark beige from the scuffs and grime of leather soled loafers and rubber-bottomed brogues. They are usually finished before the company above breaks for lunch, releasing a select few employees past the lounges and down, through the elevator, out to the outside world beyond.

The lounges and break-rooms number just two on the third floor, one slightly less intimate than the other. At approximately 11:45, phone calls begin to wrap up and glances are cast around the floor as representatives reach for their lunch bags, backpacks, and satchels. Slowly, they seep out of the main floor and into the usual spots, populating the green and ivory-tiled break-room like earthworms oozing through soil. Chatter reverberates subtly off the linoleum, peppered with an occasional squeak of footwear and a briefly audible laugh.

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On a day like any other at the company, an employee of age thirty-one decides to break from the quiet bustle of the break-room at 12:10, early lunchtime, and venture out for a confidential fast-food treat. He closes the clean cardstock cover of the manila file folder before him, slips his nylon shell over his pink striped oxford and skinny teal blue tie, grapples in his pocket for his keys, and heads towards the elevator. He prods the button cast with a “down” arrow and the doors slide open immediately, cultivating a smirk on his previously flush, expressionless face. The elevator lowers him down to the lobby with no additional stops, where a fellow company worker greets him with a tepid nod. They switch places apathetically as the man with the pink shirt and blue tie continues out the doors of the building to his car, and drives off to fetch a meal of succulent calories and trans fat.

After idling for several minutes in hot, bright sunlight at a drive-through window, unbuttoning his oxford and impatiently waiting for customers in a rusty Dodge minivan ahead, the office employee manages to finally place his order and opts for a value meal with an extra large fountain drink. The remainder of his stay in the automotive queue passes quickly, but after checking his watch, a flashy Invicta plated with fake yellow gold, the man realizes he will have to take his order to go. He guides his sedan back to the office building and eventually finds himself tightening his pastel tie and scurrying across the freshly vacuumed lobby towards the elevator doors.

The car reaches the lobby with a jolt just as the hurried employee approaches the double doors. He pokes at the “up” button once viciously, not noticing its lack of illumination, and the doors slide smoothly open. He does not look up to see three men, middle-aged, wide-framed, and donning white poplin dress shirts, grey peaked lapel suits, and wide, wide red yellow and brown ties reaching from their necks and pointing down to the pointed shiny leather that covers their toes. He does not look up to see the briefcases and naked file folders clenched in their sweaty grips, or the expressions that twist and contort across their tired and wrinkled faces. He does not look up to see their eyes, looking down onto him, as he rushes into the elevator, his face deep inside a brown paper bag of french fries.

The pink shirted employee does not know what has gone wrong until his forehead makes contact. The carefully waxed and blow-dried combover adorning his rosy young head is compressed, packed with the silk and linen blend of blue comprising the sportcoat of the elevator’s far-left passenger. The employee loses all bearing on reality and control, and the contents of his grasp release into freefall and splay across the interior of the elevator car. For a moment, particles of Crush orange soda float, suspended in midair, before fanning out across the interior of the pendulous metal box, fluttering into the pores of fabric and skin paraded by the three human males standing in the center of the car. French fries litter the floor and do little to absorb the steadily growing pool of coral flowing out of the styrofoam cup now resting on the left shoe of the man positioned in the middle of the three. The entire ordeal is finished in milliseconds, leaving four sets of eyes to dart back and forth at various speeds while a wave of silence passes over the troop. As the orange stream flows across the elevator floor towards the lobby carpet, everything is still.

The security guard emerges from his desk and stares blankly at the carnage. Unwavering, he raises his walkie-talkie to his face and mutters something unintelligible, then recedes back to his perch.

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Later that day, another employee of the company finishes his work slightly early and decides to duck out prematurely to give his daughter a ride home from school. He knows it is frowned upon, but he is a strong worker and decides that he has earned himself amnesty for every once in awhile. Glancing from one pinned family photo to another, the weary employee shakes his head. His gaze turns to his watch, a pristine Timex with a sporty velcro strap. His little girl will be waiting. He does not check his email before leaving. 2:54.

He proceeds to walk to the elevator, moving briskly and with purpose so as not to arouse suspicion of his motives. He reaches the double doors and jabs the button, peering over his shoulder and again checking the time. 2:59.

The doors slide open and the man enters the car, immediately noticing its fried, oily smell and the peculiar orange blotches speckling the beige carpet. He squints, then shakes his head, checking his watch once again. 3:00.

The elevator doors close.

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The two on-duty members of the custodial staff were summoned by the security guard to the lobby. They were told that a clean-up was needed in the elevator. The security guard called up to the receptionist of the third floor and asked that all company employees use the stairs for the rest of the day, as the elevator would be out of service. The receptionist sent out this memo via email.

Weary from their work earlier that morning, the two men procrastinated their new elevator assignment, well aware of the company’s lack of need for its services during the period from after lunch to closing.

Eventually, around quarter-to-three, the grey-clad custodial men inspected the stains and mess and realized it would be a tough job. The orange soda had badly stained the carpet, and french fries were wedged deep into the air conditioning vents. The two men shook their heads reluctantly and, recalling the memo sent out to the company, decided the job could wait until the morning.

They receded to the building’s storeroom and studied the circuit breakers. Rubbing dust off each tape-written label, they located the one designated for the elevator, and pulled it. With a snap, it flipped across and its corresponding light flicked off. Wondering if it was finally time to head out for the day, one of the men checked his watch. 3:01. The two nodded and swung the aluminum door shut.

dedicated to David Foster Wallace

© 2017