Returning from lunch on Wednesday, in the brilliant life-giving afternoon, and taking a last puff on her Players Light, Susan moved without paying attention to the elevator whose arrow was green and pointing upwards. She wanted the twentieth floor. The elevator she got into went only to the fourteenth. In she went, and did not press a number. Before the door closed, a black man stepped forward, barely missing the aimed palm of the door, intent it seemed, on cutting his body into half. He smiled at her. Susan did not smile. He smiled again, and said, “Jesus Christ!” The door missed him. He smiled again.
It was warm inside the elevator. A voice in the mechanism said, “Going up.” Music started to play in the middle of a song. She did not recognize the song. The elevator was moving. The black man had not yet pressed a number. She noticed this, and wondered. The elevator became very uncomfortable. Susan passed her left hand, with the ring on her little finger, across her neck. On the ring was the crest of Bishop Strachan. Her hand remained on her neck for a longer time than she would take to remove a thread from her collar. Danger came into her stomach, like the first signs of diarrhea.
This man was thinking of the interview he was going to; that he was late. He tightened his tie, slackened the knot, and tightened it again. He looked at the piece of paper in his right hand, realized something was wrong, and when the elevator stopped and the door opened, he knew he had taken the wrong lift.
Back at her desk, that afternoon, she’d accused herself for having those feelings; and she searched in her past and went back over her days at Bishop Strachan: Amantha was from Barbados, wasn’t she? Yes, I remember her accent. And she was good in class, especially in Latin and she was in my House and played field hockey better than me, better than anybody else, and the time I knocked her down, did I knock her down because she was challenging me, because she was smaller, because she was Amantha? Or? And that other one from the Bahamas who thought she was the cat’s meow better than any of us, the best of us with her father the prime minister; and getting her parcels special delivery and couriered to her; and that time when I told Miss Sweeney that is was her, she was the culprit who had written the dirty word on the blackboard about Miss Sweeney: lesbian; and she traveled over every remembered detail of those years of childhood and of pleasure as they were meant to be, without bias but with the perspiring competitiveness of bright, privileged young girls. “Could I have offended any of them?”
She was tugged from these reveries and confessions by the ringing of the telephone on her desk.
“I’m seeing that bastard again.” It was her father. “The bones-doctor.” His voice revived her. “Drinks after work?” That put an end to her acrimonious sadness.
So, on this evening, two days later, she began to fix her face in the silver compact she had bought at Chanel on Bloor Street, pursing her lips, drawing them up into a thin line, making them into the shape she used to kiss the man who used lubricated condoms with her; drawing them to one side, the right, as if she had undergone surgery for a disfigured face; and then she did the same thing, drawing her lips to the left.
She removed a speck from the corner of her left lid, checked that her eyes were clean, and then applied mascara. The lipstick was red, full-bodied and strong. She tilted her bottle of Chanel Number 17, and placed the finger with the invisible drop on her left wrist, and with that wrist rubbed her right wrist. And then she passed the bottle under her nostrils, and rested it lightly against her neck.
In the oval looking glass in the compact, she caught the cleaning woman’s eyes. They were in full focus watching her, studying her. She became agitated. She went back over that time when the word was written on the blackboard. Lesbian.
The woman was standing in front of the trolley, and she seemed to be imitating Susan’s motions, her left hand raised as if it was holding some small object; and her right hand reproducing the touching of nostrils, neck and wrists. Susan kept her full in the centre of the looking glass. She could see her eyes, the colour of her cheeks, and the mole at the corner of her mouth, on the right side. The cleaning woman’s eyes were green.
Nervously, Susan examined her own eyes, going over the makeup, and snapped the compact shut, intending by that action to shut the prying green eyes out and obliterate that dirty word written years ago on the blackboard.
She breathed on her fingernails, at the red nail polish on her manicured hands; passed her hand while still sitting on the leather chair with the protecting cushion for pack pains, over her well-shaped and endowed hips. She glanced at her legs and promised, that in spite of the pain, she would have to do something about her veins. The veins that were beginning to crawl in irregular blue rivulets beneath her light-grey pantihose: have to take time off, have to check my health benefits, have to tell them about the hospital and coordinate with the surgeon, have to tell Mother and Father, have to put my desk in order and have to give my tickets to Joyce or Grace.... Anne...? Someone who’d appreciate ballet and, “Oh, my God! Look at the time!”
And she rose from her chair, put her purse into her bag strapped over her right shoulder, and walked out with her heels reverberating against the tiles, noisier now that the entire floor was empty.
Smoking was not allowed on her floor, but she took the box of Players Light from her purse, placed a cigarette into her mouth and then removed it. The red smear from her lips stained the tip; and then she put the cigarette back into her mouth, and fished for the box of wooden matches in her large black shoulder bag made of imitation crocodile skin. The grey-green small box with two capital P’s written back-to-back on it, she held in her hand, until the elevator came to her floor. She got inside.
She was about to press G, when she noticed that every single floor button, from 20 to G, had been pressed and illuminated, even that for the basement. She lit the cigarette, filling her lungs with the first deep pull, and kept the smoke there for a long moment, and exhaled and relaxed and felt the weight of the day and the annoyance with the diarrhea dissipate, and thank God it was over; and the cleaning woman looking at her in that way, as if she was about to ask her a question; but, “What the hell did she want?”
And then the door closed and she endured the slight nausea of her stomach falling as the elevator started to descend; and then the smoother sailing down the shaft in the enclosed, paneled cage. Alone to enjoy her cigarette, alone to travel down the twenty floors, along to smoke her prohibited cigarette, alone and with some sense of regaining strength after love. She thought of the man. And only after enjoying the expectation of this privacy that she knew was going to last only until someone else got into the elevator, “The building is empty,” did it really sink in and become anxiety, that each of the twenty illuminated circles representing the twenty floors would first have to be obliterated, that the cage would stop at each circle before they all could be wiped out, before she could reach the ground.
The first stop was sudden. She looked out at plants on a receptionist’s desk, and compared the office displayed before her with her own, and decided that hers was a more prestigious place to work. When the door was about to close, a man in a blue uniform with his name written on it, came into view hauling a long fat rubber connection; and just as the door closed, she heard the hum of a vacuum cleaner. She was becoming irritable. “Why would that bitch do this to me?”
She looked at her watch. It was seven. She had no dinner appointment, no places to go, but she still continued looking at her watch.
She was on the nineteenth floor. The elevator was descending to the eighteenth and she was now between floors. They say that during the power failure in New York City, men and women were caught in elevators between floors for hours together, and when they came out, some of them were pregnant. And she looked at the button marked emergency, and she glanced at the telephone behind its glass protection; and she wondered how long it takes for someone, police, superintendent, repairman, ambulance attendant to arrive? And how would they arrive! Do they come through the top of the elevator?
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nbsp; The eighteenth floor. A man steps into the elevator. He is wearing sneakers. The laces are not tied. They are the kind that basketball stars use for making shots slam-bang, and defying gravity. They are white with red and blue slashes; and she cannot make out the name of their manufacturer. The trousers are black jeans, down over the tip of the sneakers which look like boots, they are high above the ankle; and the bagginess of the trousers causes her to wonder how tall this man is. She moves her eyes from his sneakers up his legs, his waist, and down again. She cannot bring herself to look into his face. Not yet. “He’s taller than me!” And her eyes reach the bottom of his coat or windbreaker, and she can imagine how large the shoulders are, and can see the colours of red and green and yellow against the black background of the windbreaker. And then she sees the expanse of his chest and the thin yellow line of electrical cord joining the yellow Walkman’s noise to his ears, going deaf. For she can hear the noise, even though she cannot follow the Rhythm. “Rap!” she says to herself. And in the slow descent, for she is now travelling with someone she does not want to be travelling with, the cigarette is still in her mouth, and she allows the ash to grow. And she stands in the middle of the small space shared with the intruder in this cage, realizing that the man is facing her, and has not moved an inch since he violated her right to be safe and silent and alone in this elevator. For after all, she works here. And was here first.
And the elevator moves slower now, taking as much time to reach one floor below, as all the nineteen to travel, and in the deathlike quiet, with nothing else to do, for she has already painted a picture of his attire, and could pick him out of any police line-up with her eyes closed, she goes over in her mind, with the tough cigarette in her mouth, with smoke and ash getting longer, word for word, her accusations of rape and assault. A kick in the crotch. A scream. Where is my goddamn whistle? Did I leave it on the desk when the goddamn cleaning woman was staring at me? My whistle is attached to my subway tokens holder. Press the button marked emergency, and scare the bastard? Do not give him the impression I am scared. Be aggressively defensive. Remember the lessons in karate. Wish I’d attended those classes Joyce goes to, with that pepper-spray thing! And look the son-of-a-bitch in his eye.
She raises her eyes. He is staring at her from behind tinted glasses. Disguise! And sees the earphones. And the baseball cap. With a large white X. And turned backwards, so that she can see he has one of those haircuts popular with rappers. And thinking of music, she realizes with some shock that she has not heard music since he entered the cage. It was music already piping through the speakers above their heads. And it was not even Rap.
And the man, in panic, standing before her, placed in this closeness against his will, watched her as she lit another cigarette, as she coughed, as something in her throat went up and down, as he saw her hand that held the cigarette, shaking.
Holy shit what am I gonna do stuck with this bitch in this elevator? If it wasn’t for my Mom, I wouldn’t be in this. Forcing me to take a part-time job. Dad said no; study hard and you will get to college. I’m studying hard, for college and now this. What with me and her in here, how the fuck now am I gonna explain I didn’t do nothing that I am only delivering a parcel.
He’s waiting for the seventh floor. Perhaps, the fifth, the fourth? He will stop the elevator between the eighth and seventh. That’s why he’s wearing dark glasses. Why else would he be wearing dark glasses in an elevator, seven o’clock at night? I see them on television wearing dark glasses. I see them all the time in the news, in dark glasses.
Boy, am I gonna be glad when this reaches the ground floor. Holy shit am I glad I have this Walkman in my ears! And I was gonna put it in my pocket before I entered this building, I wonder if she could know that I ain’t listening to nothing, since this stopped working. Batteries dead. So, it’s only style and to prevent people from staring at me like it keeps me invisible. I wonder what this chick is thinking? She sure smokes like all those white girls in my grade thirteen class. Like Jane. Now, if Jane and me were still dating.... Twenty a day? Shit!
And the elevator, passing through all this time in its slow journey, reached its destination sooner than either the man or the woman expected. In a strange way neither of them desired the end. And he could see her body relax as if she had just finished exercising and could now breathe easier. He saw her hand, no longer shaking, drop the cigarette on the floor of the elevator, and how she crushed it with the tip of her high-heeled shoe. She grounded it into the carpet until it turned to brown flour. They were red suede shoes. And he said to himself, “The last time. Never again.”
The area of the lobby was bright. He could see the winter light reflecting on the tall sheets of glass and metal in the building across the street. Outside, there were people walking. They looked happy and secure. Would they know, or care that he had just come through a baptism of fear and of violence which could have been done to him because of that fear? And what might he have done to her?
She pushed past him. He stood at the front of the cage, allowing her to pass. She looked to see if the night security guard was behind the counter. This counter with its lights and buttons and controls and monitors looked like the controls in an airplane. It made the guard and the job he did, more important than it really was. She too could see women walking in the street. Some of them were alone. Two women were standing up, chatting and laughing; and all of them oblivious to her experience with this asshole, from twenty floors above their heads right down to this saving, thank God, protected lobby, because I was here first, and I work here, and no goddam immigrant or cleaning woman or black son-of-a-bitch, nobody’s gonna make me feel threatened and live like a victim in my own fucking country, province....in my city.
Now, did Cecil lock the doors before he went on his coffee break?
The man was beside her. And he too wondered if they were about to face another hindrance. But holy shit, at least people outside on the street can see me and her, and I can tell my side of the story, and they gotta believe my innocence.
She knew she could pick him out like that from any lineup in a police station, even if he left his dark glasses at home to hide the fact. And she knew that never again, not ever, would she be found dead in an elevator with a black man. She’d get off first! And wait until a white man came in! Or remain standing in front of the elevator, even if it took till time for work the next day! I can pick him out like that, in any lineup. But why didn’t I get off at the very next floor after he entered? Why? Why?
The door onto Yonge Street was unlocked. He had used too much force, anticipating the hindrance, and so when he pushed the door outwards, he almost lost his balance. But he smiled. And turned and looked her in the face, and smiled once more. And he said, “Lady?” She was surprised to hear his voice. His hand was on the polished horizontal bar, holding his half of the glass door open, allowing her to precede him. He had forgotten his ordeal in the cage locked up with her. She did not say thanks for opening the door. She walked out as he held the door.
Before she reached the edge of the sidewalk, she had the white cigarette pack of Players Light in her left hand, and the matches with the two Ps on the box, in her right: “I’m safe here!” Her purse and handbag were on the cold cement of the sidewalk between her feet. He turned to her and said, “Lady, so much smoking not good for you. Says so on the box.”
She looked at him with no change of expression. Her expression before he had spoken was relief, of victory mixed with a tinge of anger at having been helpless and without inventiveness to control the terror of his company. She placed the cigarette back into the box. She dropped the matches into the large black imitation crocodile shoulder bag. She took the bag and the purse from the cold pavement. She wanted to see in which direction he was going to turn. And then she stood and watched his jumping strides, as if he was a basketball star or a ballet dancer, moving as if he was walking on air. The unbuttoned multicoloured broad-shouldered jacket blowing in the wind, made him look like a bird
, free and dancing in his stride to the inner music pouring through his ears.
Her face felt warm and flushed. Her hands began to feel the weight of the purse and handbag. But she was accustomed to this every day on the packed subway train. This new weight however, made her feel her body and the blood in her cheeks and the slight pain in the veins in her legs. But more than that, she could feel something like excitement, like new life in her body, a kind of transfusion changing her blood to desire.
And he was disappearing fast from her, going in the direction of the lake, and the Fish, Tackle & Bone Café, towards Harbour-front. Were they having a concert, or a poetry reading tonight at Harbourfront? And even when tears began to wash her face and cloud her eyes and vision and made it impossible for her to identify him in the distance, she blamed the cold air that now brought the tears. She knew she would still remember the white sneakers with their slashes of blue and red; and the baggy trousers that fell over the top of the sneakers that looked like boots, above the ankle. And he was tall and his head was shaven in the new style; and she could see the large white X, and the yellow cord to his ears.
Beggars
There is a bank machine at the top of the subway stairs. A wind comes up from the subway. In winter the wind is strong and cold. The winter has dragged on until early May, and this morning, as I move away from the line at the bank machine, I am brushed by a woman who carries a soft leather briefcase in her left hand, a large handbag in her right, struggling against the stream of people and cursing as she tries to stuff her cash into her red purse. There is a gold-painted snap on her purse. I hold five twenties from the machine and I am trying to put them into my wallet as I go through the heavy glass doors to the subway.
Once inside, I face a new stream of men and women, mostly women. And the man. He stands in the tiled corner, no more than five feet from me, staring me in the eye, and then, he drops his eyes suddenly to my hand, and is counting the bills I hold, five winks of calculations.
There Are No Elders Page 6