The Ugly Passenger

Ben Nardolilli

 

It was the weekend officially once I passed through the elevator’s threshold that separated the office from the rest of the world. It was a band of bright shiny metal that reflected my shoes in oxblood colored blurs. I had already loosened my tie, undoing the top button on my shirt in the process. I had come into work half an hour early that morning, so I could leave thirty minutes before everyone else in my office as well as the rest of the building. I was excited to begin the commute home before the masses. I would see things that no one else saw, what the world looked like at 4:45 rather than 5:00.
            Most importantly no rush of people was going to get in my way and make me forget where I was going. In the past, I had gotten caught up in the movements of people and taken the wrong train, gotten off at the wrong stop, entered the wrong house, and slept in the wrong bed, all because I had gotten lost on my way home trying to surf above the heads and shoulders of all the commuters around me.
            But this Friday would be different. I was early. I pressed the small dome poking out from the granite walls and it lit up, letting me know that an elevator was on its way to take me wherever I wanted to go. While watching the numbers rising in blocks of emerald green lines, I looked at my post-impressionist reflection in the elevator doors. I saw my hair was out of place. If I could notice it on such a blur, then I knew it was a real problem.
            While I was fixing it, licking my hand to help keep the strands in place, the elevator reached my floor and it opened up to reveal an empty room. There was no one looking at me and wondering to him or herself how I could let my hair become such a disaster. I went inside and the doors slid shut. The machinery around me was making lots of clinking and clanking noises because it was old and not well oiled. Nervous, I whistled part of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth and when the notes were too high for me, I started to hum them. The sounds of the machinery were not covered up by me, but I was distracted enough not to dwell on them and then keep thinking that at any moment the cable holding me up and dangling me like a pendulum above the ground floor, could snap.
            Floor after floor passed me by. Everyone was still in their offices, trying to find ways to spend the last thirty minutes of their workday. I realized that I might have the elevator to myself all the way to the ground floor. I began to hum and whistle louder, believing that I would not be embarrassed by anyone entering my little descending room.
            A rumbling started in my stomach. Soon it began to grow and cause pressure on my insides. I thought about what I had eaten for lunch and remembered going to the taco stand across the street. I was a regular there and had a regular meal. The owner, Gus, always made me excellent fish and shrimp tacos. I could still taste the lime on my lips. For some reason, they were giving me trouble. For a drink, I had a beer. All those bubbles and hard to break down compounds, I figured that was the cause. Normally I just had water, but that afternoon, Gus had offered me a beer because the refrigerator was broken and had to get rid of his stock. He had given me an extra taco too.
            Something had to come out. I was expanding and was going to break through my belt. If I filled up with any more gas, I would rise off the floor and bump my head on the ceiling of the elevator. Nobody was inside with me and it was a medical emergency, or at least becoming one. So I put my legs out far apart and squatted a bit, tightening my thighs and felt a rush of air sliding into my cleft, the skin rejoicing at the cool breath. It only had a brief time to experience the air dancing around it, as I opened up my sphincter and then felt a rush of warm air shoot out. I felt a little bit better.
            Right as I got back into my standing position, the doors opened. I jumped into the corner of the elevator, ashamed of the fumes I had spread around the chamber, but no one got in. I rushed to press the close button but then a voice cried out from the end of the corridor to tell me to keep the elevator open for him. Being a polite person I had to oblige. I put my hand in the threshold and when the doors tried to close on their own, they came against my arm and stopped, going back to their holes to wait.
            The man was breathing heavily and running. I could hear the panting getting closer and closer. He was moving fast and dragging one of his feet. There was something slippery under his shoe. It was making a squeaking sound with each step. I thought that it was because the floor tiles had been recently waxed, and I was worried that he would slip on them.  However, he got to the elevator before I could issue a warning.
I pressed the close button and smiled at the man who was inside the elevator with me. I didn’t really get a good look at him before, but now he was right in front of me and I looked at him rather than just the outline of his body, which was all I had paid attention to when he came inside. I was horrified by what I saw, but kept it to myself.
His face had a large gash across the cheek. The skin was opened up and it looked like the top of a pocket, a thin opening that was covered in dried blood. It had drained itself down his chin and neck and I could see a trail of drops going down his shirt. It was collared and he had a tie on that was still firmly knotted in place. There were red stains on his side. It looked like these did not come from a wound inside him, but from someone else, almost as if they had been sprayed on. His pants were originally a light beige from the few dry spots I could see, but were absolutely drenched in blood. It was hard to tell for sure if it was, it looked so much like a bottle of ketchup exploded all over his trousers. The blood from the pants had gotten onto his shoes and I realized then that was why they had been squeaking.
He was nervous too. He was shifting his weight from one side to the other, shuffling his feet in the process. I saw him leaving footprints of blood on the floor of the elevator. I smiled at him, pretending he was just wet, having been caught in the rain without an umbrella. Perhaps it really had been raining cats and dogs and men.
Neither of us said anything as we began heading down to the ground floor. I was afraid of him and he was anxious about me. He saw me as a witness to something, my eyes were picking up pieces of evidence every time I accidentally glanced over at him. I tried to not to stare, but it was hard. He looked like he had come from a massacre. He did not seem to notice the cut on his own face and that his blood was mixing with that of his victims. Instead he was only concerned about me and what I thought. Meanwhile my stomach was rumbling again. If I held anything in, I would throw up. But if I let anything out, then it might cause him to get angry at me. He looked like someone with patience issues.
I caught him looking at me, and he caught me doing the same. Our eyes locked and I started to sweat. He smiled and licked his blood stained lips, cleared his throat and began to speak, noticing that I was anxious being next to him and looked like I wanted to let something out.
“I’m an accountant,” he said in a voice that sought to answer any and all questions that I might have until the end of time. We both nodded. I didn’t tell him what I did for a living, I didn’t want him coming up to my office and committing unspeakable horrors in front of the water cooler. The more I could remain a mystery to him the better. I was glad that he hadn’t noticed the stench I had released earlier. The smell of blood probably dulled his senses.
He wanted me to respond in some way but all I did was smile. I showed him my teeth to let him know I was sincerely happy for him, even though I was fearing for my life as well.
“I balance the books. I make sure all debts are paid.”
His words sounded of a divine origin. As long as he was covered in blood, I would appreciate any kind of work he did. He could have been unemployed, a bum wandering in off the streets. The fact that he was splattered in crimson made me respect him. He wore his victims in public.
“What do you do? How do you earn a living?”
I took a deep breath. My stomach was twisting from nervousness but was swelling at the same time. I imagined my insides looking like a whole zoo of balloon animals. It needed another release. We still had ten floors to go, I wanted to hold out, but knew I could not.
“How do you earn your living?”
It was such a common question, and if the man was covered in nothing but starch and spilled coffee then I would have answered him. But he meant something more by it, he was trying to ascertain if I was doing enough to breath the same air as him, the air that I had polluted and was about to do so again.
“I, I work, I’m paid, I pay my taxes.”
“But how do you do any of that?”
“I keep, help people doing right, things.” I wanted to squat and untie my innards but the man wanted an answer that I could not concentrate on and deliver. How could I describe my job to him, what was it he wanted to hear?  It had to be something important. Under his crimson soaked shirt and pants were a pair of wings I was sure. He was some sort of avenging angel, sent to collect certain debts and “balance the books.” Or at least that is what the voices in his head probably told him.
“I, I work to cure cancer.” I thought that was a noble enough goal. I looked at the screen at the top of the elevator, there were nine floors to go. If I cut the chord that held the elevator I would have gotten to the ground floor faster, but there was nothing I could do about it.
“Cancer? Why do you try and fight the inevitable? Don’t you know how important cancer is?  Don’t you know how important cancer is to keep? The whole metaphor by itself is of immense importance. If we lost that, so many things would fall apart. There’d be worse havoc, trust me. I don’t even want to go in to what would happen to the Health Care System.”
“Did I say cancer?” I had to find another way to sound useful. “I meant global warming. I fight that…thing.”
His eyes opened up. If my heart was not beating so loud and my stomach growling, I would have heard the muscles holding the cornea stretching in amazement. “Global warming? You fight something that isn’t proven? How can that be? Do you fight windmills too? Come, you must do something useful. What do you do to earn your living?”
As I prepared to face his wrath, I released my sphincter again. Another burst of hot wind flew out between my legs and through the seat of my pants. There was no sound. It was a cloud that simply fell out of me. I could smell it by the time I came up with another occupation.
“I help give candy to children. In Africa. And baby seals and puppies. Ponies too. And make sure there are always rainbows.” I swallowed and took another breath. I felt around behind me, hoping there was something I could hold onto that would protect me. He would get angry and he would add another coat of blood to the others he was wearing. He probably wanted a fresh one too. I noticed that what he had on him already was starting to congeal.
“Sounds like you’re spoiling them. Are you really giving them what they want? No. I don’t think so. I don’t think you give anybody what they want, I think you just sit behind a desk and look important, I think that’s all you do,” he stayed where he was, but his finger was pointed out at me. I was being accused by the digit, it was so thin and pointed and I thought that this would be his weapon of choice in attacking me. Nervous, I released another bubble from inside of me.
The man took his bloodstained hands and straightened his tie. There were six floors left. I didn’t know what to do. He was angry, a frown was being drawn across his face. I had offended him. There was no escape, and nothing to defend myself. All I had was my tie and my shoes. I thought about beating him with the heels and then strangling him once he was on the ground, but he was bigger than me. There was no way I could come out of any scuffle alive.
“How do you earn your living, I ask you this again-”He stopped. I could see his nostrils, the ends of which were caked in a thin film of blood, flared open, big round disks of night that threatened to inhale in the entire elevator. He cocked his head to one side and sighed. He took a step towards me. "Is that you I’m smelling?”
I had to avoid making him angry. There were five floors left. Only five floors until I could make my escape.“No, it was here-“
He took another sniff and cocked his head to the other side like the pendulum in a grandfather clock. “You’re the only other one here.”
“Maybe it’s you, from you. Sometimes you never notice-“
“No,” I let his nose swallow up the air between us. “I detect a hint of lime, and fish. I hate seafood.”
“Oh.”
”I’m going to ask you again. And I am going to ask you plainly, did you fart?”
“No.”
“Pass gas then?”
“What’s the difference?”
“One is more accidental, not done on purpose to annoy someone else.”
“Well I didn’t do any of that. I’m clean.”
“Oh are you? So clean you don’t have to earn your living?” He began to close in on me and I fell to my knees. I wanted to put my hands together and pray, but I didn’t know which God would impress the man covered in blood.
“Please, I don’t want any trouble, I don’t hurt anybody, isn’t that enough?’
“You hurt me just now, with your lies. I want you to tell the truth. What did you do?”
“I did nothing, it was my body, it has a mind of its own.” He leaned in and his face was almost brushing up against mine. I could see the scab hardening over the gash in his cheek. It glistened and looked like an upside down smile.
‘You must learn to take responsibility for your actions. I will not ask again,” he took a deep breath and his fists began to clench up and shake. We were three floors away from the ground level and the lobby, but I was paying little attention to where I was, only how close he was too me. I started to cry a bit and wiped tears from my eyes.
“Okay, okay, I passed gas. I made the place stink. Thank you, thank you for letting me come clean with this. Thank you sir.” I kissed his shoes, unsure if I was putting someone else’s vital fluids on my lips.
“Good.” He stood back up and smiled. The elevator was sliding down to the final floor. “You understand that you can’t act like there is no one else here. You are always surrounded. You are always being watched. Always being felt…and smelt. Be careful. Consider this a warning.” I nodded and tried to speak, but as soon as I opened my mouth he patted my chin and brought my jaws back together.
“Thank you for holding the elevator for me. Thank you for the conversation.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it hard and the familiar and now liberating ping of the opening doors went off. He smiled and hobbled out of the elevator and said goodbye to the guard at the front of the building. I got up and brushed the hypothetical dust and dirt from my knees that I was sure was there even if I could not see it.  I left the elevator and walked past the guard who was sitting behind a wall of his own making composed of an open newspaper. I told him goodnight and when he peered from behind the words, he asked me what the stain on my shirt had come from. It was red and shaped like a hand.
I told him I had helped an artist who had fallen down some stairs and that his hands were still wet with paint when he was using my shoulder to rise up off the ground. He shrugged and I went through the front gate and left the building.