Disclaimer: Rent is not mine. At all. In any way.
It doesn't take more than two minutes, an elevator ride. That means two minutes waiting, two minutes bouncing on heels, two minutes watching the luminous numbers indicate positioning.
Modern humans are condition to this, to wait, to accept the wait. We've ridden elevators since childhood. First, in our youth, we bounced from wall to wall, whined to our mothers, pulled off our shoes and made fists with our toes in the grungy, worn carpets. Or some children occupied themselves by making faces in mirrors. Some sang loudly, testing and abusing the confines. And, of course, the rare few stood quietly and held Mommy's hand.
By puberty, we learn to endure the wait. We pretend to hate it, but already we revel in the stolen moments of quietude. Accepting that there is nothing we can do to alter our state, we fill our ears with music. We read the books we savor, not our textbooks. Those told routinely that they cannot sing, they sing at the top of their voices. We lose our heads in the clouds.
But the significance is the acceptance.
Ours is not an age of patience. We want to race down empty stretches of freeway at eighty miles an hour. Dinners take less than 20 minutes to heat through in the oven. Napoleon, according to legend, ate every meal in fifteen minutes. He is the very picture of modernity. The French have their thousand thick sauces to keep the food warm, as otherwise it cooled considerably traveling from the kitchen to the dining hall.
With today's technology, it's predicted that in twenty years every house will have a computer. No more waiting a few days for something handwritten with personal flourishes and clumsiness, no, the point will be communicated instantaneously, no love whatsoever.
Elevators are the exception. In stepping into an elevator, one surrenders a small portion of his or her day to devote to quiet and patience. An elevator is a reprieve. It is a time, a place to breathe deeply and let the pulse slow and the tension slough.
Whoever had the idea to put the clinic on the eighth floor, is a genius. I ride up. I breathe. Then the tests or results, and the ride down. If it's good news, it's not enough. I run out into the streets so damned happy since my T-cells have gone out and purchased a trampoline, I sprint or dance or hug random people or get arrested for disturbing the peace.
If it's bad news, the elevator calms me down. The elevator is an exception to the world. In the elevator, there is no death.
Today, I walk out of the clinic with no good news and no bad, which in this place means good. I step into the elevator, thinking about grading and how I just don't want to. I think about grammatical abuse, about inappropriate verbiage. Does requiring that each sentence have a verb and an agreeing subject make me an elitist? Honestly, can college students do no better?
A snuffling draws my attention. I look; standing in the corner with his shoulders curled inwards is a young man, his hair pointedly flopped forward as he watches the carpet. Tears streak across his cheeks and drop to the floor. A slip of paper is crumpled in one fist.
"Hey," I say. I've got two minutes to help this kid out, two minutes of stress and why the hell am I doing this? I don't know him. His problems aren't my problems.
But that's just it. His problems are my problems. He's got AIDS.
He looks up at me. His eyes are pouring and he's got a runny nose, but there's something furious in him. I realize I do know him.
"Weren't you in my Morals and Human Reasoning class two years ago?"
His mouth opens, then closes pointedly, and I have the feeling I've been spared an obscene retort. "Hi, Professor," he says. "I didn't know you liked dick."
…ok, not spared. I lean back and watch the door, damned if I'm going to sacrifice my elevator ride for this little fucker.
Of course he steals my peace, anyway, with a mix of pity and petty anger. I'm all too glad when the elevator dings to announce that we have reached the ground floor and I am freed of this forced companionship.
I think nothing of that day until nearly three years later, standing in the same elevator, looking at the same attitude from an insolent little fucker about the same age. Roger rubs his arm and shoots me a wicked glare.
I roll my eyes. "Like I care, Roger."
"Fuck you, Thomas," he murmurs quickly to the same dirty, faded carpet.
"Fuck you right back, you cocky little bastard."
He's even cockier two weeks later when the test comes back negative. "All that shit," he says, punching the button with his thumb, "for nothing," as the doors slide closed.
I rub my temples. I'm getting a headache, maybe because I'm between jobs and teaching fucking junior college, maybe because I'd do anything not to listen to him and April fucking and fighting nonstop.
And Maureen doesn't help anything. I love Maureen. I just wish she'd would SHUT THE HELL UP once in a while.
Five of us, living in the loft, since Benny moved out. Five of us share too small a space. Heroin was once used to treat loose bowel.
"Be careful, Roger," I warn. I warned him when he brought home acid and I dragged him here the second he put that needle in his arm. What else can I do?
I fold my arms. "I know your dealer," I say.
He does a double-take. "What?" I've got his attention now.
"I know your dealer," I repeat. "He's got AIDS."
Roger hates me when he gets the implication, he hates me from the moment I say it to the moment I'm right.
the end