Man and Wife exited the elevator in high sprits, their future freshly reinvigorated. She would host elaborate dinner parties, adopt for herself an outlandish pet name, and wear hats in the evening. His afternoons would be spent in the foyer doing whatever it was one did in a refurbished, high ceiling riverfront foyer. Children would wait. Their mornings, until recently a matter of flat cake and sausages, would now consist of gruel and greens as a certain symmetric slenderness was in order for life amidst the clouds. Both smiled and nodded past the doorman with the Man cursing himself for never having been one for a fedora, as the situation seemed to warrant a tipping of the rim. Oh dear, did you take a good look at him? I know; so sharply dressed, so handsome and proper…Poised is what he is! Yes exactly, poised! Imagine being greeted like this each and every day. Cleans the world right up is what it does! We’re going to be very happy here, aren’t we?
~ ~ ~
His day begins sharply at 4:43am, and he is nothing if not punctual, our Doorman. It’s at this time that he ends his trek from his leaked and rotten hole somewhere between 517 Mountain View and 715 Vista Hill, address of little importance even to himself, and takes ownership instead of the modern, intentionally homey but ultimately claustrophobic, lobby. It is there and in twelve-hour increments (sixteen on weekends) that he wins his daily bread, finding something akin to fulfillment along the way. When not ensuring the invisibility of rodents, he is tasked with compliance and servitude receiving in return gratitude that he occasionally mistakes for the amicability of an equal. He considered, for instance, the crisp dollar bill obtained from Mr. Donavan each Thursday to be a personal gesture, this despite the fact that valet, driver, and homelessman Gill all found themselves equally rewarded Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. And while he would never venture to ask Lady Lavish, the preserved 3rd floor beauty, why she insisted, July or February, on wearing an airtight scarf about her neck, it was in good form to compliment her on the various styles and knots with she would experiment.
~ ~ ~
“Here, Caesar chicken; barely touched it. So, you’ve seen her right?” He received, alongside the massacred platter, the creased and perfectly torn corner of what could only be the tackiest of gossip columns. On it were the barely visible features of a woman blurred by her own fiery mane as she stepped out of a still limousine.
[…]
“‘Donavan’s new paramour.’ Sweet chest and even wider hips from what I hear. You believe that?”
[…]
“First local sighting too. Before that it was Acapulco, Africa, Paris; The old fart’s giving her the ride of a lifetime and we’re not talking airfare.”
[…]
“Really? Story has it that they met right here in this very lobby, though. Real surrenderpitus shit… Man, can’t believe you didn’t catch that.”
[…]
Don’t you pay attention to these things, sitting here all day anyway? Gimme that sandwich back!”
[…]
~ ~ ~
It took two dictionaries for the Doorman to fully understand what a pitus was, and how such a thing could be come to be surrendered. And though he still could not define the exact nature of the encounter he had witnessed—lacking both the education and pessimism to do so—the Doorman was quite certain that it did not fall into the category of “accidental and fortuitous encounters in the confluence of unrelated events.” Were they a part of his vocabulary, the words “meticulous” and “artifice” might have come to mind.
~ ~ ~
She, as we will now be referring to her in deference of the Doorman’s wounded sensibilities, was a person he had met on numerous occasions. The first of which had occurred at a particularly busy time, when he had grown concerned about the increasingly noticeable number of rodents around the lobby. His usually pristine faux-marble counter had for those few days gained the clutter of a notepad as he planned new daring layouts for the seventeen monthly rattraps the lobby was allocated. It was in such a distracted state that he had first been approached by her.
~ ~ ~
The average residential building in the greater urban area contains no less than 4,700 rats; the equivalent of fifty-three or so nests. It is, one could say, cause for concern that between the slums (where their ubiquitous presence on every surface, horizontal, vertical, or otherwise, is nothing short of an uncomfortable certainty), and the skyline domains of bidets and walkthrough showers (where the sight of a single such parasite creates intolerable panic), the mean stands at such an elevated number. Understand the severity of this 4,700. Take a moment to appreciate these 18,800 clawed paws crusted in blood, feces, and mud, each accompanied by a pair of voyeuristic eyes impeding upon your person at night. Viler still are the claustrophobic lobbies where rodent and human maintain an implicit agreement of avoidance. Failure to conform to this can lead to drastic actions including, but not limited to, extermination. It is in those mid-range accommodations that you will find a suited man alternating between the laying of traps and the offering of hardened cheese, this depending on the severity with which the contract has been breached.
~ ~ ~
“Oh, hello,” she had smiled, in hindsight perhaps a bit too earnestly. “Do you work here? Well of course you do. What I meant to ask was how long you’ve worked here?” She had not belonged, that much was clear; her tone too involved to be that of a visitor and too eager to imply any administrative purpose to her presence. Addressing him was neither an act of habit nor an effort for her but rather the very purpose of her presence.
This was a disposition he had previously only seen in the vagrants who wandered past his doors on harsh winter nights, hiding their pursuit of warmth in stilted conversation. So striking had this first impression been that, had it not been for her attire, free of ragged ends and life experience, he might have thrown her out.
What he recalls of her has little to do with breasts or hips. It was that hairdo of hers, naturally rusted and overly meticulous, that lingered in his mind.
~ ~ ~
The assistant superintendent, Ugly Casanova, as the Doorman had come to label him, favouring the use of monikers to anchor his surroundings to his being, was an odd one. The Doorman doesn’t remember there being a functional rumour mill on the premises until the unappealing little man who chewed gum at the front of his teeth had taken it upon himself to lay the proper foundations for one. Struggling finances, bad habits, past marriages, and other healthy vices were to him the raised sand of the many beaten paths that lead to life among the Heights and therefore perfectly suited to the public forum. The man, whose own lack of personal affairs was palpable, took a visceral interest in tracing the six degrees of indiscretion that separated tenants and had come to see the Doorman as a great untapped resource. An open and invisible eye unto every drunken fumble, friendly chit, and lustful chat that passed through lobby. That is why he made a point of strolling by the man’s desk after lunch, bringing with him a side salad or the untouched point of a sandwich as an understood form of bribery. The Ugly Casanova admittedly ate surprisingly copious meals and on any other day, the Doorman would have surely completed the transaction and rewarded him with the extent of his knowledge that, as he was now realizing, was quite substantial.
~ ~ ~
Upon repeated encounters (for she made a point of visiting his desk every other day) the Doorman had noticed her face, though pleasant, to be slightly pointed, as though the inside of her cheeks were coated with something sour of which she was permanently enjoying the taste. She asked him how well he knew the tenants. Who were the “best ones.” Explained herself to mean those remembered from those too dull to be addressed by anything other than their unit number. Where they went when not wearing ties and carrying briefcases. Her face unnaturally eased itself whenever he would venture a purpose to her inquiries.
“Here to visit a friend? Me? Oh, don’t be silly; these women wouldn’t see me fit to hold the napkin they bite into.” […] “No, but I do know their types. That is all they are, y’know; Old. Lonely. Well fed. Blander than hay for the most part. Walking clichés eager to prove themselves otherwise.” […] “Me? The nubilest of Nadines. People person through and through. Working on it. Not since I prayed to Saint Lillian and grew three cup sizes.”
She would then laugh and touch his sleeve, mindful not to recoil at the wetness. She was from Nebraska and had three brothers. She had no problem slipping in and out of the Midwestern accent, and regretted having spent the bulk of her teenage years on parked cars which was why she had moved to the city in pursuit of ambitions greater than corn. Her exact contact information however remained to him the most engrossing of mysteries.
~ ~ ~
Damp to the touch, his uniform is freshly pressed, steamed by a broken radiator and flattened with efficiency between mattress and floor. He also takes to wearing his hat at a slight skew as to make it his own. Initially chastised for such an initiative, he had been forced to earn this distinction, moving the cap the length of an inch every other week and then back to the front once more whenever this came to be noticed by his superior until it found its rightful throne on his head—off to the side with the right edge grazing his ear— noticeable but permissible.
~ ~ ~
Further still among his transgressions was the fact that he wore a red tie rather than the mandated navy, as to match the stitching of his blazer’s cuff. With his rather attuned sense of fashion, our Doorman might have been, in another life, a respected tailor who collects holiday cards from satisfied clients. He knew this defiance to have been the right choice the day nouveau artiste Rainbow Renoir, 5th floor, always on the foreground of haute couture, had given him a glance of approval.
~ ~ ~
She laughs in an unnatural manner her head thrown back like a loosened prosthetic waiting for a snapshot to go off. Later comes the well-timed admission that she considers herself partly deluded for visiting him as she often as does. She admits her fondest expectation of city life to have always been that of a sassily dressed doorman such as himself present to greet in the evening. It is with the bombastic motions of the struggling starlet that she dramatizes the disappointment she felt when she’d instead been greeted by an empty two-door hallway the day she’d moved into her first apartment across the street. An awkward silence then sets.
~ ~ ~
The doorman across the street, for there very much was one, is a portly black fellow by the name of Oscar who, unlike our own, lived on the premises in basement quarters the height of three barrels and the length of two. They had exchanged numbers early on that year if for no reason other than it seemed appropriate for equivalent men such as they were to have one another’s information. Neither expected, given the complex divides that separated them, a greater connection to emerge from this and, indeed, none ever would.
~ ~ ~
She is in the administrative field and works odd hours, she says. They discuss the folly of the rich and voice a mutual pride at earning a daily living, he a doorman and she an administrative facilitator with odd hours. She tells him, in the most disdainful of tones, of a man she has repeatedly seen come out of this building. “Short. Positively balding. Walks sideways with wealth.” The Tycoon, the Doorman confirms, hoping this moniker will further bond them. She, however, insists on confirmation of his real name. Mister Donavan. Mister Donavan who never leaves the building without an electronic device to his ear and another somewhere on his body, making his girth pulsate. Mister Donavan who believes the crisp dollar bill to be salvation for the working class. Mister Donavan: for whom oil was not a cancerous liquid dripping from pipes but a matter of equity, cufflinks, and luncheons.
~ ~ ~
The Doorman describes the various girls he sees in the Tycoon’s company and the kept promises of steak dinners and weekend gateways with which he goads them, his contempt growing whenever he speaks. Having caught her seemingly undying interest, he exaggerates their descriptions, adding torn stockings and stained skirts so short, they could double as belts, noting the mogul’s seemingly fetishistic interest in talkative Mary Janes and other such lost causes. She in return flawlessly mimics the presumed inflexions of such a ditz for him. “A necklace! Why dear sir, I must simply fellate you in return. S’just how my daddy raised me.” They infer the Tycoon’s debilitating loneliness and share hearty laughs.
~ ~ ~
The Doorman’s entire world shifts the length of an inch to the left as he begins to look tenants in the eyes rather than at the convergence of their brow as he was trained to. An ostensibly small change, we’ll agree.
~ ~ ~
He is not quite at ease yet being at ease when he rehearses himself to casually ask Lady Lavish about the nature of her signature piece. He is careful to frame the inappropriate inquiry as a compliment, stroking her flair for fashion and variety. Though startled, and more than somewhat affronted, the woman shuffles her rectangular bags, freeing one hand with which she touches the triple-knotted maroon abomination of the day.
“A lover once bit me,” she says curtly. “It healed poorly.” Her elevator arrives and she declines help with her multi-colored boxes, heavy with wrapping paper and perhaps a few grams of gemstones at their bottom. “I like your tie,” she supposes in reciprocal politeness.
~ ~ ~
He doesn’t see her for quite a few days afterwards. Seventeen to be exact. In the interim, he pays more detailed attention to the moneyed maladies of the residents, preparing a vast array of material with which to entertain her. His thorough observations and impeccable penmanship once again denote that he would have made a fine student had his father not made the fatal mistake of a weak-boned purebred with his college tuition all those years ago. It is in that mode, scribbling notes in his otherwise empty notebook, that he learns, without confirming, that the Batista on 3rd is into heavy hallucinogens, that Victor/Victoria on 5th is reversing the procedure and that the purple eye of The Captain, 7th, is in fact the work of his sturdy daughter. The rats take advantage of this distraction. They disinterestedly scurry past him, some preferring the altitude of the mailboxes and others congregating right under his counter subsisting on an increased number of delectable sandwich crumbs.
~ ~ ~
The next, and in many ways last, time they meet is on a Wednesday afternoon with the working elite rushing in from the uptown offices and their social counterpart heading out for aperitifs. It is a fascinating time of social confusion during which the Doorman’s invisibility reaches its zenith. Vague attempts at networking are made among the top floors, and nods of acknowledgment are exchanged in the midst of last-minute maintenance complaints about low shower flows and slower-than-usual-though-not-really elevators. He nevertheless sees her, standing near the entrance with the glittering crowd acting as a buffer between them.
Her hair is different, definitely larger, the clear result of some oil-based aerosol. He waves to her—breaking the Doorman’s decorum—and she throws him a side glance before tripping herself.
~ ~ ~
“Oh, terribly sorry! I simply didn’t see you there!”
“Why that’s perfectly all right. A disturbance I could use I assure you, Madam….”
“…Holloway. Or Miss Holloway, rather. Though that’s not an unpleasant thought mind you; me with a husband, hahaha. Alice Holloway.”
“Ah, is that a southern accent I detect?”
“Midwestern actually.”
“I say, this might be terribly forward of me but have you eaten yet, Miss Holloway?”
“Oh, nothing substantial, Mister–?”
“Donovan. Bertram Elliott Donavan.”
“Why how do you do, Mister Donovan. The pleasure’s all mine. And dinner sounds positively lovely. I love your cufflinks by the way, very distinguished.”
~ ~ ~
Surrenderpitus? Hardly. Rehearsed. Coerced. He had, he now realized, only been that circumventable obstacle between country mice and cheese. You didn’t expect him to be of sharp wit, did you? He was naturally a doorman. She naturally falls into the category of those who do not address the doorman. The rats seem aimless and the Doorman cannot bother to reign them in. His confused and accusing glare is of little effect to her ambitions. Hers is a private matter entirely, denied to him by sunglasses that did not pay for themselves and exquisitely complement her high-end gowns that nevertheless know the quick discard to the floor. Her visits increase to the point that she no longer requires to be signed in and when his glare becomes unsustainable, it is his superior’s attention he reignites.
~ ~ ~
The note, dictated but not read, carried in its short sentences the warmth of a telegram. There had been a terrible lax in both service and courtesy among the staff. Stop. Guests, especially female, often felt uncomfortable and objectified in presence of the help. Stop. The building dress code was also not respected. Stop. Immediate remediation of these issues is expected. Stop.
~ ~ ~
“Cob salad; has lettuce; can’t touch it.”
[…]
“So I hear you got yourself a pretty stern talking to, didn’t you?”
[…]
“Don’t be so glum, mate. Happens to the best of us; s’why you got to learn to check the ladies out when they’re going and not coming.”
[…]
”Just eat it, alright! No quid pro today; you’re skin and bones for Pete’s sake.”
{…}
“You’re welcome. Finally caught a glimpse of her yesterday myself; spank bank’s so full they’re offering me a joint account.”
~ ~ ~
Simple and ruthless was the approach that had been adopted. There were seven installed under his desk, and just that morning he had found two snapped necks and a third fully decapitated. Instead of simply mimicking the hurried glance of the exiting tenant the building and the languished step of the incoming one, he had this time aimed for total extermination, making sure to tighten the wire for maximum efficiency. The vermin had, as presumed, recoiled from the lobby but this did not satisfy him. He invested thirty-five of his own dollars in the most potent raticide on the shelf, one whose label warned for the safety of not only child and pet but also that of furniture and plant. He scoured the basement, generously spreading the red paste wherever he could. The rats hid away in confusion, meeting only in small pockets to revisit the treaty by which they had thought to be abiding. Somewhere in the crowd, an elder rat raised its fist, signaling the end of peaceful coexistence and rallied for youth to stand up and take charge. They unanimously cursed this status quo of invisibility and their historical subservience to frozen cheese. The war bell rang as it had never before and foot soldiers hugged their wives. It was understood now that each side would be merciless.
~ ~ ~
Miss McAllister nodded to him as she headed for the exit only to, once her hand was on the door, backtrack to his counter where he noticed her brow to be particularly well trimmed that day. “Would you like to know the why of the bite?” she asked prematurely, resting a hand on her tightly bundled olive pashmina, ready to unleash the visual in question. “It’s quite a tale. There was blood everywhere, even on the curtains.” Just then, another rat’s neck was heard snapping beneath the counter and startled the woman. “Just the pipes, ma’am,” said the Doorman before going on to decline her offer. She resumed her day and he proceeded to collect the corpse.
~ ~ ~
There would be, over the subsequent forty-eight weeks, what could qualify as further developments to the situation. Reports of a faked pregnancy, notions of entrapment and accusations of either blackmail or extortion, whichever one best suited the demand for cold hard cash, would be thrown across long desks and in the presence of neutral parties. Heightened security procedurals were put in place in the building to deal with the more unscrupulous paparazzi that would take residence outside the building. At the height of the frenzy, the media would capitalize on the public’s infatuation with her mane and label her the Ruby Digger and the resulting settlement would go down in infamy as being one of the costliest in State history.
~ ~ ~
Husband and wife both readily took to life among the clouds. She was reborn Jolly Gigi and his foyer was soon heightened by various Bison pelts. Though her dreams of a trim figure quickly disappeared under deposits of top-shelf cider and cured lard, her hats were indeed large and flamboyant. She would frantically pat them every morning as she passed the Doorman, growing frustrated at her inability to incite the slightest reaction on his part. Though they were, in fact, noticed. Equally noticed were her furs, shawls, pearls, and the string of young and trim business partners her husband made a point of inviting home on evenings when she fancied a late opera. Through it all, the Doorman’s perspective remained firmly at ground-level, ever vigilant to the growing infestation.