Room 543

2590 WC

The elevator doors opened.  The elevator doors closed.

They have opened and closed every hour on the hour for three days now. I’m standing, stone-still, in my hiding place in the fifth floor stairwell, my ear pressed against the cold metal door, as the elevator doors open, yet again.

“Going down!”

The low, raspy voice shivers up my spine. “Going down!”

I hear the door to Room 543 creak open, once again. The same disturbing sounds flood my senses. The shuffling, the sobbing, and the scratching of chains against the terrazzo floor have repeated on the hour since Tuesday afternoon as these unknown prisoners file onto the elevator, destination unknown. The elevator doors close and the muffled sounds of the tortured souls vanish into the bowels of the building.

I have been trapped on the fifth floor since Tuesday, making me more than seventy-two hours late for my much-needed psychiatric appointment with Dr. Duane Dillard. The stairwell is well-lighted and wide, with open staircases going up and going down, so I have chosen it as my hiding place. The access doors to floors four and six are locked shut. Unless someone (I don’t know about) has a key (I don’t know about), this is the safest area I can think of to wait this whole thing out.

What whole thing? This is insane!

Am I the only person in the Menchen Building who is not being held against his or her will in Room 543? Is Dr. Dillard in there wth them—touting Freud’s theories on psycho-neuroses to a captive audience?  I will assume that I am the odd man out, and start taking a mental inventory of my situation—a newly acquired coping skill from last week’s session with Dr. Dillard.

The good news:
1. I found some granola bars and a thermos of cola in an abandoned lunch room on one of my fifth floor expeditions on Tuesday.
2. The electricity is still on—keeping my fear of the dark at bay. 
3. I found a long, sturdy rope in the janitor’s closet.

The bad news: 
1. My cell phone died the first night.
2. I left my charger at home.
3. None of the phones on the fifth floor seem to work.
4. I tried to email my mother early Wednesday morning from a computer in an abandoned cubicle in Room 500, but the email message didn’t go through. 
5. My mother may never speak to me again because I haven’t checked in. (On second thought—maybe that should go in the good news column.) 
6. The metal bars on the windows prevent me from escaping down the confiscated rope, to the sidewalk below.
7. I have acrophobia, and wouldn’t shimmy down five stories (on that rope) if my life depended on it!
7. There are only three gulps of tepid cola left in the thermos.
8. Someone else’s lips have touched the rim of the thermos before mine. (I shudder at the thought—my germ anxiety dancing on the edges of my phobic mind.) 

The bad news has vanquished the good, and taken what was left of my spirit with it.  I crumble to the floor in an emotional heap.  I cry a bit and hug my legs while I try to piece together, in my mind, the series of events that has led me to this dank stairwell.

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My appointment with my ‘shrink’ was scheduled for two p.m. on Tuesday. As was the ritual at every appointment, I looked forward to kicking off my Hush Puppies, and reclining on Dr. Dillard’s creamy leather couch, while he tried to get to the bottom of the multiple phobias that have plagued me since I was a teenager. Dr. Dillard, an old family friend, has been working with me for twenty years—trying to unearth the reasons for my debilitating condition.

Sienna, Dr. Dillard’s receptionist, called on Tuesday morning and explained that the good doctor could not meet me at his office on Kent Street.  “Remodeling is not going smoothly, my dear,” Sienna said, with only a hint of apology in her voice. “The building is closed to the public for a few weeks.”

The receptionist went on to explain that Dr. Dillard would be setting up shop across town in the old Menchen Building; I was to meet him there at two o’clock sharp in Room 543.

At one forty-five on Tuesday, the taxi made its way into a sketchy factory district toward the address Sienna had given me. Apprehension mounted as we drove farther east, through the graffiti-lined streets, and piles of garbage heaped in the gutters.  I was paralyzed with a (somewhat) irrational dread, as the taxi reached its destination.

When the cabby saw me white-knuckling the arm rest, he assured me the neighborhood was safe. “Once you’re in the building you’ll be fine, lady.”

I wanted to remind him of the germs lurking in the gutters, and the other phobic ordeals that awaited me (like the two homeless men drunkenly fighting over a dilapidated shopping cart directly in front of the building). Instead, I handed him a twenty dollar bill, told him to keep the change, and—-against my better judgment—-stepped out of the taxi. The cab driver tore away from the littered curb like his life depended upon it (which it may have), and disappeared into the afternoon.

I took a slight detour around the two drunken men as I approached the entrance. Huge, menacing gargoyles perched on the top of the decaying structure, stared down at me with stony gazes as I entered through the revolving door. The reception desk was unattended; and my heels clicked on the marble floor as I walked across the abandoned lobby. There was a bank of four elevators directly ahead of me; and just past the elevators was a door with a sign overhead that read ‘STAIRS’.

I hadn’t taken an elevator since the claustrophobia had appeared twenty years earlier—-which was shortly before my acrophobia had kicked in; and right about the same time my germ phobia had reared its ugly head. (Oh, and, about a year before that, my fear of the dark started keeping me house-bound at night.)

So, because of my fear of small places, I avoided the row of elevators, and hurried toward the stairwell door. It slammed behind me like the door on a Pharaoh's tomb. I hurried up the well-lighted (thank god) concrete stairs to the fifth floor, click-clicking all the way on my quest to find room 543 as quickly as I could.

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And now, three days later, I find myself living in the stairwell of this mysterious, old building; and nibbling on a formerly hermetically sealed granola bar, while I plan my next move.

There appears to be only one elevator in service, and it has been arriving at the fifth floor landing every hour on the hour, I estimate that I have fifty or so minutes left to reconnoiter the area and forage for food. I hug the right side of the hall—-making a wide berth around Room 543 (which is on the left)—-as I make my way back to the fifth floor lunch room.

I find a black banana in the back of the refrigerator, and a lone bottle of unopened Evian tipped over on a cabinet shelf. I don’t have any food phobias (yet), so I welcome the black banana and the ‘never-touched-by-human-lips’ bottled water into my life as sustenance.  I wipe down the banana and the plastic bottle with my last moist towelette (from the travel pack I keep in my purse for such emergencies). I head back toward the stairwell, pilfered provisions in hand.

When I pass Room 543, I stop. I hear whispering—and laughing? I make a split-second decision to face my anthropophobia (a phobia I forgot to mention earlier)—-burst into the room and say “howdy!” Just as my trembling hand touches the cool, ceramic knob, I feel the rumble (from below) of the elevator heading upward, way ahead of schedule.

I run toward my asylum (I’ll have to overcome my fear of people another time), and pull the metal door shut just as the elevator door opens.

“Going Up!”

The voice is different, somehow. It is sweet and beckoning.

“Going Up!”

He has never said ‘up’ before—-or has he? No, he hasn’t. I’m sure of it. I would have remembered. Wouldn’t I have remembered?

“Going up!”

This voice sounds like my father’s; the voice he used when he—-in the closet, in the dark—-

No, my father is dead—stone-cold, ‘six feet under’ dead. Kaput!

From my encampment in the stairwell I hear voices, laughter, and rapid footsteps in the hallway. I open the metal door a crack, and see a group of unshackled, smiling people hurrying from Room 543 toward the elevator. Dr. Dillard is in the midst of them, fondling the buxom blonde woman next to him.

I want to throw open the door, and call out to him, “Dua—Dr. Dillard. It’s me, Valerie Epson!” but I cannot.  He would hold out his other hand and pull me onto the elevator with him—into that tiny space where I couldn’t breathe, squeezed in next to the buxom blonde (who probably smells like Dr. Dillard’s Old Spice).

The elevator door slams shut and I hear the mechanism moving upward. I run out into the hall, and look up at the bank of numbers above the elevator door: 1 through 10. The number ‘10’ flashes over and over, as the car continues its upward climb.

To where?

I glance over at Room 543, and the door is open a crack. I cross the hall, and I am greeted by silence as I listen at the door. I cautiously open it and enter the room. I can’t believe my eyes. The room is an exact replica of Dr. Dillard’s office on Kent Street.

It can’t be—but it is!

I hurry across the familiar plush, beige carpet to the barred window, and look down the five floors to the traffic below. I pick up the familiar black onyx paper weight from Dr. Dillard’s desk, and aim it at a space between the bars. It is then that I realize: even if I succeed in breaking the window and scream for help, only the lone wino sleeping on the curb in front of the building might possibly hear my voice from five stories up.

As I place the paper weight back in its spot, I notice my name on a file on Dr. Dillard’s desk. I open the manila folder labeled “Valerie Epson” and start reading about myself. My (online) college graduation picture is stapled to the inside of the folder. I am smiling back at me, braces gleaming. My mousy brown pageboy (which I have since restyled) looks painfully dated, as does the peter-pan collar on my blouse. Where did I get those pearls?

The 'pop' of a car backfiring down the block (or maybe it's a gunshot?) startles me, and the contents of the folder I am holding spill out all over the desk. A photo of my father flutters to the floor. Why would Dr. Dillard have a snapshot of my father? Who gave it to him? I certainly didn’t! My mother hasn’t spoken to Dr. Dillard in years (although she has never explained why). So, I know that, more than likely, she didn't give it to him. How did he come to possess it?

I reach down and pick up the yellowed picture. My father is dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, and standing ankle deep in fallen leaves in front of our knotty pine cabin in Clooney Woods. His sullied hands hang down at his sides; a Lucky Strike cigarette dangles from his thin lower lip, smoke dispersing into the twilight ether. That autumn, twenty years in the past, flashes back to me like it was yesterday.

I am thirteen and a half. Dad has taken my younger brothers and me to the cabin for the weekend, to give my mom a few days to herself---or so he says. I remember not wanting to go because I have cramps, and it is approaching 'that time of the month': but Dad is the boss, and gets his way—-as usual.

Sam and Tommy have run down to the lake with their fishing poles to catch crappies. I have changed into my favorite pajamas, taken a Midol, and am now curled up on the sofa watching a rerun of I Love Lucy on the little black and white television we brought from home. It is the only channel that will come in, even though Dad jerry-rigged the rabbit ears by wrapping them with Reynolds Wrap. I am laughing out loud at Ethel and Lucy frantically stuffing chocolates into their mouths as bonbons fly across the conveyor belt.

I doze off (I guess).

The next thing I see is the credits flashing across the screen; and I feel Daddy’s cold hands around my exposed waist as he drags me toward the closet with the knotty pine door. I’m laughing, because it seems so strange.

And then, in an instant, twenty years of overload—-twenty years of mental 'white noise' suddenly dissolve. Vivid, chronological details flash before my mind’s eye: I am putting on my Wonder Woman pajamas. I am watching I Love Lucy—

“Going down!

The voice jolts me back to the present. Going down!”

I suck in my breath and stand perfectly still, praying the elevator operator will decide that Room 543 is devoid of humanity. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I hear the elevator doors close. I exhale.

I study the picture more closely. My father is facing the lake. I am peeking through the cabin window watching him watch the sun set. I am crying.

Why am I crying?

It is coming back—all of it: I am kneeling on the floor of the closet; clothes are hanging over my head; I smell mustiness and moth balls; Daddy is making me...

I fall back on the burgundy leather couch, drained. I have waited twenty years to unearth the truth, a reality that was buried deeper than I had ever dreamed. I have spent twenty years trying to figure out why I hate my dead father; and now, in a spilt second of clarity, I finally know!

Dr. Dillard has worked so diligently to solve the mystery; he has held my hand through it all; he has loved me (like a father, of course). He has also waited twenty years for this epiphany. I can hardly wait to share my news.

I hear footsteps in the hallway. (Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks!?)

“Hello?”

My overactive mind is greeted by silence. I slip off my Hush Puppies and lie back on the reclining 'confessional'. I have waited one week and three days to hear Duane’s soothing voice again (yes, I call him Duane!—when we’re alone); and to feel the touch of his paternal hand on my—-on my brow.  I guess I can wait a little longer for the elevator to transport him back to me. In my heart, I know it will!

I am exhausted. I close my eyes.

I open my eyes! My body snaps upright as the doorknob turns every so slowly; a chill runs through me as one unanswered question burns a hole in my phobic mind. 

Who took the picture?