Interstitial #3
Elevator
Introduction
I’ve been mulling off and on the idea of serializing a story, of writing an installment each week without having the thing mapped out. The idea petrifies me.
A few weeks back I was struck by a particular location which hung around in my thoughts long enough, leaving me to think it was as good a place as any to launch the experiment.
Every time I sit down to write, I don’t know where it’s going to go and it feels as if I‘ve typed myself into a blind alley. It’s a little like being MacGyver and I’m asking myself, “Well now you’ve gotten yourself into it this time, how are you planning on getting yourself out of it?” I’m coming at this with the thought that it needn't be any good, just that I have the ropes loosened, the handcuffs unlocked and I can get out before she blows.
Stay tuned
INTERSTITIAL
The elevator arrived with a shrill squeak each time it opened, announcing the floor in a disembodied voice, for the benefit of the blind or those otherwise unable to locate themselves, before squealing itself shut with a thud and heading on its way.
Ezekiel Roth lay awake in bed, watching the shadows under the crack of his door move down the hallway, making no effort to mute the sound of their voices as they went past. It didn’t require a stretch of his imagination to guess the transactional nature of their relationship or exactly how long it would be before he heard one of them passing back by his room to summon the elevator to the fourth floor. As things were, it was an active time of night at the hotel and It didn’t much matter to Ezekiel; he was awake and grateful for the momentary break in the monotony. He pulled himself out of bed and walked the three steps to the bathroom. He dribbled the contents of his bladder into the bowl and got back in bed. With sleep nowhere on the horizon, he opened up The Times on his phone, content to be distracted by circumstances bleaker than his own.
He woke up to housekeeping banging on his door. He yelled in the general direction from where the knocking was coming from to come back later. The commotion stopped and he could hear the cleaning cart being pushed to the next room, followed by the expected knock and rattle at that door. He reached for his phone buried next to him in the bedding, dug it out and looked to check the time, 11:30. It didn’t matter much one way or the other. The days had been the same for the past six months and for all he or anyone else cared he could stay in bed for the rest of the day or the rest of the month.
On the floor, at the foot of the bed lay his jeans in a pile with the belt still looped through the waist. Next to them was the v-neck t-shirt he wore the day before. He thought about showering. It had been days since his last one and he expected he was overdue. Somewhere along the way he had gotten out of the habit and bathing had become an irregular practice. He lay in bed a while longer until he realized that he was more hungry than unmotivated and climbed out of bed and pulling on the jeans and picking up the t-shirt from the floor. He grabbed his coat and opened the door.
Outside, standing beneath the folded tri-cornered concrete awning of the Queens International Hotel, Ezekiel had become accustomed to the barren expanse that stretched in all directions from where he stood. Further to the East, were the densely populated neighborhoods of Rego Park and Forest Hills. It was a short Uber ride away to go to Starbucks or to see a movie or to catch a subway or, for that matter, to be around people. On an early spring day like today, it would be a pleasant hour-long walk leaving from where he stood. He had landed here at the hotel nearly six months ago and had yet to make it past the diner just down the road. Everything beyond that was a distance just past surmountable.