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Chapter 2
God’s Gift to the World: Children

The girl could not believe it. Someone other than herself (and the old women who smelled of cats and cheese) was actually attempting to use the elevator. She rubbed her ankle where the old man had accidentally stepped on her. He already started to push frantically at the buttons. No sign of apology at all, just knitted brows and a sharp escape of breath from his tight, slanted mouth. The girl scooted across the bottom of the elevator until her back touched the end of the wall. The book she had been quietly reading now lay closed at her side.
“Blasted bloody piece of Communist scrap metal” the old man slurred exasperatedly at the brass buttons which had not yet done their job of closing the elevator doors.
“Sir,” the girl tested the word, waiting for the man to at least acknowledge her presence (he didn’t), “It won’t work if you press the ‘close door’ button twice. It cancels out the first press or something.”
Harold froze with a mixture of anxiety and suspicion. The girl in the corner was speaking at him. He took his finger off the button and could not decide which was worse, waiting for the doors to close on their own or having to answer this girl if she spoke to him again.
“MOMMY!” a youthful shriek rang out from the lobby.
“MOMMY! I LEFT HENRY UPSTAIRS! WE HAVE TO GET HIM!”
Actually, it sounded more like, MOMMY I wefenrEEEE up Stay-Os! WEHABtoGAYHIM! But Harold, in his lack of affinity towards the very young, was uniquely blessed with the remarkable ability to understand every word of their jumbled applesauce phrases.
“Lily, sweetie, we just climbed down all those stairs. We won’t have enough time to stop by the bakery to get that pie you like if we go back up, honey, please.”
“MOMMY! I KNEESenREEEE!” chipped Lily.
Harold was paralyzed with terror as a pair of footsteps made a dash for the now closing doors of the elevator.
“Please, could you hold that?” MOMMY’s voice slid into the elevator like the sweet skid of car wheels on wet pavement. Harold didn’t budge. In his absolute stillness, he could feel the disbelief in the girl’s stare burning into his back. Just before the ancient doors pulled together, a worn, but elegant hand shot through the crack, sending the doors horizontally retreating open.
“Thank you” said the woman reflexively, not noticing that Harold had done nothing to deserve a thank you. He didn’t even make eye contact. Harold knew this woman very well. She lived next door with her three wild children. Her name was Rosemarie and she worked at the grocer across the street on Sundays. Monday through Friday she worked at the flower shop next to the grocer. Harold knew all this from observing her through his window. Of course, if his window hadn’t been facing the grocer he most certainly would have heard “MOMMY! Take us to work with you to the grocer across the street on Sundays and the flower shop next to the grocer on ThursdaMonday through Friday” coming from the children’s mouth at some point. The walls were so thin and the children were very loud, he’d have no choice but to over-hear everything about her. Most days, Harold was woken up from his nap by the sounds of the children’s laughter or their sing-alongs. Harold hated sing-alongs. Once, this Rosemarie woman had even dared to knock on Harold’s door and ask if he could watch the little tyrant that was now standing before his knees. “Just for half an hour” she’d said. He told her he was expecting company. She thanked him anyway.
“Oh, hey, good,” Rosemarie relieved as she recognised Harold, “we’re going up too.” Harold pushed the ‘close door’ button once and busied himself by examining the tattered hem of his tweed coat. Lily also noticed the state of Harold’s hem. She looked up at him and saw deep into his brain, via nostrils. She liked Mr. Grim. (That’s what her brothers called him). She liked to watch the way he wobbled out of his apartment. She liked how he always made the extra effort to crash into her Barbies and the houses she constructed for them in the hallway as he made his way to the stairs. She thought he was funny. Of course, being four, almost everything seemed funny to Lily. Even now, the sight of Mr. Grim staring so intently at his hem made Lily giggle.
The doors made terribly annoyed sounds of discontent at being bothered and began to ever so slowly close again. Even though he was close to losing his sight and frequently ran into things, Harold’s listening skills were as keen as a trained dog’s. He could detect tin can openers buzzing two floors below or hear people approaching fifty-two yards away. This is what made him aware that someone was approaching the front of the building. In his angst, he pushed the ‘close door’ button again.
“Sir, I told you, that deactivates the whole thing.” The girl’s voice softly began again. Harold stopped and tilted his head. The girl had an accent. British. He hadn’t even noticed it before. This new fact made him want to inspect her. He almost turned around. However, as quickly as the desire to grant this girl personal immunity or maybe even ally-status had risen, aggravation welled up in Harold’s spacious gut as the voice of another woman sang out, “Hold the elevator door please!”
The old man won’t have to hold anything, the girl in the corner thought. He’s surely jammed the doors by now. Rosemarie and Lily shifted closer to Harold as a new woman, accompanied by a man and a tall boy trailed along behind her.
“Two floors up please,” the new woman said in a smooth, assertive drawl. Harold suddenly thought of cowboy hats and grimaced.
“What’s the number again Don? B something, five? Four?” The man she was speaking to was presumably her husband for they matched quite well. She had on a white skirt and peach silk shirt and he, white linen pants, pale orange polo, which he probed and pulled a card out of.
“That’s right, B05.”
The corners of Rosemarie’s mouth made an unexpected expedition upwards.
“Actually,” the girl in the corner interrupted, “you’ll have to go six floors up if you’re wanting to get off on B.” The Southern woman turned to see whom this quiet spew of information had come from then turned back to her family. She adjusted her pearls then whispered, or thought she was whispering by simply leaning in closer to her husband, “I don’t trust these people Don, just press the 2 button.”
Everyone in the elevator suddenly felt a little bit more cramped and uncomfortable. Don awkwardly made his way toward Harold and the brass buttons, pushed 2 and walked back to his wife and son. The doors closed. The elevator began to rise. And then, accompanied by a sound none of them had heard before, it stopped and ceased to move altogether.