The first sound I recall hearing was the screeching of metal
on concrete as my car slipped through the darkness and downward into what
turned out was open elevator shaft. It
quickly became wedged as the front wheels and axle hooked onto the ledge at
curb level and the rear bumper smashed into the interior wall of the
shaft. Still, the terrible noise
continued. It was so loud that I was
actually beginning to ache from it.
That’s when I noticed that this hellish sound was actually coming from
me. I closed my open mouth and it
stopped. All I could hear then was an ad
on the radio, reminding me to “Click it, or ticket”. I was so out of it that I found myself
checking to see if I’d remembered to fasten my seat belt. A friend of mine who’d been hit by a bus
while driving downtown on 3rd Avenue told me he’d gotten out of his
destroyed vehicle to ask the people inside the bus if they were alright, so I
suppose I wasn’t too far gone.
Through the windshield, I could see that a few people had
crowded around where my car hung at the edge of the elevator shaft opening.
“You okay?” one of them shouted to me.
“Not really.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Almost immediately, about half of the people who had been
staring down at me turned their backs and left.
I guess without a little blood and gore to match the sound effects, who
really wanted to stick around?
“Do you think you can open your door?” another voice called
to me.
In fact, it was probably long past the time when I should
have started to figure out a way out of my predicament. Who was to say that my car wouldn’t slip and
tumble down into the dark hole below me?
I had no idea how many basements or subbasements this building had. It had dawned on me though that even a short
fall was going to hurt like hell. I
tried the door, but it barely opened a few inches before it hit the wall. Clearly, I was going to have to climb out the
window.
Moving as gingerly as possible, I worked my way through the
window, onto the hood of the car and reached up to a pair of hands that
belonged to a large gentleman who had lain on his stomach at the edge of the
elevator shaft opening. He pulled and I
scrambled up the side of the wall where I landed, gasping on the sidewalk. He helped me to my feet.
“Thanks!” I exclaimed, looking down at where the car lay,
still wedged with the front axle hooked at the edge of the elevator shaft
opening.
“No problem” he replied as he brushed dirt off the front of
his shirt. “You know,” he added
casually, “You’re in a shitload of trouble.”
Actually, I thought I’d just gotten out of a shitload
of trouble, but I was willing to trust my rescuer.
“Your car is in my elevator shaft, asshole.”
I soon discovered that my savior was the building
superintendent and as such, he was now also a potential enemy. My car was indeed in his elevator shaft and
on the face of it; I had absolutely no idea what to do about getting it back
out. I had the presence of mind though
not to say another word. I figured
correctly that anything I might say would be used against me somehow, so I
reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I called SlipNot and asked to speak with
Bosco.
A half hour later, one of SlipNot’s neatly dressed and
appropriately intimidating attorneys arrived, as did a radio dispatch tow
truck. The attorney took me aside and
asked me to briefly tell him what had happened, which I did. He then warned me not to say another word,
which I was more than willing to do.
Meanwhile, the tow truck driver looked over the situation in the
elevator shaft. He walked over to where
the attorney and I stood.
“It’s bad, man” he began.
“For openers, there’s no way I can attach a line to the front axle and
pull this thing out. All that’ll do is
rip the front of the car off and leave the ass end fall down to the
bottom. I could call another truck in,
but even then, I don’t know how that’s going to help us. We still gotta lift the back up in the air so
it’ll clear the lip.”
He pointed at the edge where the front axle lay and it became
very clear what he meant. Another tow
truck or even three wasn’t going to be the answer.
The attorney walked away from us and approached the
superintendent who was beginning to fume.
“What are you gonna do?” he barked at the attorney.
The next installment will be posted on December 16.
If you'd like to read the entire book today, GO
HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment