Positively Fifth Street by James McManus

Author:James McManus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

Only two of the four elevators go up to the pool deck, and this morning the wrong two—the two farthest in from the hall—keep arriving on my floor. I dash back to my room for the sunscreen before hitting Up again. Ding! The same one as last time has been waiting right here all along, politely refusing to believe that no one on ten needs a lift. I chop through the air with the edge of my palm, breaking the plane of the doors. Nothing happens. I put one foot inside and press Mezzanine, slipping back out as the doors close. Fifteen or twenty seconds later I dare to press Up again. Ding! The same doors slide clear again, openly mocking me.

Fuck.

This time I wait a good minute, shifting the books from my left to right hand. I even turn around to hit the Up button on the opposite wall, trying to alter my luck.

The next elevator that opens is the other wrong one. A trio of maintenance guys lugging heavy-duty plumbing equipment stare blankly ahead, waiting for me to get on. The royal suite’s toilet has overflowed, probably, His Highness is toe-deep in Charmin and turds, and I’m holding his rescuers up. I point to my swim trunks and hold out the books in the crook of my arm, as though these might explain why I’m not getting on. Yeah, right. The bathing suit maybe, but what do three books have to do with it? By now the plumbers have decided I’m too self-important a dufus to ride with them. I’m some prig who reads books with a pen …

As the doors finally close, one of them guffaws, shakes his head. I don’t blame him. And then, even more absurdly, a curly-haired guy about my age comes jogging down the hall. I peer around the corner, watching as he reaches the other end and heads back this way. Mickey Appleman? Long nose, sad eyes, wild ash-blond hair restrained with a sweatband, this to go with a sweatshirt, shorts, track shoes. It’s him. As he jogs by again, I tell him, “Good luck today.”

“You too,” he says, running in place. Then he’s gone, disappearing through a stairwell door at the end of the hallway. This must be his routine when it’s too hot to run outside before a long tournament day: oxygenate blood, pump it from legs up to brain, facilitate ion exchanges. By the time a viable elevator arrives, I’m ready to follow his lead—to hustle and wheeze my way up thirteen flights, zigzagging my way to the pool deck then down, and skip swimming laps till tomorrow.

Once I’m finally in the pool, though, I’m glad I persevered. The water is brisker this early, making me wish I had access to a rooftop desert pool every morning. Maybe I should simply quit teaching, move out here and live at the Horseshoe, play poker full-time. If I paid by the month, I could probably negotiate a reasonable rate, though with all the money I’d win the rent wouldn’t matter much anyway.

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