Descensus

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 25/02/11

Facilis descensus Averni
~ Virgil, “The Aenid”

It was one of the older art deco apartment buildings in the Bronx, located on Walton near Featherbed Lane. It rose ten stories from a ziggurat base and was constructed of orange-tan bricks ornamented with colorful plaster geometric designs and intricate terra-cotta inlay. The roof was crowned with techno turrets and cubic battlements, and symmetrical fire-escapes zigzagged down from the uppermost windows.

Charlie Malachi had lived on the ninth floor of this building for fifty years. He was now waiting for the elevator — a vintage Otis carried on four cables in a compact shaft, accessed through a conventional oak door framed by green marble panels. He had already pushed the mother-of-pearl “down” button that extruded from a tarnished brass plate. He placidly gazed around him at the small piles of paint chips and dirt in the corners of the hall, at the frayed and faded flowers in the rug under his feet. He listened, and frowned. The lift’s peculiar timing and noises had become ingrained, a part of his life he took for granted. He used his thumb to punch the white button again.

In a few minutes the familiar smooth, gliding rumble could be heard faintly from below. But there was something else. Something not normal, not right. Charlie Malachi raised his chin and tilted his head. He sniffed. “What the blazes is that?” he said to himself.

There was a distinct odor, different from the usual mustiness, similar to the fumes of sewer gases and rot that sometimes filtered up from the bowels of the building, but so much stronger. Pungent, overwhelming, the stench seeped past the sill and jambs of the elevator door. Charlie tried to dampen his anxiety. There was no reason to get upset. All he had to do was call the super.

The metallic rolling became louder, and a gentle thud indicated the lift had stopped at his floor. Charlie absently peeked through the door’s rectangular window as he twisted the knob; he jumped backwards immediately, startled. Someone was already in there, pressed into an angle of white space. He inhaled deeply and pursed his lips, annoyed with himself. “Jumpy today, Charlie,” he said out loud. He yanked open the heavy oak slab and grasped the shiny handle of the elevator’s burnished, folding scissors-gate. He stared at his fellow passenger through the diamond-shaped openings as he slid them aside. He stepped over the level steel threshold that read “Otis Elevator Company,” and turned. He pulled the gate shut, depressed the pearlescent round next to the number “1.”

The typical groan and glissando of the hydraulics, the slight shake and then fluid descent, gave Charlie confidence. He maneuvered so that he could see the stranger hovering in the opposite corner. The small space was bright and there was an electric light overhead, yet the figure, dressed in trousers, coat, and fedora hat, looked dark and shadowed. Charlie realized that the foul odor he’d noted before wasn’t only oozing through the ventilation grilles — it was emanating from this man. Charlie winced in spite of himself. It was like being closed in with a backed-up toilet.

The other raised his head in Charlie’s direction. A grayish lower face appeared below the hat brim; thin, blue-gray lips stretched and curled. “I go down,” he said. The voice was scratchy, like a radio with static, and a rank, reeking puff of air floated from the mouth.

Charlie couldn’t help himself — he gagged and his face wrinkled up in disgust. He pressed back against the wall without thinking. “Do you live here?” Charlie asked, his anger growing. “This is a private building,” he said loudly. He resisted the urge to clap a hand over his nose.

The other snorted. “I go down,” he said again. “To basement. You ride with me.”

Something seemed to move in the air; the light flickered. It looked like the stranger was standing in a fog, wrapped in a grainy mist. Charlie was more angry than frightened. He didn’t feel seventy, but thirty again, his fists and muscles bunching, his jaw bulging, ready for a fight. “I’m calling security,” he said, his eye on the red emergency buzzer beside him.

The other’s clothing began to dissolve and swirl upward, coalescing in the air above them, disappearing in a wisp of smoke. What remained was an ashen, spindly, naked bipedal thing with a skull-like bald head and sunken ink-holes for eyes. “I come up. I go down. Much work to do. We prepare,” it rattled.

Charlie’s eyes widened; he tried to control the panic that abruptly flooded him. He tried to think. He slid his gaze down and watched through the slats as they approached the first floor. They were almost there. He grabbed the handle of the scissors-gate and waited … waited … then shoved it hard to his right, which immediately tripped the safety brake. The elevator shuddered mildly, stopped. Charlie rushed for the door knob and seized it with both hands. He tugged at it and shook it until he somehow got it to move, and he fell out onto the hard surface of the first-floor lobby.

He lay sprawled on the brightly colored terrazzo tiles, listening to the sighing sound and click of the entrance closing behind him.

“Hey are you okay?” someone asked, reaching out a hand.

Charlie looked up; it was the mailman, who had just started to fill the banks of blue-painted mailboxes to his left. “I … I think so,…” he said. He didn’t know if he’d injured himself; he couldn’t feel a thing. He reached up and grasped the offered fingers, hauled himself to his feet.

“Wow, man,” he said, and took Charlie by an arm, patted him on the back. “Are you all right? Your hand is ice cold!”

Charlie shivered now, and glanced back at the elevator door. From behind it came the melody of pumping pistons and flowing cables, reverberating clanks and bell-like pings. He rubbed his upper arms and looked back at the mailman. “What’s beneath this part of the Bronx?” he asked.

“What?” he laughed. “How far down do you mean? From what I’ve read, there are a lot of old tunnels and track-beds under here. Deeper, might be some small underground streams or springs that are part of the Hudson River estuary system. In general you’re standing on the some of the oldest rocks in the world. The gneiss ridges under Grand Concourse and Riverdale were created over a billion years ago. It’s part of, like, the Canadian Shield, which is, you know, the oldest rock anywhere.”

Charlie Malachi narrowed his eyes. “So, this might be the oldest place in the world?”

“Okay man, you know I shouldn’t get into this. I need to stop talking to folks on my route, my supervisor told me….” He paused for a moment and furrowed his brows. He peered at the elevator entrance and the glossy Verde-Antique marble that surrounded it. A gold sunburst sculpture from the 1930s gleamed above. “Is that elevator still going down?” he asked. “How many basements do you have here?”

Charlie took the mailman by the shoulder. “Could you say, that this is the oldest place on the surface of the earth?”

“Maybe, who knows,” he said, laughing. “Gotta get back to work, dude. Sorry!” He gently moved out form under Charlie’s grip, and reached into his bag as he approached the boxes. “Oh, and you know,…” he said without turning around, twisting his master key and opening one of the flip-up covers, “… one of the spots where the world’s last super-continent began to break apart, was right here. The Palisades, between Jersey and New York. Volcanoes like no one can imagine exploded; sent out miles and miles of lava. Began the last drift of the continents, kind of began the current era.”

Charlie remained rooted, focused on the mailman.

“Well, bye dude,” the other said after a few minutes. “Take care of yourself. You might want to see a doctor. And tell your super about that elevator.”

Charlie watched him saunter out through the wrought-iron and stained-glass double doors; a flash of sunlight from the street filled the lobby, then narrowed into a strip, then was gone. He slowly pivoted and listened. It sounded like the elevator was rising again. A chill skittered down his spine. What should he say? Who should he tell? “My son already thinks I’m a crazy old man,” he said loudly, his voice echoing off the polished surfaces so that the words “… crazy old man …” seemed to repeat.

He heard the elevator stop.