There was that familiar frustration when attempting to reconcile any of it to myself. What good would come of getting angry? What good could come of forgiveness? And over and over and over again like an endless knot. We boarded the plane, myself first, then her and her boyfriend who I'd never met. Their seats were toward the back and mine was in the front and for that I was grateful. During the flight I walked back to talk with them a little, to introduce myself, to catch up, to just be civil. She never once had that look of fear that I'd grown so accustomed to in those last 9 mos that I knew her.
Once we got to wherever we were going to (someplace in Asia) we went our seperate ways and went about our business. There were times when we'd bump into each other in the street or in the hallway at the hotel and it was never all that awkward; more like childhood friends between whom there was an understanding that there was once a time when we were different people than we currently were. And each time we talked or saw each other in the street it was always in the back of my mind that the very same sense that she was different than she used to be was only an antiseptic I used to keep the conversation sterile. There was no way, according to me, that she was any different of a monster than she ever had been. She was only hoping to pull it off better this time. People don't change that much.
At one point she called me and told me that her new boyfriend, Chris, was busy doing something and she wanted to know if I wanted to go grab a bite to eat. I agreed and we met up at the front of the hotel and began to walk down the street as she began to tell me about the past 2 years, about how she had really gotten into a bad way,and that when we were together she had just had one of those moments in her life where she was lost and didn't know any other way to deal with it and that it's too bad things had to happen how they did but there was no other way that she knew to remedy the situation. And as she was talking I never once told her that it was ok, not to worry about it, or that those things were in the past.
As we were eating lunch Dave from the restaurant back home surprised us by walking up from the street. He said hello to her and then seperately to me and told her that a lot of the guys from the restaurant were also in town and that they were all hanging out that night and partying and he invited her to come over to their hotel, her and Chris, and then said to me that I could come too if I wanted to. They were going to go out; just hang out, get drunk, smoke a little. She got the address and his phone number and he smiled at us both and left and she told me she wasn't sure if she wanted to go or not. Told me Chris might not want to go. Told me that she didn't want to get caught up in that life again but that she really cared a lot for all those people, that they were very important to her in her life, even though she couldn't live that lifestyle anymore. "They're all really good people," she said. "It was hard to pull away, but I couldn't keep living like that. I miss them, though."
When we got back to the hotel she said, "I know you probably don't want to come out with us tonight so I'm not even going to bother asking," which was a way of asking so I told her that I had no intentions of going out, that I was busy anyway, and thanked her for lunch. Later that evening I went for a walk and only by chance happened to come upon a restaurant with a particularly boisterous crowd on the patio out front. And amongst the patrons in that crowd were Dave, Chris, Andy, Melanie, Christina, a few others, and her. She had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and she was laughing loudly, screaming out a story from before when they all were spending time together. Chris was just sitting there and looking on and laughing when he could. And I just kept walking until I came upon a crowded open air market that I meandered through slowly and listened to all the noise and vendors barking, sounds of shoes over pavement, tourists bargaining over prices or fawning over intricately woven silks sold for $4US, and took notice of the scent of meats and spices and rice sizzling in more than one wok.
At the airport for the trip home I was wheeling my luggage behind me when I noticed her and Chris a few hundred feet back. We were walking down the concourse to the tower, an incredibly tall building where planes were docking and taking off from. Our takeoff point was from the 125th floor and I looked out the window of the concourse at the tower and marveled at it's height and general size, watching planes land and take off from nearly every floor. I thought about waiting for her and Chris to catch up because we were all going to the same place and I wondered whether I was being rude by walking so far ahead, knowing they were behind me, and not stopping. We finally made it to the base of the tower and as I waited for the elevator to our floor, she and Chris caught up and waited for the elevator next to mine.
I looked over at them and I smiled and they smiled back and then both sets of doors for both elevators opened at the same time and they got on theirs and I got on mine with only one other gentleman. He was older, balding, in his mid 60's wearing a brown suit, and he asked, "What floor?" I told him 125 and he punched 29 and 75. I told him "Floor 125" again and he apologized and hit 125.
An elevator that goes up to 150 floors had better move pretty fast, I thought. And it did. Two walls of the elevator were glass and they both looked out to 2 walls of windows on the tower so that you could see how high you were and how fast you were moving for the entire ride, and the view was spectacular, even though it was dusk and clouds were beginning to roll in off of the ocean. 26, 27, 28 went by quickly and the elevator began to slow down for 29 and as it did it made a terrible sound before stopping. There was a grinding of machinery before the entire box stopped completely and you could tell from the window that the doors were not aligned with the 29th floor. And they never opened. And like every horrible experience that I've ever had, or every terrible situation I've ever had the pleasure to know about, a sick, humorous feeling came over me and things became at once terrifying and hilariously ironic at the same time. And I almost laughed out loud when the old man blurted out, "Goddam elevators" as he punched at the buttons a couple of times. There came a groaning in the cables above us and I knew it could only mean one thing and the most I could get out before the cables snapped was a perfunctory "Oh well" just before we began to fall. I resigned myself to being trapped in the elevator, I resigned myself to my overwhelming fear as my stomach turned sour with adrenaline and my skin became cold and clammy with the pins and needles of droplets of perspiration. As the floor of the box dropped from underneath me I looked out the window amazed at the feeling of weightlessness and everything began to go quiet in the white noise of the screaming, falling elevator, and the ground approached us quickly. I'm dead, I said to myself, and I didn't even get a chance to tell her what I needed to. And then I quickly thought, it wouldn't have mattered to her anyway, and then I chortled out loud, very inappropriately and much to my surprise, and the poor old man was hunkered down on the floor of the elevator white knuckling the railing with his mouth agape and the most god awful look of absolute terror on his face.
When we hit the first floor I remember my knees buckling and my hips bending me in half so that I was nearly kneeling with my face on the floor. My eyes closed as we hit and there was an incredible sound as though the world's largest tin can was being crushed around us and my body went numb and I let out a deep breath before I opened my eyes. The glass windows of the elevator had shattered everywhere. I remained kneeling with my face on the floor, unable to move until the paramedics came and pulled me out. I wouldn't have been able to stand up anyways as the elevator had collapsed around us. The old man was being taken away on a stretcher but once I was removed from the elevator I realized that, despite my joints being incredibly sore, I was in relatively good shape.
Who should I reassure? Who would be wondering? I didn't know. I got out my phone and called her. She answered. I told her I was alive. I told her I was getting on the next elevator, that I was ok. I told her not to worry, that I was just fine. Shook up, but just fine. I fell 29 floors and I survived it, I couldn't believe it, I told her, and I was going to be ok.
"Yeah, I heard," she said. "I was going to call you but I couldn't because Chris was here. He got up for a second but he's coming back so I have to go. I'll call you later."
I woke up.
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