Rags for Company

A short I wrote inspired by my daily travels in the DC underground.

The elevator reached the street level and when the doors slid open the station manager stepped out into the shelter and walked over to the metal gate. He looked out into the street from the shelter, which was always bright, even now with two of the long bulbs blown. It was a dire morning with a fierce wind, and black but for the amber orb of the streetlight and the blurry cone beneath it, and the few glints of silver on the roofs of the parked cars. He dug his left hand deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a chain with a cluster of keys and started flicking to the end of it those that belonged to the security office, safe, bathroom, elevator, supply closet, control room. He flicked through the various gate keys until he came to the one which unlocked the gate to the West entrance. He pushed the key into the lock and turned it, and winced at the sharp scrape of the bolt sliding out of place.
Opening the gates was a ritual performed every morning at the same hour. He had already opened the East gates and the entrance tucked under ground at the back of the mall, and the West gate by the hotel. He had done it all so many times that he did it now automatically. It freed up his mind to think about other things.

He was thinking about his daughter, and how she would probably be asleep for another three hours before she woke up for school.

He pulled the key out of the lock and dropped the heavy bunch back into his pocket, which sank with the weight. Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, he grabbed the handle on the left side of the gate and walked it screeching to the wall and secured it in place with the steel bolt which dropped into the concrete hole with a clunk, then walked to the right side of the gate to do the same. And it was because he was working thoughtlessly, humming to himself something he had heard on the radio on the drive over on the dead roads in the wee hours, that he didn’t hear the shuffling out in the street until it had almost reached him. When it registered in his mind he froze and squinted out into the darkness with his right hand still fast on the handle of the gate. It grew louder quickly and with it he discerned a faint regular squeak like the sound of a loose metal signpost swinging in the wind at night. He leaned outside the shelter and looked along the street and saw a hooded figured, whose shoulders and head were outlined in a sliver of moonlight. He waited as it tottered from side to side towards him and into the glow of the streetlamp by the entrance. Just a bum, he thought, as she walked into the light. And a lady, no less. He let out a breath which he had unconsciously held.

She stopped by the wall where the first gate was bolted to the ground and looked up at where he stood holding the gate handle. He had the feeling that she did not see him. She started off towards the elevator and as she limped past him he had a good look at her. She was heavy set with a great bust, and draped in what looked like a shoddy painter’s dust sheet with a limp hood which dangled behind her and was inside out. She wore baggy white linen pants that were stained dun at the back, and brown leather sandals that looked a few sizes too small. She pulled a battered old trolley with a beige duffle bag stuffed inside and a lame wheel in the back left corner which faced sideways and dragged when it wanted to face forward and roll. She swayed as she moved, and he could tell she was old by her stoop and unwell by her tentative steps. She slouched to the elevator. Wherever it is you are going, he thought, you are not going to be late.

It was surprising to him to see anyone so early; the first train was not due for another thirty minutes, and the first passengers usually showed up just a few minutes before it pulled into the station. She would have to wait in the cold mezzanine until it arrived.

He scrutinized the woman. Her hair was matted to her forehead and he realized that her face was covered with what looked like mud, and around her eyes were clean rings. Her eyes were bright and wide open with an expression that could easily be tiredness or mania, depending on who saw her and in what light. The mask was cracked in the lines around her mouth. Her feet were cracked too and seemed to bulge over the side of her sandals.

‘Mornin’ mam,’ he said.
She did not seem to hear him. As she passed him he noticed that her mouth was moving. He could not hear her from where he stood. He watched her walk over to the wall and push the button to call the elevator.

Suddenly he was struck by the thought that he had not locked the door to the office. And with this thought came instantly, like the light that follows the flick of a switch, a second thought; the story a seasoned station manager once told him about a drunk who sneaked into a first year's office and locked the poor kid out. And how the kid hollered at him through the window and the drunk just laughed and turned on the intercom and asked him with a slurred voice to get to the well or a liquor store because he was dry. It took the police officer, who saw the funny side of the thing more than the kid, an hour to get in there and to get him out and when he did the chair was soaked in piss. The kid did not even get to file a report they fired him so fast.

With this in mind the station manager turned sharply from the woman and dragged the gate screeching to the wall and secured it with the drop bolt which did not drop all the way and hurried to get into the elevator with her.

     He stepped inside and stood behind her. She had moved to within a few inches of the opposite doors and was staring into the gap between them. Neither of them moved to push the button and after a few seconds the doors behind them closed automatically and they descended.
     Standing so close to her he noticed that she was talking to herself in a low stream of sibilant nonsense with the odd curse word thrown in. He could not make much of it out. You are not all there, he thought. It is a luckless thing to be mad in a country so brutal and cold. He stared at her without shame. You must be about sixty. What brought you here? Not here; I mean what brought you to this?
     He regretted getting into the elevator. It was small and the woman was fetid. He cleared his throat to keep from coughing and as he did she turned her head slightly to the side.
     ‘Next train’s in thirty,’ he said.
     She turned her head back to face the doors. She was still muttering.
     When the elevator slumped to its familiar halt the doors opened and the woman walked out into the dim mezzanine pulling her trolley behind her, its lame wheel flicking side to side in spasms for a moment before fixing to one side and dragging. The station manager still breathed through his mouth. She stopped at the turnstile and he at the door to the station office. He pulled on the door. It did not open. I did lock you, he thought. He stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out the chain with the cluster of keys and again began the process of flicking to the end of it the keys he did not need. When he found the key he needed he opened the door to the octagonal office and slammed it shut behind him and sat heavily in the swivel chair. He glanced at the slanted monitors. There was never any movement on the platform at this hour.
     Through the brown plastic glass he could see the woman still standing at the turnstile, stooped over a tattered pouch held tightly in her left hand, counting out pennies with the stubby fingers of her right and closing them in her palm. She did this for about a minute, her mouth moving rhythmically as she did chewing on the musky air, then turned and limped over to the fare machine. Her trolley stood by the turnstile. The station manager leaned on the desk over his newspaper to get a better look at it. The beige duffel bag stuffed in there was fastened at the mouth by red cord. He thought that whatever she kept inside was heavy by the way the frame of the trolley sagged. He tried guessing what was inside but his mind struggled to associate the woman with anything other than rags.
     He turned his attention to the woman. He was wondering where she could be going.

She slid her fare card into the machine and began placing coins into the plastic holder. He could hear them dropping into the machine from behind the plastic glass with a clink. He lost count after about twenty coins but there were many more. She poked the black button by the slot and her card was thrust half way out of a separate slot beneath the first. She pulled it out carefully, turned painfully, and shuffled back to her trolley and the turnstile. She barely lifted her feet as she moved and her body seemed to rock gently from side to side.

     The way she moved reminded him of his grandmother. He remembered her restless shifting in the kitchen at night for the few months she lived with his father before she died.
     She reached the turnstile and pushed the fare card into the slot and the red light which glowed on the side turned green. The two bars slid into the machine and she passed through the turnstile scraping the trolley along the inside of it as she did. The squeaking of the lame wheel grew fainter as she reached the end of the upper level and disappeared down the escalator.
     He turned his attention to the monitor which was split into four squares. It displayed the platform from four different angles and showed every point with the exception of a blind spot on the wall beneath the speakers. The woman appeared on the top left screen at the bottom of the escalator. He watched her shuffle to the center of the platform leaving the first monitor and appearing on the second, moving along the platform and stopping near the edge and looking along the track.
     He unscrewed the cap from his flask and poured into it some of the coffee he had brewed the previous night and heated up in the microwave in the morning. It was heavily sugared and still it tasted bitter. He wondered what his daughter was doing. He liked to think of her when he was at work at certain points in the day, usually during a slump or after lunch. He liked to picture in his mind what she was doing at that moment. Of course right now she will be asleep, he thought. But that was enough for him and was as good as thinking of her at school, or making her way home on the train. He liked to think that he would surprise her on a train one day. He was sure that someday he would.
     He closed his eyes for a moment and let his mind drift. In five days it would be her twelfth birthday. He had already bought her a gift. It was a ragged red yarn dog with black button eyes. It had a black tongue and the pads of its feet were black too. It had a worn look that he liked. She loved dogs. They could never have one because she was allergic to them. He saw it at a flea market when he left the station for lunch one day and he rushed to find an ATM to withdraw some cash to buy it for her. It rested in a brown paper bag under his bed in his apartment. He was nervous to give it to her. She liked all things new and expensive and the dog was more charming than pricey. In truth the girl was spoilt and short-tempered with him. He bought her many things and most of it ended up in a thrift store after a year’s grace. He was desperate to please her and anxious that she might not be impressed with the gift. He was afraid of how devastating she could be.
     When he opened his eyes he realized he had slept. He sat up quickly jolting the swivel chair and checked the monitors displaying the exits. He could tell by the brighter contrast that the sun had started to rise. There was a man with a suitcase standing by the west gate entrance outside the elevator looking up at the camera. On the other monitor he saw that people were waiting on the platform for the train.
    The speakers inside the office came to life with a burst of static and after a few seconds a loud distorted voice filled the room.
     ‘Four-twenty-five downtown.’

     The static resumed and the station manager turned in the chair to face the microphone. He pushed down the button on its side cutting off the static and said ‘go ahead four-twenty-five.’ He did not point out that it was four-thirty-five.
     He watched the screen brighten with the lights of the train and the train rushed into the bottom left screen then the upper, then into the bottom right. From the office he heard it roar from the tunnel and clatter along the tracks and screech to a halt at the end of the platform, and its doors scrape open. On the screen he watched the passengers on the platform file into the train. He liked watching people get jammed in the doors. There was something satisfying in it to him. When the doors closed the train held for a few seconds. It crept along the tracks at first then picked up speed and noise, growing louder despite being farther from the platform then fading to a distant echo.
     He looked at his watch. The next train was due in ten minutes, and then every ten minutes until the peak ended. On the monitor men and women were standing by the elevators or walking along the mezzanine corridor from the elevators to catch the next train and he knew it would get busier for the next three hours before it slowed down. He drank some more of the coffee. It was still bad. He had forgotten to screw the cap back on and now it was cold as well as bitter.

He glanced at the monitor showing the mezzanine and noticed something leaning to the side by the end of the platform. He looked closely at the screen. He could just make it out. It is the bum’s trolley, he thought. Perhaps she did make the train. Ah but at what cost.

I hope she hasn’t stuffed anything dead in there, he thought. He left the office and took the escalator down to the platform and walked to the far end where the trolley still stood leaning off to one side. He took a tentative hold of the handle and walked it along the platform and back up the escalator and lifted and kicked it up the step into the office. He pulled the red cord opening the maw of the bag. He was about to thrust his arm down into it but he opened a drawer and pulled out a silver flashlight.

Inside the duffel bag were rags; a bundle of rags that he pulled out and unraveled piece by piece expecting to find inside them some precious item that harked back to a happier life that the woman had guarded for years. And when the last furled and knotted ball came loose and there was nothing inside he was disappointed. He had hoped for something personal; a photograph, a letter, some old jewelry. Anything that assured him that the woman had not spent her life alone without the comfort of others in a world cold and indifferent to her, with nothing but her rags for company.

The office floor was strewn with them and he was surprised to find that they were clean. He sat back in his chair and pinched hard the bridge of his nose and remembered his daughter and the dog.

© 2011 mcnultyyouprick

Author's Note

I'd love to know what you think of it as a whole; does it tie together? What improvements would you make? Is the style consistent with the form?

My Review

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Featured Review

dklp88

I liked the story, but it does have it's flaws. Good news first, though- I liked your characterization of the characters, and how you develop them through the story.
On the other hand, I wasn't a fan of your overuse of the words, 'He (verb)' or 'She (verb)', but I admit that I see it hard to actually a way around that without fundamentally restructuring the sentences. Also, I found the last part a little bit confusing, but my overall recommendation would be to just tidy up a bit, and try some different sentence structures.
But good job nonetheless, and continue writing.