Long Night, Boxed Type

Sometimes things go from bad to worse, a short vignette.

 

 

Long Night, Boxed Tight

 

There was a time, more than five years ago, when I was not afraid of the dark spaces. All of that changed one evening when I got stuck at work. I mean REALLY got stuck at work.

 

All over New York City, and on Long Island too, convenient storefront medical centers had sprouted in the nineties, often Russian-owned, but not exclusively. Each had a waiting room, small offices, and larger rooms sectioned by curtains hanging from a ceiling track. These non-descript curtains surrounded therapy tables used by assorted, and multi-accented, physical therapists, acupuncture specialists, and their assistants. In the nicer neighborhoods the waiting rooms were often large and well-lit, situated in small strip malls with parking right in front. In some of the higher crime locales, the space might be tighter, and the security too, with buzzers permitting a visitor into an entryway, then a waiting room and finally into the offices. Gated windows, the ones with heavy steel bars protecting plate glass and doors, were not unusual. The purpose of these centers was largely to treat car accident victims, with an occasional customer who had been hurt on the job. I always thought of them, in my own mind, as the no-fault clinics.

 

            I happened to work at many of these places all over Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, with occasional forays into Nassau and Suffolk counties to the east, as well. One was in Manhattan, just across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium. The place was dingy, never that busy, but the other therapists and staff working there were friendly enough. They usually let me set up my clipboards on the waiting room window sill, stocked with papers for new patients to complete. Near the receptionist there was always a big glass vase with a water plant of some kind and a Siamese Betta living in that water. You could always count on someone coming by to sell black market DVDs at cut-rate prices, ones someone probably recorded in the back of a movie theater, but I never bought anything. When I left this clinic at night I never felt safe and parked as close as I could to the front door. There were some similar offices in the Bronx and Brooklyn where I would also be on high alert walking to my car. One time I found my self stuck alone in one of the places in Brooklyn at the end of the night.

 

            This particular office was 2 blocks from Woodhull Medical Center, a large city hospital serving Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant among other neighborhoods. It was a nice, clean office inside with carpeted floors, subdued lighting and an average sized waiting room. It was right on Broadway, underneath the El, and never received much light from the outside. There was more security here than in the average medical office. You entered by walking into a small vestibule, ringing a bell near a closed window from which the receptionist could take a peek at you before buzzing you into the waiting room. There was a TV there, cushioned waiting room chairs, and good quality commercial carpet. The walls seemed freshly painted, and it never felt dingy unless you went inside and used the bathroom, which was old and did not always have soap or toilet paper. Still, to get to the offices and bathrooms, and out of the waiting room, you again had to be buzzed through.

 

            I had had a fairly busy night, with perhaps 8 or 9 patients, but the office was closing, the last patients gone, and we were all rushing to complete our last bits of paperwork, the paper trail, of course, seeming all important. I was seated in a small office off the main hall, at the desk, my door closed because it always swung closed, packing up my last papers. With my coat on, work bag over my shoulder, I swung open the hollow wood door, and stepped into blackness. Someone had shut off all the lights in the hall, and it appeared in the entire office. Within seconds the burglar siren also began to scream, and I began to panic. I could not even see enough to find a light switch, nor did I think about returning to my previous room. As my fears set in, made worse by my knowledge that I had no keys whatsoever for any of the doors, nor a phone number for anyone who worked in the office, I began to make mistakes.  

 

            My first mistake was to choose to work my way forward in the dark, reaching the door to the waiting room, opening it, and allowing it to click closed behind me. I could have moved slightly right to the receptionist’s room instead, where I’d at least have easy telephone access, and a reasonable chance of finding a light switch, but somehow I was still hoping that the front door and gates would not already be locked, that there was someone still there – a foolish hope I know. The waiting room was the only route to get to the vestibule and front door, and so I went, still moving in the pitch dark. My next error was to step from the waiting room into the vestibule, letting that door click closed behind me. I was a moth drawn to hoped for light, but with no way of reaching it. Now I was in a space 4 feet by 3 feet, with the convenience of having the actual alarm siren directly over my head. I could see slender strips of light through scant openings in the steel security gate, but I was locked in, siren blaring, in the dark, and in a space the size of a half-bath.

 

My one good fortune was that I had my cell phone, and it was charged. I telephoned first my boss, who turned out to be in Europe, and could, strangely enough, provide no help. I then called my friend Sam, who did the same work as I did, but full time. He had worked at this office in the past, but he, too had no phone numbers for any of the office managers. My third and fourth calls were to 911 and to my wife. The first time I called the emergency number the operator had trouble hearing me over the din of the alarm banshee, and I had no better luck hearing him. I hung up and called my wife, who too had trouble hearing me. Her solution to this was to place the call on speaker phone, which unfortunately was not much of a help. In fact, my children, who were in the same room with my wife, could hear me talking, sounding far from my best, with that horrific screeching siren providing sound effects. They were now frightened for daddy. I called 911 a second time, and this time stayed on the line, calming a bit in the midst of the insanity, hearing that someone would be on the way.

 

I took a seat on the vestibule floor, my work bag along side. The fire department arrived within one hour, raising the electrically operated gate with their master key, and prying open the locked front door, with surprisingly limited damage to the door. I was glad to be free of my box. I paced briefly on the sidewalk in front until I determined that there still was no one I could contact from the office, and nothing more I need do. I fled under the El and around the corner on dimly lit deserted streets. Reaching my Civic, I quickly got it in gear, drove swiftly through the streets of Bed-Stuy and Bushwick, hopped on the Jackie Robinson Parkway, and sped the rest of the way home. I’ve not been friends with dark places or tight spaces ever since.

 

Reviews

[R. MonaLeza]

This was tough read for me since I am extremely claustrophibic. I don't think I would have been able to gather enough calmness to get myself out of that situation. I felt the closeness of that small space while I was reading and had to take a few deep breaths. Wow, that's scary stuff. Great write.

[T. L. O'Neal]

This was an interesting story and could feel your panic. Did you set off the alarm or was it something else? I keep reading to see if you where going to run into a burglar in the dark. I can understand your phobias from this. t

[Krystal Waters]

What a story! That is like your worst nightmare happening... and the sirens blarring and you keep walking and boxing yourself in to a tighter and tighter space. Wow... 911 was your savior that night... Couldn't even imagine what was going through you mind. First, forgotton you were there, everyone left you and turned on the alarm, then you were pinned in!!! did you ever go back to that office? At least the fish know the truth.