Elevator Operator

It's Janice's going away party today. She got a better position
upstate, and so tonight they're having a get together after hours.
I already wished her well on the way up. I'm the elevator
operator.

Isn't too much to the job, really. Push the lever forward to bring
the elevator down, pull it back to bring the elevator up. Little
adjustment makes it go slow, big adjustment makes it go fast.
Eight floors in this building. Open the doors, close the doors,
remember names and floor numbers. I don't look it anymore, but
before this I was a male prostitute. Those gigs paid better, but I
found myself longing for something more stable. So here we are. So
far as I'm aware, my past employment was only known to the hiring
manager who brought me on, and she jumped ship six years back.

Most of the folks tonight have already arrived and been brought up
to five for drinks and chitchat, but there are latecomers,
understandable for a casual thing. I push the elevator back down
to the ground floor, pull open the inner gate, pull open the outer
door, and there in the drab lobby I see a man I hardly recognize
without a suit on. "Mick!"

Accountant on seven. He's wearing a yellow sweater and blue jeans.
As he steps into the elevator, we shake hands and he gives me a
hearty pat on the back. "Five this time," he mentions, and then
with a smile, "How's Ma?"

My mother, who moved in with me some years ago. I close the doors
and start bringing us up. "She's good," I tell him. "Her friend
from the park and her are getting along wonderfully. Sounds like
they might visit an art museum tomorrow. How's Veronica these
days?"

Mick pulls a photo out of his back pocket and shows me a smiling
little girl with mud on her hands and face, beaming as she holds a
garter snake.

I smile and shake my head. "Picked a good one Mick."

We arrive at five. Mick gives me another half hug before moving
out into the hum of conversation. As soon as he's out of the
elevator, Gene staggers in to replace him. Building owner. He
rocks the elevator as he collapses back against the wall opposite
me.

"Calling it an early night, Boss?"

He makes a get on with it gesture. With his other hand, he pinches
the bridge of his nose and then wipes his eyes. I glean he's drunk
and has made an ass of himself, but it's not really my business. I
was only inquiring so I could know whether to bring him up to his
office or down to the lobby.

I start to push the door closed, but a yellow streak darts back
in. "Forgot Janice's card in the car," he tells me, and then turns
to realize Gene there, quietly crying and wiping away the tears.
"Oh. Um."

I give Mick's shoulder a pat, and reach past him to close the
doors. I start to bring us down. Gene produces a handkerchief and
wipes his eyes properly. He stands straight, sniffles and wipes
his nose. "Sorry Clyde. Michael."

"No trouble, Boss," I say, as at the same time Mick voices a
similar sentiment.

I bring us to a stop, open the gate, open the door, and find that
we are not faced with the drab lobby, but instead, with a red-lit
room, with another elevator door on the far wall, and a table in
the room's center.

"Damn," I curse. I prefer it when this happens when I'm by myself.
It's only happened twice with others before, and they were guests
to the building. Ending up here with people who I'll have to keep
talking to afterwards is a dynamic I haven't had to deal with
before.

Mick, already thrown off his charisma from Boss, now looks out at
the red room with his mouth slightly agape, and glances from me to
Boss and back again, as though he hopes we're pulling a prank on
him. Boss glares at me, confused and drunk and accusative, as
though he thinks this is somehow my doing.

I take a pointed breath and gather how I'm going to explain this.
"Gentlemen, if you'd like I can give you the tour." I step out of
the elevator. They follow cautiously. I close the door behind us.

Pointing to the elevator door across the room, I explain, "That
elevator can go up or down from here. Either way will get us back
to the lobby. If we go up to get there..."

We arrive at the elevator door. On it are printed two statements--
one beside an up arrow, and one beside a down arrow.

The up arrow: NONHUMAN ANIMALS ARE WIDELY GIVEN RIGHTS AS FULL
PERSONS OVER THE NEXT 20 YEARS.

"And if we go down to get there..."

The down arrow: THE GLOBALLY AVERAGED SEA LEVEL RISES BY 20 FT
OVER THE NEXT 20 YEARS.

"I'll also point out that the elevator door we just exited from
has disappeared and that that entire wall is now a chalk board, if
we need to do any figuring."

Boss yelps as he looks and sees that I've just told him the truth.

I point to the table in the center of the room. On it are sticks
of chalk, and also a stack of papers. "For our consideration," I
explain. The print on the top page explains further: THESE
DOCUMENTS CONTAIN INFORMATION ABOUT THE PRESENT WORLD. THEY
CONTAIN NO CERTAIN FORESIGHT.

Boss goes and sits with his back against a wall, head down in his
arms.

Mick, aside from taking all of this relatively well, appears
concerned for the guy. "I'm gonna go... sit with him."

Works for me. I give him a nod and a pat. Mick goes to sit with
Boss, and I get started on reading.

Some of the choices I've made in this room have been bigger than
others, but all have come to pass as I chose them. I don't think
everyone would choose the same as me on everything. First one I
ever decided was in favor of the moon landing, with the acceptance
that it would allow Nazi scientists to go unpunished. Most
recently I decided against rapid developments in the field of
telecommunications.

I don't make it very far into the papers this time before I set
them down and just stare forward at the elevator door where the
two statements are printed. Either of these is a game changer.

After some time, I am still staring. Mick pulls up a chair. "How
goes it?" he inquires.

I slide him a paper containing a list of major cities that are not
twenty feet above present sea level. I also slide one over showing
the percentage of the human population whose present income is
dependent on the treatment of animals as commodities.

Mick gives a long, defeated exhale.

"Yup," I agree.

"This is real? All of this is..."

"Yup," I regret to inform him.

A day passes. Boss has sobered up. The three of us sit around the
table, me and Boss in our suits, Mick in his yellow sweater, heads
down reading the papers. We've divided them into three stacks, and
any time we find anything especially notable, we mention it aloud.

Boss: "Approximately seventy five percent of all humans currently
alive live with a nonhuman animal that they would label as their
property or the property of another human."

Mick: "There are currently no ordinances at any level of any
widely recognized human government which state that garbage dumps
must be located higher than twenty feet above sea level."

Myself: "Approximately one percent of the global human population
currently alive intentionally avoids the eating of meat and other
nonhuman animal products."

Boss: "Many widely recognized human governments regard the
unnecessary destruction of civilian property as a war crime during
acts of war. Deforestation is the practice of destroying the
habitats of nonhuman animals at scale for the benefit of humans."

For some findings, we make a note on the chalkboard. Boss was keen
to note the percentage of humans currently alive in the United
States of America who believe in a religion which explicitly gives
humans dominion over nonhuman animals, though I've never known
Boss to be outspokenly religious. Mick noted a lot on food
production as it pertained to either of our options. I wrote out
the names of the cities that would flood if we took the elevator
down, because I feel I still haven't let the weight of that list
sink in yet. In an act of ego that I'd hoped we could be better
than, Boss took his own chalk and circled New York City.

After many hours of this reading, we take a break from the papers
and discuss it freeform. Mick paces. I lean back in my chair, an
elbow on the table, chair pulled out to face Mick and Boss both.
Boss leans forward in his chair, elbows on the table.

"I'm not giving up cheeseburgers," Boss says.

"Can we take this seriously please?" I beg of him.

"How is that not serious to you? Burgers, steak, sausage! Bacon!"

"Salad's good for you."

"We can actually feed more people on a meat-free population," Mick
cuts in. He's anxiously twirling a stick of chalk around his
fingers as he paces. He's also touching his face quite a lot,
inadvertently smudging the chalk around his mouth. "We feed the
animals with plants, and we put a lot more calories of plants into
that equation than we get out calories of meat. Maybe we gain
vitamins? But vegans aren't dropping dead of malnutrition."

"No, they don't seem to be," I agree. I run my thumb up the corner
of my stack of papers, making it make a sound. "That's a good
thought about the vitamins. We should keep an eye out."

Mick goes to do some figuring on the chalk board.

"We could all just move inland," Boss suggests.

"Who's we, Boss? Who's all?"

"Us three. Me you and Michael."

He doesn't get it. Not a big picture guy, him. No humanitarian
streak. No inkling that perhaps not everything is about him, that
there might be a hell of a lot that is beyond him, not for him,
greater than him. I contain my disappointment, which is made easy
enough by the fact that there is no surprise.

After some hours that are a mix of discussing aloud and
contemplating to ourselves, we get back to the papers. Many more
hours pass as we read.

Boss: "Less than one percent of the bovine population currently
alive are cared for by humans in a manner that is not in direct
support of the human effort to produce meat and dairy for human
consumption."

Mick: "The coasts as they currently exist are habitat to
approximately one hundred thousand distinct species."

Boss: "Approximately eighty percent of the human population
currently alive own an item produced from the hide or bone of a
nonhuman animal."

Mick: "Earth's weather system is a chaotic system. Historically,
sustained disturbances have progressed from local anomalies to
widespread changes in the nature of the system itself."

Boss: "Approximately seventy percent of animal species currently
extant are at least partially carnivorous."

Myself: "Slightly upwards of fifty percent of the human population
alive since 1800 have had sexual relations with a nonhuman
animal." I notice Boss and Mick both clutch their papers a little
tighter, and I smirk. "Stories, gentlemen?"

They both hold for a little bit.

Boss breaks first. He sighs and seems to want to hide behind his
papers. "A cow on my grandpa's farm," he admits. "Just one time. I
had never done it before, even with a..." He doesn't finish the
statement. But we get it. His first time was with a cow, and now
he's mortified that he just admitted that to us. I'd go so far as
to wager that Mick and I don't actually care much, but Boss is
beet red, even in contrast of this red lit room.

Mick nods, in response to Boss's revelation.

I also nod, and divulge, "Me and the family dog. More than once."
As soon as I bring her up aloud, I'm surprised by the emotions
that well up in her memory. "Sarah. I guess I didn't ever think of
us as an item. There were humans in my life I was trying to go
steady with at the time. Me and her hooked up that way maybe... a
dozen times?"

Boss makes a grossed out noise, and I call him beef boy and he
shuts the hell up real quick.

"I miss her," I admit. I tap my fingers on the table,
contemplative. A memory comes to me of walking her along the
sidewalk in the Fall, late at night, just us two out--I'm a
perpetually nervous young man at the time, but going out with her
on walks at night is calming, enjoyable, centering. I honest to
God might cry. I think about us on my bed, fooling around. I think
about her watching me eat, and sneaking her scraps. I think about
how I felt after she died. "She was a good girl. Should've
appreciated her more."

Boss mutters, "Good girl or a good piece?"

Now I feel justified in voicing my disgust of him. "A good DOG," I
tell him. "A good exemplar of MAN'S BEST FRIEND. A good PERSON, if
you're pushing me to say it. Good god, do you always have to talk
about all the women in your life like this, Boss?"

I can see Boss trying to form something to come back with, but
apparently he isn't coming up with anything inspired. He stays
quiet.

Mick finally chimes in. "I went steady with a dog."

I turn to face him fully, all ears.

"It was while I was in college. She was sort of the fraternity
mascot, but every night she slept in my room. I don't even know
who took care of her there before I did, but I took up the mantle
pretty quickly when no one could even tell me who she belonged to
or who usually fed her. Started off as a normal amount of care in
a human-pet relationship, I guess, but even by a couple weeks in,
there was much deeper love there, going both ways. Took care of
her the whole time I was there, and stole her away when I moved
out, and we lived the rest of her life together. We were mated. I
thought of her as my wife, no qualifiers on that, nothing less
than my full legitimate partner. Had a higher regard for her than
a hell of a lot of other human people." Mick glances over at Boss.
"And if you need to know, she was a good girl and the best piece
of my life."

Boss slaps his papers down in front of himself, gets up from the
table, and goes to walk over by the chalkboard.

I lean in with Mick. "So what are your thoughts on our options
here?"

He glances over at the chalkboard. Almost all of the writing on it
is his, running the numbers. "Either one would displace a lot of
humans. Given how those things usually go, the death toll would
be..."

I nod.

He goes on. "If I had to choose now, I'd go up. We're not the only
ones on this planet. I--"

I had been nodding along with him, but I have to interrupt with
"excuse me a moment" as I see Boss moving for the elevator door. I
stand from the table. "Stay away from that elevator, Boss!"

He pushes open the elevator door and gets in. I reach a hand into
my suit jacket.

"Get out or I'll kill you, Boss!"

He reaches for the lever.

I draw my pistol from inside my suit jacket, point it at Boss, and
kill him. Mick falls back in his chair and claws his way back to
the wall behind him, blaspheming. I return the smoking pistol to
my suit jacket. I go to the elevator, drag Boss out, and sit his
body slumped over in the corner. I sit back down at the table.

Mick is still in shock, understandably.

I take out the pistol again, drop out the remaining ammunition,
pop out the bullet in the chamber as well, and lob the empty gun
to him. It clatters at his side.

When he's ready, he comes back and we have a talk. "These are
bigger stakes than most wars," I impress upon Mick. "ONE casualty?
The choice we make here will eclipse that a thousand fold."

He seems convinced of it. I'm glad I could tickle his
sensibilities as a numbers guy.

I don't give him adequate credit, though. He is a numbers guy, but
I think he's the kind who uses the numbers to think about other
things besides just numbers.

We go back to the papers, until I'm bored of the papers, and I ask
to hear more about Mick's canine lady friend. It's a sore spot.
There is a wound there that I'm asking him to reopen, work around
in, reaching back past his current human wife to what probably
feels like another lifetime for him. But he tells me about her.
After he gets going, he starts to tell me a hell of a lot about
her. I tell him about mine too, and it becomes clear to me that my
way of thinking didn't stack up to his any day of the week. I
liked mine, but there was a distance between us I'd been blind to,
an unexamined supposition that I could like her, but at the end of
the day she was just a dog, not something to get any kind of
worked up over. Mick's was a person to him. A full person. A
person he cared about more intimately than anyone else in his
life.

We chat a long time, on topic and off topic. Having him down here
isn't so bad as I'd thought it would be.

In the course of our conversation, Mick eventually mentions, "I
have a thought that makes me unhappy about option one."

"Shoot."

"Humans have rights, and a lot of us are exploited anyways. Just
because we have them, they don't always shake out."

I lean back and sigh through my nose. He's right.

He goes on. "Maybe it'd do us better to think of this as less of a
cataclysmic thing than we have been. Still changing things a hell
of a lot, don't get me wrong. But maybe it's more of a difficult
step in the right direction instead of the end of modern
civilization. Maybe it's more adaptable to our very bad world than
we've been wanting to let on. Like I said, I don't entirely like
that, but..."

I nod. "I'm ready if you are. I leave the lever to you."

"Really?"

"If you're ready. Don't rush it."

We sit and think quite a while longer. No looking at the papers,
no looking at the chalkboard. Sitting and thinking.

Eventually, Mick gets up without a word, and I follow him into the
elevator.