“Hi Mary!” says Jack to the short, eggplant-shaped brunette as he settles himself in the smack, dab center of the available space. The doors close. The elevator continues down.

“Hi there,” Mary answers.

“I’ll be coming by later today. Going to build out your IT space,” he says.

“Oh great,” she says without a hint of sarcasm. The elevator stops at the next floor. Another two people step in. The already present bodies shift to redistribute the personal space. In the move, Jack notices Mary’s plastic water cup. It’s clear with prints of large, yellow and pink Gerber daisies.
“I like your cup. Did you paint it yourself?” he says. The quiet, cornered audience in the elevator studies her cup. Plastic probably $1.99 from Duane Reade’s picnic merchandise.

“No, it’s just a plastic cup,” she says with a tone read by Jack as kind and by the other six passengers as placative.

The elevator stops again. Doors open again. Three more people get in. It’s like chromosomes multiplying inside a nuclear membrane.  “I like the colors. Very summery.”

“Thanks,” she says.

The doors close. Passengers calmly stand uncomfortably close to each other with nothing to do but inspect each other. A woman notices a brown growth on the back of a man’s neck. It’s got two hairs sticking out of it. She holds back gag reflex. The man notices a mysterious balding patch on crest of a woman’s head. He wonders if she’s aware of it. The passengers see each other as pointillistic figures, as millions of little, repulsive pieces.

Well this is true for all passengers except Jack and Mark, the Guy Who Even Uses His Laptop on the Subway. With each additional passenger Mark has been pulling his laptop closer and closer to his face. It’s as if he’s trying to read the fine print on a coffee table book.
Jack is amused. “Are you on the computer in the elevator?”

“I, um,” mumbles Mark.

“That’s dedication. Are you online?” Jack says.

A flicker of something to say popped into Mary’s head and it traveled straight out of her mouth.  “Some people have cell phones. He has a computer!…Actually he’s a big guy. He could use it as a phone.”

Mark, The Guy Who Even Uses His Laptop on the Subway, holds it up to the side of his face. “There’s a microphone right here.” He smiles. Each passenger cracks a smile back at him. Good humor is catchy.

“Yeah, what’s the difference between the phone and the computer? Same thing nowadays,” says Jack. The elevator stops again.

“Oops, we’re on the local,” someone jokes.

“Excuse me, gotta get out,” a Non-Descript Guy in the Back asserts.

“Everybody out!” genially directs Tony the Formerly Quiet Businessman standing in the front as the doors open. Everyone complies and pours out of the doors like kids at a bus stop. And after the Non-Descript Guy in the Back get outs, Tony hollers “And everybody in!”

The doors close.

“Wow, this carpet is nice. Really beautiful carpet they put in here,” Mary announces with sarcasm.

“Yeah it really matches the—What is it? Fake wood grain? Leopard print? On the ceiling,” says Mark.

“Whoever designed this elevator was color blind! And look at the light falling down. Great job,” says the Tony.

Nothing brings people closer faster than the opportunity to share disapproval.

But Jack, the original party starter, doesn’t join in. He holds his breath, curls his toes and bites his bottom lip. The elevator renovation was his job.  He wishes they’d all just shut up.

This FedEx Drop Box was ideal. It was for express, expensive, VIP packages only, none of the ground shit, and it didn’t require much of a detour. It was just above the subway stop that he emerged from five days a week. When he looked online yesterday before bed, he learned that a true, full-fledged FedEx location was located one avenue to the west, but that was one avenue the wrong way and would add about 6 minutes of walking to his ultimate destination, a gray cube at an accounting firm.

Jacobson bee-lined across the lobby to the stout drop box. All he had to do was bend over, pull the branded express envelope out of the 8-year-old, soft, leather extension of his right hand, open the metal box, drop it in, close it, open it again to make sure it had disappeared from public view, and walk out, a 45-second operation. This was the last step of a long operation. He had already saved up two months worth of pay, gotten a cashier’s check, signed a handful of forms, found a notary public to stamp the contract, stole a Fedex Express Envelope from his office’s mail room, looked online for the most convenient drop box and made it 10 feet from it.

A marine, a front-liner, a young man with sharp jaw line, square chin, defined cheekbones and a buzz cut stopped him mid-stride.

“Sir, do you have ID?”

“Yes,” Jacobson said startled, sidelined. “Of course.” Who doesn’t carry around their ID? Do I look like an illegal? A Mexican? The Taliban? He knew he looked like a regular, old Joe. One with grey hair, a black, slightly faded suit, beige polo shirt and shoes in desperate need of a shining. He’d passed in front of this building every day on the way to work, which added up to at least 9,000 times. He marched this route when the piss ant security guard was still breastfeeding. He tried to keep moving past the desk.

“Sir, may I please see your ID?” the Marine interrupted.

Jacobson hadn’t planned on this distraction. His wallet was far from any pickpocket’s reach, at the crusty, dusty bottom of his satchel, beneath about 300 pages of spreadsheets and newsletters. He let go of his case, dropped it to the floor and bent over.  His knees poked forward because his old man hamstrings weren’t flexible enough for a waist-only bend. His backend strained the aged thread of his slacks. He dug deep.

A line of office workers formed behind him. A brunette woman holding a coffee in one hand, purse in the other. A young man wearing a teal striped shirt, wallet held out in his hand. The marine recognized them as building tenants. So he started to evaluate Jacobson from above, trying to assess how long it would be before the ID would emerge. The marine’s job was to protect the people who worked there, and they needed to get to work. Jacobson was in the way.

What Jacobson didn’t know is on the side of the security desk, directly above his straining spine tendons, glowed a small red light. When a tenant would swipe their up-to-date office ID in front of it, the light would turn green for go. Then the office worker would then be on his or her way to his or her 8-hour shift.

But Jacobson was still digging. The thread of his pants barely holding against the tension. His time was up. This bumbling, wrinkled, faded, stiff stranger must move aside, the marine thought.