The Elevator Operator

Of my family, I have little to say. Little good to say that is. Mother was an artistic floozy who crafted her masterpieces between the sheets and deep into the hearts of men. The tools of her craft included flattery and gentle caresses that promised you’d forget who you were and why you hated yourself, for the night at least. Father was one such man who needed to forget because for all his boasting about cards and pool and money he was still, at the core of it all, a spineless pencil-shaped man with no great talent.

“Martha, dear, you should have seen me at the table last night. I was on fire! None of the chaps could keep up with me. Your man was a king. A king I say!” Father bellowed as he led us down the ivory lobby of our live-in hotel.

“That’s my conqueror! I just hate I wasn’t there to see it,” mother said, sliding her arms around father’s waist. At the end of the lavish foyer, our elevator operator let out a handsome man around my parent’s age. He had a firm chest, a dashing suit, and burnt orange hair cut in a provocative yet neat style.

My mother, in her white dress that revealed her breasts and thighs, leaned into my father but kept her eyes trained on the man. He accepted her challenge with a wink as he passed. She returned his gaze, following him to the point she had to crane her neck backward to watch his equally firm backside leave the Gehenna Hotel. Father’s hand trailed to the small of her back and gently pushed her forward. He didn’t so much as turn, just kept that silly daft smile he always wore. Either he knew and said nothing or was utterly oblivious. My bets were placed on the latter. He reached for my hand but I batted it away.

“Oh thirteen,” he said, “Every girl’s a bearcat that age, aren’t they love?”

“Lizzie take your father’s hand,” mother said, lifeless and quick like the women on the switchboard when they tell you to hold before transferring your call.

I did not obey and left my father’s palm cold and unattended. His smile faded to a grimace, his tongue clicking behind his teeth, but only for a moment before quickly putting his smile back on. Every break of that mask was a personal victory.

We reached the elevator and its operator, Mr. Moloch, an old man with a wide cheery smile that made his eyes disappear. He wore a bright red uniform with gold buttons and a small box hat with a chin strap.

“Mr. and Mrs. Duval, young lady Duval,” greeted Moloch stuttering into a bow like a wind-up doll and struggling to return upright, “Welcome home.”

“G’day Moloch, to home old boy,” Father smiled.

“Going up!” Moloch crooned, his voice like an old train whistle.

Moloch remembered everyone’s name and floor.

Elevators are either heaven or hell depending on who you’re trapped in the box with. I only saw my mother’s real smile once when I caught her leaving the lift with a new muse, pulling the bottom of her dress back down and straightening her hair. The time I caught father leaving the lift was with men who’d turned him black and blue with a bloody lip. Being talentless has its dangers.

The elevator music played lilting saxes and lonely horns. Mr. Moloch closed the gated door, pushed our button, and began our ascent.

“You know what, babe? I think we should celebrate. I got some extra dough from my winnings last night. Why don’t we get some drinks from the juice joint downstairs and order something fancy?” father offered.

“Sounds absolutely divine, darling. You and Lizzie go on ahead and I’ll take the lift back down to grab the champagne?” Mother replied.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Father cocked his head while mother stared me down from behind his shoulder.

“Well, now that’s nice. Offering to help? That’s new for my spitfire. All right, you’re on the job little miss,” Father gave me a playful salute.

The man could never just do. He always had to overdo. He threw thousands of jokes like darts against a target. None of them ever stuck and yet he never got the clue to stop trying.

“You’re too young, dear. You wouldn’t even know what to say,” Mother said coming around father. If he was an observant man he’d have noticed her hands moving to her hips or the venom that laced her voice.

“Mrs. Duval, I can speak on her behalf down at the lobby,” Moloch offered.

Mother shot daggers at Moloch that had they been solid and not made of thoughts would have undoubtedly killed him.

“Besides, I’m sure you and Mr. Duval would appreciate the time to celebrate. Just the two of you,” Mr. Moloch continued, raising his eyebrows at father.

“That’s a swell idea! isn’t it, dear?” father said, kissing mother on the neck.

Mother put on an appeasing smile that anyone, minus my idiotic father, could see was there to hide her rage.

“Sounds great, dear.”

She gave Moloch and I a hateful parting look before flouncing down our hallway. Mr. Moloch closed the gate and sent us back down, pressing every floor on the way so we’d have time for our talks.

“They’re in rare form today,” I said once we were alone.

My shoulders fell for the first time that night. This was the time the metal box became a sanctuary. The only time I felt satisfied with the world.

“You’re father won big. That’s the point of gambling, my dear. Raise them up and then knock them down. Works every time. Now he’s hooked. He’ll go back time and time again because he’ll never forget that top of the world feeling he had tonight.”

“But it’s so foolish, him and mother. They make the same selfish choices over and over again, and they’re never happier. Not really.”

“Oh, everyone knows when they sin the payoff is fleeting, but that doesn't stop them from doing it. Some sin feels rather good. Problem is sin is like money. You have to use it, to get more of it.”

“What do you mean?” I said turning toward him and leaning my back against wall as the lift stopped for an invisible passenger.

“It’s the American way, especially in Vegas. Your mother enjoys the sin of lust so she pays for it with the sin of adultery. Your father wants to possess pride so he gambles and goes beyond his limitations. They’ll take the consequences as long as they get their small moments of ecstasy.”

“I wish the world would just come crashing down on them, just once. Father gets beaten to a pulp then goes right back and wins big, loses it all again, wins it all right back and mother gets treated with nothing but love because he’s too much of an imbecile to see what’s going on.”

Mr. Moloch smiled.

“You think that would change them?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It would punish them at the very least.”

Mr. Moloch pulled the lever beside the button panel, stopping us between floors. He’d never done that before. Taking his hat off, he groaned and knelt down.

“You want to show them? Really show them the error of their ways? Punish them for all the bad and horrible things they do?”

“Well of course I do,” I said.

“I can do that for you, little miss. If you mean it,” he said reaching out his wrinkled and spotted hand.

“How?”

“Shake on it,” his kind old eyes said.

The lift seemed darker like someone had dimmed the bulb. I shifted from one foot to the other. My hands were sweating so I grabbed the sides of my dress to dry them. When did it get so hot?

“They’re horrible aren’t they?” Mr. Moloch whispered softly.

I thought back to the way Mother betrayed me. The little time or care she had for me as long as there was a man willing to touch her, as long as she felt good. Father was an idiot, but his sins weren’t as venomous. Then again, perhaps ignorance was worse. At least venom I could respect, the way I respected the power and ferocity of a viper.

“What will happen?”

“You'll pay for sin with a sin, their punishment in exchange for your wrath,” Moloch said.

I didn’t like the notion of being the same as them, but if that was the only way to get my revenge…

I took his hand.

“They deserve to be punished,” I said.

His smile widened. Rejuvenated, he stood without so much as a creak from his worn knees. He pushed the back wall of the lift to reveal a secret door that led to a small cubby.

“Get in. You’ll have a front row seat,” he said.

Eyes bouncing back and forth between him and the mysterious doorway, I stepped through. He closed the door and I heard the faint clicking of tumblers locking into place. When they did the wall in front of me became translucent. I watched Mr. Moloch pull the elevator crank again. We dropped down as if the cables had snapped but stopped safely at the lobby. My stomach rioted as I clutched the walls for dear life.

“One second,” He jovially waved.

He hurried out. The space was so small I could hardly move. The walls felt like they reaching in for me, strangling me.

“Let me out! Mr. Moloch, I changed my mind! Let me out!” I called.

He returned with a bottle of champagne.

“Let me out!” I pleaded, my hysteria building.

“I can’t do that, little Duval. You made a deal. You paid, I’ll provide.”

The lift sprang to life. I screamed but he ignored me. When we reached my floor the door opened to reveal my disgruntled parents.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t walk it to our door,” mother said with no attempt to hide her impatience.

“Well, it was a little ruse, you see. Your daughter has put together a surprise for you downstairs,” Moloch answered.

“A surprise?” Father asked, flabbergasted.

“What kind of surprise?” Mother asked.

“I’m terribly sorry. I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” Mr. Moloch chuckled, throwing his hands up.

“Don’t! Please! Mother! Father!” I screamed.

It was no use. They couldn’t hear me. Only Mr. Moloch could somehow. Father shook his head and mother stepped into the lift begrudgingly, reaching into her purse for a smoke, unaware of what was to befall them. But I knew. I knew in that moment what I’d done. Mr. Moloch reached for the button panel but instead of pressing the floor labeled “Lobby”, pressed the button below it. A button that didn’t exist before, the hundreds of times I’d ridden with Mr. Moloch.

DAMNATION it read in gold letters.

The old man’s thumb pressed on the gold letters. They grew red hot as if they had been thrown into a roaring fire. The walls, lined with wallpaper decorated in green vines and leaves, began to shrivel and blacken. The light shifted from an easy candescent orange to a deep, sickening, red.

Mr. Moloch changed too. His hat snapped in two and morphed into sharp horns. The curve in his back straightened with a nauseating cracking sound. His pants melted into fur, his shoes into hooves, his jacket into a long black cloak that opens in the front. He was a nightmare. The blemishes on his skin spread until his naked torso was that of a corpse. He turned around and where once a sweet elderly man’s face sat now resided the head of a beast, a goat with square eyes and large teeth.

My parents desperately threw themselves against the gate.

The beast smiled, reaching for the lever.

“Going Down!”