gdead.berkeley.edu/gdead.berkeley.edu.tar/gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/miscellaneous/votc

Text File | 2004-08-10 | 33KB | 499 lines

Path: mit-eddie.rutgers.mailrus:purdue:decwrl:ucbvax:hplabs:well:wheezer
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Am I the Victim or the Crime?
Date: 20 Sep 88 01:59:21 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] ( Yer Average Deadhead )

"I don't think that this elevator can hold this many people," Martin
yelled out in the crowd, "Maybe some of us should wait for another
one."  "Yeah, yeah, sure it can," someone yelled along with me as we
entered the  pint-sized machine. Another person sardonically mumbled
the tone of the language in harmony as he got in. It made us all
smile. I thought we could get away with it just this once (who am I
trying to kid. It's always just this once). The only problem would be
foul air from all these Greek concert go-ers fresh out of the
concert. Every time the Dead play the Greek we base ourselves at the
Hotel Durant. I've dealt with these slow, flaky elevators for
years. It was a choice between standing there and waiting for the
elevator to come back down, or knowingly breaking the weight limit on
the thing. None of us wanted to wait. It seems like this type of
violation is such a minor infraction in the law books. It's way below
jaywalking. The cable can hold a lot more than what the weight limit
usually says. Even atrick, a lawyer, came in. Everybody in the car was
going to the third floor. Right after the kid by the buttons pressed
Floor 3 long and firm to be sure that it was pushed, I remembered that
I had left my hi-fi VCR, component FM tuner and mini-speakers in
Kathy's room on the 4th floor to tape the show. It was being broadcast
on KPFA in Berkeley all 3 days. I also remember scrambling around that
room an hour before the show because there were not enough wall
outlets to hear if I've actually got the right station. That old hotel
room couldn't handle that much high-tech equipment very well. Sweating
like a pig and under the wire, I tore the lamp and TV plugs out of the
sockets and tried every possible configuration between tuner, TV
speaker, mini-speaker and VCR until I found one that worked. I had all
the bases covered; tickets, taping equipment - I was going to be a
taper. I just wasn't sure I did it right. It turns out that I set the
timer for 7:00 AM not 7:00 PM. It's a complicated machine and I was
under a lot of pressure, I tell myself. Needing to get back there
before Kathy did so I can put her room back together, I said, "wait,
no. Four. We need 4, not 3." As the door slid closed on us the kid by
the control panel pressed 4 with the same conviction he had pressed
3. Nine of us were packed in this box with only inches between each
body. It was no more than 4' by 4' by 8'. In addition to the five of
us in the elevator - Martin, Bill, Harlan, Amy and myself, there was
atrick and 3 other guys I had never met before, but introductions
weren't necessary. We all knew where we had been about an hour
before. The usual silence after the doors close was shortened to only
a second or so due to the excitement of the situation. It was just
long enough to hear the motors work and feel the pull of the
cables. First day at the Greek theater. The Dead blew us away right
out of the chute. One of the strangers starts softly whistling
Shakedown, then all 3 of them seem to talk about the show at
once. They were creating most of the constant chatter with an
occasional word thrown in by Martin, me or Harlan. "That Friend of the
Devil was really something," the guy in the front, whose name is Doyle
we would soon find out, said above the chatter. "You know we already
got our $31.50's worth," I said to Martin, "Did you notice those 2 or
3 extra anymore's we got in Bertha?" Martin and Harlan were
smiling. "I will drink no wine," Harlan said, point at me, "before
right now." It was something I had said between sets at the
show. Harlan liked it as much as I did when I heard it. As a matter of
fact he told me hit was the funniest thing he's ever heard. He says
that at least 4 or 5 times every run. He started laughing his
high-pitched laugh. I know that he really thinks something is funny
when he makes that noise. It's something you can't imitate
correctly. It's his own laugh and has to come from within. It can only
be expressed correctly as a true symbolization of his own
emotion. "Every once in a while I would come back in my body, but for
the most part I was out there hovering tonight," I said to Martin
through the circling conversation of our 2 groups that made references
between each. "It really was a great show," Martin said, nodding his
head up and down in wisdom and with a great deal of empathy. "Even
Paul liked the show. He was standing right next to me. The last time I
saw him he had a big smile on his face." Paul would usually enjoy
complaining about how bad the food was. I wondered if he had anything
to talk about that night. Then somebody mentioned the Morning Dew. At
that point both conversations in the close quarters merged into one
loud mess. "Bam!" I said, "they blew by that one like it was nothing."
I waved my arm off like I was trying to wave an insect out of my
face. "It was like a marching tune," I was now looking at these kids
and talking directly to them about the show. "It was an unbelievably
great Dew!" "You know what I hate?" I asked Martin. "What?" "I hate at
the end of the run, just before the encore, when everybody lifts their
arms to start clapping." I could see his smile grow as I talked. "Man,
some of those people don't wash for days!" It was more than a joke. It
was a statement. Even though I really couldn't smell anything I knew
we all stunk and we may get to know each other's smells better if this
elevator takes any longer. "I think this elevator is stuck," somebody
in the corner behind Bill said. "It's just moving slow." The
blond-haired kid with big black dilated eyes and a wild gaping look
who was opposite me said. He elicited growls of agreement from most of
the people in the car. I began to realize from their talking that
Doyle's friend's sole purpose in life was to fuck with his head. In
the minutes that I've spent with these 3 other strangers I can tell
that this kid is operating on a level that given Doyle's personality
makes Doyle's life a living hell, yet he was Doyle's friend. Doyle,
who looks like he may have been Karl Maulden's son, goes through life
being the mark. For some reason I keep imagining him saying, "I don't
knowThird base!" So long as the pranks are very good, harmless and can
make Doyle laugh, I guess it's OK. It's actually none of my business
anyway. Conversations continued about me as I started to think how
great it is to be here with a margarita in my hand. Even though it was
hell to get it. Henry's', the bar in the lobby of the Hotel Durant,
was packed with so many people that the bartenders couldn't handle
it. "Do you want that crushed?"" he asked after I finally got his
attention. "Huh?" "It would be a lot easier for us if you got it on
the rocks." "OK," I told him, but after thinking about Amy expecting a
nice margarita with crushed ice, "I raised my hand and uttered noises
at the buy. "Muhhα.uhhh." After I got his attention and before I could
say anything he pointed at me and stated, "You want them crushed."
"Thanks," I said as nodded my head real quick. That was about all I
could do after such a powerful dose of the Dead as the one I had just
experienced. I stood there leaning against the bar from at least 5
minutes which seems like an unreasonably long time to be waiting at a
bar for a drink after ordering it. Time is warped when you're waiting
like this. Every once in a while on his way back and forth behind the
bar, the bartender explained, "he's working on it." I tried to catch
him after that to tell him I changed my mind and wanted it on the
rocks. I just wanted it now. But, he either didn't hear me yelling at
him or he ignored me. A short while after that he walked over and
blended my drink himself. I don't know whether the guy over by the
blenders making most of the drinks was scared of blenders or blatantly
just plain wasn't making them. I would have rather drank beer up in
Martin's hotel room and been out of that confusing loud mess. By the
time I got out to the little parlor in the lobby where my friends were
sitting, Bill had gone back tot he bar to get Martin, Harlan and
himself more greyhounds. Since they close the bar at 12 and it was the
last call, he came back with Budweiser's. They couldn't even make him
mixed drinks anymore. They had to know what was happening that
weekend. I can't understand why they didn't set the bar up with enough
help to accommodate that many people. Instead it was a madhouse of
Deadheads wanting drinks. All I wanted was this one little process a
simple technological advancement in margarita history that had to be
added to this bar once its popularity took hold. Nevertheless there I
was in an elevator overheated by Deadheads drinking the perfect being
stuck drink. Apparently the other group had just been in the bar,
too. I could see Doyle was drinking what looked like a Singapore
sling. He sipped it out of his plastic swizzle stick in between the
bursts of nonsense he spewed out. After a little while the kid in the
far corner repeated, "I think the elevator is stuck." Everybody pretty
much ignored him except for his friend who said, "nah, it's just
moving real slow." It sounded like some crackpot radical idea at the
time. However it was an unusually long time for even this elevator to
be in transit. Every moment that went by as we all politely waited I
felt sand fall through an hourglass of realization. It became clearer
and clearer that we may actually be stuck. In a short while all the
sand was gone from the top chamber. We all realized that there was no
doubt we were in fact stuck. Doyle was the one to finally say it and
have it stick. "We're stuck." "We're just moving really, really slow,"
his friend said satirically as he pushed the third floor button. He
got all the yardage he could get out of that line. Everybody in the
car started laughing. It was funny and serious at the same time. I
wonder at what point Doyle's friend actually knew that we were
stuck. The laugh wore off until only a smile remained. We were still
stuck in the car though. "Try all the buttons," Martin said. I watched
from the other side of the car as Doyle and his friend nervously hit
all the floor buttons several times. Nothing happened. Up to that
point in my life I had never been stuck in an elevator. Sure I'd heard
about it, and seen TV stories about it, but early on in my life I had
learned to distinguish between TV and reality. It was a given that
elevators would work. It was hot as hell in there. "Damn I'm getting
hot," I said calmly, "I wonder if there is an opening on the ceiling
so we can get some air." Harlan being 6'4" was our resident expert in
matters above. "I don't know, there may be a trap door behind this
panel," he said as he started to pull the suspended ceiling panel off
to push the trap door open. Martin, in an effort to help, quickly
punched the ceiling panel in and over to the other side on top of the
other panel, making and awful lot of noise. His captive audience oohed
and ahhed startled at his manner as he zealously expedited Harlan's
project. We were wondering if he flipped out and was going to start
ranting and raving, but he just wanted that trap door opened as much
as I did. Harlan was the only one tall enough to open it. When it was
opened you could see the dust that was carried out with the hot air
into the shaft as we all sighed welcoming the fresh air. It didn't
help much, we were still hot, confined and overcrowded, but it was
something. "Try pushing the alarm button." Harlan said. Being cross
corners from the control panel, he couldn't try it himself. Doyle and
his friend were standing closest to the control panel willing to
execute any plan we thought of. He pushed in the red button that
started the high pitched ringing. It was eerie. Everybody was looking
around listening to this alarm. "It's a sound I've heard before in
elevators, but it was when I was younger. When I, along with a pack of
kids, would mischievously sound the alarm on the way up, knowing that
we would not get caught because they, the big guys, would have to take
the same elevator up. I don't know who thought this up first on our
block, but I was a willing participant in this along with other
elevator pranks. Now the alarm was supposed to be ringing. We needed
an alarm. But it wasn't doing anything for us. "You've got to stop
that alarm," My girlfriend Amy said, "I have a really bad headache."
It was a migraine headache in its worst stage that had lasted 2 weeks
with a couple more to go. She was at the point where drugs weren't
even doing that much good for her. These headaches typically last a
few weeks, and every time she gets one she has to patiently wait it
out. I put my arm around her to try to relax her, but I knew that
there was nothing anybody could do to stop the pain until she could
get out and just lie down. "I really think we should keep ringing the
alarm all the time." Harlan said. I didn't have to say anything about
that because nobody else wanted that sound all the time. "We've got to
get out!" I yelled in mock hysteria, "I'm running out of alcohol!" I
saw a broad smile on Bill's face. He was standing in front of me with
his arms folded across his chest. He had this calm look on his face
like he knew all the answers in this small space. He was keeping
totally cool, quietly and patiently waiting to get out. His detached
eyes looked at mind. He knew we both weren't afraid of this thing. We
were hanging tough. He by facing it and knowing that he could
"outsmart" this technological beast and take control. Me by detaching
myself from the situation placing my faith in the Hotel Durant's
insurance bill, that they would not like to be paying for the families
of 9 people who had to eat each other to stay alive for days while in
the elevator. Not to mentioned the days of mental anguish that people
waiting for the elevator would have to endure. I watched rumors spread
around the car about our condition. The kid in the corner asks, "Are
we moving now?" "What? We're moving?" Doyle asks, "We're moving," he
said to his friend next to him. Doyle's friend looked up and own
trying to feel the motion of the elevator. "I think we are, but really
slow." He may have actually been serious this time. You could not
tell. Martin said, "maybe we can make it move," and began to jump up
and down causing the elevator to jerk up and down. Unable to see
Martin in the confusion, Doyle said, "hey we really are moving now." I
wish I could have believed him. We knew we were close to a floor
because we could hear people walking laughing and talking before they
went into rooms or disappeared down the hallway. At about this point
we heard a couple of people giggling by. Doyle and I looked at each
other. "I could see him hearing. He gradually looked past me. His eyes
glazed over so he could look within to listen. Doyle's friend yells
out, "Hey we're stuck in the elevator!" "You're stuck?" she
yells. "Yeah!" we all yell as she giggles back at us through the
door. In our own tempos and style we all yell back, "Go get the
manager to get us out." "OK," we hear. Then we can hear the patter of
her feet and her giggle as she skips down the hallway. But somehow the
collective conscious of the car knew that she wasn't going to get the
manager up there. I imagined her skipping down to the lobby with her
tie dye shirt and khaki shorts lugging these heavy hiking boots and
thick cotton socks on her feet. With her tight pigtails curled up in a
wide lop, the ends connecting at the top of her head, arms
outstretched for balance and mock flight, she floats to the front
desk. Smiling cheek to cheek she giggles out, "There's people stuck in
the elevator." She tries to contain her giggles during the moment
where the manager tries to tell if it's the truth. The clerk can only
blink in disbelief. She then skips out the front door into the night
heading towards Telegraph Avenue. He probably shook his head not
understanding her color scheme and continued bookkeeping. We waited
and waited. It was real. She either didn't get the manager to believer
her or she didn't try. The insane thought was that we'll never get out
of here became more pronounced in our group conscious. "She didn't get
that manager." Martin said in a tone that said he already knew that it
wasn't going to be that easy. He started off a rumbling conversation
among the occupants. Because of the acoustics of the elevator and the
situation, it was hard for me to concentrate on any one of
them. "SSSSHHHH!" Bill said. "We've got to listen to the outside or
we'll never get out of here." Bill made a lot of sense. Everybody
stopped talking except for Doyle. He can't stop talking. He's one of
those people that never stop. "He's right," Doyle said, "We've got to
be quiet or else we can't hear." He stood there with sweat pouring
down out of his baseball cap. "This I ridiculousαthis has never
happened to me before." He nervously rambled on and on inadvertently
drawing his friends into it until that rumbling laughing noise
emanated from the elevator again. IT sounded more like a party than a
bunch of people stuck in an elevator. "SSHHH!" Bill said again. It
stopped the noise. "Quiet!!!"" he whispered. "I'm not paying for
tonight's bill." Doyle rambled on. Going out that little trap door was
not an option. I started to think about having to be rescued by going
up through it and what kind of a hassle that would be. It was a small
opening. I'd probably get stuck at the hips. I guess it could be done
if we had to. If I could get up there without stepping on someone's
face, and if my knee wasn't in such bad shape. I probably would have
done it to see what an elevator shaft was like. Leaning against the
banister of the mahogany veneered elevator I began to think about the
situation I was in. How Weir's song, "Walking Blues," he sung that
night highlighted this instance of my existence. What with a 10 year
old torn ligament taunting me with a re-injury the week before that
rendered me unable to walk until that day. The doctor I was seeing
seemed unwilling to use the new high tech orthoscopic procedure to see
exactly what was going on if I was unwilling to commit to 12 months of
rehabilitation when he found what he and I know is the problem. He
seems to scorn all new procedures and therapies for tried and true
methods. I can't fault him for that, even if performed correctly, the
complicated new procedure is better than the old. Being more
complicated means a greater chance that something will screw up. It
was his unsure bumbling bedside manner in which he forgets which knee
is the bad one in one sitting that I have the problem with. To add
insult to injury earlier that day, I was on the way up to Berkeley,
stuck in traffic, eating a sandwich I bought made with mayonnaise when
I had specifically asked that no mayonnaise be put on the thing,
driving a van that had a spine-tingling grinding sound (turns out it
was the pilot bearing. It caused the clutch disk, fly wheel and main
transmission shaft to have to be replaced). At the onset of the rip it
didn't sound not serious but when we got stuck in the famous Bay Area
rush hour traffic it started to get really bad. The only thing I could
do was drive down the breakdown lane so I would not get stuck on the
freeway. I sure hope Amy understood that banging my fist on the dash
and shaking it at motorists stopped at lights doing what they're
supposed to do was not because I was mad at her. I had just gotten out
of work where I had spent about 2 weeks doing a job that I was not
supposed to do. I was trying to make a state-of-the-art piece of test
equipment work correctly so that I could do my job. I was debugging a
problem so I could debug a problem. Management uses state-of-the-art
equipment, state-of-the-art technology, but doesn't understand it past
their optimistic schedule. You can't just throw money at a problem. A
colleague of mine put it very well, "It's not a project. It's a
behavioral experiment. They give you a job and say you must get it
done by this date. Then they set up the situation such that something
will always happen, something will always break, or not work the way
it was anticipated, such that you can't get your task done. Yet the
schedule marches on. Each day they check how many nervous habits you
pick up." It was as if I was stuck in time. Not only in this elevator,
but in the weekend. I didn't have to worry about work for those 3
days. I didn't have to worry about my car because it's walking
distance from the hotel to the amphitheater. So, I hastily gift wrap
my problems in tissue paper that will tear open by itself after 3 days
of vacationing. "What about that button up in the corner that says
'push in case of fire'?" Martin asked. Amy said. "That will start all
the alarms and get the fire department out here. Don't press that."
Doyle's friend was leaned up against the wall staring at the
button. We were debating this question in front of Doyle's friend
along with Doyle. Harlan, Martin, Amy and I had no control over
whether anyone pressed it or not. I had visions of all the hotel
guests running out of their rooms and down the stairs half dressed and
screaming while the Berkeley fire trucks sirens and lights filled the
streets all the way to the hotel. When the doors are finally pried
open there is a fireman in a yellow rubber jacket wielding a rubber
hose looking pretty mad. "I really don't think we want to do that. We
don't want to cause that kind of commotion." I said. "I think we
should first try to get the manager here." Harlan said, "but we're
stuck. They get cats stuck in trees. I think you should press it." We
had Doyle's friend's attention. He was listening to the debate very
closely. He didn't want to make a wrong move, either. "I know what's
going to happen, and we don't want to press it. It's only meant to
press if there's a fire." Amy said. "When push comes to shove," Harlan
added. "It's going to cause a lot of trouble," I tried to tell what I
thought the big picture would be. "Here will be another case of
Deadheads causing problems for the city. We're already in enough
trouble with this town. We don't want anymore. Depending on how it
goes this year with the Deadheads during the Greek theater run the
city and university may not allow the Dead to come back," I
reasoned. "Let's at least wait until the manager gets here." That
might have done it. Everybody was unsure about pressing it and nobody
wanted trouble. Although I think that if I talked to Martin today, he
would have still wanted to press the button. It doesn't matter though,
he's probably never going to take the elevators in the Hotel Durant
again no matter how many times he comes back. A few moments later we
heard another group of people freely walking down the hallway. Doyle's
eyes light up. He yells, "Harrison, is that you?" "Doyle?" Harrison
asked. "Doyle's whole face lights up. "Yeah, yeah, it's me. Hey, we're
stuck in the elevator." We hear laughter. "No, really," he says. "Can
you go down and get the manager? It takes moment for the situation to
sink in. We hear, "Really? You're stuck?" Then I could hear someone's
footsteps pattering down the hall and fade down the stairs. In our
collective consciousness I felt a relief that this thing will come to
an end at some point relatively soon. Somehow the management of the
hotel would have to get us out. That Doyle's friends may fuck with his
head, but I'm sure they like him enough to get him out of a jam like
this. The guy that spoke to us is still by the elevator. It's a voice
I'll never be able to connect to a face. I could hear him laughing
before he said, "Doyle is that you?" "Yeah it's me," Doyle says
lifting his cap to let more sweat pour down his temples. "Hey Doyle,"
he asks. "Where are you?" "Where am I?" Doyle's eyes open wide at me,
"I'm on Batman! What do you mean 'where am I'?" He had us. He was out
in the hallway and we couldn't prove that we were anywhere. Even
though at any moment I would have expected Batman and Robin to slowly
walk down the shaft suspended by a grappling hook and rope on the way
to surprise an arch criminal. We would stick our heads out of the trap
door and have a cameo appearance on the show. But this isn't
1967. We're not stuck in that time. We're stuck in this space. If I
could have I would have fallen down laughing, but there was no
room. There went Harlan's laugh resonating above the rumble of
everybody else's. Conversation and laughter reverberated through the
car into the shaft and out the hallway. I'm sure people walking down
the hall thought it was a party. Bill quieted us down again and again
because there was no way we could hear anything or that anybody would
think that something is wrong. "SHHHH!" he would yell. The only sound
that would be left was Doyle's babble. "Yes, we should be quiet," he
reiterated, "We've got to all stop talking." His face was full of
sweat. Nobody pointed out the obvious: that he was doing most of the
talking. We all knew that he was at the breaking point. What we didn't
know was how much it would take to send him over the brink. Amy and I
were down to the last of the crushed ice from our margaritas. Bill,
Martin and Harlan had finished their beers long ago. Doyle was
nervously sucking at the ice in his cooler glass through his swizzle
stick-straw. Even with the trap door open it's hot as hell. "Boy,"
Harlan says with the heat almost choking his voice, "I'd really like
to get out of here now. I really would. " He adds with a chuckle to
ward off the insanity. It was beginning to happen, I thought to
myself, slowly people are beginning to unravel. Out of the 9 of us in
the elevator I'd wager better than half of us were tripping. It was
hard to say what was going to happen next. It could have gotten really
ugly. One thing I did know is that we were all going to sweat some
more. The suspended tiles blocked the other side of the ceiling. "Is
there another trap door on the other side of the ceiling?" I
asked. The question rang around the car as another rumor until Harlan
put it to rest. "I can tell you for sure," he says getting the words
out with a laugh, "There is no other trap door." In a lull in the
chatter, atrick turns around to me and calmly says, "You should write
this up." After another brief second of silence Doyle starts his
monologue again. At this point when anybody else started talking,
which was always Doyle's friends, bill would shush them then say
"Quiet, we have to listen." They weren't listening or their short-term
memory was shot. It was beginning to seem like forever to me. The idea
that maybe we wouldn't get out of here was becoming a more forward
thought. Maybe we had died and this was hell. Maybe Tipper Gore was
right and it's too late to repent. At the same time the idea that this
can't be happening, that it was a dream, or mind draft, was just as
real as one idea or another. The moment I had completely finished the
margarita ice we heard some mumbling from the outside. "SSSHHHHH!"
Bill said, "What?" he asked the doors. "This is the security guard." I
had seen him on the way up but, by the way he talked you knew he was
black. "How many of you are in there?" "Nine," Martin, Bill and Doyle
said. "You shouldn't have nine people in there!" he drawls. Everybody
starts laughing. "I knew the security guard was going to say that." I
told the car. "I knew it." It was a scene that had to happen: another
thought torturing the back of my mind for 40 minutes. "Get us out and
we'll talk," Doyle's friend said sticking his tongue into his
cheek. "But they don't have a weight limit in the car," Martin said
having plenty of time to study the mahogany paneled car. He was next
to the welcome picture. It talked about free continental breakfast on
Sunday, but not about a weight limit. Even so common sense should have
told us that we shouldn't stick 9 people into such a small
elevator. Nevertheless, at this point we don't need a lecture. After
the laughter died down the guard told us, "I'm going to get the
manager. We'll be back soon." "Yeah, he'll be back," Doyle said, He's
probably going to Harlem." That was a statement that stopped all the
conversations and sub-conversations in the car. Even Doyle shut
himself up for a moment. But none of us were about to get into some
sort of racial debate over something Doyle said in the heated close
quarters we were in. Gradually the conversations and shushings picked
up. Bill kept most people at bay until we heard more mumbling outside
the door. "What?" Bill asked. "I'm the manager," a voice of authority
told us on the other side. "We're going to try to get you out. We have
to work together on this, okay?" With his last statement we began to
regain some control of our lives. What do you want us to do?" Bill
asked ready to lead us on in any task to get us out of that place. He
said this very slowly and clearly so that we would understand through
the wall, "Okay, when I tell you, I want you to pull out the button
below the control panel. Only when I tell you to, though. Do you see
the button?" I didn't know about this button. It was never brought up
the whole time we were in there. But Doyle's friend shook his head yes
at Bill as if he knew about the button all the time but elected not to
tell us. "Yeah, we see it," Martin yelled. "OK, are you ready?" The
voice that was trying to rescue us said.  "Yeah." "Go!" The bell rang
for about a minute while we all stood there looking at the sliding
steel door. Then the manager said, 'OK, shut it off." A failed rescue
attempt. I thought about firemen with welding tools cutting through
the door about 3 hours later after we had to slap Doyle to stop his
hysteria. "Weren't you guys pushing on the door from you side?" the
manager asked, but he never told us to in the first place.' "No,"
Doyle said. "Let's try it again. This time you guys push on the door
while the button is pushed out." He paused for a second, "Are you
ready?α.Go!" Doyle's friend pushed the button out again starting the
alarm. As Doyle and atrick's faces showed exertion and with muscles
tense, I thought that this is probably the last try before they get
the bomb squad to place a picnic basket full of Acme dynamite in front
of the elevator. Light the fuse, and tiptoe away. It didn't get that
far. The doors did open this time. We were stuck 6 inches before the
third floor, right in front of Bill's room. The June air in the
hallway of the hotel rushed passed the people that had gathered to
watch our rescue and flowed over us like a refreshing Sierra river on
a hot sunny afternoon. We poured out of the car calmly and freely. I
could never adequately describe how good it felt to be out of that
jam. We passed the manager who may or may not have said anything, I
didn't listen to anything for a moment. It felt so great to be out. I
passed the guard who mumbled something about us having too many people
in there, but I didn't listen, I was just glad to see that drab
hallway carpeting. Bill opened his room, turned around and flashed
Martin a worn out smile as he closed the door. As Martin turned to the
manager and yelled at him for not having a sign in the elevator with a
weight limit I shook the hands of Doyle and his friends. Now I was one
of Doyle's friends.

Am I living truth or rank deceiver?
Am I the victim of the crime?
Am I the victim of the crime?
Am I the victim of the crime?

>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 88 12:32:18 PDT
>From: atrick
>To: wheezer
>Subject: fyi re elevator
>
>thought you might like to know I felt compelled to blow the whistle on
>the Durant and their sorry elevator situation. After the night manager
>told us there were too many people in the elevator (and I checked both
>the one we were in and the other one) - there was no sign saying how many
>people or how much weight they could carry, I called the office that
>inspects hotel elevators there and complained. They said that a
>certificate is required to be posted, and if it's not, there must be a
>sign saying the certificate is in the office, and it should still say
>what the weight limit is. I also noticed that neither of the Durant's
>elevators had telephones, and the law requires them to. The people
>I called said they were glad I called because after checking their
>records, they found that the Durant was almost a year overdue on getting
>their elevators inspected, and they were going to send someone right out
>to check 'em out!
>
>It was still an interesting experience anyway, wasn't it? I hope you had
>lotsa fun at the shows. I know I did! See yaα
>
>(but not in an elevator, I hope!)

Copyright 1988 Yer Average Deadhead. All rights reserved.