The Inner City (2 page)

Lena Shayton is reading the newspaper, looking for a job, when she hears a knock on her door. It’s the guy who lives below her, on the first floor. He wants to know if her apartment is shrinking. He has a notebook with measurements in it, and he says his apartment on the first floor is getting smaller each month. Is hers?

She considers the possibilities. If it’s a come-on line, it’s interesting. If he’s serious, he’s either artistic or crazy. This might be the way to make a new friend, which is what she needs right now. The love of her life, Bill, left her for Denise; she just lost her programming job; and there’s a bad smell in the kitchen that she hasn’t been able to track down.

Maybe it’s the sewage treatment plant; the paper says there’s a problem there that no one seems able to fix. Maybe it’s Bill; maybe there’s some weird thing happening where Bill tried to crawl back to her, got stuck under the sink, and died. But it’s not likely; what would he be doing under the sink?

She lives over on Weehawken Street, which is a block from the river, at the westernmost part of the West Village. She read in a book that in the old days of New York, Weehawken Street was almost on the river, before the landfill added another street. There used to be tunnels from Weehawken to the docks, for smuggling. She doesn’t remember what they smuggled, but it adds to the possibility that Bill might have taken some sneaky secret way into her apartment and gotten stuck and died. She used to be the kind of person who wouldn’t have thoughts like that, but now they give her pleasure.

She doesn’t want to deal with this guy’s mania. She tells him she measured yesterday, and it’s definitely the same.

Lena goes through all the newspapers, looking for a job or for the inspiration for a job. There’s a lot of news. Stuyvesant Town is complaining that their water pressure has practically disappeared; they coordinate shower schedules by floor.

The mayor warns the city of possible brownouts in the coming hot weather. Electrical usage is up 20% and has reached capacity. The mayor blames computers. “Turn off your printers,” he demands. “Don’t leave your computers on all the time. Conserve or we’ll have an electric shortage like we once had a gas shortage. I’m not saying we’re going to
ration
electricity out to people on alternating days like we did then.” (And here, the reporter notes, his jaw got very firm.) “But we don’t have infinite resources. If you blow the grid, it’ll take a while to fix it.”

Blow the grid! Lena thinks as she walks around the Village, and just because of all the fat and selfish people out there, the ones who take and give. Like the people who drop litter everywhere, which really annoys her. It doesn’t take much to control litter—just put it in the trash cans on the corner. She sees a bunch of folders and papers beside an empty trash can, for instance. Some of it is even leaning against the empty can, that’s how bad it is.

She picks up a handful of that paper. She tells herself that if she finds a name, she’ll turn them in—however you do that, whoever you call. There’s such a thing as accountability, after all. Though she’s never “turned” anyone “in.” Maybe it can’t in fact be done. Nevertheless, she picks up a handful of papers.

It looks like someone’s home office has been tidied up and dumped in the street. No, it must be a small business, because there’s an inter-office memo from Harry Biskabit on garbage. “All paper must be shredded,” it says. “We recently discovered some of our own letterhead fluttering down West Street. Needless to say, this could be disastrous. From now on, all paper of any kind must be brought to 151S3, where it will be listed, tallied, signed for and shredded before being put out. Foodstuffs and non-identifiable garbage can be handled as usual.”

This is very funny, this guy Biskabit demanding that all the garbage be handled properly—and he can’t handle his own!

A few memos look confidential. There’s a job review and what looks like a warning about the poor work quality of someone named Philip Tarrey, who’s always making mistakes and sending the wrong things to the wrong rooms. He’s late with reports, he’s poor at programming . . .

That’s very interesting.

These papers could be a gold mine. They look a lot like a personnel file, and it looks like Philip Tarrey’s been fired, and that means they need a programmer.

But who needs this programmer? She pages through the folder, finally finding some letterhead that reads “Assignment Specialties, 3 Charles Lane S3C, 77-33x14.”

Charles Lane is only a few blocks away from where she stands. It’s one block long, with a narrow cobblestone street running from Greenwich Avenue to West Street. There are blind storefronts along the southern side of the lane—concrete walls with steel doors. Trees with thin trunks press themselves against the walls. Everything on the north side is either a fenced-in garden or the back wall of row houses.

The only entrance doors are on the south side of the lane, but none of them have numbers. Where is 3 Charles Lane? Some kids come through on bicycles, followed by what she thinks might be NYU students doing something with cameras, posing each other and checking lighting. She can’t find the address and there’s no resident to ask.

Of course it’s only three in the afternoon; maybe they’re all at work with the doors closed. She decides to come back later, at five o’clock, and walks over to the park they’re building by the river. They started about five years earlier, put in some trees, that kind of thing. It’s nice for a block or two—there’s even some grass and some bushes, but that seems to be all there is, despite all this talk about a pedestrian path going all the way uptown. Instead, there’s mesh fencing blocking off the new paths, and lots of signs about construction. The signs are dirty; there’s even a bush growing from construction debris.

At five, she wanders back, already half-convinced that the letterhead must be out of date. She turns the corner at West Street and stops—all along Charles Lane there are people in suits and dresses, with briefcases and shopping bags and coffee cups in their hands. They move rapidly up and down the lane, but they’re eerily silent about it, not even their footsteps make a sound. But no doubt about it, they look like a commuter crowd, probably heading to the PATH train station just a few blocks away. It suddenly looks like Charles Lane is a thriving business artery. The buildings must be much deeper than they seem.

Everyone is coming out from one door, and when she gets there, she sees that it’s actually a newsstand. She’s so surprised that she walks in to get a better idea. At once, all the rush slows down. Lena stands still, looking around, and everyone inside seems to pause, picking up magazines or studying the sign above the counter for sodas and bottled waters. Lena sees a doorway marked “Employees Only,” which has a dark curtain instead of a door. A man comes through, looks a little surprised, and then a small red light goes on over the doorway. She buys a soda and then leaves, joining the silent crowd outside as they walk to the end of the lane and disperse.

The only possibility she can think of is that this is a classified work place of some kind, maybe a secret government job, and the idea thrills her. She would like to do something dangerous or risky or at least more interesting than her usual. She pictures herself bluffing her way in, like a spy or counterspy. She’s never done anything underhanded before; it’s her turn. People are always taking advantage of her; let them watch out now.

Besides, it would be great to have a job that she could walk to. The subways are out of control right now with one accident after the other. The engineers say the signal lights are wrong; the maintenance people say the lights are fine. Trains crash into each other head to head or head to tail, it doesn’t matter, she’d rather stay off them.

She wears an ironed blouse and a neat skirt the next morning and holds a briefcase with the papers she had picked up on the street, placed in a folder marked “Personal.” On top of that she puts her resume, and on top of
that
she puts Harry Biskabit’s memo. She gets to Charles Lane at 8:00 the next morning, and it’s empty. There’s one dog, one dog walker, and that’s it. She’s annoyed, because she’s trying so hard to outsmart everyone and it doesn’t seem to be working. The whole of Charles Lane has a blank, locked face. She touches the door where the newsstand was, and it’s shut solid and looks suddenly like it never was open, never in its life. She goes over to the river again, looking out at the traffic jam. There are a few boats on the river. She’s playing magic with herself. She’s telling herself that when she turns around, she’ll see Charles Lane bustling with life.

Then she turns around, and it is.

People are rushing around, back and forth. And there’s a little café where the newsstand was. It even has an outside table and two chairs. Why would the stores be different at different times? Maybe it’s some kind of new-wave timeshare scheme. Maybe on holidays it turns into a souvenir shop.

She merges with a wave of employees as they go through the café door. She steps behind two women, close behind, and to prove she’s with them she starts matching their stride.

They go through the doorway marked Employees Only. Lena keeps her head steady, trying not to look around too much. There’s a short hallway and another curtain, with a guard on the other side. She bunches right up with the women ahead of her, almost stepping on their shoes, and she nods briskly. The guard grabs her.

“Your ID?” he asks.

“Job interview,” she says. She opens her folder and flashes the letterhead. “See? Harry Biskabit. I have an appointment.”

“You’re supposed to have a temporary pass.”

She rises to the occasion, scowling and huffing a little. “Now,” she says, coldly, “how do I get a pass if I can’t go in to get a pass?”

He blinks at her. “By mail?” he asks.

“You know they don’t send them by mail. I was supposed to go in with those people you separated me from.” She waves at the disappearing backs. “Hey, Juanita, you forgot me!” Then she pouts. “Now what?” She sighs in exasperation. “Can you call someone?”

He looks a little uncertain. “I just have instructions, you know. I don’t need to justify everything I do, especially when it’s regulation. But I do have discretion.”

She smiles, suddenly friendly. “I’ve always admired discretion,” she says. She’s trying to mimic some sassy movie heroine from some gumshoe movie. She’s getting a little jolt out of all the pretense.

He grins. “If you don’t have an ID by tomorrow I’m gonna have to call in some backup.”

“I understand,” she says, giving him big eyes and then slipping by. “I’ll make sure I get a good picture.”

She takes a deep breath and keeps walking, fighting the impulse to slap someone on the back. She made it in! Of course it’s only a first step. She stops in the hallway to poke through her handbag, as if searching for a room number. When some more people come through, she falls in behind them.

They walk down a half-flight of steps, then through a short corridor to a bunch of elevators. Lena follows the others in and faces the buttons. S1, S2, S3. The others push S2. The memo from Biskabit says S3, so she pushes that. People come rushing in and by the time the doors close, the elevator’s almost full. As soon as they shut, a murmur breaks out, as if they were suddenly allowed to speak.

“Did you see the new offices yet?” one man asks his neighbour.

“Katie’s department moved in. They’re still pushing for more storage, but it looks great. Not so crowded.”

“We’re next,” the man says. “Can’t wait.” The doors open to S2 and they move out. That leaves just Lena and a slightly overweight man in a gray suit.

He smiles at her. “You new here?”

She’s a little thrown by that. How can she sneak in if everyone can see she’s new?

“I was behind you when the guard asked for your ID,” he says. “Don’t panic. I can’t read minds.”

“Phew,” she says. “I thought maybe I had a sticker on me or something.”

The elevator doors open and they both step out. Lena lets him lead the way.

“No, no, no, you look perfectly fine. Is this your first interview? Or is it a transfer?”

She’s tempted to say transfer, it seems like the easy way out, but he would be sure to ask where she transferred from. “Interview,” she says. “And I could use some help finding the way.” She takes a quick look around. “It’s a big place.”

It’s really astonishing, the size of it; there’s just no way of telling from outside. Lena is in a big main corridor, passing doorways with frosted glass and doorways with no glass. Some doors are open and show offices with stacks of files and multiple desks and people very busily going about their business. Phones ring and terminals blink. Every two hundred feet or so, side corridors intersect with the one she’s on, and when she looks down one, she sees people walking parallel to her, in rows of multiple main corridors. They’re like streets. In fact, every so often there’s a small coffee shop or a little sandwich shop. A clothing store as well; even a pharmacy.

Her companion abruptly stops and holds out his hand. “Bossephalus,” he says.

She doesn’t like his eyes, they’re too sharp. She smiles and holds the smile, uncertain about giving him her name.

He winks. “Not to worry,” he says. “I’m not the bogeyman.”

She un-snares her smile. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m such a New Yorker. My name is Lena.”

“Lovely name; I don’t hear that often enough. Who are you going to see?”

“Harry Biskabit.” It’s the only name she knows. Aside, of course, from the supposedly fired Philip Tarrey.

“That’s good, that’s very good!” Bossephalus chortles. “We both start with B, that’ll be easy.”

“Of course,” she says, trying to sound like this makes perfect sense. They pass a doorway into a large open room with electronic maps displayed along the walls. There are little red beeping lights moving, and people are talking into headsets and clicking on little handheld computers. “Is that what I think it is?” she asks with interest. She has no idea what it is, really, but it seems like a good way to go.