14

What had taken root after their positive interaction was a kernel of anxiety. He had performed well with Monday’s liftman, so well that he didn’t know how he’d done it. Like he’d sourced it from someone else who was actually put together. He’d given Monday an image of himself and so it was now his game to lose. It wouldn’t double in happiness for him to do something similar again, but it would certainly half, or more if it went poorly. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. 

Just as soon as he sat down on his bed did he get right back up. He donned the only other dry set he had, his uniform, and took to the stairwell as his route down. The manager saw him exiting the foyer and thought he was a weird, sorry fellow. He had it in him to perhaps reserve judgement once more, but the time after was not certain. A picture was naturally starting to accumulate concerning the liftman that saw him not breathing the same air. Monday was his one day off, why would he choose to be in uniform? 

Funny as it was, he wore the uniform because his clothes were wet. It was logical. He might’ve been odd for owning only one pair of clothes, excluding his uniform, sure, that was something that he could be slighted for, but for wearing the one set of clothes that were dry however silly it looked? No. It was another lucky break that the manager didn’t think any further of it. He had no time to. He’d seen that all the skirting in the lobby was collecting black marks, and that the part-time cleaner had left behind her brooch. It should be set aside, he thought, and after that he’d get to scrubbing the skirting. There were three janitorial staff and they had all made themselves scarce.

Outside, the road was damp and the rain had passed. The liftman met the pedestrians returning from inside the shops and ducked out of the limelight down a side road. At the far end he witnessed the back of a grubby man sporting a full plaid outfit, with trousers tucked into his socks, only missing the tam o’shanter and any idea of how he looked. It was unclear if this was a genuine attempt at dressing or was a costume. The odd fact that this unlikely man was present had been missed by the liftman. He was left to presume it could’ve approximated normality and wasn’t completely unrepresentative of common life. It was life though, it was happening. Just like the spitting stream of dark, yellow piss between the man’s spread legs that made him, combined with his torso, into the peace sign.

Some plaided man pissing. Something interesting to it. He walked up two feet right of the man, paused and began to urinate too. 

Am pissing… here… mate.

I- suppose we are.

But… you- who the fuck are you dressed up as?

Dressed up… I’m not but I- suppose… we are- the lift…

I’m not dressed up, you cunt.

The red, the plaid. I guessed-

Its tartan you cunt.

The red-

The plaid adorned, pissing, tablecloth of a man punched the liftman square in his nose. The fist met front on with the bridge of his nose and dispersed the pressure completely evenly. Not being particularly tense, he moved with the punch and took it more like a push. The shock hit him the most. He was bopped on the nose as a dog risking shyness.

He stagger-stepped two paces diagonally to the right and zipped his fly because his hands were still close to the zipper. He flung back a tensed arm, forgetting to ball his fist, and palmed the man in the face. It was surprisingly effective at transmitting the power of his taut limb, joint and barrelled core.

The man yelped, but not in pain, but because he was a loud man. In a slippery brawl both men scrambled and spun and wobbled and vaulted, resembling a mangled necklace trying to will itself free. He felt the man’s face, he fingered his nose, and tested the stretch of his neck. In the lottery of the fight, he was lucky enough to end up straddling him, sitting on his chest, his right knee pinning the man’s right bicep and using both arms to pin the man’s left arm at the wrist. The subdued man’s free right forearm flailing.

The border of his body was in contact with the man in extremely peculiar ways. He didn’t think he’d be touching wrists, or resisting the man’s core and legs in their attempt to bridge, when he rose from his starchy pillow that morning. It wasn’t unfamiliar though. He had been in contact with so many things recently. It was a strong dose but it wasn’t unfamiliar. He’d acclimatised very quickly to touch. He could tell you where he finished, and where the other person began with greater ease than ever.

With his two hands holding down the man’s left arm still, he brought down his right elbow across the man’s face. It didn’t look like the man took the blow because his head had no room to move, nor did he wince more than his face was already strained and concentrated. His nose began to bleed profusely. The liftman’s nose had only dribbled and the ring was already mostly dry.

He stood up, wanting to spit away all this unsavouriness but his mouth was totally dry from having to breathe through it. All he felt was remorse. Did this angry man really know what he was signing up for when he aggressed so strongly? It was evident now how much bigger the liftman was. Did he have some responsibility to ignore the much smaller man? He deliberated up until the point of clarity: no of course not. He now recalled how he had been punched in the nose. His own nose. It was pulsating now that things were calm and he could feel all of it. In all his guilt he nearly painted the little man as innocent and spawned a conceivable way in which he himself was the aggressor and not the man in plaid. Tartan. The man’s nose was still gushing. He very nearly considered his actions much too perfectly as if the proportionality of his defence in the moment should have been guided by hindsight.

He ran back toward and inside the St. Germaine. Uniform torn and stained. He entered the foyer and his footsteps slowed when passing the manager who had just gotten the bucket and sponge out for the skirting. He stifled a cry inside the stairwell. Too much touch – this was his discovered upper limit.

He stood staring at his easel and frames. They seemed so disgusting now. In the morning, things might be better and they would seem just as good as before but for now they seemed only a childish dream. In no way could they be a representation of how cruel the world could be. How imposing a punch could feel and how harsh contact with the world really was. They seemed like a soft approach to the world; the world viewed from a few steps back. Ideals which weren’t aiming for the good but instead finding goodness by running from the bad. He’d only recently found a slither of goodness in his interaction with Monday, and now pain had appeared so unexpectedly, as if it didn’t appreciate not being accounted for.

He began to cry. It felt good. 

He began to weep. He felt guilty but it felt even better. 

He entered a twelve hour slumber where by then the skirting was clean and many other tasks had been seen to. It felt so pussyfooted to exit into his dreams.