Ups and Downs
by Walt
Giersbach
That Cafferty
from Marketing on the 34th floor. What a
character. Couple times a week I’d find
myself with him in the elevator going down to the
street for a smoke. Our building on Park Avenue
has a lot of corporate big-time companies. Car
will stop at every floor till we’re all like
stuck together like a crayon box that's been left
in the sun.
“Mike,”
he’d shout when I got on at the 32nd floor.
It was show time for Cafferty! “Listen to
this, man. You should have heard my girlfriend
Saturday. Big party over on Greenwich Avenue.
Hundreds of whack jobs—you know, MBAs and
lawyer geeks.”
About the 28th
floor, the car would stop for more people and
Cafferty’s voice would get more intense.
“You haven’t met Anita, my girlfriend,
but she’s kind of hyper. I was on the other
side of the room and I hear her shout. Somebody
dropped an ice cube down her, you know, this
effing gown she’d just bought at
Bloomies.”
Another
stop—24th floor—and I see people start
peeping out of the corner of their eyes. Cafferty
ignores them as he’s spieling his story.
“Anita
gives an unearthly howl like a cat that discovers
it can’t fly off a rooftop. She turns on
this guy with a Yale sweater. A Yale sweater on
Greenwich Avenue. You ever hear of such a thing?
Well,…”
Another stop.
We’re at the 14th probably. I see someone
running to catch the open door. A vice president
from a brokerage firm madly pounds his finger on
the Hold Button. Except it isn’t the Hold
Button. He’s jamming the Close Doors
button, then shrugs weakly at the guy like
it’s God’s divine intervention.
“Anita
screams, ‘You did that on purpose and I
gotta return this dress tomorrow and get my money
back. Anita’s always doing stuff like
borrowing clothes from Bloomies, Saks, Barneys.”
“Cut to
the chase, Mike,” I tell him. We’re at
the 8th floor. The lobby is ten seconds away. The
vice president now is staring openly at Cafferty,
wetting his plants like the Dow has gone up 500
points. Some gray-haired pit bull secretaries are
shooting mental death arrows at Cafferty.
“The most
amazing thing,” he continues. “Anita
confronts this Yalie, smashes her wine glass
against the wall and pulls a pistol out of her
handbag. ‘You’ll never do that again,’
she shouts, and then….”
We’re at
the lobby. The doors open. Cafferty pushes to the
front and shouts over his shoulder.
“I’ll tell you later what happened.”
That Cafferty.
What a character.
New York is
full of characters and their tales. Ask me about
the Amish guy and the elevator. The co-worker who
was trapped overnight in an elevator with a
Czechoslovakian cleaning woman. Or…but this
is my floor and I have to get off.
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