Penny Time

Sam looked at the tattered letter again in disbelief. “How could they do this to me,” he muttered as he sipped his morning coffee. “I’ve given this company the best thirty-five years of my life, and sending me out to Victoria Place to babysit a bunch of contractors is the thanks I get.” Sam took another sip of the acrid brew. “Bah! Frank just sent me here so I wouldn’t cause him any more problems back at the home office. The company has finally found a way to put me out to pasture.” He put down his cup, grabbed his keys and headed out for his first day at the new job site.

Sam hated driving through this part of town. King Veteran’s Hospital always gave him the creeps, and Frank knew he didn’t like being here.

The old Victoria Place sat right next to the hospital. During the 1920s it used to be a hospitality center for service folks recovering at King Veteran’s. There were offices for some of the Victoria Place staff and rooms on the upper floors where family members could stay for free as long as they had someone admitted at the hospital. As Sam drove by, he remembered some of the old pictures he had seen of the place when it was in its original 1920s splendor.

He thought it was a shame when the hospital bought it and turned it into administrative offices. The hospital kept the Victoria Place name for a sense of familiarity, although it was merely a shell of its former self. The once grand facade of Victoria Place had been replaced with the same gray, mundane bricks that were used to rebuild the south wing of the hospital. The beautiful hand-carved windows with their stained glass that would cast colorful rainbows onto the marble floor of the grand foyer had been replaced by double-paned thermal glass high-tech windows, casting only UV filtered sunlight onto the dull black and white checked linoleum.

Leave it to a hospital to turn a warm, beautiful piece of architecture, full of history and happiness, into a cold, colorless structure devoid of emotion, Sam thought. He pulled into the gravel drive that led into the makeshift contractors’ parking lot and quickly found a spot. Sam could hear music coming from the direction of the construction trailer, so he followed the sounds and went inside to find the foreman.

“Are you the foreman?” Sam screamed over the blaring music as he entered the trailer.

“Yes sir!” Todd turned off the CD player and stretched out his hand to Sam. “Sorry about that. Todd Malone, site foreman. You must be Sam!”

Sam shook Todd’s hand. “Yup. I’m Sam. Glad to meet you, Todd.”

Todd tossed Sam a hard hat. “I’ve got some things to finish up here. I’ll be about an hour. Why don’t you go into the building and take a look around for a while. I’m sure you’ll have some questions for me when you get back. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Todd turned the CD player back on and looked down at his computer terminal and began typing. Sam stormed out of the trailer. “Damn kids. They play that noise so loud and they ain’t got no time for anyone.” He put on his hard hat and walked toward the construction entrance of the building.

The damp, foul air that rushed from inside the building as Sam parted the big translucent rubber strips covering the entryway made him wince. As he climbed the steps, Sam felt a shiver run down his spine. When he got to the top of the steps, he found himself in what must have been the main office corridor. At one end of the hall was what remained of the reception area. Sam couldn’t see what was at the other end—it was just too dark to see anything. He could still hear Todd’s music playing in the distance. There were dirty bits of broken plaster and lathe strewn throughout the hallway.

Sam walked toward the reception area that was filled with an eerie green glow as if the fluorescent light was sucking the color of the dingy peeling pea-green paint from the surrounding walls and spewing it right back out like a Linda Blair movie. Office doors with simple frames dotted the hallway every few yards. Some of them were still closed as if the hospital personnel had just knocked off for the day, whereas others were wide open, exposing their contents.

Sam looked in one of the open offices and saw that there were still old pieces of furniture and ancient medical records on the dust-covered floor and in the decaying file cabinets. “This place looks like there hasn’t been any work done since the project started. What the hell have they been doing for the past three months?” Then it hit Sam hard, like he had just taken a punch to the stomach. He had not seen a single contractor or construction worker since he left Todd’s trailer. Maybe they’re all just on a break or took an early lunch. I’ve never taken an early lunch in my life, he thought.

Sam did an about-face and started walking toward the opposite end of the hallway. When he passed the construction vestibule, the warm glow of the entry lights began to fade into nothingness. Sam could barely see through the dimly lit passageway, but he could see well enough to discern that the office doors in this direction were very different than those from the other side. These doors appeared to be more ornate and they were hung in red brick alcoves that were surrounded by beautifully carved arched mahogany frames. The few doors he could see in the low light were closed. Sam tried to open one of the doors. “Damn, it’s locked.” When the last traces of light had disappeared into obscurity, Sam fumbled for a pack of matches in his pocket and lit one.

Todd’s loud music that Sam found too excruciating to listen to had fallen dead silent.

Sam kept lighting matches—he could almost see the end of the hall. It was an alcove that consumed the entire back wall of the hall.

“Shit!” Sam yelped as the flame burned his fingertip.

He struck another match and took a closer look. It was solid. The brick color was different than the rest of the alcoves too.

“What the hell did I kick?” Sam struck his last match and crouched down to feel around for what he had kicked over. “A bucket. I kicked over a bucket of mortar.” Sam was confused. “I just don’t get it. These offices needed to be emptied but haven’t been, there are no contractors around, and there’s a fresh built wall here.” Sam’s last match flickered out. He stood up and was about to start heading back to the vestibule when he heard a faint sound. “What is that sound? I think I’ve heard that before.” Sam pressed his ear against the cold brick wall. The sound grew a little louder. “Music!” Sam gasped. “I recognize this music from when I was a boy!”

Sam shouted at the wall, “Hey, who’s there!”

He pressed his ear against the wall again, straining to hear the sounds… nothing… the music stopped. Sam shook his head and returned to the entryway and headed over to the trailer.

“Todd will know what’s going on here. If he doesn’t, I’ll give him a piece of my mind!” Sam opened the door to the trailer. Todd’s noise was still as obnoxious as it was when Sam left. But Todd was no longer in the trailer.

“Todd! Where are ya, boy!” Sam yelled over the music.

Sam walked over to the CD player and shut it off. “Todd must have left in a hurry—he left his email program running.” He glanced at the subject lines of Todd’s email inbox. “What’s this?” Sam saw a message from Frank with his name in the subject. “I shouldn’t do this, but I gotta know. Bah! What are they going to do, take my birthday away? I don’t have too many more of those left anyway.” Sam opened the email and his jaw dropped in horror as he read it.

Sam quickly closed the email and left the trailer. “Bastards! I have never taken a sick day, I’ve only taken vacations when I was going to lose the days. I have to take what’s coming to me. I come in early, stay late. These kids today don’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘work ethic.’” Sam took a few minutes to calm down. “Well, I guess I ought to go back into the building to find Todd and ask him about what happened in there.” When he got to the top of the stairs, he noticed that there was light where there was darkness before. “Strange. I could’ve sworn the doors in this direction were in alcoves. Where did they all go?” All of the doors in the hallway were now surrounded by simple wood frames. Sam saw a worker standing near the fresh brick wall he stumbled upon earlier.

“Hello there!” Sam shouted.

“Hello! Can I help you?” shouted the worker.

“Yeah, you can start by telling me where the hell everyone is!” Sam barked back to the worker.

“Oh yeah, they’re all at lunch. Union rules, ya know.” said the worker. “You must be Sam.”

“Yes sir, I am,” Sam said, “and you are?”

“Gabe. Gabe Archer. Glad to finally meet you, Sam.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m just glad to see someone working here,” Sam said. “So what’s with the wall? Why hasn’t anyone started clearing out these offices yet?”

Gabe crouched down and was cleaning up the mortar that Sam kicked over earlier. “The wall was necessary. You see, this is an old facility and there are some pretty weak places in this structure that just need a little extra reinforcement.”

“Sorry about the mess, Gabe. There were no lights at this end of the hall. I couldn’t see where I was going.”

“That’s quite alright, Sam. The circuit breaker must have tripped for this part of the hallway. Sam, do you know the history of this place?”

“Yeah, it was a hospitality center during WWI and then the hospital bought it, tore it down and built this administration building in its place.” Sam said.

Gabe chuckled. “That’s the story that the hospital wants you to believe.” Gabe stared out into the distance from one of the windows where the weathered gray plywood had fallen away.

Sam looked confused. “So what happened then?”

Gabe sighed. “The truth is, the hospital did tear down what was left of Victoria Place.”

“What do you mean, what was left of it?”

“I mean in the early 1930s, Victoria Place caught fire and burned right down to the foundation. The only thing that remained other than the foundation was a few steel beams and the old Otis winch car elevator.”

Sam was shocked. “Did they find out what caused the fire? Were there any lives lost?”

“Some say that Victoria Place was a victim of arson. Fortunately, all of the veterans, their families and most of the staff managed to get out safely. The only death that occurred as a result of the fire was the elevator operator. He was found severely charred, standing at his post in the elevator, with his hand still on the control. He refused to quit working and leave his post, even when at death’s door.”

Now that is a man with a superlative work ethic, Sam thought.

“The strange thing was, even though the building had burned to the foundation, there were witnesses that swore they could still hear music playing over the elevator speaker when they found the corpse. By the way, I have a message for you from Todd,” Gabe remarked.

Sam started to think about that email and turned red in the face. “What is it?” Sam grimaced.

“Todd wanted me to tell you he was sorry he wasn’t able to stick around today because he had a meeting off-site he had to attend on short notice. But he wanted to make sure I welcomed you too and he said you could knock off for the day. Kinda take it easy. Oh, and I’ll make sure those offices are cleaned out for you.”

“Uh, thanks, Gabe. I think I’m really going to like you. You’re a good worker for a kid,” Sam said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving after only four hours on the job, but I am sort of tired.”

Gabe had a huge grin on his boyish face. “Thank you, Sam. That means a lot coming from you.”

Sam got into his car feeling rather unnerved by what he had learned about the truth behind Victoria Place. He felt bad about the death of the elevator operator but strangely relieved knowing that there was at least one other person who seemed to have the same driven work ethics that he did. Sam drove home and would not worry about Victoria Place again until tomorrow.

The next day, Sam pulled into the dusty, desolate contractors’ parking lot. “That’s odd. I can’t be the first one here. It’s already nine o’clock in the morning. It’s too early for the union’s official break time.” Sam went to the trailer to see Todd. When he went to open the door, he discovered it locked. “Doesn’t anybody ever work around here?” Sam scratched his head. He decided to go into the building and see if any progress had been made in the offices. Sam walked up the steps of the vestibule and looked down the hall toward the brick wall where he first met Gabe. All he could see was darkness. The damn circuit breaker must have tripped again, he thought.

“Todd! Gabe! Is there anyone up here?” Sam shouted.

“In here!” Gabe replied.

“Where’s here, Gabe?”

“Sorry, I’m in one of the front offices on the left.”

Sam followed Gabe’s voice to the last office on the left. He noticed that all of the office doors had been opened. Even the ones that were closed yesterday. Sam looked in the first office he came to. It was empty—completely clean of rotting furniture, ancient medical records, and even the piles of old plaster and lathe had been swept up. Sam was stunned. He looked in the other offices; they were all just as immaculate as the first one he saw. Sam walked into the office where Gabe was sweeping up the last bits of broken plaster.

“Are you responsible for all of this, Gabe?” Sam asked.

“Yup. I worked throughout the night to make sure it was done completely and done right.”

“This is amazing, Gabe! I thought I was the only man with the ethics to stay and work until the job was done and done right the first time.”

“A job is not worth doing if it’s not done right,” Gabe said.

“Amen to that,” Sam said. “Hey, Gabe, for a young guy, you sure do act like you’re a much older man. You also seem to know a lot about the history of this place. Do you know any more about the lift operator that died at his post?”

“Thanks, Sam. Actually, I do know a little bit about the elevator operator. His name was Penn Timmons. He was a sweet old man in his late sixties. Penn was the only elevator operator Victoria Place ever had. He started working for them since the day Victoria Place was built. He loved his job and the families that he met there every day. Penn was always working—he never took a sick day, he always came in early and sometimes stayed late into the night. He only took vacations when he was forced to. The children from the visiting families used to call him Pennytime. Every time they’d ride his elevator, they’d say, ‘Thank you for the ride, Pennytime, here’s a penny this time,’ and then they would give him a penny tip.”

“That Penn character sounds a lot like me.” Sam said with a smile. “I like him already.”

The conversation that the two men were enjoying came to an end when the lights started to flicker, and faint mechanical sounds emanated from the far end of the hallway.

“Gabe, I’ve got to go fix that damn tripped circuit breaker and investigate what is going on at the opposite end of this hall once and for all,” Sam said.

“Hang on, Sam, I’m going to walk with you.”

“Fine with me. I just want to find out what’s going on over there.”

Sam and Gabe started to walk down the hallway, the lights still flickering like an old neon sign. The mechanical sounds were getting louder as they walked. They approached the construction vestibule. Sam went to go down the steps, but he felt someone pull sharply on his arm.

“We don’t need to go down there, Sam,” Gabe said.

“But the breaker box is down there, Gabe. I have to reset the breaker,” Sam pleaded.

“No we don’t, Sam. Please,” Gabe said firmly, “just keep walking with me.”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Alright then, lead away.”

As the two men continued to walk, the lights stopped flickering and went completely dark. Then a faint, gloomy light appeared above their heads. Sam couldn’t believe his eyes when he looked at the doors along the hall. They were transforming from the simple framed office doorways into the fine, ornately carved mahogany arched alcoves with the heavy wooden doors set into the red brick walls that he first saw in the low match light yesterday.

“What’s happening here, Gabe? What is this place?”

“Pay it no mind, Sam, just keep walking toward the end of the hall,” Gabe demanded.

The mechanical sounds became evident—they were the whirring of gears and cables as they approached the end of the hallway. Sam looked around; Gabe no longer was at his side. With each step Sam took, the lights overhead grew from obscurity to an eerie green glow quite similar to what he had noticed in the reception area yesterday.

Sam could hardly make out a shadowy figure standing at the end of the hallway. Sam was getting quite nervous and called out for Gabe in desperation, but got no reply. The figure just stood there ramrod straight like a soldier at attention. Then something caught his attention. The fresh wall was no longer there.

“What is that? Gabe, can you see that?” Sam said with a shaky voice.

There was still no answer from Gabe. When Sam finally reached the end of the hall, the last old light fixture on the hall ceiling bathed the hallway in its glow. Sam couldn’t begin to fathom what was unfolding before his eyes. Standing next to an original 1921 Otis winch car elevator where only yesterday had been a freshly built brick wall, was Gabe. He was now wearing an elevator operator’s uniform instead of his jeans and tee-shirt.

“Gabe! How the hell did you get here? Why are you wearing that uniform?”

“Hello, Sam. How I got here at this very moment in time is unimportant.”

Sam felt something brush past him. A wispy form that vaguely appeared to be a small child ran up to Gabe and gave him a coin. In a soft squeaky voice she said, “Thank you for the ride, Pennytime, here’s a penny this time.”

The apparition ran across the hall and disappeared as she went through one of the nearby heavy wooden doors. The elevator doors opened, allowing The Van Epps Trio tune to fill the hall.

“Pennytime? I thought your name was Gabe?” Sam asked. “Why did that girl call you Pennytime? He’s been dead nearly a hundred years by your account.”

“My folks always did favor the religious names.”

“Gabe, as in Gabriel the Archangel, right?”

“Yes, Sam, as in Gabriel.”

“Isn’t he the one that heralds the end of the world?”

“For most people who get onto my elevator, it is.”

“Your elevator? This wasn’t here yesterday, Gabe,” Sam said.

“For nearly a hundred years, since the time that Victoria Place burned down, this place has been a conduit for lost souls trying to find their way.” Gabe said. “I have been here for each and every one of those one hundred years helping those lost souls travel to their final destination, heaven or hell.”

“So your job is kinda like that guy in Greek mythology—Charon, the ferryman,” Sam said.

“Yes, I suppose so. At the apex of the industrial age, the concept of using a boat to ferry back and forth seemed too passé. An elevator going up and down seemed more appropriate and fit into the existing environment of Victoria Place. My elevator only appears when it is called upon. When Thanatos prepares a final visit, I get a call for service.”

“What does that have to do with me, Gabe?” Sam was apprehensive about what answer he would get.

“Well, Sam, you and I are a lot alike. You have the deepest, strongest work ethic I have seen in a man in a very long time,” Gabe said, “and it’s my time to retire from this job.”

“But Gabe, you’re not a day over thirty! How could you be ready to retire?”

“Things aren’t always as they seem, Sam,” said Gabe as he stepped into the beautiful antique mahogany and brass elevator car, “and I need a replacement before they will let me retire.”

When Gabe stepped into the elevator, his back was facing Sam. As Gabe slowly turned to face Sam, his features began to transform. His face and hands became wrinkled, gnarled and worn. His hair turned from black to white, and his voice crackled as he spoke. It was as if Gabe had journeyed back from the mythological lands of Tir na nÓg—the Irish lands of eternal youth.

“You claim that you are not ready for retirement, and that you wish to continue working. Here is your opportunity, Sam. I have served in this elevator for more than one hundred years ferrying the lost souls to their final destination and I yearn to retire. All you must do is simply step on this lift and the job is yours, Sam.”

Sam paused for a moment, but stepped on board the elevator as the doors closed behind him.