Nail on the Chalkboard

The yuck-green, collared shirt-wearing man pressed a tired finger to the elevator button.     

What a day. He heaved a sigh, looking at the ceiling light’s white reflection on the elevator’s back. Finally time to head home and watch a relaxing rendition of my favorite TV show. And then call George and Geoff and get them to watch that movie I’ve been waiting to see! When he had stepped onto the elevator and its doors whined closed, the man pressed B for Basement.  

As the elevator carried the man down, he sagged his shoulders, letting them fall like they’ve been carrying a load too heavy. Maybe this cleaning job—mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, sorting, organizing—is a load too heavy. Maybe I should quit. Maybe being a janitor isn’t what I’m cut out to be.

Then he almost fell. “Whoa!” Grasping the handle behind him, the man clung on. Did the elevator just stop suddenly? What was going on? He jerked his eyes around and waited some more. Finally catching his breath, the man grabbed his shirt’s tag for some reason. He yanked it up and read, upside down, Darryl. He looked at the elevator doors and saw nothing but blackness all around.

“What?” He panicked, his voice screeching the words. His hand still wrapped around the cold metal bar, he started breathing very slowly and then closed his eyes to the same degree. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He assured himself. “Just an elevator breakdown. This happens at times.”

But the man couldn’t help himself—he scanned the pitch darkness, and his heart hammered. His breath came out at rapid speed and he widened his eyes a little, wishing someone would at least have heard a noise or a crash way down at the end of the elevator shaft, a chain rattling the wrong way or something. “Someone?” He squeaked, fear spinning a thick web in his mouth and throat. He didn’t dare move lest a single foot sliding along the metal floor rock the elevator and it plummet towards the ground, smashing and breaking, the man shrieking and scrabbling for any and all concrete forms of hope such as the doors, rusty hinges, floor, bar. Then maybe someone would come for him then. Someone to talk about him at his funeral.

No! He inhaled a colossal amount of air and rooted his feet to the metal floor. I will not die here. I will get out. He stood, straightening his spine and his legs go from jelly to strong. He actually unclenched his hand, the only coldness from his moist palms. Digging in one of his large baggy pockets, the man found his hand clasp another cold, metallic object. He lifted a finger. Flesh jerked away, and the man cried, “Ow!” He felt it all over. Some of it was indeed smooth—metal rod smooth—but then the rest of it had some curviness to it like it had been cut into and spun around with something. Then the man felt incredibly stupid. “A nail!”  

Well, he thought, chuckling a little, turning to face what he felt was the back, I’ll make do with this little tool of mine! Twisting the nail around in his hand, the man held it like a pencil and stabbed the back just to see what would happen. “If I’m alone, I can do anything.” Chuckling again, the man scratched it. Every time the nail hit it, the nail would whiten the elevator with starch-white lines instead of just ugly scratches and jagged lines running crazily down the metalwork. “Let’s hope the elevator doesn’t mind...me doing this!”

He just went to work, squiggling, circling, going up, down and diagonal. He formed shapes and lines and half-shapes and half-lines. When he decided to stop, he stood before his artwork and studied it. Three branches stood out before him. Does this work throughout the whole entire elevator? Then he fisted his hands, excited. Can this nail save me from this elevator accident? He used the elevator again somewhere else, creating grass and wind, the latter actually blowing his hair as well as the grass. Looking all around himself, his jaw dropped as his masterpieces actually started coming to life.

The mountains quaked. The ducks honked, flapping their wings as they soared in a V towards the sun shining brightly down upon the wide valley below. The man swiped a hand across his forehead and started panting. “Man, it’s hot!” He went up, around and over as puffy, white outlined clouds soon poured rain down onto his thirsty ground. Then, just as he was creating a lake for the valley, the man’s walkie-talkie beeped.   

He grabbed it and spoke into the mouthpiece. A ggggtttt sound.

“I need to get out of here! The lights went out and I’m stuck. I need help.” The janitor elucidated that he had been in this elevator for probably two hours. It was really hot—he skipped the sun blaring down on his soaking shirt—and declared to the man who now responded that he was getting ready to pound the elevator open. Do anything to get out of this box of a place.

“Hold on!” A man reassured him. “We’re coming for help. What floor are you stuck on?”

“Some warehouse garage area, I think. I work on the seventh. The elevator broke. Or something. Help!” He begged. When the other man’s voice surged hope into the blackness by telling someone to step on the gas pedal right now, the man pressed his lips together and decided he’d stay with his creation than try to bust his way out of here. So he drew comfort from the duck’s cries as their white-outlined wings moved up and down again and again.   

A shake and a bang jolted the staring man to life, and he whipped his head over to the right. A dirty yellow claw banged against the elevator door, causing dent marks as swollen as someone’s cheeks after their tonsils were taken out. The almost teary-eyed man was hardly patient. Hurry up! screamed in his mind, but he smiled, wide open mouth, as the claw’s buddies emerged, three others yanking the elevator door clean off, ripping it and then letting it slam against the sawdust-covered, dirty concrete floor.

“Come on out, Darryl!” A friendly voice rang under the place’s individual lit lights that must’ve either come on now or the only ones not suffering the power outage. The man blinked repeatedly as he hurried up to the edge of the elevator. Then he backed up. “What are you doing?” The man called above the beeping crane maneuvering away and arching over his head.

Before the man could answer, he jerked a pointing finger, and the man dropped his eyes. A rectangular gap glared before him, scaring him into wanting to actually go back into the elevator! “Come on!” The other man encouraged, waving him towards himself. “It can’t be that bad.”

“I…” The man looked at the gap, then remembered his nail. He grinned and started drawing a white outline of a bridge. When he had constructed and crossed it, he looked up, laughing heartily at the man gawking at the bridge.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” The man walked out the elevator, crossed the bridge, while some other men and women went to work to repair this elevator but stopped dead when they saw the white bridge. As he explained his drawings, the nail and the total darkness craving to completely consume him with dread and terror, the man’s hands flew and pointed and waved all around. He finally showed each hard hatted and neon orange vested construction worker the special tool that could possibly land him a spot in the National Art Gallery one day. It may take a decade, but, he said, maybe they’ll consider me.

“With a nail?” One person pondered, his eyebrows and eyes all squished together. “How are you going to do that?”  

“Just…” The man spread his hands and shrugged. “with this little handy tool.” He then stepped over to the man in the crane and reached out a hand. “Thanks, sir, for saving my life!” Shaking his hand firmly and then slapping it back down onto his greyish brown trousers, the man shrugged and grinned, saying, “Well, I guess…”

“Come on over to the construction site next week, and we’ll see what we can do about that magical nail.” The guy leaned out, an arm resting on the rolled-down window. “How about it?”

“Sure!” The man bobbed his head and waved everyone else away after denying his request for help. As he hiked up the ramp towards his car he knew was on the second floor—maybe this floor was the basement he didn’t know was reconstructed into a half-storage, half-parking garage area—he thought about his handy-dandy nail. Hm. Wonder what Geoff and George will think of it. After climbing into the light yellow Chevy and rolling backwards onto the ramp, the man decided to call his friends and tell them all about his little misadventure today. The anticipated movie was forgotten.

“Holy cow!” Geoff hooted, and the man could hear George’s quiet laughter in the background. Some clanking and water gushing distracted the man.

“Doing dishes.” Geoff spoke loudly above the din. “I did them last night, so George’s doing them today!”

“Dishes don’t compare to my magical tool of a nail.” The man gloated, smiling at the front mirror. “I got something to show you.”

“Okay.” More laughter caused the man to try to convince his friends they were wrong about just saying it was a little rusty, dirty nail their janitor friend picked up and found himself with while trapped in an elevator. When the man told them the power went out, they all slapped what sounded like Geoff’s wooden kitchen table. “No, seriously!” The man flicked on his turning signal. “I’m…” But he laughed through his nose and sat back, letting his friends mock him for befriending a nail.

“Okay, okay.” The man half-heartedly agreed, turning onto his ramp of a driveway. He turned the car off and unbuckled his seat belt, placing his black iPhone between his ear and left shoulder and then entered the house. He absentmindedly threw his keys onto the kitchen counter, telling Geoff he had Steve sub for him tomorrow. The man clutched his phone to his ear as he untied and kicked his grubby, stained, tan shoes off and fell against the overstuffed couch he called his real home. The man listened to Geoff and George’s stupid laughter for a little more and then just hung up. Looking at the blank, black TV screen, the man grumbled, “I never get a break.”

Grabbing the remote from the seat over, the man took a finger, jabbed the On button and tried to find the channel for his favorite show. He then shifted in his seat and sat up as an advertisement for an art contest not too far down the road attracted him. Throwing the remote down, the man jumped up and ran over to the kitchen counter. He yanked the drawer open, snatched a pad of paper and a pen and scribbled the number down.

“1-800-334-6967.” He muttered to himself, flicking his eyes between the screen and paper. He took his phone and dialed the place. Unfortunately, no one picked up. “Strange!” He muttered, frowning at it. When the automated voice told him to leave a message, the man did so and then relocated his nail. But he couldn’t find it.

“Where’d it go?” He spazzed a little. “I had it…” Then his eyes bulged. “No! Maybe I left it at the warehouse.” He seized his keys and hurried back to the warehouse/parking garage area. Leaving the car running, the man dashed up to the construction workers still managing to work on the broken elevator. “Hey!” He waved, and some looked up and over while bending down to grab some tools. “Have you seen a magical—”

One person twisted her body around and pointed lamely to the gap over which the man had drawn the bridge. All breath seemed to flood out of him as the only noise he heard was that of his own heartbeat. He ran over, but it was like striving to run in Jello. He fell to his knees and looked down the dark hole. Then he pinched his face and got back up. Turning around and throwing a lame wave to the guy shoveling a mound of gravel towards the site, the guy picked up each foot and tried to breathe calmly as he heaved one step in front of the other. Finally making it home, his hands just turning the wheel and the wheels just rolling over the pavement, the man simply killed the engine. He got out of the car, returned inside and changed into an uglier shirt and fuzzy pajama pants.

He scratched back a kitchen chair and plopped himself into it. “Where’d it go?” His hands held his shaking head. “I had it all along.”

Something told him he might’ve dropped it. “That’s impossible. I had it in my hand all…” Then he lifted his head. “It might’ve flown out of my hand when I was raving about the drawings.” He wanted to go back there, but he didn’t want to disrupt the construction workers busying themselves with something real. He’d be a lunatic, worrying about this magical nail. He took a deep breath and let it go—at least going back there and trying to find it. But he needed it.

Tomorrow morning, the man grabbed his ringing cellphone. “Yes?” He spurted while trying not to sound garbled from the toothpaste all over his lips and inside his mouth. Once he washed up, the man’s hand towel froze in his hand as he listened very hard to Steve’s elaboration about his new, mystical find.

“You—great! Be right there!” The man whizzed out of the house with his keys, almost forgetting to lock it. He drove carefully but quickly and then hopped out of the car, running over to Steve. He was standing with a smug smile on his face right in front of the mass of concrete, stone, metal and, of course, steelwork. Steve motioned for him to come away a few feet, and bent down. He displayed his gloved hand, and then opened it like a flower does when springtime has arrived from winter’s snowy past. Revealing the mystical object—the man’s magical nail.

“Where’d you find it?”

Steve just dropped it into his hand, and the man made sure it was secure in his trousers’ pocket, all buttoned up. “I just saw it lying near the elevator door that had been ripped off.” He shrugged, his grin lopsided and weird. He then slapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and announced, “Why don’t you come to my house tonight, and we’ll figure this nail out together, should we?”

The man chuckled and replied, “Have other plans.”

“Okay!” Steve slapped him again. The man scratched the back of his neck and blinked at the ground. Giving Steve a lame wave, he turned and headed for his car. He pulled out of the place and shook his head.

“Man. That was something.” The man drove home, returned to his pad of paper and called the art contest. Someone picked up and told him they’d love to see his art talent shine this Saturday at 9:30 am.

“Great.” After asking whether he needed to bring anything, the man’s voice responded with a yes and the mandatory art accessories. The man punched the air with a fist of nail as he danced up and down in place.

Saturday came sooner than he’d thought, and when the man presented his artwork, he stood beside it, hands on hips, chest out and shoulders back.

“Yes, this is my artwork.”

The judge looked it over and narrowed her eyes. “Is it done with chalk, pastel or crayon?”

“No.” The man exposed his nail. “It was from this.”

The judge peered at it and scribbled something on her clipboard pad of paper. “Weird.”

When the judge announced his name and creation by phone the next morning, the man, wringing his hands and bouncing in place to stay calm, heard he had cheated.

“Cheated?” the man widened his eyes, inquiring her. “How?”

“Magic is too easy.” The judge stated. “But…you can try again. Without paper. If you can prove how a nail is a tool of art.”

“Prove it works?” The man scrunched his face. “Didn’t you see my artwork?” Describing his portrait a while, the man tried to convince her he was worthy of at least a gift card to Panera or Starbucks.

“Well,” the judge countered, her voice thick with apology, “We’re going to have to—”

“Actually, I’ll do something else. It’s fine.” The man quickly apologized for interrupting her, but she didn’t seem too friendly about that.

“Bye.”

The line went dead, and the man went to work on his next project. When he demonstrated it the following Saturday morning, the woman asked him to redo it.

“Why?” The baffled man threw his hands on his hips and yanked his neck forward. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not an artist?”

The woman was shaking her head. “You have to prove it. You’re just not getting it, are you?”

“Getting what?” The man scratched his head. “That this—” he threw a hand to his white outlined valley and birds soaring through the sunset-streaked sky. “isn’t art?”

The woman just moved on, shaking her head, her blue eyes studying her pad of paper. The man narrowed his eyes at her, suspicious of any activity. Then he glanced back at his art. “Does the art have to be the tool itself?” He tried to figure out, studying it. “What is going on?”