Downstairs
In the first year of architecture school, we were given a rather peculiar assignment: shreds of paper denoting building elements were gathered in a raffle box and each drew from it the subject of one’s own intense study for the next seven days. With lethargic fingers, I drew from that wrinkled cardboard box a sliver of lined paper, on which was scribbled: stairs. Easy enough, thought I, unanticipating an intimate quarrel with ups and downs.
* * *
*
The next day. In studio.
Oscar blasted a Bauhaus CD into the stereo and came over to my desk, jostling change in his pocket.
“So, what’d you git?”
“Stairs, you?” I did not look up.
He gave me a look.
“What?", putting down my leadholder.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?” truly puzzled.
“Buck didn’t tell you?”
“Come-on, this is getting old.” I picked up the electric rubber and started to revise some unreasonable orthographics.
“Restroom. Washroom. Toilet. Da can. Da loo....”
I bursted out laughing. “Good luck, dude.”
“You don’t think I’m actually going to go through all the bathrooms on campus, do you?”
“Try the ones wid the little girlie sign up front first....he he he”
“At least it’s more interesting than going up ‘n down, up ‘n down...,” he motioned with his hand.
“Oh yeah? I’m gonna find the most rockingly exceptional fantabulist stairs on this wide earth!!”
* * * *
With sketchbook, tape measure, a camera, and boundless enthusiasm, I set out to explore and document every stair then extent within walking distance of my life. For the first four days, none within the vicinity of town was spared -- from city hall to cemeteries, from church altars to water towers. Every change in verticality was quickly seized upon. Preoccupied with stride and rise ratios, proportions and comfort, materials and colours, I pranced up and down my victims like a madman, felt every crack and crevice, knocked on every step, at times stomped down, at other times stormed up, sprawled on one and crawled under another; in fact did everything imaginable on these structure short of dismantling them. It was a ready obsession. I chose miles of stairs extending upward from the depths of the underground for my daily commute, pushed up fifteen stories for a passport, incited numerous bullpups at a house on a steep slope.... None was too short or too long, too high or too low. Questioning looks or smiles of mockery did not deter my zest, as if there was a legitimate industry for the study of moving men from one level to another.
On the fifth day, coming out of a bargain matinee, a certain iron contraption attracted my attention towards an abandoned department store across the street. Gloating upon my victory over the dogs, I scaled a fence and sped across the condemned property like a homing rabbit.
It was very dark. At first, I could see only shadows, red, green, outlining objects remembered from daylight. Gradually, like an awakening, dim shapes began to emerge - a corridor or wall, what could have been a beam, a corner, a chair. For courage, I adjusted my shoulder strap, shirt collar, dishelvelled hair, then proceeded to meet dark fate. It was useless to brush off the dust -- lints flying off my hand clouded in slow motion, then simply dissipated among their rest of kin. Parting cobwebs and broken glass, I advanced some difficult paces forward and came upon the uncanny feeling of emptiness, as if pawing through a gutted corpse. Perhaps just as disreputable, thought I. A few weak rays of light, trembling, trespassing the glassless, boarded windowframe, showed me to a door. Was this wise? I stopped short of the doorknob and pondered. A minute, two, …. the watchface was useless without fluorescence. Twrip, twrip, eeek eek eek, twrip wrip…. Faintly creaking, a bicycle doppled near then far. It was sign enough. Without further hesitation, I crashed through the door and found myself at the foot of a gigantic shaft, within which a staircase perched shyly at the far end. Infinite height. Looking up, I staked a foot decidedly on the first step. Fifteen stories of air seemed at once too heavy upon one man’s fragile frame. Nonetheless, suffocating through dust or allergies, listening to the shuffle of my clothes for companionship, I mounted from the netherworld.
In service of sanity, I pushed through the doors from the stairwell from time to time to gauge progress. Arguably, there was only one direction up, but I had to avoid repeating myself, fearing victim as some Twilight Zone rerun. Innumerable metal racks of all shapes and sizes lined their battalions over the first few floors. Higher up, the rubbish became less formed - shards of glass or pieces of fabrics, nondescript bodyparts from some long-lost consumer war. Faster and faster I climbed, without pausing. Cold or afraid, the wrinkled, sweat-soaked back of my shirt clung on to me. It was useless shaking this nagging discomfort for I knew the wicked face of a summer’s shade had engulfed me, piercing its coldness through my spine, heart, and core. Cling! A sharp metallic rattle, perhaps a pipe, stopped me short of this pilgrimage. Shaken, I instinctively groped for a railing that was not there. There was an awkward pause. Blood raced through my inner ear, whispering, mocking: too late to look back. Imagined or real, a distinct smell of smoke chanted like omen through the air.
Reoriented merely by the certain rhythm of ascent, I suspected the truth in a musty, neglected, unpopular brand of hell - the usual fire and brimstone left on a shelf too long after expiration, hoping for a hurried customer like myself. About forty minutes later, strange chirping noises began yet another tiresome song and dance. Breathless, my harmless allergies sped toward terminal lung cancer. Even that tiny something which climbed inside my left trouser leg saw fit to gently gnaw at my calf. Barely visible, by peeling red paint on the walls, was a pathetic number 15. Three more stories, I cursed. Every step was now immense progress and gravity an archenemy. That glowing prize I sought was outside of these walls, six inches out of reach. Stubbornness or stupidity drove determination. By the time the glimmer of hope glanced furtively through a doorcrack, I realized my lenscap had fallen off back on the sixth or seventh floor. My foot exploded through a mass of splinters a second after and suddenly, picture of a golden sunlight shore unapologetically over a noonday roof. To my immediate left, the rusted fire escape glowed deliciously through its own haze. A careful period of scrutiny ensued - every measured rivet, each soldered joint seemed more cunning after such toil. However, there was only so much one could endure. After another hour, an intense thirst for carbonation overshadowed my glee and besides, my head had begun to swirl. Banging down hurriedly through flight after flight of iron-in-air, I thought of birds, of praises of unique insights, of the unmatched intelligence between bullpups and myself…. while in an instant, the grill gave underfoot and wham! Something got caught and I soared through the air. A frightful minute later, I found my arm entwined with an orange nylon band, its other end attached to a ruined photographic apparatus, higher up jammed into a grille, and the rest of myself hanging over a banister waiting for the fire department. Dangling between stories three and four, I began to think: So close. Such embarrassment. Finally, a man below interrupted, yelling incessantly, much louder than necessary: don’t worry! You’d be OK!! Stay there! We’ll get you down!! No, no, don’t look down! ....
* * * *
Same night. On the phone.
“You mean they didn’t arrest you?”
I could almost see him rolling off his kitchen stool. Oscar called for notes to the castles lecture he slept through Thursday morning and I made the mistake of mentioning the day’s excursion. He would probably write to the Daily Harp now.
“....(still laughing) Does anyone else know about this?”
“No, and listen....”
“Hey, OK, lay off that extortion tactic, buddy. I wouldn’t rat on you.”
Sure, I thought, whining. “I don’t want to go back out there.”
“Try some’n discreet, my little friend. Some’n big, bold, and beautiful....in broad daylight....escalators,” he added.
“But master....”
“Go! You will! (sternly) But be mindful of the Force.”
“Cut that Yoda crap....”
* * * *
After Tuesday’s fiasco, I took Oscar’s advise to play it safe with the grand staircase of our collegiate-gothic study hall. Very wide, a heavily carved mahogany and teak affair, it was unfrequented, tucked away at the end of the library’s old wing, practically foolproof. An additional benefit: I covered extensive grounds through the library’s original floorplan last semester for another assignment and knew this layout better than the backs of my hands. Needless to speculate, this operation was not smooth in any way, either.
From the beginning, I was surprised. The walkway I chose did not lead me predictably to the top of the stairs but at its first landing. Memory must have played jigsaw with the place or someone took great pains to lift the entire northside up twelve feet. Very well, I could interrupt in its middle. But there was a choice: up half a flight to start properly or down half a flight and begin by the statue. Fond of marbleised dead patrons, I headed downwards. The first step was very rewarding. I noticed the unusual rise, dark tint, solid feeling, surface scratches and repairs, and stopped to dig my wingtips into the well-tread wax, rubbing gently toward the curved edge. It was familiar, comforting, and I turned my thoughts to my predecessors, whom ran or stroll up and down those very steps for a hundred years without as much as half a thought. The balustrade’s top was a little wider than my hand, generously polished and gleaming, also slippery, leaving ample space for philosophical speculation in one’s daily saunter without sacrificing any necessary pompous decorum assumed for an institutional enterprise. Proceeding toward the second step, I hesitated for a second and all images associated with tumbling downwards, run-away snowball style, flashed across my mind - fear for a sequel. With courage, I descended again, but before the fourth step, was panic-stricken and paralyzed mid-flight. Everyone knew the conventional wisdom of going downstairs: one must look straight forward, or perhaps slightly down, in the direction of destination, but never at one’s shifting foot. I was stuck. I could not get down. With a myopic curse, I could not see the goal beyond clear and present dangers. Turning around, I stopped short just before reaching the aforementioned landing. It seemed a little cowardly. Besides, the nearest reward, in the form of a vending machine, was downstairs, only a corner away. In the end, courage, perseverance, or political ideology did not move me. The nearest route from level B to level A was bribery, through the stomach, obviously.
* * * *
Next morning. At the presentation.
“.... the structural integrity of my subjects, on average....” was much sounder than my nerves, thought I, eyeing the yawning audience.
“.... steel, as a popular material for....” accidents, I completed the thought honestly in my mind, noticing Oscar at the back row, supressing laughter, shaking uncontrollably behind a stack of lecture notes.
“.... in conclusion, the opportunity....” most often slips away by indecision, I finished off the report and walked back.
As I was settling down, he leaned over and whispered, “You didn’t mention the fire department.”
“Oh, shut-up, Wiener.”
HrK '99
* * *
*
The next day. In studio.
Oscar blasted a Bauhaus CD into the stereo and came over to my desk, jostling change in his pocket.
“So, what’d you git?”
“Stairs, you?” I did not look up.
He gave me a look.
“What?", putting down my leadholder.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?” truly puzzled.
“Buck didn’t tell you?”
“Come-on, this is getting old.” I picked up the electric rubber and started to revise some unreasonable orthographics.
“Restroom. Washroom. Toilet. Da can. Da loo....”
I bursted out laughing. “Good luck, dude.”
“You don’t think I’m actually going to go through all the bathrooms on campus, do you?”
“Try the ones wid the little girlie sign up front first....he he he”
“At least it’s more interesting than going up ‘n down, up ‘n down...,” he motioned with his hand.
“Oh yeah? I’m gonna find the most rockingly exceptional fantabulist stairs on this wide earth!!”
* * * *
With sketchbook, tape measure, a camera, and boundless enthusiasm, I set out to explore and document every stair then extent within walking distance of my life. For the first four days, none within the vicinity of town was spared -- from city hall to cemeteries, from church altars to water towers. Every change in verticality was quickly seized upon. Preoccupied with stride and rise ratios, proportions and comfort, materials and colours, I pranced up and down my victims like a madman, felt every crack and crevice, knocked on every step, at times stomped down, at other times stormed up, sprawled on one and crawled under another; in fact did everything imaginable on these structure short of dismantling them. It was a ready obsession. I chose miles of stairs extending upward from the depths of the underground for my daily commute, pushed up fifteen stories for a passport, incited numerous bullpups at a house on a steep slope.... None was too short or too long, too high or too low. Questioning looks or smiles of mockery did not deter my zest, as if there was a legitimate industry for the study of moving men from one level to another.
On the fifth day, coming out of a bargain matinee, a certain iron contraption attracted my attention towards an abandoned department store across the street. Gloating upon my victory over the dogs, I scaled a fence and sped across the condemned property like a homing rabbit.
It was very dark. At first, I could see only shadows, red, green, outlining objects remembered from daylight. Gradually, like an awakening, dim shapes began to emerge - a corridor or wall, what could have been a beam, a corner, a chair. For courage, I adjusted my shoulder strap, shirt collar, dishelvelled hair, then proceeded to meet dark fate. It was useless to brush off the dust -- lints flying off my hand clouded in slow motion, then simply dissipated among their rest of kin. Parting cobwebs and broken glass, I advanced some difficult paces forward and came upon the uncanny feeling of emptiness, as if pawing through a gutted corpse. Perhaps just as disreputable, thought I. A few weak rays of light, trembling, trespassing the glassless, boarded windowframe, showed me to a door. Was this wise? I stopped short of the doorknob and pondered. A minute, two, …. the watchface was useless without fluorescence. Twrip, twrip, eeek eek eek, twrip wrip…. Faintly creaking, a bicycle doppled near then far. It was sign enough. Without further hesitation, I crashed through the door and found myself at the foot of a gigantic shaft, within which a staircase perched shyly at the far end. Infinite height. Looking up, I staked a foot decidedly on the first step. Fifteen stories of air seemed at once too heavy upon one man’s fragile frame. Nonetheless, suffocating through dust or allergies, listening to the shuffle of my clothes for companionship, I mounted from the netherworld.
In service of sanity, I pushed through the doors from the stairwell from time to time to gauge progress. Arguably, there was only one direction up, but I had to avoid repeating myself, fearing victim as some Twilight Zone rerun. Innumerable metal racks of all shapes and sizes lined their battalions over the first few floors. Higher up, the rubbish became less formed - shards of glass or pieces of fabrics, nondescript bodyparts from some long-lost consumer war. Faster and faster I climbed, without pausing. Cold or afraid, the wrinkled, sweat-soaked back of my shirt clung on to me. It was useless shaking this nagging discomfort for I knew the wicked face of a summer’s shade had engulfed me, piercing its coldness through my spine, heart, and core. Cling! A sharp metallic rattle, perhaps a pipe, stopped me short of this pilgrimage. Shaken, I instinctively groped for a railing that was not there. There was an awkward pause. Blood raced through my inner ear, whispering, mocking: too late to look back. Imagined or real, a distinct smell of smoke chanted like omen through the air.
Reoriented merely by the certain rhythm of ascent, I suspected the truth in a musty, neglected, unpopular brand of hell - the usual fire and brimstone left on a shelf too long after expiration, hoping for a hurried customer like myself. About forty minutes later, strange chirping noises began yet another tiresome song and dance. Breathless, my harmless allergies sped toward terminal lung cancer. Even that tiny something which climbed inside my left trouser leg saw fit to gently gnaw at my calf. Barely visible, by peeling red paint on the walls, was a pathetic number 15. Three more stories, I cursed. Every step was now immense progress and gravity an archenemy. That glowing prize I sought was outside of these walls, six inches out of reach. Stubbornness or stupidity drove determination. By the time the glimmer of hope glanced furtively through a doorcrack, I realized my lenscap had fallen off back on the sixth or seventh floor. My foot exploded through a mass of splinters a second after and suddenly, picture of a golden sunlight shore unapologetically over a noonday roof. To my immediate left, the rusted fire escape glowed deliciously through its own haze. A careful period of scrutiny ensued - every measured rivet, each soldered joint seemed more cunning after such toil. However, there was only so much one could endure. After another hour, an intense thirst for carbonation overshadowed my glee and besides, my head had begun to swirl. Banging down hurriedly through flight after flight of iron-in-air, I thought of birds, of praises of unique insights, of the unmatched intelligence between bullpups and myself…. while in an instant, the grill gave underfoot and wham! Something got caught and I soared through the air. A frightful minute later, I found my arm entwined with an orange nylon band, its other end attached to a ruined photographic apparatus, higher up jammed into a grille, and the rest of myself hanging over a banister waiting for the fire department. Dangling between stories three and four, I began to think: So close. Such embarrassment. Finally, a man below interrupted, yelling incessantly, much louder than necessary: don’t worry! You’d be OK!! Stay there! We’ll get you down!! No, no, don’t look down! ....
* * * *
Same night. On the phone.
“You mean they didn’t arrest you?”
I could almost see him rolling off his kitchen stool. Oscar called for notes to the castles lecture he slept through Thursday morning and I made the mistake of mentioning the day’s excursion. He would probably write to the Daily Harp now.
“....(still laughing) Does anyone else know about this?”
“No, and listen....”
“Hey, OK, lay off that extortion tactic, buddy. I wouldn’t rat on you.”
Sure, I thought, whining. “I don’t want to go back out there.”
“Try some’n discreet, my little friend. Some’n big, bold, and beautiful....in broad daylight....escalators,” he added.
“But master....”
“Go! You will! (sternly) But be mindful of the Force.”
“Cut that Yoda crap....”
* * * *
After Tuesday’s fiasco, I took Oscar’s advise to play it safe with the grand staircase of our collegiate-gothic study hall. Very wide, a heavily carved mahogany and teak affair, it was unfrequented, tucked away at the end of the library’s old wing, practically foolproof. An additional benefit: I covered extensive grounds through the library’s original floorplan last semester for another assignment and knew this layout better than the backs of my hands. Needless to speculate, this operation was not smooth in any way, either.
From the beginning, I was surprised. The walkway I chose did not lead me predictably to the top of the stairs but at its first landing. Memory must have played jigsaw with the place or someone took great pains to lift the entire northside up twelve feet. Very well, I could interrupt in its middle. But there was a choice: up half a flight to start properly or down half a flight and begin by the statue. Fond of marbleised dead patrons, I headed downwards. The first step was very rewarding. I noticed the unusual rise, dark tint, solid feeling, surface scratches and repairs, and stopped to dig my wingtips into the well-tread wax, rubbing gently toward the curved edge. It was familiar, comforting, and I turned my thoughts to my predecessors, whom ran or stroll up and down those very steps for a hundred years without as much as half a thought. The balustrade’s top was a little wider than my hand, generously polished and gleaming, also slippery, leaving ample space for philosophical speculation in one’s daily saunter without sacrificing any necessary pompous decorum assumed for an institutional enterprise. Proceeding toward the second step, I hesitated for a second and all images associated with tumbling downwards, run-away snowball style, flashed across my mind - fear for a sequel. With courage, I descended again, but before the fourth step, was panic-stricken and paralyzed mid-flight. Everyone knew the conventional wisdom of going downstairs: one must look straight forward, or perhaps slightly down, in the direction of destination, but never at one’s shifting foot. I was stuck. I could not get down. With a myopic curse, I could not see the goal beyond clear and present dangers. Turning around, I stopped short just before reaching the aforementioned landing. It seemed a little cowardly. Besides, the nearest reward, in the form of a vending machine, was downstairs, only a corner away. In the end, courage, perseverance, or political ideology did not move me. The nearest route from level B to level A was bribery, through the stomach, obviously.
* * * *
Next morning. At the presentation.
“.... the structural integrity of my subjects, on average....” was much sounder than my nerves, thought I, eyeing the yawning audience.
“.... steel, as a popular material for....” accidents, I completed the thought honestly in my mind, noticing Oscar at the back row, supressing laughter, shaking uncontrollably behind a stack of lecture notes.
“.... in conclusion, the opportunity....” most often slips away by indecision, I finished off the report and walked back.
As I was settling down, he leaned over and whispered, “You didn’t mention the fire department.”
“Oh, shut-up, Wiener.”
HrK '99