by C. F. Durang
Not many who were there will ever forget the exact
time: Thursday afternoon, May 17, at 2:38 P.M. The powerwent off everywhere in the distant Richmond suburb of
Fiddle River, including the mammoth Harold's Mall.
Between the third and fourth floors of Abercrombie
and Klune, the upscale department store, the escalator
came to a halt with a grinding squeal, just as the lights
went out. There was total silence for a few heartbeats,
then the agitated voices began.
"What's happened?"
"Oh, my God, we're trapped!"
"Where are you, Alice? Alice, where are you?"
"Help me, somebody help me, please!"
"Save my baby. Never mind me, save my baby..."
As the voices reached a crescendo in the dimness of
the store, where even the air conditioners were silent,
Harlan Stanwort suddenly realized what had happened.
Harlan, an assistant floorwalker in Ladies Socks and
Scarves, was on the third floor, below the trapped
people. He raced to the escalator to take charge.
"Quiet, please!" he shouted up the narrow incline.
"Quiet--don't panic! Everything will be all right if you
don't panic! If you panic, everyone will die!" This
quieted them right down.
"The first thing we have to do," Harlan shouted,
"is find out how many of you are up there. Start
counting, with number one here at the bottom. Everybody
take a number and we'll know how many there are."
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
"No, I'm three!"
"No, me! I said it first!"
Harlan knew they were on the ragged edge of panic,
and if they began fighting among themselves, all would be
lost. He made a quick-thinking decision: "Okay, you can
both be three. Go on from there!"
"Four!"
"No, I'm four! I was here first..."
*** *** *** ***
High above the huddled masses, on the fifth floor,
Lorraine Quiche, a Fitter-Stretcher in the Ladies
Underwear department, heard the distant cries over the
drip of the leaky toilet in the ladies' room. She too
knew what had to be done, and rushed to the telephone.
Dialing "O" for Operator, Lorraine sobbed, "This is
Abercrombie and Klune! We need help. There are hundreds
of people trapped here between the third and fourth
floors! Send the police, the fire department, and the
credit bureau right away." Then she rushed to the inky
black stairwell to try to help.
On the fourth floor, Lorraine met Howard Feemster, a
striking auto worker from nearby Rummage Landing, and
they decided to try to help the trapped people from
above. Stripping Men's Haberdashery of neckties, they
raced to the brink of the precipice.
Two people on the very top reached out toward them
with fear and supplication in their eyes. Below they
could hear anguished voices calling:
"Sixteen!"
"No, I'm sixteen!"
"Neither of you are--I am!"
Lorraine and Howard forced themselves to ignore the
desperate people only inches away from them--so near, yet
so far--while quickly knotting ties together until they
had a line several yards long. Then, tying one end
around the leg of a display mannequin, they tossed the
other to the closest people, only to watch in horror as
they began to fight over the end of the lifeline, a blue-
and-grey Pierre Cardin rep-stripe.
"Stop that, for God's sake," yelled Howard, bashing
the nearest combatant with a freestanding ashtray. "You
have to help each other. Wait your turn, knot the line
around your waist, and we'll pull you up!"
*** *** *** ***
As the pumper from Company 2 screeched to a halt in
front of the ominously darkened store, Ralph Digby leaped
from his spot on the running board and sprinted toward
the scene of the disaster. With one swing of his axe, he
opened the unlocked door and stepped into the silent
Sportswear department. A wild-eyed clerk from Candy and
Diet Foods ran up to him, babbling almost incoherently.
"Upstairs! Upstairs! Between the third and fourth...oh,
my God, the humanity..." She subsided into a table of
shorts and Digby headed for the stairwell, taking the
steps two at a time and slicing his left shin with his
axe.
As he emerged onto the third floor and stood with
blood filling his left boot, the enormity of the task
struck him. Harlan Stanwort was almost in tears trying to
keep order, as he shouted up the paralyzed escalator.
And worse, the air conditioning was gone, and people were
starting to sweat!
Looking down, Ralph noticed that water was rising on
the floor; it was already two inches deep. "Where's that
coming from?" he snapped at Harlan.
"From upstairs...from upstairs. There's firemen up
there hosing down the whole floor."
"My God," said Ralph Digby. "Is there a fire up
there?"
"No, no fire. But there are firemen, and that's
what they do!"
Digby knew he had to get that water stopped before
it was too late. But with the escalator out, how to
communicate with the men on the fourth?
Before he could even think about that, another
crisis: a body came hurtling down the escalator's
handrail, clutching two and a half neckties and
shrieking, "Damned cheap neckties! I'm doomed!" The
body rocketed off the handrail and plunged into a living
room set, on sale, fortunately landing in an overstuffed
sofa.
"That's it!" Digby cried. He yelled to Harlan,
"Get all the soft furniture you can at the foot of the
escalator--and put some under the whole length of it just in
case--then get them to come down the bannister!" Then he rushed
to the stairwell, leaving Harlan Stanwort to labor heroically
under his orders.
*** *** *** ***
On the fourth floor, Lorraine and Howard were
running out of neckties and hope, when Digby burst out of
the stairwell door.
"The water! Where's the water coming from?"
Howard gestured wearily to the far side of the
store, and Digby raced between the bras and girdles until
he came to a team of firefighters hosing down a trio of
looters under the watchful eye of Hamilton St. Rudge, the
store detective.
"Stop!" Ralph Digby cried. "Stop the water! It's
filling up the third floor." He slipped on the wet tiles
and skidded into the moistened malefactors, but his
message had gotten through. One of the firemen went to
call a halt to the water.
*** *** *** ***
Meanwhile, on the third floor, Digby's plan was
working. Most of the frightened shoppers had been safely
evacuated by means of the handrail, although one had
fallen from halfway up and exploded a beanbag chair
Harlan had placed under the escalator for just such an
eventuality.
One small child, afraid to mount the handrail,
remained on the escalator, halfway between the floors.
Harlan Stanwort inched his way up, hand over hand, foot
over foot, and carried the child to the safety of the
fourth floor.
Just then, as if on a signal from above, the lights
and the air conditioning came back on, and the escalator
began to move.
"Thank God," said Lorraine Quiche.
Howard Feemster ruefully shook his head and said,
"I'll be sticking to the elevators for a while."
*** *** *** ***
Lorraine, Howard, Harlan and Ralph Digby were all
given the keys to Fiddle River by a grateful mayor and a
cheering populace in a ceremony at Harold's Mall the
following day. Tragically, Ralph had to be released from
the town jail where he had been dragged with the soggy
pile of fourth-floor looters, and has permanently lost
the use of his left boot.
Things have returned to normal in Fiddle River, but
a small plaque at the foot of the third floor escalator
in Abercombie and Klune is a permanent reminder of that
heroic day--not that anyone who was there can ever
forget!
###
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