The Stairs, Chapter 15
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 17
THE STAIRS
© Tom Scocca, 2025
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, and events is entirely coincidental, with the exception of the events in Chapters One and Two, which happened more or less as written, on the line between Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, on Memorial Day weekend in 1999.
15.
Going home, we changed trains so we could get off at the Marble College stop. "I need to swing by the philosophy department to set up my research for the fall semester," Emily said. "It shouldn't take more than half an hour." We didn't mind. Marble College is fun to look at—the campus is one of the oldest things in the city. The older buildings are made of brick and they were built in colonial times, before even Fort Muntjac, so they have low, narrow doorways and thick old ivy vines growing all over them.
Later on, Mom had explained, as the college grew, there was a dispute between one Marble College architect who wanted to make more brick buildings and a different architect who thought things should look even older, and wanted medieval stone buildings. So they kept switching back and forth, till half the buildings had church windows and gargoyles and the other half were brick with painted shutters.
The campus was only a quarter full because it was summertime, and a lot of the people who were there were high-school kids in summer school trying to act like they were in college—playing frisbee under the big trees, or sitting on blankets playing guitar. "Real college kids stop playing guitar outside after their first semester," Maxine said.
Emily's appointment was in one of the gargoyle buildings. We went through doors under a pointy arch and then up an echoey slate-floored stairway to a long hall with a thin red carpet. Emily stopped at the second door on the left. "You guys can hang out in the department lounge, down at the end of the hall," she said. "Just don't break anything."
She ducked inside and the door closed behind her. The hall was cool and still. No birdsong or bad guitar playing made it through the heavy stone walls. Our footsteps sounded muffled as we walked past door after door till we got to an open archway at the end. The room beyond was, if anything, quieter: a heavy carpet, thickly padded furniture, bookshelves full of fat old books. Everything was worn and faded. There was a big wooden table against one wall with a wood-grained mini refrigerator underneath it and on top of it something almost as big as the mini-fridge. I needed a moment to figure out it was an ancient microwave. Its clock flashed 12:00...12:00...12:00 in blue.
Maxine flopped down in the middle of a huge sofa. The upholstery might have been burgundy velvet once but it was mostly tan and bald with age. "Ughhh," she said. "A half hour in here, also known as 10 hours. This is what it's going to be like when time stops everywhere, isn't it?"
I sat down at the end of the sofa. It was somehow squishy and hard at the same time. "So, how are we going to do anything about it?" I asked.
"Ask Norman Melk," Theo said. "That's what she said to do."
"And how do we do that?" I asked. "Go back home, try the stairs again, hope they're still connected to 1940 or whenever, go back to Walt's Eats—if they don't throw us out again—and see if he's getting more pie?"
"He was having a sandwich," Maxine said. "We got the pie."
"He should have gotten the pie, too," Theo said. "The pie was great."
"We don't have to go to Walt's Eats, anyway," Maxine said. "He gave us his number, remember?"
"I want more pie, though," Theo said.
"So we go back and try to find a payphone, if we can work it, and call him, and leave a message?" I said.
"They didn't have voice mail back then," Maxine said.
"Great, so then we keep going up and down the stairs and making calls till we catch him at home, if we ever do," I said.
"Why don't we just call him now?" Theo said.
I was losing patience. "Because, ding-dong," I said, "now is now, and he's not now, he's then."
"How do you know he's not there now too?" Theo said.
Maxine looked at me. "How do we know?" she said. "We might as well try." She dug in the pocket of her jeans and came up with her mobile phone and the card Norman Melk had given us. She squinted at the writing. "CRandall-4-9287," she said. She studied her phone screen. "C is 2 and R is 7. 274-9287."
"What about the other three numbers?" I said.
"The Old Marble area code is 247," Maxine said. "We'll try that. Here goes. 2-4-7," she said. "2-7-4...9-2-8...7." She pressed the call button. "If we get a wrong number, we get a wrong number. What else could happen?" She held her phone up to her ear. "The line's ringing," she said.
Deed-a-leep, went a soft sound. It was not coming from Maxine's phone. Deed-a-leep. Some other phone was ringing. Deed-a-leep. From the far corner of the room, past the tall skinny windows, in the shade of the drapes. Something moved. Chair springs creaked. Deed-a-lee—
"Hello?" said a voice from the shadows.
Find other chapters of The Stairs here.
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TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Catering for Special Occasions, with Menus & Recipes, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, published in 1911 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CHICKEN CREAM SANDWICHES
Finely chop three-fourths cup breast meat from a cooked fowl, add one-fourth cup finely cut celery, and one cup rich milk. Heat to boiling-point and add a boiled mashed onion and three tablespoons flour mixed with two tablespoons butter. Cook until thick, then add whites of two eggs beaten until stiff, salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste. Turn into mold, first dipped in cold water, and let stand twelve hours. Remove from mold and spread between thin slices buttered bread. Remove crusts and cut in fancy shapes.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your thoughts and a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
