Indieoma

Gabriela eyed the shelves behind the bar. Immediate assessment: stocked with alcohol but sparse enough to gain a foothold. The sole bartender looked haggard; the crowd thin. It would be easy enough to make a break for it.


Gabriela was bony like a bedpost but graceful in her movements. Her gaze was dovish and her hair was dark and long. She nudged a woman standing near her. “Help me out, girl,” she said, and the woman shrugged. It wasn’t hard to convince anyone of anything these days.


With her shop’s bankruptcy on one shoulder and the crisis on the other, Gabriela needed a plan, or at least something daring. She had combed New York’s financial district for an adequate pub and found only this one. She came inside audacious and cold. She instructed the woman clearly: ask the bartender to swing over for a second, just a second, to take a look at something, this crack in the tile, that scuff in the wall, and the woman and bartender obliged in their parts.


Gabriela was swift. With everyone distracted, she slipped behind the bar. She pushed a table to block access. Behind the bar was narrow. It was perfect. She glanced up the shelves, stacked high to the ceiling.


“Hey,” a voice said, “hey, get out from there! What you think you’re doing there?”


It was the bartender. Gabriela knew her time to be limited. She drew in a breath and swung her foot onto the bar, then leaned over so to get a good hold of one of the first shelves.


“Hey!” he called out again. “What you think you’re doing?”


And then she had done it. She was on the shelves, clinging; she was climbing up, and up; and then she was there, perched on the top shelf, up so high she could palm the ceiling.


The crowd fell silent. The bartender gaped.


“Hello,” she called down from her high seat. “My name is Gabriela, and I’m not coming down.”




On that same night, in that same city, a man found himself pacing the streets. He was a traveler, wrapped up in a scarf and a coat and swirled in wind and an indecisive flurry. He had come from Iowa to see if he could kick up a little excitement at the end of the year but found the streets only insipid, downtrodden. Perhaps it was how he’d worked it up to be in his imagination. There was a crisis, after all.


He was tall and hard like a raven, at least that’s what people who knew him back home said. Fetching, an ex-girlfriend commented once, which made him think of a dog. His name was Caleb. He’d always felt he belonged in New York, felt vast and strong as the city, but now that he was here no one seemed to pay him any mind.


In one day he’d walked back and forth over the Brooklyn Bridge, seen the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, and walked down to the Seaport before simply wandering the streets. The snow picked up, wet and soft. Caleb walked on.


“Hey!” he heard a voice cry out, to nobody in particular. “There’s a girl stuck on the top shelf of a bar around here!”


The voice, without a face, walked on, calling to no one. Caleb tried to follow but quickly lost him; a taxi whizzed by, a businessman cursed. He wondered who this girl was and how she’d gone and gotten herself stuck, and then he laughed. He felt a certain fondness, a peculiar sense of warmth creep up inside him for this nameless girl. And Caleb vowed that he would find her; somehow, with the rest of his week in New York he would find the girl and get her down.




Seven days and seven nights.


On the first day the crowd from the night before, little as it was, stayed to watch Gabriela. It was Christmas and everyone was looking for something special to happen. She swigged a few drinks—“borrowing!” she called down to the onlookers—for sustenance but other than that ate nothing.


On the second day a few more people trickled in, and Gabriela was starting to think it could properly be called a crowd. The crowd bought drinks and food and stayed and stayed, and Gabriela saw an opportunity. She summoned the bartender, Bobby, over, and he shimmied up a ladder until he was level with her face, shaking. He leaned in close; his breath smelled like pine needles and mint toothpaste. He, like most of the crowd, had slept on the tables the night before and walked over to the Duane Reade on the corner in the morning for supplies.


“What you doing, Gabriela?” he said. By this time, everyone there was calling her by name.
“I have a proposition for you,” she started out. She was seated between bottles and felt a little glassy herself.
“What’s that?”


“I’m up here, and you’re getting business. More business in a single day than you’ve had in over a year, I’m guessing.” He nodded slowly, hesitant, but it was true. “So let’s cut a deal. You let me stay up here till I find a good enough reason to come down. I’ve got my shop’s bankruptcy and the financial crisis to worry about, and I need a place and some time to think.”


“So you chose this?” Bobby was incredulous. Gabriela stared at him hard.
“More business in a single day than you’ve had in over a year,” she reminded. The bartender sighed. “Go on.”
“You let me stay up here, and you let me down for three bathroom-and-food breaks a day. In the morning, in the middle of the day, and before everyone goes to sleep. I’ll pay you back for whatever I eat and drink when this is all over.”


“Now I’ve got a proposal,” said Bobby. “Food and drink’s on me, and you get your three breaks, but you’ve gotta eat your meals up here.”
“Sure thing,” said Gabriela. They shook hands. “But can I ask why you’ll have me eating up here?”
He shrugged. “I’m a businessman.”


On the third day the pub was packed and the regulars, those that had been there since the start of Gabriela’s climb, had devised a system for getting her her food. They were working on a volunteer service now so Bobby could serve the new flow of patrons: Alice, a fifth grade teacher, took the food orders and kept the gawking crowd at bay when Gabriela took her bathroom breaks; David, a bookstore owner, cooked everything up in the back kitchen, and Kimberly, a stockbroker and Gabriela’s original though unintentional partner in crime, took the food up to Gabriela’s perch. People took turns scaling the ladder to have a word with Gabriela. Gabriela swore to stay up there until she had a good enough reason to come down.


On the fourth day a camera crew arrived, and then another, and another. The volunteer service grew so that there was always at least two people guarding the bar, making sure no one except the originals got too close to Gabriela. Bobby’s profits soared. Gabriela grew achy.


On the fifth day Gabriela nearly fainted. No one, including Gabriela, saw it coming. Kimberly sat at the top of the ladder, talking to Gabriela about how she planned to return her library books on time. A line thronged out from the bar of people wanting to get Gabriela’s advice on investing tips, apartment searching, and parenting skills. Suddenly Gabriela felt a wash of heat on her cheeks and Kimberly’s face bloomed in rainbow.


“Kim,” said Gabriela slowly, “I think I’m going to fall.”


It was the lack of movement, people on ground level speculated after it was all over. The strict timing of food, the continuous height. Maybe Gabriela wasn’t cut out for such a feat after all.


The room spun out in front of her. Gabriela clambered for something to hold on to, but came up with only shaking bottles in her hand. She felt tiny pellets of sweat sticking to her forehead; Kimberly trying to press her up against the back wall. But Kimberly was at the top of the ladder, and neither of them was very solid.


“Oh,” said Kimberly, “oh!”


Gabriela closed her eyes and felt wind whooshing by her ears. She held on and braced herself for a clatter and a splat, the sound of breaking glass and herself on the floor. But the wind let up, and the heat smoothed out into a shiver, and she was still at the top of the bar.


“Oh,” said Kimberly again, in a breath this time. She called down for water. Three people went running.


On the sixth day everything was back to normal. More volunteers cooked meals up for her; Bobby was in full swing preparing the bar for a party. Newscasters broadcast from the entrance. People began to line up outside to peak into the windows and catch a glimpse of Gabriela, who still didn’t have an idea about what could be a good enough reason to come down. A committee made party hats. Another walked around the financial district posting flyers.


On the seventh day it was New Year’s Eve.




Caleb heard a commotion rising down the street. He had spent much of his week in the city wandering, pausing occasionally to visit tourist sites but mostly crossing and re-crossing streets, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets to keep them warm. He placed a few short calls back home; he was elusive but still was questioned on his motives for being in New York.


He turned a corner and saw people jostling in front of a window, and he knew: this was where she was. Two newscasters pushed into each other’s elbows. A few women snapped pictures through the glass. Gabriela was the name on everybody’s lips. Gabriela, Caleb repeated to himself. He closed his eyes; felt the air sting and ice against his cheeks. Then he started to push.


There wasn’t much resistance. Everyone’s eyes were on the window, not on Caleb. He got to the door and whispered to the man guarding it that he knew the bartender, and the man shrugged and let him pass. Inside rolled even louder. The bar was packed wall to wall with people; the television set was tuned to the New Year’s countdown uptown in Times Square. And there, in the center there, at the top of the shelves, was Gabriela.


There was something in Gabriela’s eyes that made Caleb shiver. He could tell it from all the way down at the front of the pub, though he couldn’t put his finger on just what it was. Maybe it was that she was steely, determined; maybe it was that it was combined with something smooth and feathered, Caleb wasn’t sure. From where she was, she caught him in her gaze. Caleb knew that she was the answer.


He glanced at the television set. Only three hours to go before the ball dropped, before 2010 arrived with maybe something new. Without thinking much of it, Caleb hoisted himself onto a table and called for everyone’s attention.


“Gabriela,” he called up to her, “I’m going to get you down from there.”
The crowd stayed hushed but hardly reacted; perhaps they thought him a publicity stunt. “By midnight!” he added.
From the shelf, Gabriela crossed her arms. “You think I’m Cinderella?”
“No, but it is a new year,” he said.
“So,” said Gabriela, “I’ve got my shop’s bankruptcy and the financial crisis to worry about, and you don’t seem to be about to answer all those questions.”
“No,” Caleb repeated, “but I used up the last of my savings just to get here to New York.”


The crowd whipped around to Caleb. He stood straight and tall; he had admitted it and that was all there was to it.


“Not to find you,” Caleb confessed, “but now I have, and maybe that’ll make it all worth it.”


Gabriela smiled wispish, but she remained firm: “I’m not coming down. But, you could tell me your name.”


And so they talked. Back and forth across the pub, with the crowd oohing and shouting around them, with the New Year’s Eve celebrations on the television behind them, with the streets outside cold and hard. They talked about how Gabriela had started a business and opened a store right out of college, how it had been successful until the crisis hit. They talked about how Caleb had saved up from his chef’s salary but didn’t bother to wait until he had enough for the return trip home. Someone went out and bought them megaphones so they wouldn’t have to scream across the bar. Gabriela asked Bobby to give Caleb a dinner on the house, and Bobby obliged.


Caleb explained how everyone back home expected him to be on the first flight back on New Year’s Day. They thought he’d gone for a taste of something different and to see the ball drop live. Gabriela came clean that she’d closed up shop, she thought forever. There was no good reason to open it again, she shrugged. It was time to find something new. The countdown to the New Year began.


At eight seconds to go Caleb had an idea. “Hey,” he called to Gabriela, “what if I help you get your shop going again, and we make enough profit to get me a return ticket home?”


Gabriela sat staunchly until the ball dropped and shouts of Happy New Year sprung across the bar and the crowd outside against the window. She stared across at the man on the table. Without her answering, he looked forlorn, droopy, like a dog forced out in the rain. She had made it to the New Year, made it up there until 2010.


“Well,” she said, “are you sure you’ll go back?” Alice, who was on guard at the top of the ladder, took the megaphone. Gabriela turned herself around and began the backwards climb down the shelves. “Maybe you’ll find a good enough reason to stay?”


“Maybe you’ll find a good enough reason to stay!” Alice repeated through the megaphone so Caleb and everyone packed into the pub could hear. Gabriela dropped the last short distance to the ground. The crowd burst into a cheer.


“Maybe I will,” Caleb answered, though he was unsure if anyone could hear him then. After all, it was the new year.