Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

As if that weren’t enough to worry about, a New York cab blew up this morning killing at least three people, but don’t ask the mayor if that has anything to do with the elevator mishaps, because he doesn’t know. What we do know is that someone claiming to be part of the Flyovers activist group posted on Twitter to claim responsibility for the bombing. Maybe they’d have copped to the elevator sabotage, too, but ran out of characters. So, bottom line is, we don’t know whether it’s safe to ride in an elevator, or a taxi. Have a nice day.

The hashtag #goingdown started trending on Twitter within ten minutes of Headley’s remarks.

And then big news broke.

Media outlets were alerted to a second City Hall press conference less than an hour after the first one.

Mayor Headley, instantly feeling the heat about not knowing how to respond to the crisis, issued a statement that he was, after consultation with the city’s police and fire chiefs, ordering that every elevator in the city be taken out of service until it could be determined that they were safe.

Every. Single. One.

But rather than face the press again after his disastrous earlier appearance, Headley sent someone to speak on his behalf.

His son.

A nervous Glover Headley took to the podium to say that the city was calling on landlords and property managers everywhere to make their elevators inoperable until they could be inspected and deemed safe, and by “safe,” he meant “not tampered with.” Instructions on how to determine whether they had been would be posted on the city’s website so as to expedite the process. Among other things, inspectors would be told to look for unauthorized modifications to the cars, and to change any passwords into building and elevator security systems.

Glover said the mayor appreciated the magnitude of the inconvenience this would pose to the people of New York, but he was hopeful the measure would be short-lived. Inspections were to start immediately, and it was possible many elevators would be back in operation by the end of the week, many much sooner. The non-news networks canceled regular programming to give the story blanket coverage.

“This is an outrageous overreaction,” said one male political commentator on CNN, part of a Hollywood Squares — like cluster of pundits. “You simply cannot shut down every elevator in the biggest city in the country. We have no idea how real this threat is, and chances are more people will get hurt not being able to use elevators than might be hurt in them. This is like shutting down every road in America because there might be a couple of weak bridges out there somewhere.”

A woman in the box next to him shot back, “Are you kidding me? Would you get on an elevator in New York today?”

The man shot back, angrily, “Yes I would, and you know why? Because this is all a load of fake news designed to frighten people and make them submit to the will of—”

Another man in the box above him cut in and said, “For the love of God, that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard from you, and that’s saying something. Every time you’re warned about a possible threat, you think it’s some conspiracy to make you submit? Come on, what are you—”

“Oh,” the first man shot back, “and I suppose you think 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. Well, I have it on good authority—”

On Fox, the conspiracy theories went even further, where one guest speculated that the mayor, with his left-leaning, Democratic background, had manufactured the crisis as a way to make New Yorkers more fit by forcing them to take the stairs. After all, this was the same mayor who wanted all the city vehicles to be emissions free. Could you really trust someone like that? “This is the most ridiculous thing since former mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to legislate the size of soft drinks,” the guest said.

Over on NBC, a so-called expert had been brought into the studio to tell viewers how to survive an elevator plunge.

She said, “A lot of people think if you’re in an elevator that’s hurtling downward, and you jump off the floor just before it hits the bottom of the shaft, that somehow that’s going to save you. Well,” and at this point she chuckled, “there’s a whole lot wrong with that supposition. The first is, you’re not really going to be able to time it right. You can be looking at the numbers next to the door and figure, okay, we’re just about to hit the basement, jump now! But even if you could do that, which is pretty much impossible, it wouldn’t save you. Your body is still traveling downward at the same rate of speed as the elevator, so one way or another, you’re going to hit bottom and you’re going to hit it hard. The only real hope you have of surviving is to lie down on the floor of the elevator, on your back, spreading out your arms and legs like you’re a starfish. What this does is more evenly distribute your weight across the surface of the elevator floor.”

The host asked, “Okay, but what if you’re in an elevator with ten other people and can’t do that?”

The expert shrugged. “Well, in that case, you’re going to become elevator pizza.”

On MSNBC, the elevator crisis was a financial story.

“The New York Stock Exchange has closed three hours before the ringing of the bell,” one analyst said. “The business of the city has effectively ground to a halt. Millions of dollars are being lost every second that this goes on. Mayor Richard Headley has created a panic. He needs to get back out there in front of the cameras and come up with something better than ‘I don’t know’ and ‘We’re shutting down the elevators.’ This has to be the most astonishing example of incompetence I have ever seen.”

The only group alleged to have taken responsibility for anything that had happened in New York in the previous three days was the U.S.-based Flyovers, and even its connection to the taxi bombing had not been independently confirmed. But that did not stop many individuals, including more than a few politicians at very senior levels, from arguing that this was more evidence that America needed to curb immigration and tighten its borders.

“We cannot,” said one bombastic talk radio host, “allow these illegals into our country to wage war on us. But yet, that’s what we do! Just how stupid are we, ladies and gentlemen?”

Nearly every TV channel — with the possible exceptions of those devoted to weather updates, cartoons, and repeats of The Big Bang Theory — was featuring nonstop talking heads offering plenty of opinions based on almost no information whatsoever.

In that sense, it was pretty much like any other day.

Barbara had not left the City Hall media room after the mayor’s statement. She’d taken a chair in a back corner, sat down, and written her piece with her two amazing thumbs. The room had pretty much cleared out, but reporters started filing back in when word got out that the mayor’s son was going to make a follow-up statement. So Barbara was already sitting there when Glover went to the podium to announce the mayor’s decision to shut down all city elevators.

“Holy shit,” Barbara said under her breath. The magnitude of this story was growing exponentially by the hour.

She wasn’t surprised Headley had sent the boy to deliver this latest bulletin. The mayor had done enough damage to himself in his earlier appearance when, in response to Barbara’s question, he could not say whether it was safe to ride a New York elevator. Glover’s statement had pretty much made it clear that the answer was no.

Glover declined to take questions after making the announcement, but as he tried to escape the room he was cornered by several news crews and reporters shouting out more questions. He kept raising his hand in front of his face, as much to keep the blinding lights out of his eyes as to keep the media hounds at bay.