The best thing to do in any potentially shady situation is act
confidently like you’re actually supposed to be there. Or at the very
least use other people as distractions to keep from getting pinched
yourself. The CF has gotten into more places than I can count merely
by walking with purpose, and pretending to be on a official business,
not to be deterred by the likes of ‘security.’ Of course, sometimes it
doesn't hurt to take off your hat and jacket as you calmly, but
expeditiously get outta there in case somebody dropped a dime.
I remember visiting the Chicago Theater a while back to see Widespread
Panic with a bunch of friends from the D. After two days of shows, and
a great workout walking up and down flight after flight of stairs in
the historic venue, my buddy Loon and I decided to skip the stairs
from the upper balcony and take the theater’s aging elevator
downstairs to get our groove on with the ragers on the main floor. It
was just the two of us in the elevator and when the doors closed Loon
looks around, realizes we’re alone, and then in an idiotic move,reaches out and slaps the elevator’s Emergency Stop button with the heel of his hand. He started mumbling about something in his incomprehensibly, raspy voice that I didn’t even bother to ask him to repeat, having been down that road before. Just nod and smile when the wasted dude can’t articulate himself intelligibly. Loon reaches over to pull out and deactivate the Emergency STOP button, only to find out that he can’t. It’s STUCK, lodged in the wall of the antique elevator car.
We immediately looked at each other with simultaneous expressions of
shock and then broke down giggling. We took turns trying to dislodge
the faded red knob, pulling out house keys to pry it out, banging on
it, screaming at it, and NADA, no dice. Outside we could hear Panic
playing their song ‘Second Skin,’ the lyrics to which have since been
irreversibly changed in my head from, “Come down – this is your second
skin,” to “Come down – you’re trapped in an elevator.” After a few
minutes of unsuccessful attempts to free the immovable switch, Loon
decides to pick up the elevator phone. Thankfully, it actually worked
and after a moment, somebody answered. We managed to explain to
whoever picked up that line that we were stuck in the elevator, and
they sounded far more freaked out about it than we felt. They told us
to stay calm and they’d have someone to fix it and such, all rather
breathlessly apologetic.
Meanwhile, being trapped in a 5 x 5 box dangling in the air 60 feet up
isn’t my favorite thing in the best of circumstances, and I wasn’t
freaked out but in truth I was more annoyed at the prospect of missing
the show. Loon turns to me, a big ole shit eating grin on his face and
says, ‘Hey man, at this moment, there’s nobody I’d rather be trapped
in here with.’ He then looks at the lodged button, walks over to it,
opens his mouth, and bites down on it with the side of his mouth and
molars and manages to pull it out of the wall. The elevator
immediately started moving. When the doors opened up at the bottom, I
couldn’t get out of there fast enough, not because I was freaked out
but because I was in no frame of mind for interrogation by the Chicago
Theater’s personnel. Not even looking behind me, I made a beeline to
the main floor. When I turned around, Loon was gone. Later on I was to
discover that he was scooped up by the theater’s management, who made him sign a release from any liability, but never implicated in any shenanigans. Since I never had to sign it, I’m still considering filing a complaint about the post-traumatic stress I’ve had ever since.
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