Pressing Your Buttons

Josh looked down at his watch, Five Forty Fucking Five, he mumbled to himself, and swiped his RFID card to get into his building. He hated how crowded the city was at this time. Everyone had somewhere to go and too little time to take anything else into consideration.

   His apartment building had two elevators and 14 floors. Because he lived only on the third floor, elevator rides were never a long, stop-and-go burden as they must be for the people that lived on the upper floors.
   
    The people in his building didn’t really like Josh. He wore nice clothes that fit close to his skin and was very fashionable. Thing is, he was around 30 years younger than everyone else. “How did he afford to live here?” their fleeting glares asked in the elevators, stairwells and hallways. He was a trader, that’s what he told people, but he really made all his money doing something else.
   
    On that day, at Five Forty Fucking Five, Josh got in the elevator with one of those people, an older man, the kind that glared at him. Josh pressed the button for the third floor, the man pressed for the 14th. There was an unbearable delay from the time that the doors shut to movement upwards. Josh thought about this. He could feel the glare, even if it was all in his head, glowering just a few feet away. The man smelled like mothballs and was wearing a coat that was just a little over 8 years old. It’s color and odor were evidence enough. Josh didn’t care, he just happened to like to dress nice.
   
    What he really did for money was intercept logistics operations in already shady businesses and profit off of their loss. At least, that’s what he told himself so he felt a little better about being a modern a faux pas Robin Hood. Just a few hours earlier, around 2:30 he held up a liquor truck somewhere in the South Bronx and scared the driver so bad that he handed the keys over without any physical scuffles. Josh took the truck, drove it to Freelar International and his partners handled the rest. Josh got the merchandise, his partners Steve and Justin cleared it, getting cash for the merchandise overseas in black markets, or, josh didn’t even know or care, he would receive payment, just as they would receive the merchandise, no questions asked, that’s the way it always worked.
   
    He didn’t care that what he did was illegal. When he was little he used to prank phone call people and ring on people’s doorbells and press all the buttons on eleva—
   
    The radium green numbers ticked: M….T…..1…..2…. He was going to do it, as a grown man, press every single button just before he exited the elevator. The elevator reached the third floor and came, very slowly, to a halt. Josh remembered the long lag between the stop and the doors opening. He cleared his throat and began pressing the buttons in order, 4…5….6…7…8…9…10 click click click—“Hey what’re you doing that for?!”…..11…12….13…14
   
     The elevator sounded and the doors opened. Josh slowly walked out and as he did, shot the man a glare and carried on, along down the hallway, as inconsiderate as everyone else with a chuckle in his mind and a frown on his face.