HOLY Elevator

I was in the bowels of the Stephen P. Clark building today to set up a lunch for 50 people at the city managers office. I arrived at the service elevator and there was an African American man of about 50 sitting in a discarded chair waiting for the elevator. I greeted him with a cheerful how ya doing, no response. I stood there in uncomfortable silence for what seemed to be an eternity. I glanced down to see that he was clutching on to a very large Holy Bible. It's not often I run into someone carrying a Bible and I was now even more uncomfortable than before. The elevator finally arrived and we had made no exchange of any kind. When the doors opened a young African American woman elevator operator asked what floor. I said 29 the man with the Bible said nothing and she pressed 18 and 29. He then handed her the Bible and she hid it beneath a stack of debris she had sitting behind her chair in the corner. 18 came and the now Bible free man got off with out uttering a word to either of us. She did not bid him farewell. My floor finally arrived and I said good bye and she said have a nice day. I have spent all day pondering their relationship. Father & daughter? Friends? Spies passing secrets? Lovers passing letters? Minister & parishioner? Deaf Bible borrower? I will never know.