The Garage
from Robin's File & Story Archives
"In The Parking Garage"
"The Hotel Anthology" by Robin Roberts
I had an early appointment with Billie and Terry, a couple I had met in college, so I decided to drive my own car rather than using The Hotel chauffeur and limousine because I had no idea how long I would be visiting them.
When I had entered the garage, a little machine had barked instructions about taking a ticket, etc., the "arm" went up and had found a parking spot next to the elevators. Now I am reversing the steps. I opened the door, slid into the drivers' seat, took the ticket from behind the sun-visor, and headed for the little guard shack near the exit.
As I approached the booth, I noticed that the booth seemed to be dark and I began to wonder how I would exit the lot. I slowed to a crawl and drove up to the booth: another mechanical arm blocking my way. I was about to give up when the door to the booth slid open, and the interior was illuminated by a low-level blue-white light. I opened the window and started to hand my ticket to -- the ticket person?
The ticket person was female: I could tell by the bumps and curves beneath the black rubber outfit. The suit had white quarter-inch stripes along the arms, legs, and along the body that announced each movement of the form that stretched the suit to the point of not having a single ripple, wrinkle or fold. Her body rotated slightly clockwise and she fluidly extended a very graceful right arm and hand for my ticket. I placed the ticket into her rubber-gloved hand which she withdrew and turned back to the machine in front of her. It then hit me: she had not moved any part of her body and yet she had rotated toward me, retrieved my ticket, and rotated back. A closer examination was warranted! As she rotated back toward me, her right hand again extended pointing to a small electronic display that stated I owed just under ten dollars for the privilege of parking my car in The Hotel lot.
I handed her the money and again she rotated back into position before the machine, the drawer opened and with only one hand made the correct change. She rotated back to me, handed me my change, all wordlessly. I decided that I would take a closer look so drove through the gate, parked my car, and took the ten or so steps back to the booth. She didn't say anything: she couldn't. She was wearing something that looked like a black rubber swim cap with a hole in the top/back that allowed her ponytail to flow through and a band that covered the entire lower part of her face beneath her nose. She was, for all intents and purposes, part of the stool she sitting (?) on. The suit had two oval cut-outs (one over each cheek of her well-proportioned derriere) and a long slit that appeared to run from navel to anus. The stool she was sitting on appeared to be a post with a u-shaped piece of pipe shaped like a bicycle seat with what appeared to be a dildo of sorts and a butt-plug. There was a short cross piece a few inches above the ground, upon which her high-heels / ballerina slippers were resting. Her ankles were locked into inch-and-a-half, black leather cuffs that were attached directly to the post and there were three two-inch wide belts above and below her knees and one around her thighs.
It was about this time that another car approached the booth. I stood and watched as the "lady" and her stool turned to face the door, extend her right hand, and rotate back toward the register. And then it struck me. As the stool automatically turned without intervention or recourse of the ticket-taker; she was not given a choice: she and the stool were one integral unit. As she gracefully and fluidly turned and extended her right hand with the customer's change, I noticed that her left arm was behind her back; forearm vertical, laying between her shoulder blade. The fingers of her left hand were extended and attached directly to her collar, while the sleeves of her suit were laced to the body of the suit forcing her arms to take on the appearance of a broken wing in a cast. As the customer drove away, I couldn't help notice that the garage attendant's very blue eyes seemed to follow me everywhere.
It was as if she was trying to say something.
I pondered the idea of telling someone at the front desk how uncomfortable this poor lady looked. I got in my car and drove away thinking that they already knew.
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