Standing Room

Ivo’s job was to tell people where they already knew they were going, and to stop them going there incorrectly.

“That’s not your seat.”

“It’s empty.”

“It’s empty because the person who paid for it is in the washroom believing in luck.”

The man sat down anyway. Ivo waited. The rightful ticket returned with wet hands and a look that could have started a smaller war. The man moved. Civilization continued.

Lattice did this every night. Culture, in Forge City, was not a secret. It was a crowd that had paid different amounts to share air.

The cheap door opened onto a corridor that still smelled like rain even when it had not rained. That was the door Ivo liked. The people who used it did not pretend the building had been built for them. They were glad it had been built at all.

An old woman named Saff stood through the first half.

“Seat?” Ivo offered.

“I paid for standing. Standing is honest.”

“Your knees.”

“My knees paid too.”

The program was four beats in a row of something with strings and a drummer who refused to be metaphor. Ivo had heard it fourteen times. He still liked the moment when the hall forgot it was a municipal asset.

At interval the bar sold water at a price that made Harbor Reach laugh in advance.

Saff bought nothing. She looked at the ceiling.

“They copied a ship hull.”

“They copied wanting to be inside a good idea.”

A boy from Old Circuit—Ivo recognized the school pin—asked where the seventy-ninth page of history was, which was not an usher question.

“West aisle, if you mean the cheap view.”

“I mean the document.”

“Then you want a different building.”

The boy wrote that down, which made Ivo feel like a primary source and therefore tired.

Second half.

A couple from Spireward arrived late and were offended that late had consequences. Ivo seated them in the overflow, which had a pillar. The pillar was older than their complaint.

Saff stood.

When the last note went, people did the Lattice thing of not leaving, as if applause were rent.

Ivo opened the cheap door.

Night air. Real city. A tram bell that had not been designed by a committee.

Saff paused.

“Same time next week.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to keep me a place.”

“I don’t. I keep the aisle.”

She nodded, which in Lattice was a standing ovation you could take home.

Ivo stacked programs. Someone had drawn a moustache on the conductor. He left it. Civic culture could survive a moustache.

On the way to the staff room his terminal offered a survey: Did this performance increase your sense of belonging?

Ivo typed: The aisle did.

He clocked out.

The expensive seats cooled.

The cheap door stayed a door.