Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 24, 1993 TAG: 9302240009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Chris Steuart
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SUDDENLY, THE LIGHTS WENT OUT . . .
For those of you who think sportswriters have dream jobs, get a load of this:One night earlier this month, after covering a boys' basketball game between Pulaski County High School and Cave Spring in Pulaski, I had a frighteningly desperate experience that made me wonder if I was in the wrong line of work.
I got locked in the school - again.
After the game I had been escorted through a maze of corridors to a desk in the second-floor office, where I wrote my story.
As I was talking to a copy editor on the phone about midnight, the lights went out and there I sat, in a pitch-black office.
After I'd hung up the phone, I pondered my fate and decided to try to get out through the nearest door. No good; chained and locked.
Fighting off panic, I found a light switch. I turned on a dim light near the office area and found the hallway I had entered. I turned the corner and saw nothingness. I suddenly had a whole new respect for the blind.
I opened a set of double doors and looked through to the room ahead. It was darker than dark. In a kid's voice I thought, "No way I'm goin' in there."
There were a couple of door stops back at the desk, so I went back to get them and shoved one under the door. Then I inched into the soupy darkness of the room.
To my left there should be a brick wall. I took a few baby steps left and found a wall, but it was a painted wall. Still, I edged my way along it, with confidence in my stride, waiting for the brick to start.
Kaplunk! I ran into a wall and my baseball cap went reeling into the darkness. I spent the next few minutes crawling on the floor feeling for my hat. I found it and hurried back to the wall - with an outstretched hand this time.
Creeping along the wall, with my eyes bugging out, I strained for the slightest ray of light.
And what to my wandering fingers did feel? A light switch. One click and I realized I was near the doors I was aiming for. For a second I took time to savor the light in the room.
Then a quandary. Do I use my second door stop here? Or risk the door locking behind me and cutting me off from a phone and dialing 911 and explaining I had been left for dead in a sinister murky labyrinth that during the day masquerades as a bright educational institution.
With thanks, I found a trash can to lodge between the door.
And don't think for a minute that I wasn't carrying that second door stop like a dagger, for fear some transient had stowed away in the building and might grab me. Too many Stephen King horror novels.
I walked forward into more darkness toward the door that led downstairs. I opened it and thought I heard something shuffling around somewhere below in the stairwell. Too many Thomas Harris books about Hannibal Lecter.
I thought hard about whether to relinquish my weapon. I reluctantly wedged it under the door and felt my way down the steps without falling.
Walking across the gym, I heard that shuffling sound in the shadowy bleachers and picked up my pace toward the front doors. That's it. No more horror novels, period.
The doors were chained and locked with Master locks. I thought about the commercial that shows the Master lock stopping a bullet.
I snatched a key from my pocket and began to pry at a link in one of the chains. That got me nowhere. In fact I nearly broke the key, which would have left me locked out of my apartment.
All of a sudden, laughter from the parking lot interrupted my rehearsal of what I was going to tell the 911 operator.
It was about 1 a.m. and I didn't know whether to scream at the laughers or not. I thought they might be teen-agers, who'd probably scramble at the sound of my voice. To heck with it. I screamed. No response.
So I rushed back into the gym, found a side door and yelled again. This time someone heard me and peered down the dark corridor from the parking lot. I wagged my arm through the cracked door.
"Hey! Let me out! Heeeeyy!"
Pulaski County girls' basketball coach Rod Reedy came to investigate and asked who I was. I told him. He laughed and told the others that this was the second time I had been locked in.
I had a slightly less hair-raising experience last year after covering the Roanoke Valley District girls' basketball tournament. Reedy came to my rescue then, too.
I waited in the gym, embarrassed, but mostly relieved.
As I walked out of the building with Reedy, he advised me not to make this a habit, but if it ever happened again this was my exit.
Now you tell me.
Thanks, but no thanks, coach.
Chris Steuart covers sports for the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau.