The Theatre (allegedly)

I had asked Alex to meet me out front of the old building.

Such a badass, old place.

Some weird old office/theatre space, about three stories high.

On several occasions (allegedly), my friends and I would sneak in and have a look around. Usually blasted out of our minds, which in turn gave us the courage and strength to climb drainage pipes, up a story and a half, onto old rusted fire escapes which would take us onto a decrepit roof, where pigeons would make sudden moves and scare the shit out of us in the pitch dark night.

This most commonly occurred on evenings where the streetlights were blurry and seemed to be more drunk than we were.

As I walked towards where it was, I noticed that I could not spot the old awning that hung outside; the building’s beacon for those passing by on foot.

I remember (allegedly) one of our first trips into the musty old bitch. We walked right in the front door. Someone had broken in, or gone for the night but had left the front door wide open. Upon entering I remember coming upon an old hiking backpack, through which I immediately began to dig. Fishing a gloved hand, very slowly through the pack as not to cut or prick my finger on anything gross.

Which might as well serve me right for going through some random transient’s knapsack, honestly.

In it I found writings, done on the back of years old faxes, addressed to city politicians. Someone was proposing a plan to tear down the old awning outside, as it was a hazard due to its age and elements of weather such as falling water, ice and snow. They wanted to clean up the whole building, rework and repurpose it for good. The writer detested the amounts of syringes he found on his passings through the building. Decent arguments, all to be held accountable by the owner of these documents, as long as the city handed over the building to them.

I took the letter.

I took an empty notebook.

I took a piece of art done with broken glass and an old parking sign from the club that burned down next door.

I stole someone’s shit. (allegedly)

I think back on that sometimes and feel kind of bad about it.

I guess I wasn’t really thinking about it then, I just liked the things I found.

I was thinking they must have finally removed the old awning, probably a good idea really, before it fell and crushed some nice people coming back from the Rolex store at City Creek.

But then I noticed an orange porta-john.

Then some chain link fence, orange cones and what looked like the arm of a large excavator.

 The very last time I went it there, I was with three other friends. (allegedly)

And as we descended into the building on a service ladder we found on the roof and made our way down. We explored and took our time. Making our way down into the basement, I led the way with the light on my phone and my battery at 20%.

We followed red smears on the walls and floors for a while.

Honest to God we found someone sleeping in there. He was still warm, but too hammered, stoned, tweaking, whatever to even bother with 4 drunk assholes stomping around the place at 2am.

We consider moving in too. Why pay rent when it’s so damn easy to get in here anyway?

I remember after we left I checked my hip for my knife and found that it wasn’t in its sheath.

The Buck 103 my old man found 20 years ago working road maintenance in Vermont, tucked away in some grader. Covered in rust and grime, my dad had polished it up and worked the snags out of the blade and put it away in some box. Until about 26 years later when I mentioned I happened to be looking for that exact knife but couldn’t find a good price.

So of course, the musty bitch ate it up.

Suppose that might be karma for the things I took so many months before.

Truthfully, my heart sank.

The old building is no longer there.

I began walking the perimeter of the fence, looking at the piles of rubble.

I want to be mad at someone, but who can I blame for deciding that an old building needed to come down?

It was an old, nasty place. Flooded and boarded up long ago.

Forgotten and left alone while the city around it sprung up like cheat grass.

It was it’s time I suppose.

I burn one down in loving memory and flick my crutch into the twisted beams and brick.

And dammit, I really hope that my knife is in all that shit and not some bums backpack.