The Walls Come Tumbling Down
Even so, they remember.
Late morning, Thursday, June 25, 2015. I am just stepping off the curb to cross a street on the way to the post office when I see it…and come to an abrupt halt. Transfixed, I watch for several minutes.
A monster of metal, a modern-day T. Rex, grabs a mouthful of the 88-year-old apartment building, chews it up, swivels left, spits the morsels onto a growing pile of razed ruins, then swivels back for another bite. And another. And another. And yet another. As the worn and dingy building disappears bit by bit from back to front, door frames, window panes, bathtubs, toilets, wooden chairs, slabs of stucco, and weathered timbers – twisted, broken, crumpled – rain onto rubble pile of tenant dreams. And, bit by bit, green trees and blue sky come into view beyond.
A tiny human – tiny next to the T. Rex – hoses down the voracious beast’s iron neck, bulging yellow head, and gaping girder-grinding maw, striving in vain to keep dust down. Yet, wisps of ghostly stories swirl in the wind and rise, searching whither next they might alight:
A chubby child’s face peers through shattering windowpanes at friends in the yard below passing around a soccer ball from knee to knee.
An aproned woman, long locks up in a bun, stands at her collapsing kitchen counter, preparing arroz, refritos, and carne asada for her family’s evening meal.
Another woman, on her knees, beads of sweat streaming off her face, scrubs clothes in a crumbled bathtub and hangs them over a bent and broken bannister to dry.
A short, dark-haired man with weathered face, tool belt hanging ‘round his waist, emerges from a twisted, dangling door in need of paint to join compadres chatting on the front lawn while waiting for a pick-up to arrive and drive them to wherever it is a job awaits.
This building stands around the corner from my apartment. I used to see these people every day as I’d walk by. Then one day, about four years ago, they were gone. Just…gone. The next day, sheets of plywood sealed the ground floor windows and construction fencing kept the world away. And ever since there it has sat. Until today, when the vapors of lives in the walls’ embrace are themselves evicted.
The city’s 2006 historical review, the basis for the demolition permit, concluded that the building met none of the state’s four criteria for historical preservation. For one of those criteria, the report found that no one of “any importance in local, regional, state, or national history” was “directly associated” with the property.
I have to wonder: who defines what or who is important in history?
Anyway, all things are impermanent, time trudges on – and so must I. Taking three deep breaths, I look beyond to green trees and blue sky coming into view, cross the street toward the post office, and turn my mind to the mail that may be waiting for me there.