Deconstructed

            The small brick building, that was once a corner bar, was demolished in less than half an hour. It had sat empty for an unknown number of years and the windows were all boarded up. Advertising flyers for music events and movies from three years ago that had been plastered on the boarded windows were now ripped and crumpled with the rest of the debris. The lot now seemed much larger with the building all in rubble. The small work crew that had torn the building down were taking a break before beginning to scoop the old bricks and splinters of wood and metal piping. They had a little bulldozer set to start collecting the broken corpse of the building. A place that stood still as time marched forward.

            It was a one story building in height, but I felt there were probably more stories in it. I wondered about the building’s first days. The day when everything inside and out was brand new. I can imagine the pride the builders must have felt seeing their concept go from a drawing to reality. It wasn’t a magnificent structure like the Taj Mahal, destined to stand for all eternity as a monument to a lost wife. It was just a regular work a day building designed to carry out the basics. It must have been something to open the door for the first time and feel the excitement of possibility; the first business owner feeling the pride in the achievement of a dream.

            I can only assume it was a corner bar based on its design from the outside. It just seems like it used to be a bar. I get that sense about it. It seemed that fell it on hard times. Maybe the long time owner fell ill and since he never had time for a wife or children to carry the business on, it had to close. Maybe there was a family that did run it and the father or mother refused to allow their children a life slinging beer and booze. Perhaps they sent them to med school or became professors and never looked back at their humble corner bar beginnings and they let the bar simply close.

            I can imagine long summer nights in this corner bar; the regular crowd joking and listening and laughing with each other. I imagine it only had a radio for entertainment during its early days. Days when men wore suits everywhere and women didn’t want to go there. Maybe they got a TV and hung it up in a corner and the customers were witness to the amazing events of the last century. Maybe folks saw the Moon landing in there, mourned the loss of the Kennedys or Dr. King. I can only wonder what loves were gained or lost within that old building’s confines.

            Now the building is a pile of rubble baking in the late Spring sun. The bulldozer starts up and there’s a tremendous squeal of metal scraping brick as the parts of once was are moved toward what will be. The old makes way for the new; it is the way of things. There’s something in me that mourns for the building. It’s like there was a silent voice with a story to tell that never had its chance. I don’t know how long the building was closed for. It may have been closed so long that no one remembers its name. A forgotten tombstone of a long gone era. So consider this its eulogy; it was.