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Saying Goodbye
May. 31st, 2004 07:11 pmThere's this bar called Guys and Dolls that I pass every day when I take my son to preschool. It's definitely a dive, the kind of place I hadn't even noticed before it closed down. However, even if I had noticed it, it's not a place I would have ever stopped by for a drink. It's that...seedy.
I finally did notice it because now every inch is covered, either spray painted or written over in marker. On a white wooden door, scrawled legibly in cursive in black Sharpee, it says "LAST CALL PARTY, May 18th, 7pm." Now, weeks later, other graffiti remains and tells me the rest of their story.
"I 'heart' THIS BAR!" "Nancy and the Natives" "Nancy's Bar." "We will miss this place!" "We love you, Nancy!" "Happy Birthday DeeDee!" "DeeDee's Birthday '70!!" (I amuse myself with this last one. Was she born in 1970? Or did Guys and Dolls cater to the septagenarian crowd?)
But those are just the lines I can read from my car as I drive by. There are many, many other words, and perhaps drawings, that I can't read. En masse, they're like an ornate piece of lingerie designed to cover up any naked wall space. And all the graffiti, all the signatures, crowded over the concrete block of this tiny grunge-y shack, attest to one simple fact: the place was loved. Simply, heartfelt-ly.
I drive by it and my heart aches, from the realization that these people no longer have this 'home' to cling to, from the visible reminder that there are people who would actually have this tiny decrepit building as their touchstone to hang on to, and from the self-pitying notion that I don't know if I'll ever be loved as deeply as that old bar was, still is.
However, I've got to give them credit. I look at those walls and realize two things:
1) The patrons of Guys and Dolls sure knew how to throw one hell of a last party.
2) At times, despite our best intentions, we end up celebrating both the loving and the leaving. The graffiti writers knew both how to love and how to say goodbye. Sometimes it's the same thing.
A+
I finally did notice it because now every inch is covered, either spray painted or written over in marker. On a white wooden door, scrawled legibly in cursive in black Sharpee, it says "LAST CALL PARTY, May 18th, 7pm." Now, weeks later, other graffiti remains and tells me the rest of their story.
"I 'heart' THIS BAR!" "Nancy and the Natives" "Nancy's Bar." "We will miss this place!" "We love you, Nancy!" "Happy Birthday DeeDee!" "DeeDee's Birthday '70!!" (I amuse myself with this last one. Was she born in 1970? Or did Guys and Dolls cater to the septagenarian crowd?)
But those are just the lines I can read from my car as I drive by. There are many, many other words, and perhaps drawings, that I can't read. En masse, they're like an ornate piece of lingerie designed to cover up any naked wall space. And all the graffiti, all the signatures, crowded over the concrete block of this tiny grunge-y shack, attest to one simple fact: the place was loved. Simply, heartfelt-ly.
I drive by it and my heart aches, from the realization that these people no longer have this 'home' to cling to, from the visible reminder that there are people who would actually have this tiny decrepit building as their touchstone to hang on to, and from the self-pitying notion that I don't know if I'll ever be loved as deeply as that old bar was, still is.
However, I've got to give them credit. I look at those walls and realize two things:
1) The patrons of Guys and Dolls sure knew how to throw one hell of a last party.
2) At times, despite our best intentions, we end up celebrating both the loving and the leaving. The graffiti writers knew both how to love and how to say goodbye. Sometimes it's the same thing.
A+
