My kitty made an almost full recovery. $500 and 4 days later, they let him come home. He'll have to be on special kidney food for the rest of his life, but thankfully he likes it. He's energized, he's happy, and it warms my heart to see him running and playing.
Ready for the bad?
Before I left for my trip, I tagged the El Rey. I guess it was sort of a tradition, former employees leaving little calling cards. They seem to be all over the premise of the (former) bar and the theater. Under the stack of letter C’s for the marquee in the theater’s utility closet, I wrote, “Someday it will be your theater too.”
When I first starting working there, Kathy told me that same sentence. I remember feeling uneasy about it, wondering if I could hang out in that place long enough to call it my own. But somewhere in the last 3 years, between Ska Prom and inventory, it did become my theater.
I’ve spent more time in that building in the last year than I have anywhere else. It wasn’t just my theater, it was my home. So, standing in front of it Thursday morning, watching black smoke fold out in front of me, was quite possibly the single most heart-breaking thing I have witnessed.
You can't do anything, you just have watch it wash out into the streets; 3 years of your work, 3 years of your life. I stood outside of what was the Golden West for 7 hours, completely helpless, completely useless, occasionally breaking into tears, and hoping for just some kind of decent news. Just some sign that there was something good in all of that. Really, I would have taken anything. No one was hurt. I needed to remember that.
The Golden West on the other hand, is completely gutted. When I say that, I mean gone. The only thing left standing is the front wall and the beer cooler (of course…). It looks like a sound stage, a movie set. Once the smoke settled, it was just like a completely different dream. By far, the most surreal day of my life. How can a structure like that, with so much in it, so much to it, just vanish? And that’s literally what it did. You’re all breathing it in right now.
But, the old girl, the 80 year old lady, did exactly what she was supposed to do. She contained herself. For the most part. The Launchpad shares our wall, which is why there was damage to it. It looks like most of their damage happened when the roof caved, pulling some of the wall with it. The rest of their damage is water and smoke. The El Rey is almost perfect, minus basement flooding and and some smoke damage in the lobby. The Golden West protected her babies like a champ. I couldn't help but feel a little swell of pride, as silly as it sounds.
Where I am right now, I'm trying to make sense of it all.
It's pure tragedy. It's no one's fault, just a gaping loss. I don’t think I’ve ever processed something like this. This weekend, I just felt devastated, but completely numb all at the same time. I am coming to terms, with each walk-through I do, each beer I have with Daniel. It’s just… not there yet. I keep trying to rack my brain, thinking of all the amazing things that have happened in the old girl. But, the memories aren’t coming. I think I’ve somehow managed to block them out.
But something amazing happened Sunday. For the first time in all of this, I started finding the comedy in this, letting myself laugh about it.
That makes it feel a lot better.
There's lots more photos here. And more to come.
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