The building was sixty years old, tall, once distinguished. But now, in the light of the winter moon, with shot out windows and a scarred, scribbled facade, it seemed a monument to decay. The base of the building, tattered, pockmarked, covered in filth and soot kicked up by passing cars, is decorated with the various, variegated colors of spraypaint signatures. There was a time, some thirty years ago, when the building had been an epicenter of booming industry and, to the townspeople, it had provided steady income, jobs, and economic abundance. It was a metal working factory which produced, among other things, bullet shells, munitions, weapons for the war. The world, during this era, was embroiled in a series of wars which had threatened the safety and well being of peoples across many continents and countries. So it was no surprise then that this enormous factory would prove integral to the nation's military effort. All of this changed however, once the wars had ended. Soon after, the building's owner and benefactor, Mr. Charles Bradley, had been killed in a freak boating accident while on vacation in the San Francisco Bay. They found him beside his idling boat, hurled against an iron buoy, dead, in a cheap robe, wearing a ridiculous white captain's cap and sandals. It didn't take long for scandal to stir. Rumors spread, of his involvement in classified intelligence trading, backdoor weapons distribution, embezzlement and other crimes generally regarded as treason. The factory was shut down; people lost their jobs, moved out. The town, bereft of the rushing flow of currency afforded to it by the building, had dried up and become dangerous and poor. Where once there were restaurants, fashionable boutiques and stores dedicated to luxury furnishings, there is nothing but boarded up windows, corner convenience stores, gutters lined with discarded beer bottles and trash.
Tonight, back at the old Bradley building, there is a light on. Inside, tucked away at the rear of the building, a thin, mustached man sweeps the floor. His name is Manuel Garcia. He is old, probably in his mid-fifties, wrinkled, with green eyes and big calloused hands. In his youth he fought in the war and was wounded, awarded a purple heart, and now he walks with a slight limp. His face is accentuated by a series of freckles beneath his left eye, and his high, hollow cheekbones give him the appearance always of sucking on hard candy. Tall, paper thin, with white curly hair, and owing to the slight bend stemming from the right side of his body, he looks like an old, upright mop. The broom he carries, when it is swept, and because of his thinness, seems more like a dance partner than a cleaning instrument. Hanging over his lips, his sparse moustache, long and dyed black, flutters like moth wings when he talks. A nervous tick he acquired during the war causes him, at times, when he is distressed, frustrsted, or fatigued, to curl his lips inward and blow out, producing a silent whistle which, flaring out his dark hairs like whiskers, gives him the appearance of a catfish. He swims across the floor, sweeping, dancing with the broom to some unsung song. Outside, blowing against the high wooden fence, the wind gently knocks. Manuel, pausing briefly, raises his head to listen for the crunch of rock under boot-heels, or the careful, cautious rummaging of a tresspassing raccoon.
Nothing.
Save for the dim glow of a hanging bulb swaying slowly overhead, and the white breath from Manuel's lips, the building is completely uninhabited and alone. Manuel, when he works, is usually accompanied by a small battery operated radio given to him by his niece Maria, but on this night he was specifically instructed not to play any music. Manuel wasn't supposed to be in the Bradley building. Nobody was. He was contacted by his nephew, Antonio; a charming, well-to-do youth of twenty-five who had commissioned Manuel to get the room in order. The room, as large as a symphony hall, is to be the venue for an underground party called a rave. It seemed strange to Manuel that a young man of Antonio's standing would want to host a dance party in an old unfrequented building, but for Antonio there was little he wouldn't do.
Manuel's younger sister, Gabriella, Antonio's mother, had become pregnant early in her adolescence and was cast out of the house by their father, Eduard. He was a proud, disciplined man of unwavering principle who, having himself served in the military, revered order above all else; fiercely opposing even the slightest disobedience. When she was found out he'd called her all sorts of horrible things, a harlot and a whore; told her never to show herself at home again. Should she return, he said, she would be greeted by boxed ears. Gabriella, now that she had been disowned and made to leave, moved in with her then lover, Raul, and never returned. Raul lived on the other side of town and, because of his devoutly Catholic upbringing, insisted that she take up residence with him. Despite what her father thought, Raul was a decent man. He was a devoted husand and laborer for a construction company in a neighboring county. He died on a construction site just after Antonio was born. He'd fallen through an improperly fastened floorboard placed over a thirty-foot drop and was immediately impaled. A wrongful death suit was claimed, at the behest of a family friend, but after a long, drawn out court battle, it was decided no one was at fault for negligence. Gabriella's mother and father did not attend the funeral. Manuel had remained close with his sister during her brief marriage and, hearing the news, had done all that he could to help support her. He gave her money, paid for Antonio’s clothes, minded the boy while his sister was away.
Antonio, when Manuel had returned home from the war, was already a boy of ten. With a childlike gaiety he would run from window to window laughing and giggling, hiding his face from the imaginary enemy soldiers that had them outnumbered and surrounded. He would beg Manuel to tell him stories of the war; of how the good guys win and the bad guys lose. At night, Manuel would go to him, armed with a storybook and a glass of warm milk, prepared to sit for an hour and read until the boy fell asleep.
Once more Manuel hears the wind banging a tree’s branches onto the wooden fence. Once more he raises his head.
After a moment's pause, his moth-winged mustache flutters as he exhales. The broom slides over the floor and a series of soft shushes console a haggard old pile rubble; of broken sheet rock, crumpled beer cans, small emptied metal cartridges; all shivering and forgotten, lonely, obsolete and buried by a slow falling blanket of dust.
