Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
● A. Schopenhauer
Walking in, as ever, I peered up at the vast expanse of stone and carvings and height culminating in sky and experienced a slightly overwhelming sense of trespassing. Curious that so legendary a structure should allow vermin such as us unfettered ingress and egress.
Rome, my nickname for the building, seems to hum on show days. Only one today, but echoes and movement seems to bristle in the atmosphere. A young twentysomething of unknown origin slumped on the front stoop, peering about alertly tucked inside a black hoodie, chewing on the tassel and deliberately eluding my gaze. Two elder men inside clustered at the box office window, conversing with the attendant in smoke-hewn baritones obstructed by thick Wisconsin accents. Stagehands navigated the loading ramp on the west side of the building, ushering massive black parcels against gravity, their clothing puffed and rustled by the bullying eighty-five degree September interloper wind.
I have wasted too much of this blog yammering about myself; let’s explore the building. Such a day demands a visit to the roof.
People I don’t recognize mull around the Ballroom and for a while I loiter against the walls. Mental debating ensues but eventually I push myself out onto the floor and stride purposefully across it, ducking between table-and-chair setups and avoiding a newly-waxed portion.
Locating a doorway behind the stage and resolutely ignoring the “do not enter” sign, I thread my way up several flights of curved metal stairwell, the setting so cramped that I slouch involuntarily and unnecessarily. Previous passerby have encased the cement walls with graffiti: a dragonfly, a rather accurate rendition of Sylvester, nameless initials. Several flights recede completely into shadow and, as ever, I have forgotten a flashlight, but refuse to turn around. Two distinct spiderwebs, and likely several smaller ones, attempt to block my passage.
A doorway to the hulking dome of the Pantheon passes, multihued lights emitting a starchy electric glow at low grade. Then a passage to the curtain wires, propped ajar. Finally I encounter the doorway to the roof, warped into a locked position, and shove my entire length against it twice before popping through the doorway into a surge of sunlight and gauzy humidity. The view immediately seizes the breath and l almost forget to attend my foot positioning, lest I misstep and literally tumble off the side of the building.
Folding against the steep incline, I crest the main portion to position myself on the apex. By way of greeting it offers a rather spectacular view of the valley, the Domes, the stadium, and downtown, replete with a great many buildings I cannot identify, not having occupied this city for long. The thick wind tears my hair and whips my shirt and the heat loosens the tar, leaving the undersides of my hands caked with powdery black. Perched as an eagle, sitting cross-legged against the wind, I watch a train pull in to the valley.
Eventually I descend, and the universe tears in again with more gusts to the extent that I actually foresee a rather painful tumble, but force it not to materialize. Former frontiersmen have engraved their marking on the inside of the door. ALL STAR WEEKEND, with a lopsided heart below it. I saw dead animals here! Family Force Five. The Human Abstract 2008. I talked to a ghost up here. Almost drenched in a longing to remain, I haul the cement closed behind me; as one would the cover of a coffin, or a tomb. The corkscrew stairwell seems to contain a greater atmosphere of menace on the descent.
Returning to reality, I canter like a horse across the Ballroom’s expansive wooden dance floor, and my gait ricochets spectacularly in the massive, presumably deserted ballroom. Laughter ricochets in my wake.
