west by northwest (by midwest)

When I was ten or eleven, my father jackhammered an indoors moat around the perimeter of our basement.  It was, he said, the only way to stop flood waters from destroying the foundations of the house.  My mother, sister, and I peered around the top of the staircase, watching as he swept chunks of the concrete floor into neat piles.  Everything - his overalls, his boots, the walls - was coated in white powder that smelled and felt like mildewed doilies.  If I opened my mouth, I could taste it, too: the inside of an aerosol hairspray can, or maybe the chipped paint of a metal stair rail.

The basement had always been off limits to friends and visitors, a source of shame because the exposed pipes and moldy walls revealed the family’s dire financial straits. My father was a construction worker and electrician, and in those years, often laid off or unemployed.  He sometimes traveled for work, sharing hotel rooms with other men on the crew and mailing home money. Now the basement was a war zone, and my father dug his own trench.

Maybe this is why I seek out spaces like this, a basement garage in downtown Salt Lake City.  The crumbling pavement and rusted support beams feel honest, and so do I.