The Disillusionists cont'd...

"So where are we going now?" I asked May as we rolled along in her car.

"Oh," she thought for a second or two, "we don't have to meet Mike until later. I was so excited about getting started I didn't really think... He said something about picking up supplies but that's about it."

"You want to go check out a building? For old times sake?"

"Okay."

I sat forward in the seat and pointed through the windshield to the left, "Turn here and go down a couple of blocks... There's a place I found when I was a kid but I don't think it ever turned up when we were working together. I think you'll like it."

"Oh goody-goody..."

It was funny to be back in the old mode with her again after all this time. We had only really worked together for a few months but still... "Remember they tried to incorporate a walking tour into the project? About three people showed up and complained mostly about the lack of facilities."

I had to interupt her to point out some more directions, "Sorry, uh, take another right up ahead and we should just about be able to see it... Now."

Behind a tall fence stood a huge brick barn-like structure. The main building was a distillery built in 1865, at one end stood a massive smokestack with old pipes and covered walkways jutted everywhere. It stood windowless and ashamed, a dozen gabled openings lined along the top. They were originally used to control temperature, to keep the structure at a fairly consistent humidity and the building was oriented to the west, to provide the most protection from the sun as it transited the sky - or so I have read. The escaping hot air would suck with it damp coolness from the basement and keep the indoor temperature steady in the summer. In the winter, massive coal-fired boilers from an adjacent building breathed hot steam into a maze of pipework, warming the sweet distillate and rosing the cheeks of contented labourers - busy about their task.

"Do you want to go inside?"

I didn't have time to answer before May had squeezed through the chained and padlocked gates. The place was deserted. It was a mystery why it wasn't already converted into condos. All of the original fixtures and equipment had long since been melted down, converted into manhole covers or ship's hulls. The cavenous space echoed with our shreiks and laughter. Around the walls facing us were walkways, some old, some newer which must have given access to long since gone kettles where rye whisky once cooked. Barrel storage and hoppers full of grain must have been in the out buildings and were connected to this main area through the pipes and walkways outside. There was a musty smell in the air and I looked for any artifact I could take home with me, as I always did on these very special occasions. May had gotten ahead of me and was climbing up a ladder to the roof. There was an inch of greasy dust on each rung as I followed. At the top she pushed open a shutter and we could feel the rush of the warm air outside. We could see all the way to the coast.