He’d been a manager at the club - the first gay bar he ever visited, as an 18-year-old freshman. He thinks about those who were killed, many of whom he knew. They want nothing to do with the T-shirt kiosk, can’t bear the sun-bleached banners that promise, Siempre te Recordaremos.īut Brian Reagan pulls over and sits in his car.Ī temporary memorial wraps around the shuttered nightclub like a shrine. They avoid the alleys where they limped and hid and called friends’ phones left on the dance floor. Some who were there that night avoid the intersection, a mile south of Orlando’s steel-and-glass core, where cars whip by the Pro Tint shop and the Dunkin’ next door. Translucent sheets, bolted onto the building, shroud the bullet holes and craters blasted out of the concrete block. Behind the wall, the entryway waterfall runs. This is the story the city tells, of rainbows inked on signs, of bells rung at candlelit vigils, of #OrlandoStrong.
He makes a right turn onto South Orange Avenue, toward the stark black sign.Ī temporary wall curves around the club, billboard-high, with a photo montage. He drives past the blue hospital signs, past the dusty warehouse district where a museum is slated to rise. It’s past midnight, usually, when he leaves work and pulls off at the Kaley Street exit. ORLANDO - Some nights, on his long drive home, he conjures up reasons to see the nightclub again.
