At first glance, from the Pier One parking lot, the building looked the same, the red roof reflecting glare in the low sun of late autumn. It didn’t take long to see that the red brick walls had yawning holes, as if some superhero had rammed through, leaving jagged-tooth edges around equipment-sized openings. The windows, now sprayed black and framed by the beige metal window shutters, some askew, all led me to believe that the manager locked the door of the Pizza Hut and left the business to another purpose.
I watched the deconstruction from the parking lot of the adjacent Pier One, as if I was in some kind of drive in movie about a natural disaster.
The red aluminum roof was peeled off in striations, like string cheese. Areas of missing roof exposed shredded plywood below and a portion of a rafter. On the other side, a Bobcat purred blue smoke as it crushed Formica tables and Naugahyde seats with its yellow shovelhead. The roof rafters were all exposed above, like a beached and long-dead whale, the ribs ending in a grand and firm dorsal fin. Laid at its asphalt beach was flotsam at of T-111 siding, glass, wrenched metal studs, and bricks, whole and broken.
The signpost was missing its backlit sign that had just the week prior sung out “$11.99 two pizzas, loaded, Mondays.”
This was Pizza Hut, here circa 1979, – cloned in thousands and fitted to gaga strips all over the country. Never meant to last, but more a product of our throw-away society, this building no different than the white pizza boxes, waxed paper wrappers and plastic coated soda cups that propagate lodged in the chain link fence in the weed filled strip between the black ground of Pier One and that of Pizza Hut.
You would think that some competing junk food joint would want that building – change the signs, the logo, the menu board, the special of the week, and you’re in business – especially so close to the university and traffic. But no, it was being dismantled, de-constructed, taken apart piece by piece, (only because they have to), sorted for the landfill by material type, no apparent salvage. These materials were probably mined, chemically composed, and forested less than a score ago and now to the ground they return.
What will replace this fast food icon? Maybe it was poor marketing. Was it on the wrong side of Forest Avenue – inbound? No commuter wants breakfast pizza, no matter how cheap the special. Perhaps it will be cleared for more parking, more asphalt, or maybe it will just blur and fold into the present landscape of commercialism with no one else silly enough to care what it looks like, acts like, or becomes.
Perhaps I’m the only one who has taken time to ponder this “progress,” to stop and wonder what this deconstruction benefits and what it heralds. You see, even I would have sped by, hurrying to home, wondering why the traffic is so heavy at 4 pm, when can I change lanes, will the lights stay green with me. Ironically, I wouldn’t have even been sitting in the Pier One Imports parking lot if my baby hadn’t fallen asleep on the ride home, and my partner proposed to shop while I kept the car running to let her sleep.
I sit here, with my baby sleeping in her car seat, wondering what it would be like if we built as if every brick really mattered, as if every structure we built was filled with unique pride of materials and craftsmanship. Wondering if that’s just too much to ask in a world where speed, bottom dollar, and convenience are paramount.
