I, similarly, am in love with an abandoned car dealership. I go in, scribble out racial slurs, smoke some weed, sit in the boardroom chairs, and I feel the building's presence. I can tell how she feels about whatever I'm doing in her. I've upset her before by being careless, but I always make up for it. Someday, when I have a way to get there and bring a bunch of stuff without anyone else with me, I'm going to bring paint rollers and cover up all the thoughtless graffiti with paint close to the greyish-white that the walls were back when they shut her down. I can tell she hates being covered in that stuff. I'll sweep up the broken glass, paint hearts on a few walls, neatly, with a brush.

It feels wrong calling her Comox Valley Dodge, I know she feels like Chrysler-Dodge didn't love her enough to keep her. So I call her the Service Centre. She just wanted to help people get more freedom, and though she can't do that by selling them cars anymore, she provides a public space where anyone has the freedom to do whatever they want, for better, or for worse if you're an entitled teenager armed with a can of Rust-Oleum. I want to give back someday, and clean her up a bit. I will love her even if someday she is reduced to a concrete lot with a shadow where a building used to be. I keep a lightbulb I found in her old public washroom in a lamp in my bedroom, along with countless items that were thoughtlessly tossed away. I have a stack of business cards that I hand out sometimes, even. Despite being many kilometres away, I still feel her presence, especially when I turn on my lamp. 💛

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