“From here on in, you’ll need your light. And you should put the mask on, too.” He said before slipping into the mouth of the man-made cavern.

“Ugh,” she shuddered. “Have I ever told you you take me to the nicest places?” She slipped her filtration mask down over her mouth, thumbed her flashlight on, and followed him in. “Because that would be a lie. An utter and complete lie.”

“Hey, you’re the one that said you wanted to do something outdoors, but couldn’t take the Memphis heat.” Came his response from farther in.

Inside, the air temperature dropped considerably. The only light came from the holes in the sewer covers above her head, the only sound was their footsteps and the slow trickle of moving water. She flashed her lights across the brick and mortar work, amazed it was still holding together after all these years.

“The Gayoso Bayou’s probably the oldest thing in the city.” He was leaning against the curved wall, waiting on her to catch up. “This used to open to the air, but as the city grew out, they enclosed it, turned it into a sewer.

“Welcome to the Memphis underworld. Let’s go explore.”

Memphis Note
The Gayoso Bayou was originally an open-air drainage stream that emptied out into one of the many sections of the Wolf River. It was a source of water for early Memphis, and as a natural sewer. It formed a natural eastern boundary for the city, but as the population grew, it was enclosed into a proper sewer in the years after the Civil War. Now, it is nearly five miles of artificial cave running under the heart of Memphis.

On their evening walk, they passed the half-demolished bones of the hundred year old church at the end of their street. She stopped, looking at it with a frown.

“What an absolute waste,” she said. “Might as well tear down everything old and great in this city.”

“Oh come on,” her husband scoffed. “It was an abandoned building used by drug addicts as a place to sleep and shoot up. I won’t miss it a bit.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “It was part of our legacy. It told us where we came from, what we could be. We lose a piece of history when it goes.”

“Greatness? Legacy? History? C’mon! In this economy the only thing that matters is jobs. Jobs get people fed, put roofs over their heads. Empty buildings don’t make jobs.”

“You’re right, they don’t. But they might just be better than the alternative.”

She resumed their walk, not bothering to wait for him.

“Alternative?” He called after her. “What are they putting there?”

“A twenty-four hour gas station. The kind with the blinding lights and blaring music.”

That stopped him in his tracks. “History at least had the decency to be quiet.”

Memphis Note
Right now there is an on-going battle between the historic preservation people and commercial developers. One side wants to protect our history legacy for years to come, the other wants to create something new and alive out of something old and dead. Both are right in some ways, both are wrong in others. Me? I’ve always wondered why no one ever tried encouraging people to move into a space as vehemently as they tried to protect it or tear it down.