They’d left it empty too long.

And just like any abandoned building, pests started to move in.

First it was roaches, then rats, then something a bit more fiery: a dragon.

Honestly, what else did you expect to make its home in a giant steel and glass pyramid?

So there he was, sulking through the shadowy bowels, near the old concession stands, trying to find the thing’s roost.

Across his back was his only weapon: a replica of Gandolf’s sword, Glamdring. He’d bought it off eBay after a drunken Lord of the Rings marathon. Guns scared the heck out of him, and what else were you supposed to fight a dragon with?

Sadly, his friends were more than skeptical of this course of action.

They said things like, “You’ve been playing too much Dungeons and Dragons!”

Or, “Life’s not like the cover to a Dio record!”

And, “No way am I bailing you out when you get busted for trespassing.”

His girlfriend had really surprised him with that one.

But he knew what he saw, knew what was in here, and there was no way they were going to stop him.

After all, he’d always wanted to slay a dragon.

Memphis Note
The Pyramid was going to be a shot to the arm of the northern end of downtown Memphis, a foundation from which new economic growth could spring. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. In less than ten years after it opened, the city was planning another, bigger, arena within walking distance. Now, the Pyramid is being repurposed as a headquarters and retail space for Bass Pro Shops. But, hey, at least we can say we’ve got the sixth largest pyramid in the world.

“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.

Hernando de Soto hated it here. It wasn’t the heat, the humidity, or even the incessant buzzing of the mosquitoes in his ears.

It was the embarrassment this place ceaselessly heaped upon him.

Against the Incas far to the south, he’d acquitted himself like a proper conquistador, earning the glory to launch this expedition into the northern continent.

But these wilds were nothing like the south. The vicious natives attacked his host at every turn, tearing into its sides, stripping away more with each successive raid.

After that last battle, that holocaust, had taken over a third of his men and left sixty score natives dead at their feet, he feared returning to his ships on the coast without the gold he’d set out to find.

Now the greatest embarrassment of all stretched out before him. A churning river more a mile wide, mocking de Soto with every eddy and piece of flotsam that floated past.

Each day, as his men worked to build rafts for the crossing, all he could do was watch the sun climb and fall, turning the sky purple before disappearing below.

Then wait for the vibration of the hostile drums that would last the night.

Memphis Note
The place where Hernando de Soto crossed the Mississippi River was the fourth bluff, where Memphis would later be founded. Sadly, de Soto never found his gold. He died of a fever on the opposite side of the Mississippi a just over a year after crossing, never making it out of Arkansas.

We laughed when he started all of this. Said it was his SEAR Training. Like Army SERE – Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape – Training, he said. But modified to SEAR since he was going to break into the abandoned Sears Crosstown Building and thought he was being terribly clever.

We stopped laughing when we realized he was actually serious.

He spent all his time training in the yard. Sometimes he would say up all night, refusing to sleep. Have to be able to handle the dementia that comes from sleep deprivation, he’d say. Hobos sleep in there, we’d say in response. Then he’d swear at us and go back to his calisthenics.

We asked him why he wanted to do this, he told us he wanted to feel what the ancient explorers felt. When asked if he thought ancient explorers ever had to deal with standing urine, he threw his rucksack at us.

We only knew he went through with it when the cops brought him home. They’d arrested him trying to get in. A Vietnamese lady had seen him walking up Cleveland with his gear and called the cops, thinking he was a terrorist.

That’s when we started laughing again.

Memphis Note
The Sears Crosstown Building is the dominant feature of Midtown Memphis’s skyline. And one of the largest brick buildings in the nation. It is absolutely beautiful. Which makes the fact that it is abandoned a real shame.