Robbie and I had talked about "the shop" for years. Everyone did. It had stood there, empty, since before I was born. At least, I think it had. Robbie thinks it might have closed down just a few years ago, when we were still in grade school. And he says that he might have seen the inside once when it was still open. He remembers there being lots of people wearing hard hats and goggles, moving big pieces of metal around, sparks flying from welding rigs, and a lot of cursing and music. He remembers seeing a picture of a naked woman tacked to the peg board on someone's workbench, and his dad pulling him away before he could get a really good look.
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We were in the hole. It's what we called the stairwell on the far side of the gym, on the visitor's side.
The gym hadn't originally been a gym, but was supposed to be a swimming pool. When the funding for the school's swimming program was cut, there were last minute changes to the design. The result was a basketball court with high walls on either side, and seating high up. It made for a funny looking gym, and it created four stairwells that were essentially little rooms without ceilings. The hole was one of these.
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