Lost in the bando
Hector Dominguez I rip away the NO TRESPASSING tape on the hospital doors and slide past the poly-sheeting with the asbestos warning. A veil of dust coats my jacket and I wonder if I should have worn a mask. The perils here are no different from any other bando: crumbling staircases, mold-spotted ceilings, potential encounters with junkies. The odds of a resulting injury, assault, or arrest increase with every step. If I’d stood here five months ago, I would’ve kept near the streetlamp’s glow like a child to a night light, never stepped inside. But tonight, it provides what I need: eyes and mind on the present danger, not on the past and its what-could-have-beens. And so, I walk into the abandoned. * Slipping into bandos, subway tunnels, and construction sites at night has become a common occurrence, a hobby. Unknowingly I’ve stumbled into urban exploration (much later I’ll discover the Reddit threads). Urbexers, its practitioners, do it for myriad reasons: to tag walls and leave their mark; to rummage or photograph the ruin and decay; but for many, the draw lies in the adventure, the kick of adrenaline from breaking and entering the restricted spaces filled with unknown hazards. My reasons for urbexing are more nebulous (and they’ll remain this way until I interrogate them in the next decade), but I’ve done it enough to have settled on a process.