My abandoned building story

[sonic1988]

I had to write a dramatic essay for applying to NYU(new york university) It had to be a true story that happened to you. I actually got rejected from NYU(low SAT score) but I'm proud of this story I did, and the thing is that it is totally true.

note: all the boxes are quotes for when someone says something.

Alan A.- Dramatic essay

The Building

Well, like all days before school begins this one started that same way. It was the Wednesday before the first day of class, and everyone was trying to hang out as much as possible. I called up my friend Kairo at about 2:30 in the afternoon. “Yo, Kairo, what are you doing today?” “Well, my place is free so you want to come over?” “Sure.” I said. The both of us hung up and I went upstairs to Kairo’s apartment. We played videogames for a few hours until about 5:00. At this point Kairo’s cousin Guy was over playing videogames as well. “You guys want to go to the basketball court?” I asked. After some pondering and discussion, we all agreed to go to the court. We walked down the street and entered the court. It was part of a public school that was next door. It had paintings all over its walls, either done by the kids or the graffiti artists of yesteryear; the ground was uneven so the ball would fly off in a certain direction at times. Nevertheless we had fun. After a few hours it started to get dark, we then headed to the KFC on the corner. This was a sight that was just sad, there were druggies outside throwing stuff all around, the lights for the driveway were shooting out sparks because the lights couldn’t work, people were yelling curses at each other in the parking space, and God knows what else was going on. The three of us filtered our way through this and went inside. We were greeted by the kindness of the air conditioner. After ordering our meals and stuffing our faces with chicken we headed out again. Thankfully the manager was very strong and looked it, so he got rid of all the people outside.

We were heading up the street and saw what we referred to as “The Castle.” Guy said “You guys want to go in there tonight?” Kairo said “Hell yeah!” I said “Sure, but only if no one backs down.” We returned to Kairo’s place where we got a flashlight and waited for dark. During our wait Kairo’s brother was there “What’s up Chad?” I said. We shook hands and I continued “We’re going to ‘The Castle’ tonight, you want to come?” “No way!” He exclaimed. “Why?” I questioned his motives because when Kario does something he usually follows. “I’m not getting arrested.” He said somewhat defensively. “Your not going to get arrested, the cops won’t care about you going into an abandoned building” Guy said. “That’s true,” Kairo and I said in unison. Chad wouldn’t budge, so when it became darker we departed for “the Castle.” We walked right in front of the building and we looked around to make sure nobody was looking and we all went under the fence. Inside it was like an outdoor museum, there were overgrown plants and bushes, windows with air conditioners that looked like they were purchased when air conditioners were invented, and we also discovered that there was an apartment building next door that was also abandoned. The three of us walked around the grounds “Damn it!” I whispered loudly “Everything is boarded up!” “Yeah,” Kairo said with little emotion, in fact sounding relieved. After wandering around for some time, we came across an abandoned car. It looked like it walked out of an action movie after a chase scene, with broken glass inside from the broken windows, no wheels, and a cracked windshield. “Shine the light in there.” Guy said as he pointed to the back of the car. Kairo did and among the glass we found a club and some electrical tape. We continued to look around and we discovered that no only were the windows boarded up, but almost all of them had cement on top of that. We were all looking for a window to just crack open, to explore and satisfy our curiosity. We were in the back observing graffiti, the real thing, not that crap you see today. This was real; it had colors, shapes, and looked like it took a lot longer than 20 seconds. “Damn, that car is the most interesting thing we have found so far.” Kairo replied. “Word” Guy stated in agreement. We continued on our way to the front of the building, where we found a window without cement on it.

“Look, there is just wood on it.” Guy said in amazement. “Yes!” I said in a loud whisper. After practically hugging each other for finding this window, I ended up changing the mood by saying “How are we going to remove the wood without anyone looking?” We all turned around to see that this window was facing the street where some medical center was located across the street. After we all thought about it we came to the decision that one of us would be lookout while the other two worked at getting the window open. Kairo was the first to be lookout, which meant that Guy and I would be working on the window. Guy and I made our way through the bush that was in front of the window and we went to work.

I now had the flashlight and Guy had the club, we looked around the edges of the wood panel for some gap where we could stick the club into and remove the wood. There was a small gap on the left side of the window and Guy went to work, while I was holding the flashlight. It took a while to get the club in a good spot; the club kept slipping and at one point Guy nearly hurt himself trying to pry off the wood panel. After some work he got leverage and we ran into another problem “Damn!” Guy whispered “They used screws on this.” Kairo turned around and said “What?” I then looked at Kairo and snapped, “Don’t worry.” at him. I turned back to Guy and I said, “Look, it will still come off since we already got it this loose.” “True.” Guy said. After about 10 minutes we finally removed half of one side of the wood panel. “Yes.” I said “Good job, man.” “Thanks.” Guy said, I swear, he deserved applause for that one. We weren’t in the clear yet, we still had the other half. Since the wood panel connected to another one that would be extremely difficult to remove and noisy to boot—“Duck!” Kairo said in a loud whisper. We all crouched down and looked toward the street; there was a nurse wheeling someone into the medical center. We waited until she got inside and we got up again. We all looked for a second more and we continued with our duties. After a little bit of pondering I said, “I gotta go pee.” I then exited the bush and went to the nearest corner. When I returned, Kairo and Guy were working on the panel and Guy said, “Get ready to run!” I looked around and Kairo and Guy were about to break the board in front of the window. “CRACK!” the wood said, but thanks to the echo it was more like a “BOOM!” we all ran as fast as we could to the back of the building where we all collected and caught our breath.

We traveled slowly back to the window and thankfully nobody was looking around. We all resumed our duties with Guy and Kairo at the window, and I’m the lookout. While I was looking around Kairo and Guy were contemplating how to break the glass in order to get inside. “Just hit it with the club.” Kairo whispered to Guy “No, man you gotta just tap it so it won’t make any noise.” Guy whispered back “Look; you just tap it with the club, then the glass will crack, then you can hit it again and it will break without any noise.” Kairo was thinking about another way to approach the problem. Mainly our only problem was—“Duck!” I said and we all hit the floor again. It was the same nurse from before. Now she was taking that guy in the wheelchair back to the van. “I hope this won’t take long.” I whispered to Kairo “Word.” Kairo said. The van’s ramp came out and brought the man up inside and then the door shut. Kairo got up and then Guy quickly pulled him down by his shirt. Kairo was lucky because the nurse didn’t leave with the man; she stood outside the center and smoked a cigarette for a while. She finally finished and she went inside. The three of us got up and out knees cracked in unison. Then we all went back to business as usual. “Look Kairo,” Guy said, “You have to tap it ever-so-gently”— “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said in my loudest and angriest whisper “just tape up the window and hit it so it won’t shatter!” “Oh yeah, the tape.” Guy said. He pulled it out of his pocket and the two of them started to tape up the window, about two minutes later they were done and Kairo said, “Let me try something.” He then wrapped his shirt around his elbow and hit the window “Ah, goddamn it!” he practically yelled in pain. Guy quickly covered his mouth and said “Calm down, calm down!” Kairo then took a deep breath and was calm again. I continued to look towards the street while Guy and Kairo worked behind me.

I looked back and there was Kairo looking like Gary Sheffield about to slap one into the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. I started to run right away! “BAM!” The glass shattered and Kairo and Guy ducked and I ran behind the car. We all were just waiting, waiting for something; we all knew that someone heard that, all we needed were the police sirens to come into earshot. Due to the distance of the window and the car Guy used the flashlight to signal to me to come back, I came over with my knees shaking, like a child in their first school play. Then Kairo and Guy were clearing away the glass. There were shards of it as big as your head. Kairo was throwing them on the ground and I said “Gently, man. We don’t need any more noise.” Kairo did so and the two continued to clear away the glass. I bent over to tie my shoe and Guy said, “Almost done!” I finished with my shoelace and I looked to my left side. Fear came over my face in slow motion, I started to tremble and then shake, I started to run while still crouched. There were two buff guys within 10 feet of us. “Run.” I said to Guy and Kairo “What Kairo said?” “GO!” I yelled and we all started to run! I got about 10 feet when I vine tripped me up! I fell down faster than I had ever before in my life, but getting up was slower than ever before. It was a return to slow motion. I picked my head up and I noticed that my glasses were crooked horribly to one side “Oh, no! My new glasses! What am I going to do? I have to get away! I can’t just lie here and have God-knows-what happen to me! Come on Alan get up! Get up! GET UP!” I was in the middle of getting up when Guy fell on top of me and slid in front of me. I was now almost up when out of nowhere Kairo fell on top of both of us. We all then got up and it was back to adrenaline time. We all ran down and turned right to get to the back of the building. “You’re not gonna get away from me!” One of the men said, “Where are you goin’” the other man said. We all ran into the bushes and vines in the back of the building and we waited for a hot minute and then made our way to the front of the building. We went under the gate and ran to the pizza place nearby.

We ordered 3 slices and discussed what happened. “Man Kairo,” I said “I thought you had jumped over the both of us and your slow ass fell on top of us like, 10 seconds after when we fell!” “Well, sorry man” Kairo said “but you had to trip over the vine like a moron!” Guy then said “It doesn’t matter anymore we got away.” “True.” I said “My apologies, Kairo.” Kairo nodded and we continued to chat about the event. Guy said “Damn, we were so close and then those three guys had to—“three guys?” I said. “I saw two!” “I saw four!” Kairo said. We all paused and looked at each other with wide eyes in amazement at what we were saying. The slices were done and we all ate up. We then relaxed and exited the pizza place. Guy said, “Well, I’m this way. I’ll see ya’ll next time.” Kairo then said “Yo, next week we go back!” We all looked at each other trying to predict what the other would say, and then we all said “Hell yeah!” The three of us shook hands and called it a night.

Edited January 15, 2006 by sonic1988

[Lerkot]

Cant read it.. wont survive without some more space, but sounds interesting. Exploring abandoned buildings is a growing interest, the fans call it "Urban Exploration"

[Guest VAsFinestRenagade]

the fans call it "Urban Exploration"

shut up you dont know wat you is talkin about nice story by the way Sonic

[sonic1988]

thanks VAsFinestRenagade

Cant read it.. wont survive without some more space,

:hmm:

Edited January 13, 2006 by sonic1988

[Guest VAsFinestRenagade]

i gotta say this lerk stop talkin ok we cant understand you, you never have anything nice to say about America which i could talk bout everyone elses country but i aint because i dont do that to ppl

[Jonny 5]

Renagade - :1-sigh: stop stirring stuff up, we love Lerk!

I think he meant you might wanna put spaces between paragraphs, to make it easier to read...

[thePrince]

i could talk bout everyone elses country but i aint because i dont do that to ppl

Yes you do. You spent your time dissing other countries over on WillsBoard. Don't try and start crap on this site too, especially not with members that have respect and leverage as a fan. Drop the act.

Nice work though Alan. :2thumbs:

[Guest VAsFinestRenagade]

that is because you B_W and G-Unot where dissin America wat am i suppose to do sit back and let them diss me oh yes then you started to diss VA show respect to me and i show respect for you see i aint startin stuff i am jus statin my opinion and i was done till you brought it back you so end of that disscusion and back on the wonderful interestin story Sonic wrote

So how did you come up wit the idea of it

[Lerkot]

Yeah thats what I meant Jonny.. My screen is pretty bad so my eyes get annoyed when there aint not spaces in the texts.. If you know what I mean.

And yeah that Urban Exploration thing was deep hard and terrible critisism against America. Really man, you tell me to shut up... why? It wasnt like I said that Urban Exploration is a bad thing, I love it and thats why I know something about it. Urban Exploration is great fun and a good way to get to know your city better than anyone else does.

Now, how is that critisism against USA? Lets see, I'm gonna try to find out how you think.

- Sonic is a hardcore fan of urban exploration, and you know he will be very disappointed if I tell him what "visiting abandoned buildings" is said with other words. And since he is from America, thats clearly HATING on your country.

- You think Urban Exploration is a bad thing, or a ugly word or something, "I visited some abandonded house", "ah urban exploration", "SHUT THE **** UP MAN THATS SICK! WIERDO!". And since you thought it was a bad word or something, when I said it to sonic, who's american, you reacted and thought "ahh thats hating on America again".

Another alternative.

- You thought like this, "oh MAN, I dont have a clue what he is talking about since he doesnt use my bad mannered fake-thug words, so I'll just tell him to shut up cause no-one is allowed to step above that level!".

My theory is that you knew that you didnt understand what I said. Some people would have asked "what do you mean?". Some people would have been quiet and just nodded, thinking like, "yeah interesting I'm opening notepad and writing it all down so I can read it everyday before I go to school and before I go to sleep. Words that I can base my life on. No, haha, I dont care". You said "shut up" instead. Im impressed.

And yes, Im annoyed and got better things to do.

Edited January 13, 2006 by Lerkot

[KevTastic]

The only thing that annoys me about Lerkot is he can be abit cocky. (Don't take that the wrong way dude it means over confident), and he does'nt mind expressing himself.

But i love you dude, cos you bring a new kind of comedy and culture to this place.

I dn't think he means to offend, he just speaks his mind.

[Big Willie]

that is because you B_W and G-Unot where dissin America wat am i suppose to do sit back and let them diss me oh yes then you started to diss VA show respect

It started in a rap battle when I made the VA comment, we both know, or you should know rap battles mean nothing but to find out the best lyricist. But you decided to take the comment to heart and explode it into a discrimition conversation. You need to understand that this place isnt like Willsboard, its actually got respect and is a respected community, there was nothing wrong with what Lerk said and you blew up, think about it before you post.

Now lets let this get back to what it was made for, Alan's story....Good Job Alan :2thumbs:

Edited January 13, 2006 by Big Willie

[Guest VAsFinestRenagade]

see y cant you all jus drop and talk about the good story damn and Lerk you really need to and yes i no he is from america it is how you always talk about Ghettos and hoods ok it jus gets annoyin so sorry if i offended anyone

[Lerkot]

Yeah.. I, Lerkot, ALWAYS talk about ghettos and hoods. I thought you Virginia guys didnt need to mess with the rest... I heard you say that in one of your tracks... you seem to be messing a lot right now, did you lie in your rap? Are you a hypocrit? Seriously man, you need to calm down.

Yeah I'm sure sonics story was great, those things are interesting to read, good subject for your story, man. Almost like you went to that house just cause you knew you were gonna write somethin like that later :)

Edited January 14, 2006 by Lerkot

[Guest VAsFinestRenagade]

sorry if i offended anyone

read dawg read ok and sorry for stickin up for my country i thought that is wat we do stick up for things and also once agin sorry if I offened anyone so you calm down

[PeaceAngel]

Wow, that was a cool story sonic! Once I started reading it I had to read the rest! :2thumbs: