Punk Rock Art Photos: "Abandoned Air Conditioner/Banged Up Bike Graveyard"

<Take I/The Reckoner>

Our complex is on a tear, most recently against bikes without any obvious ownership. A few weeks back, the management dropped off a stern notice, giving absentee owners until July 30 to fess up, and reclaim their errant two-wheeler, so they could register it properly...or management would take such matters into its own hands. Something like that.

<Take II>

And so, they have, as you see from these photos. Most of the bikes don't look like much, though, honestly. To these (relatively) untrained eyes, these particular bikes -- by and large -- seemed like bang up kids' models, for the most part. When the kid outgrew the model, they moved on to something else, I guess. Or so I surmised.

<Take III>

The air conditioners are an entirely different matter. They looked like discards from the maintenance crew that outlived their usefulness. They probably reflect another longtime practice I've seen, as a tenant of almost 15 years' standing. 

For a long time, whenever I needed something -- a set of blinds, for example, or yeah, an air conditioner -- Maintenance cannibalized them from apartments where either someone had just moved out, or had yet to move in. Wash, rinse, repeat. At some point, I suspect they broke down and bought one, whenever the chain finally ran out of air conditioners to cannibalize. 

<Take IV>

Those air conditioners look quite worn too, having seen a lot of wear and tear, as the weathered surface of the unit in Take VIII's photo surely establishes (below). That's the policy at most apartment complexes, I imagine -- work it till it conks out. 

<Take V>

Judging by the photos I've just taken, these particular air conditioners look like the newer, energy-efficient models that offer plenty of options to regulate your climate and temperature, as opposed to the old ones, which simply offered different levels of cool air to blast out. Either one works for me, honestly.

<Take VI>

At any rate, management proved as good as its word. Driving last Wednesday around the oval-shaped path that circles all four apartment buildings, I stopped, with a start, because the air conditioners  -- and the bikes -- were no longer there. I presumed they'd been preserved in their own form of amber, as they headed on their final journey...to the county landfill.

<Take VII>

As the cliche runs, you wonder what kinds of stories you might hear, if these objects could talk. Like so many personal and non-personal items nowadays, you feel their presence is everywhere, yet also nowhere, at the same time. 

You don't really give them a second thought till they're gone, much like those dying of COVID, or struggling to live on the abbreviated lifelines thrown to them, by a federal government that loudly and vocally begrudges every inch, and fights it every step of the way.

<Take VIII>

With those thoughts in mind, ponder the nods and the winks that never get exchanged, the rumors that never set the woods alight, the stories that never get told, the sweep of time that now gets to sidestep that quintessential million dollar question: Hey, who owned all this stuff, anyhow? And what happened to them, anyway? Are they still living here? Or did they end up moving on?

<Art Shot...>

Ponder those stories, and multiply them by whatever foul statistic you wish. The 40% of Americans who cannot save $400, at least, for a personal emergency. The average jobless black worker right now who earns $40 a week less in benefits than his white counterpart. The 41% of black-owned businesses that have shut down, due to COVID-19, versus 17% of white businesses. The 33 million jobless Americans filing for benefits, as of June 20, or five times the levels of the Great Depression...

And so on. And so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Now stop what you're doing for a moment, and think about what might have been, if only for a moment. That could have been your story, too. -- The Reckoner