Help us keep bringing stories like this to you. There was pain on national television and healing in lonely rooms. Later, Orlando officials scrambled, clumsily, to plug gaping holes in aid for Spanish speakers amid fallings-out over money. It was a breathless sprint, or a hiding spot in a cabinet, or crawling over bodies, or “If you’re alive, raise your hand.” It was a text to a mom: in bathroom.
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It was Reagan’s Facebook post: Everyone get out of pulse and keep running. It was a volley of gunshots that, at first, married with the beat. It was neon lights under white lanterns and the “Jewel Box” thick with dancers. The Grey Goose was corked, reggaeton bumping. What Pulse became to the world five years ago isn’t what Pulse means here. But it would hurt, too, if they were to disappear.
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It stings to see PULSE STRONG, as it hurts to see the 49 names at the mall Starbucks and the rainbows in windows that snap him right back to June 12, 2016. Nearing home, Reagan glances to see if the dive bar near his place has changed its marquee. “That divide, my God, even five years later, is getting, a little at a time, stronger and stronger and further apart,” he says. Five years later, he still wants the club’s story told, but knows some resent his support of the $45 million museum and memorial project. As the spotlight intensified, he began to worry fellow survivors might question his intentions. He was wary of reporters, afterward, but wanted to tell the story of the place he knew. One night, somebody threw in chlorine tablets, which was brilliant, until a clubgoer fell in and emerged in ruined clothes. That waterfall, for instance - a beauty, and a pain to clean. His mom handed tips to drag queens and told him, “I know you’re okay.” All-white inside, with martini glasses hanging upside down, it was chic but warm. He’d been a manager at the club - the first gay bar he ever visited, as an 18-year-old freshman. He thinks about those who were killed, many of whom he knew. They want nothing to do with the T-shirt kiosk, can’t bear the sun-bleached banners that promise, Siempre te Recordaremos.īut Brian Reagan pulls over and sits in his car.Ī temporary memorial wraps around the shuttered nightclub like a shrine. They avoid the alleys where they limped and hid and called friends’ phones left on the dance floor.
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Some who were there that night avoid the intersection, a mile south of Orlando’s steel-and-glass core, where cars whip by the Pro Tint shop and the Dunkin’ next door. Translucent sheets, bolted onto the building, shroud the bullet holes and craters blasted out of the concrete block. Behind the wall, the entryway waterfall runs. This is the story the city tells, of rainbows inked on signs, of bells rung at candlelit vigils, of #OrlandoStrong. He makes a right turn onto South Orange Avenue, toward the stark black sign.Ī temporary wall curves around the club, billboard-high, with a photo montage.
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He drives past the blue hospital signs, past the dusty warehouse district where a museum is slated to rise. It’s past midnight, usually, when he leaves work and pulls off at the Kaley Street exit. ORLANDO - Some nights, on his long drive home, he conjures up reasons to see the nightclub again.