After the settlement had cleared in 1977, Uncle Harvey had decided to dedicate his life to disco entirely. With a good part of the proceeds, he bought a roller rink on the outskirts of town and did his best to turn it into a shining beacon of light and music on a hill.

It worked for a while, as Chris had found through newspaper clippings, but eventually the disco craze had faded and after a flood in 1985, the roller rink was open less and less frequently. Uncle Harvey began closing it on weekdays, then on alternate weekends, and starting in 1989 the rink was only open by appointment for special events. Business contined to dwindle, and the last reference Chris could find was an announcement in the Seminole County Pioneer about a birthday party there in 1994. Chris recalled going at various times before losing interest, but couldn’t pin down any dates.

Things had gotten more dire from there. To his credit, Uncle Harvey had never let the roller rink’s interior fall into disrepair. Even as the outside became overgrown, even as he sold his house and moved into a cobbled-together suite of rooms in the back, the main floor was kept spotlessly clean. In fact, obsessively cleaning and maintaining the space seemed to have been the focus of Harvey’s remaining years, with the occasional contract work by an electrician or other specialist.

The interest on the remaining settlement was just enough to cover rent and taxes, and together with EBT stamps, Harvey had sustained himself until a bad fall in 2020 had led to him contracting coronavirus in the hospital and passing away.

Chris, as the last and only remaining child of Harvey’s line–the only child of the only child of Harvey’s sister Beatrice to survive to adulthood–inherited the rink. Even in its dusty state, years behind on basic maintenence, it was a small piece of disco remaining in an otherwise un-funky world.

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