Goodbye, Cardinal Inn

Cardinal Inn photo, Date unknown, probably before it went down hill

The Cardinal Inn served generationally within the city of Portland, OR as one of the more banal sightseeing spaces in it's 112 year lifetime. Seemingly one of the last theaters you would go to for casual view time with the friends or family albeit the space itself was a local anomaly. It had often been described as a place where everything seems wrong, I mean, even the name Cardinal Inn is not indicative of a Theater. It feels inclined to a type of person; in the 70s it was a smut theater, in the 80s it became student ran and mostly played your typical arthouse Tarkovsky adjacent flicks which was pretty common within inner city Portland (similar to the 5th Avenue today), but by the 2020s the pandemic had done it's course on the place, it had already been mostly derelict for the last 10 years and only hosted the occasional film about once a month for a small scale screening that likely nobody would come to. So naturally, this lead to some intrigue on my part when The Cardinal Inn announced it would feature one final screening before its foreclosure in December 2024.

Unfortunately, The Cardinal Inn was a theater that was fraught with years of terrible maintenance, it is truly amazing that it stayed open so long as the original steeple went down in the 1930s in a massive windstorm making the building have a strange abrupt flat head. The bottom of it had the displays for film posters from days of yore though in my time they had been long left to vandalism, this poor building did deserve better; The architecture inside had mostly held up, two floors in a French door opening. The show they were playing for their final feature was an interesting choice, likely the pick of a curator that is involved with the theater "Dancer In The Dark" directed by Lars Von Trier, a story about a blinding mother who turns to her love of musicals to get through her struggles as she tries to save up money for her son to have an operation to save him from her fate but ultimately turns into her being framed and sentenced to death for murdering an officer. An oddly specific choice for a last screening though it is a good film and so with the two factors of this event at hand, I decided I would pay a visit for the last time to Cardinal Inn.

Now I will preface with this: I am not originally from Portland so I do not have the greatest circle of people here so I went solo on this one. There was a decent fog in the night air that was pretty typical in December especially this close to the Willamette River so there was a naturally mystical feeling when the theater was immediately before me. I walked to the entrance, old wooden French doors with a small fluorescent white light above it that gave it this "hospital church" type energy. I understand that the reason this theater is like this is because of years of abandon. Making it mostly the kind of spot that can give you odd feelings, nothing too insane, I can understand that a 112 year old building is going to be a little eerie.

I was met by the ticket holder, he was immediately put on edge as if I was here to investigate the place or even himself, he introduced himself as though he was not working here at all and there was no greater goal to this interaction than for me to become trusting in him. In a thick Eastern European/Texas accent-attempted drawl, "Hello, my name is Christoph, I am real American, I come from Cupertino, California". "Okay", "Where are you from?", "Up north in Washington, by the Canadian border, why do you ask?", "I just like to know a bit about you, do you know anything about this place?", "Well, I know it's your last screening tonight-", "This place is being condemned, we were having issues... pipe leaks, if you need water, look elsewhere or get bottle somewhere", "Okay, I am just here alone so one ticket please", "Oh yes! I sometimes forget I am doing job here." he hands me a ticket at the cost of $12. (I don't think that gentleman is from Cupertino nor could he even find it on a map).

I wandered into the screening hall, the room was quite large and was once likely to hold over 100 people in its heyday but now there is 4 people in here. Two suited gentleman toward the front corner and in the far back was a beautiful woman in kimono, an odd choice in Portland during the winter but also the people of Portland are known for their odd dress. What felt most odd was the last person in here, I tried to avoid looking at him, he stood in the very back corner in this quasi-mannequin pose, arms out in a robotic fashion, sunglasses on, very obviously adorning a wig and never moving at all. It was not even the beginning of the film and we were in a silent room with no music or advertisements to preface, just our palpable atmosphere of the 5 people in this room with nothing to say or do, I looked to my phone, no cellular, SHIT! The film started fortunately within moments.

I had chosen my spot about 20 feet from the woman in kimono, she was behind me by about 5 rows and to the left by about 7 seats so I could quite easily see her from my vantage. I bring this up as I begin to feel the need to look over at her when I hear the sound of crackles very lightly, popcorn? no, peanuts? nope. Pistachios. She is snacking on pistachios. I do not know why the sound is so distracting. It is with this thought that she slowly begins to crawl over the seat in front of her, barefoot, then once again over the next one and then another seat and another one; then on hands and knees she crawls under the chairs behind me, almost seductively slow, losing sight of her, I am startled by her almost lizard like motion until I lose sight of her behind me in the dark abyss of the seats behind me. I instinctually get out of my seat and hear crackles immediately with my movements. I am suddenly seeing the shells of pistachios drowning the floors where they had not been before.

Confused and disturbed, nearly laughing at how deliriously comical yet horrifying this moment was, I needed to gather my senses. I crackled my way to the hallway once more, constantly worried I am disrupting the movie for the others in here that were still here (Kimono Woman vanished behind me, I am completely at a loss). Despite how aware of the volume of the steps I was taking one by one inching so slowly through this big silent room while the movie played I became aware that the gentleman were only watching me step through the room and not the film. "sorry" I whispered. no response.

I went through the hallway across the theater from the entrance I came into to the restroom hallway, which as Christoph had noted, obviously had water issues. Almost like a hydrant from the ceiling was absolutely dumping from the ceiling onto the concrete floor, I wandered around it shocked they would be able to operate in this state. The restroom was up concrete stairs, around the corner you could see into the curtains of the room where the film reel projector was hosting the visual of the film for us to bear witness. Now, I know you are reading this and thinking: "you witnessed a woman crawling over seats and on the floor and then disappeared and you did not run for it?" Yes, I assumed in a state of shock and confusion that maybe this could be explained in my head or maybe she was on drugs or maybe she is actually just fucking with me cause I started looking at her and it bothered her. But at the point of entering the restroom I saw another person in the bathroom, they must have been urinating at the urinals for some 45 minutes almost or maybe I had missed him in the seats. Either way, I already felt weird I went to wash my face, looked down at the sink to dunk my head in some water (sink was bone dry so no success), when I looked up in the mirror, the gentleman walked by stopped and waved at me in the mirror, for almost an hour in my mind he was there behind me waving from my view of the mirror. "Is there something you want-" I turned and he was not there. Alright now I am getting that something is messing with my head here. I begin to feel a panic when I piece together the last two interactions I have had here.

Trying to hold it together to not draw attention I walk into the stair well where I see the waving gentleman in the projector seat. (Oh thank goodness I am not insane). "You really scared me back there in the restroom", I said to him, only then did I begin to feel like I must be going mad when I saw in the seat was a painted wooden mannequin in the clothes of that man, holding a bucket in his lap. Horrified, I did not want to see into this bucket, I knew based on these previous encounters that whatever was in the bucket obviously was really bad, I looked into it anyways. Inside the bucket was a picture in a frame of the man I had seen waving at me in the mirror. now, I am not a ghostly believer, I entertain the paranormal for fun and whatnot but never have I been convinced of ghosts, but this was different. I needed to leave.

Then immediately in the quietest fashion, I began lightly jogging back to the screening room, the movie was only about 5 minutes further in but it felt like I had been gone for an hour. The room, now featured different people amongst the gentleman and standing man in the corner. A couple had entered and a grandfather and grandson who was likely about 4. The room was very clean now. I know something paranormal is happening, I quietly but swiftly walked back to the entry way, Christoph was still there. "Didn't like it?", "I just have to go", "This place really gets some people, I hear ghosts like new people here", "really? I had an experience, I was freaking out" I was so glad he was vocalizing my concerns, I felt like Christoph may not be from Cupertino, California but he just might be trustworthy for confiding in. "I have to be honest Christoph, I never believed in ghosts but this place swayed me", "They mean no harm, they are just good at freaking people out they want to meet, we like ghosts here". Christoph reassured me, they might be creepy but so far they have always only seemed to want to meet me like he said so maybe I can experience this once in a lifetime scenario and stick it out for another 80 minutes? After all, I am about half way there already!

I go back in, deciding that yeah, it is freaky as hell, but there is a very unique scenario here that I will see out to the end of the film. I go back to my new seat where a barefoot man has made himself comfortable behind me, I pay him no mind really, 20 minutes goes by and I realize he is smoking behind me. I honestly would not care much if it weren't for us being inside and it clouding up around my face making me all teary eyed. I turn around to say something to see this man is watching this film and smoking with tears in his eyes, his bare feet are lounged on the head of the seat immediately behind my head. I am so confused by this guy that I just let it go and get up and move. I sit down near the grandfather and grandson, the child was probably too young for this movie given where it leads but I was near convinced I was the only person in here that was not an apparition. More shocking was the moment the film's murder happened the grandson began to cry and they got up and left, they were real people also in this room with me. Were they having weird interactions with ghosts?

There was still something that ate at me, the man in the corner standing frozen was still there completely unchanged. Sunglasses still on, wig still on, not a single movement whatsoever, I almost want to interrogate him but I cannot bring myself to do it, I feel something more chaotic about this one than the woman or projector man. Is Christoph real? I just don't get this place, I am now more intrigued in the atmosphere of the building than anything. I go back to the restroom and go to the urinal, the two men that have been in here since I arrived both show up on both sides of me (there are like 7 urinals in here and they chose to be shoulders with me). I have a hard enough time dealing with people up close but having both of them on each side of me like this makes me freeze up. I realize all three of us are simply standing at the urinals not doing anything. They are only here because I am here. I decide to step away and they do exactly the same side by side with me still. I am not sure what this whole deal is but I just walk to the sink and wash my hands, they just stare at the mirrors on each side of me without movement, when I stop and walk away we are shoulders together walking down the stairwell then we are met by the standing man in the hallway facing the water pouring from the ceiling away from us. I am absolutely freaked out as he is in the same position he has always been in but no longer facing me and in a completely different place. I stop, the two gentleman stop on a dime with me and the standing man is our focal point. He owns the room, time stops and I feel genuine regret I chose to see what would happen in here.

"I am the Cardinal" he says.

"____" (I find it impossible to speak)

"I observe everything here, it is the only view I get"

"____"

"You are our friend here, you either find us repulsive or you feel our loving embrace, you are welcome to dance with us if you would like to"

"____"

"Would you like me to sing to you softly so we can dance?"

"Do you want to sing?"

"I cannot sing if you are looking at me"

I turned away.

Time freezes.

Against all of my will I turned away from him.

Suddenly, the song "I've Seen It All" from the film is playing loudly in the screening room. Tears are rolling down my eyes. When the song ends, I turn around and he is gone. (The song is about both seeing all of these sights while also coming to terms with going blind).

I am not even sure when the two gentleman disappeared but I return to the screening room, it is completely empty, I sit back down still reeling from the moment prior. All of my thoughts have turned into mud and I am just going to stay right in this seat to the end of the film. There is still an hour left.

From my viewpoint in the corner of my eye I see someone wander out from the bathroom hallway and I nearly panic, the kimono woman is standing in the doorway barely visible just looking at me, there is blood running down her leg from up into her kimono but it appears she is unfazed. She stares at me for a very long time, so long that I stop observing her, I was beginning to feel this sense of playing chicken with her eye contact, I did not want to play. After a damn near 10 minutes of staring, she then begins walking toward me very, very slowly, when she is about to pass through the light of the projector she very unnaturally ducks underneath the light like a ballerina in the slowest motion and dodges the light projection and returns to a very slow walk.

I am doing everything in my power to evade giving her any of my attention at all. She walks all the way up to me, looks directly at me and then sits down right next to me. I cannot help but feel the sheer intensity of what is happening, this is an eternity and me and her are the only ones in here. She turns over to look at me still while seated, she leans toward me as if to kiss me and I just stare blankly, frozen. She stops right at my face and is now breathing in my face like she is a bear, thick heavy breaths. The film jolts me with a scream and then it is over. The light comes on immediately without a thought and the couple applauded and gathered their things while talking about the potentiality of this place being haunted, there is an old man toward the front of the room who stands up and applauds with tears in his eyes, he turns to the projecting window and blows a kiss and then just like myself he walks away.

The entrance was dark but Christoph was out there and he said goodbye to me, I was unable to speak at the end so I just waved and went home in the fog of the December night. The Cardinal Inn was bulldozed a few weeks later at the beginning of 2025. When I tell people about the Cardinal Inn being haunted I am usually met with some level of suspicion which is completely reasonable, I would also be suspect, the problem is that within the rubble of the Cardinal Inn where it once stood now stands the wooden mannequin of the projector man. And he is always waving.