2009. Fyler - The Paper Street

Last week I had an opportunity to meet with the owner of Keller Manufacturing on Fyler just west of Morgan Ford Rd. Click on the title above to link his business (I want one of these: http://www.gardexusa.com/commercial.asp)
Mr. Keller kindly answered my questions about his business, the buildings (made in 1961), how the street used to look before it was paved and some history of the street (below).
Keller Manufacturing is a series of buildings that I've admired for years: A paper street is a road or street that appears on maps but in reality remains unpaved. It generally occurs when city planners or sub-division developers submit plans that include such streets; and when changes occur, they are not removed or updated. Fyler was paved in the mid 60's. Sometime around the turn of the last century a company existed on Fyler, The Parker-Russell Mining Company, that manufactured terra cotta barrel tiles for roofing. The owner of the company had a series of tiny houses made across the street and along MGF that he rented to his employees: This hill was created when Fyler finally graded and paved. It's filled with broken pieces of terra cotta that previously cluttered the street. Bits of terra cotta: This is a typical house along Flyer. Four rooms: The living room and bedroom are upstairs, kitchen and bathroom are downstairs. No basements. No windows on either side of the houses. These houses across from Marti's memorial garden on Morgan Ford Rd were also employee housing.

Pist. 2012

I admit I'm suspicious of men who cultivate food appointments with me without the boundary defining friendship conversation.
With some men this never needs to be discussed, we just get it. But Piston's inquiry about my serious commitments edged me and when I mentioned it he smiled by lifting one side of his mouth. It was the same methodical wry smile I often find on *my* face. I was asking about your work schedule, he said rolling is eyes, Relax we're not on a date. I treated him to my version of his smile and relaxed.
OK, so I mentioned he's no ballerina on the track at the gym. Rigid back, no swing to the shoulders. It's painful to spy on him walking the track while trying to keep my pogo dancing on the elliptical rhythmic. It's all he does at the gym: No lifting, no machines, nada. Three days a week he's a freaking track junkie. I was thinking about paying 46.00 a month to stroll the track when he tells me the story of a Frida Kahlo-esque accident two years ago in some southern goth backwater town in Mississippi where he was doing research on frogs. This resulted in extended hospital tours that involved lying on polluted beds, howling, incapacitated and beckoning death.
I was a client with no experience to direct my care, he said, I was forced to consider the existential question. The question that takes on a rabid twist for a 'patient' who chooses to spend his time in what basically was a prison. The question that is also in an old Sylvia Plath poem, do you know it? He quoted:

That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would he
Do, do, do without me?

I know it, I said, it's called The Jailer. And the question, buried deep, is How did I get here?

TinkerBelle at 6 months with her BFF

Totem. St Louis Noir #85

Golden Hour

Noni. Feat Diamond. 2017. St Louis Noir #27.

Clementis by Shadow Light

See you too

Heat. 2015

Changly is on the Steps

That runt dick, he saidt, lives down the street in a dark, needy, nasty shack. Needs attention, its a patch, like him eth. Runt lawn a shadow. No anything but dust on dirt. No pretty there, no light to it. Man, you fall in lookin at it.
Me: Coffee?
Changly: Yeah, mud like that, that runt dick you tossed.
Me (laughing): Changly, would you like coffee!?

Broken Coffin or Where you crawled

Crisp/y

You were a only bruise that faded. I am skin.

The Burden of Straight Seeing

Wick Draft. St Louis Noir # 731

East Belleville

Greek Revival and Italianate homes. The architecture in Belleville is fabulous.

Brick in BLLVLL

From a brickyard in Edwardsville that is still making brick.

Pretty Bellie

So pretty she kissed herself in the mirror and held the pose while I laughed and laughed.

St Louis Noir # 857

I love thread.

All kinds of thread.
This is DMC Floche, a twisted thread made from the finest long fiber cotton, mercerized to create a beautiful finish.

I love Paper

I collect old notebooks with a stitched binding: those days are gone.
I love paper.

Early

My sleep was loaded with you.
We were in a rotating landscape of houses, alleys, garages.
Significant that the alleys were concrete and not black asphalt for white settings dominate my perfect dreams.
The scenes kept shifting but we remained together. We were consistently and successfully dodging something intangible.
You were awkward which charmed me and oddly decisive.
I thought you were tolerating me when a hidden affection escaped through your hands. I caught some of it when an abbreviated smile landed in my hair.
I woke rubbing my head and listening to the cries from various crows as they passed over the house.
I woke smiling.

Working Silence

What's in her heart, she didn't put there, I saidt.