P.H.E., who once thought i had the nicest sounding voice

© peter helles


peter and i met in april of 2009, at vanessa's dumplings before leah and i went to beauty bar. at their table sat a group of beautiful ones with beautiful lines and attributes, all healthy, all sturdy, all bilingual, all bikers, all photographers, all excellent conversationalists with impeccable presences and eye contact. or rather eye kontakt, i should say, for in the end: whatever, everything is everything, etc. etc. etc. that night i was interrupted mid-conversation in front of everyone by a huge paw that reached across the circle to caress my cheek to maybe derail my emphatic story telling, or to trip me up, my thoughts, i don't know. regardless, it fucking tripped me up because i do not read stories i feel them as they write themselves. that weekend we found ourselves at another party. he arrived with the same group of friends, and i, having weaseled my way out of another birthday gathering, found myself talking with him in that famous doorway of mc kibbin for quite some time. amidst the noise and lollypop sucking (that shit was tacky - but did actually work on 2 countrymen) he asked me to sing him a song. he liked my voice; it was smooth, so sing. was it sing or tell him a story? sing, i think. because i failed...nevertheless, it was an honest, foreign-esque request and what i remember always was my gut feeling that it was him who was the sweet one, who deserved attention, and when i talked to him further i knew his photographs were going to have been made with a decent heart and a leveling gaze. i remember now how he talks and how he walks and how his throat moves below the surface when he is formulating words that come out of that reserved mouth, and that is more than i can say for many parties i've been to where dudes mostly chatter on about themselves and i am already millions of miles away in my head, in the future, with the future, or tomorrow morning on my bike in a class in my datebook - anywhere but here, no? anyway, this year we have been in touch a bit because of his beautiful website. i knew he would not be offended when i told him that i wanted to lend a hand in editing some of the project statements. i edited some of his words not because i wanted to 'correct' anything but because with photos of this magnitude/beauty there is no need to get tripped up where no tripping is necessary - and we all know that now, right? i also may have a small folder on my desktop where i cattily collect screenshots of typos on photographers' websites, and i didn't want peter to be a part of that collection, etc. etc. etc...