This is the locker room rain collecting 55 gal barrel. The rain seeps through several floors before it gets here. I dumped this putrid liquid twice tonight (imagine a smell somewhere between tar, oil, mold)  I should have let it flood being my last day and all... but I have a soft spot for this place and I want to set a good example for the guy I'm training...also  Fred still works here.

This is the back door we enter...I've seriously wondered if the whole company is squatting here.

Welcome to the locker room. The red door on the left is the stairwell.... if the door is left cracked open bats can get in the locker room from upstairs. My locker is the last on on the right...next to the soiled uniforms...not even close to the worst smell in the place though.

It rained yesterday and the whole place leaks... the wood block floor absorbs the water and buckles and heaves upward in a seismic shift.

This is my pimp-mobile... parked in shipping/receiving ...on my last day of work the parking brake failed and I was almost pinched between it and a pallet full of parts.  The ghost of Ivan Doverspike was displeased with me leaving the company.

I was the only one on afternoons that doesn't "carry" (a firearm) I had only a maglite and kindness to kill you with.  Fred is scared to wander the building at night... which really scares the piss out of me(him being such a bad ass and all)...I think he expects there are crack smoking squatters somewhere...which wouldn't surprise me. 

It took me almost a month working there before I built up the courage (boredom) to wander around.  When I asked people if they had looked around they usually told me "no thanks" with wide eyes...as if they meant to say "you can if you want but as for me ... no fucking way."  ...or I would hear how there used to be wild dogs living in the building(multiple confirmations) or there was a guy who worked here and lost his house and was living upstairs for months before anyone noticed(multiple confirmations) or some guy died in the freight elevator shaft(unconfirmed) it is true however, that the freight elevators are no longer in service.... trapping remnants from the past upstairs. 

We start at 4pm and day shift leaves promptly afterward.  A few people stay till 6...but by 8 ....it gets real quiet despite the machines echoing through the building.  pneumatic and hydraulic pumps...electric motors whirring...steel bars rattling in tubes rotating at 2000rpm...the clang thud slam as the AcmeGridley automatic screw machines spindles rotate into the next position like a giant slow moving 30,000lb Gatlin gun.

From right to left: Fred Stassir, the back of Curt Nixons head, and the criminals declined to be photographed.
when I first started it was just Curt and Fred aka"Bad Ass Mother Fucker" ... I call him that because he has two bad knees, has had two hip replacement surgeries, is a Veitnam vet, and works 5 twelve hour days a week lifting steel rods and wrenching on these machines.

Commonly referred to as the abandoned building on Conner... even the cops who were parked out front one morning at close time asked what we made here because they thought it was vacant.... nope...... we just park in back.

I always enjoyed the drive in. The way the skyline rises from the ground as you cross the Rouge traveling north on 75. Curt drove really fast but always stayed extremely calm...even when someone cut him off. He had a great collection of classic rock... my favorites were live bootlegs of Pink Floyd and Hendrix.  He lights a monarch non-filter and cracks his window.....