Peach Pie = Part Two

Peach Pie

Part Two

            Synchronized unintentionally, our mutual actions of I loading truck while he ...related the peaches-come-to-Maine story... created an at-the-shaded roadside cadence that may be best expressed as... being a natural Maine rhyme and rhythm that most from the outer worlds will never know of... let alone actually experience.  For myself, as a trash picker, in Maine, I am completely ...and happily... immersed in this naturally occurring anomaly of pure Maine... syrup.  Simply; I ‘work’ while the rousted creator of the truck pile ‘talks’.  To me.  While I work.  About ...well...:  THEY GOT YOU.  I don’t fight.  I actually ride it; the banter, its speaker and the cadence.  A singular gold; a surface deposit of singular gold... it is?

            The end points here synchronized.  Too.

            HE completed the tale of the traveling peaches-become Maine pie... by turning his ...eye... again... to the farm’s side door off the kitchen ...simply to ‘check’ ‘to see’ if he’d ‘been caught’... out roadside talking to me beside a... now removed... truck pile he had created WITHOUT official permission from ...the commander and chief ... of his universe.

            I completed my truck loading of the truck... by stepping to the driver’s door of the truck... WITHOUT turning my eye off of the story telling HE ... to open that door and retrieve a wool shirt... of singular good-clean quality (Filson) that I have RIGHT THERE to ‘put on’ just at moments like this.  The shirt MUST BE ‘singular good-clean’ and meet one hundred percent no comment needed approval to any and all strangers.  THAT’S WHY IT ...is the shirt it is... where that shirt is... ALWAYS.  It’s the small details in this industry (trash picking to fine arts) I promise.

            Usually I do this retrieve to be putting that shirt on... to protect my other ‘good-clean’ from getting dirty ‘as I load’.  TODAY I ...simply held the collapsed shirt in my left hand as I reach up and over the truck side.... to quickly and calmly lift the ...I left them exposed remember... ‘dumped’ boards on the ‘daintily’ set cupboard and:  Swung the left arm with the shirt up and over too... to where this left arm could QUICKLY and CALMLY stuff that shirt into the dirty, ratty and buried top shelf of that cupboard to assure ME that it (the shirt) would tightly wedge anything loose on THAT SELF from moving as I ...get out of there.  I further:  Knew this action was needed and must be done right so would protect the art object I ...sacrificed (?) ‘my shirt’ ‘for’ to ‘protect’.  Knew that I must not attract the story teller’s attention by taking this emergency protective action.  Knew that I must not take my eyes off of ‘the story’.

            AND DID all that ‘I further’ successfully without any-any OR a ‘catching on’.  Sorry to so ‘big deal’ on this but it is actually a BIG DEAL:  There is no point in trash picking fine New England decorative arts and then breaking them when one leaves the sight of antiquarian acquisition.  CLEAN courteous behavior HERE quelled any notion of I being a trash pile purloiner.  This is a skill.

            It also brought us to the end of our roadside flirt?  It should have and I was ‘cab and go’ ready so was about to step on the exist verbiage AND into the cab... and go BUT.

            “JEZZ SHE... just... SPEAK OF YOU... (mumble) other DAY”.

            “ME ...she?”

            “YAP.  SAID so.” HE says looking again toward the side door.

            I ...gave the truck load a ‘do I – I don’t’ need to tie off the load GLANCE as I ‘oh no’ myself... to collect myself to say “Said so what?”

            “OH that her SISTER... you know HER SISTER... that woman... right... so SHE SAID SO ‘bout you’s and HER CHAIR AGAIN YOU REMEMBER I KNOW.”

            “Sister’s CHAIR?”

            “SHE say so ‘bout you BUYING her chair.”

            “NOT EVER YET.  She ain’t SOLD ME that CHAIR.”

            “YAP... suppose NOT.”

            Pause.

            “SHE said SO but SHOULD BE buying it NOW she SAY.”

            “Your wife or the sister?”

            “HER sister’s CHAIR.”

            “WHO SAID I should BUY IT”.

            “OH SHE mad that SHE owes her THAT MONEY”

            “The sister’s mad?”

            “NO SHE OWES THE MONEY.  GOLLY... don’t I HEAR about THAT.”

            “The sister owes her money”.

            “SO SHE SAYS SELL HER CHAIR”

            “The sister should sell?”

            “BUT WON’T.  SEE:  THEY BOTH took that chair OUT to SELL.

            “And didn’t sell it?”

            “COULDN’T SELL IT SHE SAID.”

            “Couldn’t?”

            “NO ONE PAID IT.”

            “Paid for it?”

            “PAY what YOU PAY.

            “My offer?”

            “YOU SAID.  No one paid.”

            “What I offered?”

            “I’ll GO TELL her you’re OUT here about the CHAIR.”

            He did:  He turned and walked straight to the side door off the kitchen and went in... and about forty seconds later... came back out... and started waving his hand at me ‘to come’.  For the record I concede that the above recorded banter may seem ‘difficult’ to the unwashed ...standing naked in a Maine washtub but I do point out that it is PURE YANKEE TRADER get the job done linguistics... as understood by the speaker using his best verbal abilities of ‘pure Yankee trader’ that DID GET THE JOB... from his perspective... DONE:  I AM NOW GOING INSIDE the farm house to talk to his wife about the sister’s chair.  He got that job DONE.

            I, myself, wasn’t so sure about this ...opportunity.  MRS. ‘is a tough one’.  The sister ‘is dinged’.  BOTH are their ‘that’ in the locally understood sense.  By this time I was at the side door being ...ushered in.

            MRS. ...rolling a fresh garden harvested cabbage in front of her... opened discourse with “YOU SHOWING UP FOR THAT CHAIR I AIN’T GOT IT HERE YET.”

            “Well he’s SAYING something about the chair but I CAN’T TELL WHAT.”

            “SHE’S GONNA SELL YOU the CHAIR NOW BUT I DON’T HAVE IT YET.  YOU AT  STEWARD’S BARN he SAYS.”

            “Yep;  CLEAN THAT out.”

            “SHE’S COMING over LATER for DINNER. I’ll CALL HER and have her BRING that CHAIR ALONG.  COME BY THEN I’ll HAVE IT”.

            “She wants to SELL IT?”

            “WE JUST TALKED the OTHER DAY saying you’d PAY the MOST SO I SAYS SELL and she DOES TO.  I’ll HAVE IT HERE for YOU.  JUST STOP when your GOING BY.

            All this ‘chair’ can use a little back ground here?  This ‘the chair’ was somehow acquired by the sister from a now deceased woman who had a summer home along the shore where this sister worked as a cleaning lady.  It is a ...refinished and hand painted tole style decorated New England – probably Maine made - arrow back arm chair with particularly good height and leg splay.  Somehow she was ‘given’ the ‘old chair’.  I was, after hearing about it for a while, shown it and asked how valuable the ‘ANTIQUE’ chair “IS”.  I said its probably worth a hundred twenty-five.  THAT ‘is worth’ verbal appraisal quickly turned into an “I OFFERED” price.  This offered price became fixed between the two sisters.  After a while the purloining sister ‘decided to sell’ I heard.  She did not come to me.  I heard she was taking the chair around to antiques shops trying to get one hundred fifty dollars for it.  THIS ‘SHE’ SISTER ‘went too’.  They failed to sell the chair.  They did not contact me.  Ever.  They ‘gave up’ trying to sell the chair?  Suddenly today... after HE... out roadside with me and his truck pile... recalls that SHE was talking about the... chair and I... I find myself INSIDE THE FARMHOUSE... kitchen ... ‘buying’ the chair for my ...verbal appraisal price... of one hundred twenty-five dollars after SHE and the sister have failed to ‘sell’ the chair to ANYONE AND... the dinged sister owes the tough sister money.  So... as the fresh from the garden cabbage is about to be put in the old wooden shredder box and shaved ‘to slaw’... this tough sister wants me to ...buy the chair from her ‘come by later’ and PAY HER cash so she can... get the money her dinged sister owes her.  Happens all the time...:  “I’ll be GLAD to do THAT.” I say conclusively.

            The cabbage stops rolling and the shredder box remains untouched as MRS. looks up at me with the “DID I JUST MAKE A BARGAIN” look I ...’happens all the time’... SEE all the time.

            “WELL I DON’T HAVE IT HERE YET.” She says firmly.  Leaving herself an ‘out’?  OF COURSE; ‘happens all the time’.... SEE IT ALL THE TIME.  Too.