Coy - Part Thirty-Five - "This is a Glory"

Coy

Part Thirty-Five

"This is a Glory"

The raw fabrication

Of a coy façade;

Its raw setting

Has been related?

The impudent thief

Disguised as a janitor

Takes out the trash

After paying in cash?

Folded finger money

Decides the fall back destiny

Of old New England

Fading away?

            I did (and do) not have any problem with this estate distribution at all for I... was a chosen one too and the others were that too so it was only an US that was in full agreement that THIS WAY was... well...:

            “FINE”.

            Turned up side down and pitched... the Savage Estate escapes becoming... right side up.  One cannot visit it.  One cannot... get in there ‘and see’.  Your flashlight in the cellar next to mine?  No.

            IN THIS END... there IS NO ONE THERE... ‘from away’.  There is no congestion at the estate.  WE pry up the gravestones and pitch them into the sea?  Or have I saved it all in a massive mound in an old barn that only I have the key to and only Hiram and I ‘go to’ ‘knowing it’s there’?  Or is Hiram excluded ‘from that’... “too”?  And:

The procedure... of the distribution of the contents of the ‘Captain’ Savage estate mansion... continues.  And will continue... until a death... makes us part.

            Do I think Hiram will out live Helen?  If anyone can it will be he.

Do I think Helen will be found dead in her pool side chair... beside her... condominium’s swimming pool... in Florida... ‘after lunch’... some day... in a February ...with her cigarette still burning in its ashtray?  Her highball glass still sweaty?

            “She’s a tough old bird.” religiously opinionates Hiram.  And he should know for he... is one himself.  I could, I suppose, ‘make case’ that ‘this’ (the procedure) is keeping BOTH of them ‘alive’.  That means... ‘heaven forbid we finish’ “cleaning out”?  And that query I may rebut for I... now having evermore... NEVER MORE... creeped around the mansion... ‘know’ that it is... ‘adequately stocked for its duration’.  One day... some lawyer... from some bank will ...lock me out...

            I suppose.

            “Are not you the ONE we tried to HIRE?” twenty years ago... I will be asked.

            “Who me?”.  Do not worry.  By then they all will have been replaced by subordinates and those from that ‘before’ ‘cannot remember’.  One actually has to be good at this; picking antiques from old New England estates, to ‘remember’ ‘twenty years ago ‘that-that... is-in-there’... “still”.

            “Still”... that’s a word that pickers use.  Owners do not.  Collectors do not.  Antiques dealers do not.  I ....I ‘ask’ “DO THEY STILL...”  “HAVE”

            “I’m SURPRISED you REMEMBER THAT.”

            I am not... so... “DO YOU... STILL... HAVE”... or did you pry it up and pitch it ...into the sea

            Where upon I

            Will scramble down the shore bank

            OF YOUR ESTATE

            And

            GET IT FOR FREE.

            Turned up side down, pitched... but ‘still there’... more often these days... it’s free.

            No one cares.

            All the old china in the dining room.

            All the old fruit jars in the cellar.

            All the ‘old buggies’ in the carriage shed.

            The old pitchforks

            The old pots and pans in the kitchen.

            The old painting in the hallway.

            The ...complete assemblage:  The material oblivion of six generations ‘living there’ including their very own gravestones in the ‘family cemetery’.  The cast ceramic garden urns abandon-lee decorating the... abandoned Victorian garden whose ‘old fence’ is ‘fallen down’ and a someone took its... gate away.

            When I was coming out of the well house

            With Hiram

            One late October afternoon

            In a breeze and below rolling clouds

            The geese were flying south

            ‘For the winter’

            Above us.

            We stopped, together

            And watched them

            Fly away.

            The old, age tone darkened and dirty wooden box he and I had filled with the scattered... mostly sheet iron tin... but ‘having a few glasses in there too’ well water ‘dipper cups’ AND the old tin... and gray galvanized enamel... foursome of actual water dippers (ladles)... and... leaving only ONE old bucket behind... we

            Had finished ‘cleaning out’ ‘that building’.

            I could tell from the manner of his handling one tin cup that Hiram... ‘used that one’ himself

            For years.

            I still have that one... for sale... at a little higher price ...so it ‘stays around’ because... no one cares.

            The ‘Grandfather’ clock in the front hall... was (is) a cheap one; “Scottish or Welsh”.  ‘It is one’... that old One John bought on the dock.  It never worked (“worked well”).  No one cared because no one ever ‘went’ in the ‘front hall’.  By that date (1850’s) tall clocks (‘grandfather’ clocks) were fading as timepieces to become the design form ‘requisite decoration’ of the front halls of old New England (and beyond) homes... simply ‘standing there doing nothing’.  Even cheap ones.  Helen has never mentioned ‘selling it’ or even spoke of ‘what it is’ beyond its symbolic poise.  I have and never will... ‘ask’.

            The sundial... also a timepiece... in the garden was... a Victorian era Romanesque knock off that ‘didn’t work’ too.  IT... was cast off of its white marble Victorian base when that base ‘was tipped over’.  WE found it lying there pitched from the base.  Upright that base was headless until I set the cast iron sun powered time telling mechanism upon it... again.  I’d already ‘bought it’ by specific cash treaty that included ‘all the old (garden) fixtures ‘in there’ (inside the fallen down fenced... in... Victorian garden).

            “I’ll get my dolly from the truck.” I said to Hiram BEFORE we walked from the front door of the mansion back out to the garden.  The front door is where, as usual, we negotiated a ‘specific cash treaty’.  WE ‘rolled’ the sundial’s base onto the dolly’s shelf.  I ...hauled it... ‘across the yard’ to the truck while Hiram followed carrying the ‘sun dial’.  WE ‘lifted’ “IT” into the truck.  We did the same for the garden urns.  I even used the dolly to ...haul the garden’s gate... “away”.  Too.

            “PRETTY OLD that one IS.” pronounced Hiram.  He is getting much better at denoting objects “YOU (I) LIKE THAT ONE I can tell.”.

            We found no silver dollars in the garden.

            We always look for silver dollars.

            I... did... find... bags of

            Dollars

            In the garden

            That I had to ‘dolly away’

            That day.

            Then we ate our sandwiches.

            Then I left

            With that ‘load’.

            “Attic?” you say.  You old New England ...fool.

            “She doesn’t even know there IS an attic.  “GO THERE?” she thinks means “IN THE CAR?”.  And no one else in the family ever hauled anything ‘up there’ anyway.  “WHY BOTHER” and they just ‘left it there’ for the ...following generations that ‘came’... bringing their own “PUT IT IN”.  The attic?  No.  Their room.  The hallways.  And, of course, the “in there” of the meandering ‘rooms’ ‘in there’ (of the mansion).

“Attic you say?”... is about it... for that

For it is filled with bats.

“REALLY?  UP THERE?  In the

ATTIC

You say.”

            Snakes in the cellar

Squirrels in

EVERWHERE

Mice.

“I hate mice”.

Rotting wood.

Flaking paint.

Torn screens in screen doors

“OH THIS IS A GLORY” being ‘in here’ I.

The End