Careless and Callous - Accumulation of Inherited (Antiquarian) Art - Part Two - "Distribution".

Careless and Callous

Accumulation of Inherited (Antiquarian) Art

Part Two

"Distribution"

            Once upon a time

            No one cared

            About their old

            Chair.

            “Did they that?  I don’t know if that

            Could that

            Be that;

            The ‘their chair’ and

            Care”.

            Under the front stair;

            That there:

            That chair.

            “Who gets that

            Chair?”

            There is, then, a family squabble that is discoursed,

            Resourced

            Sub-sourced

            And of coursed

            With this last being

            “valued” (a valuation).

            To set up the boundary of squabble:  “IT IS...

            Valuable

            (The old chair... underneath the front

            Stair).

            All heirs (“everyone”) take shopping carts and travel through the... well... ‘estate’ ‘taking what I want’.  Sort of.  Right?  Yes it is always that easy so I will not elaborate.  “Value” is understood and ‘valuation’ is “kept track of”.  Sort of.  Right?  No one says either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  And... their say includes a considerable variety of “I know” too.  That makes for better ‘valuation’ “kept track of” and the... ahhhh...

            Discourse called squabble.

            But the chair is still there?  Or would you rather have the (that; Part One) old RUG in that “upstairs” “room”.  No... that one slips by.  I stood on the rug.  Dirty leather Maine field boots I stood in them on it; that rug.  Normally I’d step around the poor old things but of the ‘here and now’

Then-there

            No one

            Showed an inclination

            To care.

            That should have been a solemn moment shouldn’t it

            Have been?

            No:  Don’t bother.  I slipped it by

            On the sly.

            “MY what a WONDERFUL RUG” that one is when one is

            “FINALLY”

            Home and ‘rolls it out’

            Clean too... no ‘sniff test’ needed.  The eye says that.

            At a glance

            The chair underneath the stair?

            “There’s another one... over there.  Don’t STARE!’’

            “My.  They have been together a very long time.  Probably part of a set (of six or eight) once.  DON’T LOOK THERE:  Don’t stare.  They don’t care”.

            “Yes dear.”  As if she thinks I haven’t done this all before.

            It is so pathetic.

            The shopping carts go up and down the isle:  “ISN’T... THAT... NICE”.

            It is not about nice.

            It is about art:  Old art....: “Antiques”.  THEY told ME... that is it (“about”).

            If something has a valuation and no one looks at it... is it

            Valuable?

            “Didn’t KNOW to NOTICE THAT!  THERE IT IS (on ‘the list’).  It is.  I think.  This here.  A valuation.  “NOT MUCH”.  “OH”.  “Well then.  “WHEN I... but I DO like it I sort of... but not for THAT (price of valuation).

            No... Let it go.  Its not much of anything

            Anyway.

            The other chair... is way up past the second

            Stair’

            Beside the rope turned banister?  The dark wood hall tree?  The third floor rumpus room.  The children’s hour?  “REMEMBER HOW WE PUSHED IT (the old chair) AGAINIST THE DOOR TO KEEP THEM OUT (Big brother, his friends and the origins of little sister panty raids).

            Didn’t I learn a long time ago that a ‘house’ filled with ‘antiques’ is “like a million miles”?  I did.

            Three floors.  Closed doors.  “One million miles” (“It’s somewhere way up there”).  The second chair.  Of the (obvious) pair.  And... there is not a

            Care.

            I don’t ‘get it’ until the third day of the distribution after the corporate conglomerates formed for the occasion (inherited estate distribution antiques conglomerate hedge funds merger manager).  “JANE:  THE SILVER IS ALL ON THE  DINING TABLE.”

“GOD are these people bad at this.”

            So the old chair in the rumpus room

            Is left there

            And so is its paired partner

            Under the front hall

            Stair.

            “Someone knew... but not one of these idiots”.  When we are in there the fourth day... “cleaning out”...  I notice they left their fast food burger bags and fries sleeves; their “you know”

            “BURGER”

            “KING”

            All around the house.  They walked around eating and looking.  Try that in your own home sometime.  “Such a slob”.  No really:  If you eat all your fries and then leave the cardboard sleeve on a ‘that chair’... you’re a slob.

            ART slob; careless and callous.  I will (art snob)

            Take advantage of you.

            I can do that too:  Muddy boots me “I don’t care”.  Too.

            “OH PLEASE Roger!  We have ENOUGH of your father’s OLD BOOKS

            ALREADY.

            Where did I

            Put my

            French Fries?

            Roger?”

            On the fifth day the estate contents was ‘closed out’; the contents of the estate had been ‘distributed’.  The property was “empty” and could ‘now be sold’.

            I did not keep the rug.  I did not keep the chairs.  I did not keep the “your father’s” old books in the...

“In the domestic library.

            Those are not ‘rare’

            Anyway” (Part One).

            Someone else should have kept them.  I suppose.  They should have all known right what they were looking at... while they ate their fries.  Then just stood vigil on the ‘good things’.  Then taken them away.  They didn’t.

            I did.

            I am the one who had to do that.  Not them

            And not for them.

            Do you think they left the old china behind.  Of course they did.  When I took the painting off the wall and walked out the door with it (Part One)... no one said anything at all nor even slightly gave me a bereaved look; a disparate look, a caring look...

            About what I took.