“Most of What We Have Left”

“Most of What We Have Left”

Conversation did not “work well” past awkward and that awkward was elevated by my denial of access to the inside of the estate.  No... the heirs apparently wanted to interview my poise of interest in their dead grandparents estate (“THEIR HOME”) contents outside the actual buildings of the estate.  “Difficult to SEE.” I said.

I was ‘on property’ but certainly not “IN” anywhere....  No and they were very pleased that, for them, I was NOT ‘difficult to see’ out at the side of the driveway by the garden next to the side wall of the “OLD BARN”.

That was their title for that building.  I looked up and down the old shingled wall of the building but said nothing; I made no cover comment.  I’m good at doing that.

            We were all standing; “standing around”.  Normally the restlessness of standing proceeds to a ‘walk through’ of the ‘buildings’ and all their ‘rooms’ to (casually) ‘see’ all the ‘things’ here qualified as “most of what we have left”.  I looked along the base of the wall of the barn while the heirs said that.  It was a ‘said again’; they’d said that earlier when they came out on the porch from the front door they’d opened at my knock.  I was pushed back by them doing that and saying that.  I was pushed back up the ‘front walk’ onto the driveway and back toward my parked car.  I’d parked underneath an American Chestnut tree.  I noted that tree and parked there by preference for a ‘good luck place’.  American Chestnut trees are, in my realm (antiquarian senses), ‘good luck’ when encountered.  Nobody knows this.  It is a trade tip I pass on; old trees and old estates come together.  

            After passing the tree and my parked car we were quickly stuck on a grass patch just off the driveway, above the garden, off of the “OLD BARN” and opposite the large double sliding wooden doors (open) of the “shed” that lead into the ‘summer kitchen’ and onward to the door to the actual indoor kitchen.  “Maybe... we are going in that way” I considered.  Standing on the grass patch I was twenty five steps from that open double door.  I stood just in the shade from the Chestnut tree.  The shed doorway was a long passage in the open sunlight and

            I was not encouraged to go that way; “Over there” they titled it.

            No I was surrounded by five family people (heirs) and kept away.  Behind them a Barn Swallow flew low and then in through the shed doorway.  I noted that; ‘has a nest in there’.  That happens in old Maine estates.  Most people do not know this but I do.  It is too, a ‘good luck’ sign to an antiquarian eye.

            At this moment I had a fuzzy antiquarian sensation; a sort of mental brightness of the bright sun in the estate’s yard; a bright blurred vision of a much older doorway image apparition that took me mentally way back in time to a long lost moment when a woman stepped out of the shed doorway and stood while a man seated in a chair back in the doorway behind her was looking out.  That apparition took only two seconds of  time.

            And was gone.

            I wanted to follow that but I could not for the surrounding heirs were to fixed on their planned procedure to interview me as a person of interest in the interest of their persons in fielding me as a ‘possible’ who would “BUY” the titled ‘most of what we have left’ estate contents.  Well... I’d already seen enough from my limited access to be very sure that I was not only interested but was GOING TO BUY .... ALL... of the ‘most of what we have left’.

            Yes that was MY plan now that I had stood under the American Chestnut tree and before the open shed door with a Barn Swallow family nesting ‘in there’.  Of course there must be a few ‘other things’ to allow me to take the risk; the buy everything without ever even looking at it risk.  Yes, too, I know that:  That you do not do (“take”) that kind of risk.  You do not behave that way when it comes to your ‘taking risk’.

            Though... probably already you have a considered sense that “MAYBE” a “DOING THAT” is a possible probable “IF”... and I know well the hard focus you have on that word... all of the “IF” that can be is a ‘push through’ just the... same way as... the five heirs surrounding me intentionally intend to DO THAT SAME horse trade function (an ‘if push through’) THEMSELVES... for themselves.

            So if they are doing that it is not going to work for ME... is it.  But let’s us not get OUR bowels all bound up about all this like THEY HAVE.

            It is an easier ‘star cross’ (‘to cross the stars’) IF I let the them... and you... do the ‘if’ issues and I, now left alone... do the

            Risk

            Issues.

            They (the heirs) do not expect that.

            And neither do you.

            Now....:  I’ve parked under the tree and noted that.  I’ve seen the Barn Swallow swoop at the shed doorway and noted that.  You’ve been told... so accomplish a ‘know, now’ of that.  They (the five heirs) (airs?)... are in fact airs for they note nothing but, evidently, the keeping me ‘out’ of their ‘it’ (the estate).  Their reason(s), of course, are responsible:  They do not want me seeing the ‘mess’, ‘filth’, ‘trash’, ‘dirty... ness’ and foul residues of old New England generational existence PACKED into this dark old creepy space that, well, is called by them “GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE”.  No.  To their eyes the whole, including the grass patch of yard we are standing on... is a ‘how may we’... ‘get rid of this’.

            “We have taken their good things and all of what we want.” They tell me and then again say the “Most of What We Have Left”... “is trash”... “in there”.  The last two words were highlighted by a left arm gesture by one of the heirs toward her rear left evidently denoting ‘in there’ to mean the large Greek Revival (1830’s) main house and ell.  The gesture did not include the summer kitchen, shed, barn and attached outbuildings behind (chicken house, buggy storage shed, etcetera [old outhouse]).  The arm gesture just conveyed that the “Most of what we have left” that was “good” (?) was in the main house and ‘but the other building must be

            Cleaned out

            Too.’

            I was alright with the subliminal arm gesture and had already moved on from there.  Brutally, for those tracing risk, I directly asked “HOW MUCH ARE YOU THINKING FOR ALL OF IT?”

            “CLEANED OUT BY NEXT TUESDAY.” I forcefully added.

            THAT stopped them:  Did they or did they not have ‘a number’?  WELL let us just see... :

            Well no... they do not.  THAT took twenty seconds.  And their wagons are circled.

            I... am just coming back from another visual trip down the side of the barn.  That didn’t take long; only fourteen seconds.  And... just think of all that risk that may be taken in fourteen seconds... too.  I was coming BACK from the side of the barn to the grass spot across from the shed doors with a full bore ‘risk assessment’ qualifier that

            I...

            Well... It is all on me; that sort of risk leap; the leaps of risk.  Antiquarian risk.  One does not just do that.  No.  I pick up every little bit anything about me to... vaguely... assess my risk... assessment.  Then I step into the burning.

            Here-at... a round robin of the five heirs suddenly caucuses before me and I am told that they ‘need a moment’ and then they rapidly dish (serve) their number; a ‘their asking (?) price’ “TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS”.

            “Okay.” I say... promptly and assertively.  I am in the burning house now.  Am I not?  Their wagons stay circled.  “By Tuesday” is addressed and assured followed by the ‘Your check is fine.’ ‘Here is a key.’  The end statement from I is “Starting (early) tomorrow morning”.  With  “Sure.  It is fine for you to stop by”.  It is never fine but they never don’t do that; drop (stop) by and... “bother”.  But that is part of the risk management.  Let me go over that again to be sure you saw how it was done.

            The American Chestnut tree and the Barn Swallow in the shed are understood in their roles of showing ‘old New England (Maine) (estate) undisturbed’.  That is carried directly to I taking the risk that all of the buildings.... all of them... are undisturbed to the criteria purveyed by the chestnut tree and nesting swallows.  Therefore:  What are these people going to do after they have gained the “Most of What We Have Left” plateau in the... distribution of the things in... “Grandmother’s House”?

            They are not going to do anything... except huddle as a group of five OUTSIDE the buildings and, well... praying (in curious forms) for the requisite (required in order to sell the property; the ‘put on the market’)‘clean out’ to be done?  Done? No:  “THIS BE OVER”.  That IS what they want.

            So my risk of entering the burning may be so easily done simply because that is exactly what they want to happen as soon as possible.  All I did was follow the trail and give it (the ‘clean out’ purchase) a ‘little push at the end’.  I went with their most desired “IF”.

            And now am alone with my ‘risk’... within ‘the burning’.  But there is just a touch more to affirm my ‘safe bet’ risk.  Did you see it?  No.  No one did but I (eye).

            When I looked down the side of the barn in the old garden before the old barn’s wall I noted two old grindstones being used as garden decorations.  Anyone who cared (have antiquarian tastes) would have ‘spirited them away’.  But there they sat in plain sight.

            Further... and back along the old barn’s wall... were a row of handmade; hand hewn by axe, fence posts consciously gathered and leaned up in that row along the old barn’s wall.  No one just happens to do that.  One must know, care and do... that.  And no one notices these antiquarian woodenware treasures

            Except eye (I).

            I of course say nothing but... understand...:  If that is that way ...there... the “IF” of the estate is that it is LOADED with  “most of what we have left”... like the fence posts... treasure and...

            “Worth the risk (to purchase the contents sight unseen.  Actually... I do see the estate very clearly, don’t I... in addition to ‘not letting on’ and ‘not raising suspicions.  No:  I paid them and started the next morning.  I didn’t take the grindstones and fence posts until Monday afternoon.  By then all had stopped dropping by and nobody cared a hoot what “most of what we have left” was anyway...

            Except me.  I took it all.