"Zipper" Harris. Part Two. "Stumble Blocked Too"

"Zipper" Harris

Part Two

"Stumble Blocked Too"

            What Zipper considers to be “antiques” is anything he considers “old” and he “likes”.  It is that simple... when reconnoitering the ‘his sense of (antiquarian) object’.

            Zipper’s actual sense of ‘considers to be antiques’ is process of which the actual antique objects are (merely) a component.  And he is unaware of this.  That is a component too.  These, to me, are no surprise and are too... “useful”.  Zipper and his realm view of ‘antiques’ is as if he is an energized dog restrained on a lease.  I hold the lease.

            I drop the leash.

            Zipper goes.

            The more ‘antiques’ the more he ‘goes’.

            It is that simple.

            This (Zipper’s process) actually defines ‘antiques’ to him.  He is a groundhog in an attic full of antiques.  So much a groundhog is he that he cannot, in most all opportunities, actually get himself into that attic for he, in the frenzy of his process, raises the query of the attic owner of ‘do I want this dog-off-leash in my antiquarian attic?’.  That is where I come in.  “Tact”.

            The first time I had Zip ‘work for me’ in an estate purchase and cleanout setting has set the route that we still, as a team, follow.  Beginning with him on my leash, I held him firm with just enough Zipper bluster released in the estate to assure the heirs that he is ‘what he appears to be’ and I ‘have that under control’.  Zipper was working on a much more ‘lookout for self’ level.  I knew this so I

            Told him to... right from the get-go, set aside “THERE” “ANYTHING” HE “WANTED”.  He did and did too configure, as I expected, to gather a ‘what he likes’ merged with “what I would let him have”.  He knew to NOT ‘try for’ the old tall clock under the eves.  But all of that was not the actual point of antiquarian process that Zipper discovered that day.

            What he discovered is when I brought in a box of large black plastic trash bags and told Zip to ‘put all that (his gathered pile) in those and put them in the back of the truck’.

            “What are we doing?”

            “Taking that to the dump”.  Zip’s antiquarian puppy dog face showed both protest and ‘start sobbing’.  Shut-up I said yanking his leash.  The heirs on the other hand, were “Very pleased” we were “cleaning up”, bagging, loading and hauling away “all that”.  “for free”.

            We drove to Zip’s barn and unloaded all the “garbage bags” and then... ‘drove back for more’.  Zip, to this day, still has problems recognizing that if I treat what the heirs feel is trash as trash they are completely satisfied with us taking that thrash as it being trash in the trash bags... to the dump... Zip’s barn... “for free”.  Zip is still ...stumble blocked... that it is HE who

            Get’s it (these truck loads of ‘antiques I like’)

            For free.

            Once introduced to the ‘in field’ actually happens antiques dealer’s proverb of ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, Zip has come along with that over the years.  The stick point (stumble block) continues to be that Zip denotes the ‘trash’ to be actual ‘antiques’ that he ‘likes’.  I do not feel he will ever work this through and... with I holding the leash, he will never have to.  What does that this mean too?  It means that Zip could not do this (trash bag estate antiques and take them ‘to the dump’) by himself.  There are just to many ‘antiques’ that he ‘likes’ for him to, poker face required, ‘do that’.  I, of course, have no problem with Zip helping me with ‘estate rubbish management’.  Also... he is fully satisfied and has commended my actions for forty years.  It is the near most featured of his mantras about I as an antiquarian.

            What is his most featured mantra?  I will choose that it is the well renown and defiant action of, without explanation, I kicking the boxes, bags, piles and... all... rubbish in attics, sheds, out building, barn lofts, crawl spaces and cellars.  Of course the heirs eventually demand to know what I am doing.  I explain I am kicking all to get the mice out before I open (and stick my hand in) the box or whatever.  Digested fast (‘choked down’) this served-notice from I of that... gets rid of

            Them

            Pronto.

            Once one sees this work at work... one does not forget this magic trick.  Zip has “never forgotten”... from ‘day one’.  AND once again this is a slight-of-foot that Zip cannot do well himself.  His deliveries (the kicking and explanations) are a bit forced and prompted. It works for him but he acknowledges roughness. I, of course, when at this mice kicking... am in my element.  And:

            If one wishes to get dastardly with this... the top-of-the-attic-stairs... shining of the flashlight along the exposed ridgepole of the roof above to... state when the heirs query... that I am “checking the bats”... causes rapid ‘down attic stair retreat’ from... an ‘older the better’ attic ...contents.

            No, no, no now JUST:  When the light from the flashlight travels along the ridge pole simply peer hard to notice the slight squirm of the rousted bats as the light hits ’em.  They ain’t gonna come after you unless you go up there and poke ‘em hard.  They don’t want you but they are there.  The middle ground is noting that they are there, reporting this to the heirs and then

            THEY ARE GONE... down to the bottom of the stairs where, poised at this stair bottom... they are now ready for me to ‘buy everything up there and clean it out too’.  Bats, the number of them ‘up there’ may be estimated by the amount and freshness of the bat poop on the attic floor (and on top of the stuff).  That is valuable information just for you.  The general populace gets real queasy about actual bat poop so I keep quiet.  I’ve been dust-off-bat-doo for nearly five decades so... ahhhh.... you ARE better off at the bottom of the stairs.  Kicking the boxes for mice is, as attic theater at its best, more fun.  Anyway.

            From Zip mired in his “antiques I like” as actual process and not the actual “antiques  I found” and too his decades long failure to denote that this process is actually what he wants as “antiques” anyway... and too... I know this... “WE” as a team have become a well oiled machine of antiques-cleaned-out.  Zip, in his hoard barn, has in fact decades of ‘antiques I like’ that are... well... all his and guarded that way too.  I, in my barn-stop-by-visits find myself among Zip’s hoard of ...stuff we long ago took to the dump.  That’s right... and I speak of forty years worth.  Hoard.  Yes?  Right:  You do see now don’t you.  It is process... not the actual ‘stuff’ (hoard).  And Zip... is not... a hoarder.  No for all of the barn’s antiques store contents... IS FOR SALE.  Should one pay Zip’s price.... it is sold... to... well... YOU.

            Now we get a little deeper.  It is what I call ‘the purity of the dream’.  Zip’s dream is very pure.  That is why we have lasted as partners for so long.  I supply the landscape of Zip’s pure dream.  He cannot ‘get the stuff’ into his ‘barn antiques store’ without me... literally... grooming  the estate ( of antiquarian process) with direct consideration of his ‘pure (antiquarian) dream’.  THIS has always absorbed ME; managing Zip’s perfect pure dream of antiquarian process he thinks of as ‘antiques I like’... with this ... “never changing” including the mounds of forty years hoarding of that wholeness (Zip’s purity of dream).. Is it my ‘purity of dream’ too?

            “A little bit” I guess I should allow... shouldn’t (eye) I.

            I am not stumble blocked too by all of this ‘antiques I like’ in an antiques store in an old barn... filled with a hoard of forty years of ‘cleaned out’ and ‘taken to the dump’.  A hoard that is treasured for its purity... and that purity is only a dream... and has little to do with the stuff that is hoard... in fact.  I can and do... I may... walk by in the dream of the ‘antiques I like’ as the hoard in the barn.  Why

            May I?

            Because of the divisiveness of the ‘those others’; the keepers, the decorators and the collectors of... ‘antiques I like’.  Yes... THOSE them that I am eye.  All over the place they are.  Flea market whimpering.  Auction hall back corners.  Trade fair expeditions (often crossing four or five states to attend) and now too the relish of the electronic process of... purity of dream... too:  Smart phone mayhem.  And more... such as yard sale due diligence, Thrift Store bag sales but too including the old fashion ‘stop hopping’ along antiquarian highways found, for example, on the coast of Maine.  All of these would leave Zip far in a dust if it were not for his ‘purity of dream.  And I may stand in his barn and poke his dream myself... should I happen by.