The Crow's Nest 3-11

3-11

            Walking through the kitchen and out into what was once the summer kitchen and shed but now was a large open shed space… full of rubbish placed upon rubbish… I did not stop.  I did turn my head side to side as I lead the group across the space to the bottom of the shed chamber stairs.  Stopping, turning to face the group and then making more pencil marks upon my paper slip, I kept my eyes looking past the people and on the rubbish.  The others stopped before me and did the same.  Sort of.

            It did not matter for I went up the chamber stairs right away.  Once up there I walked to the far front corner by an ankle level window.  I heard my partner come up the stairs.  I did not turn to him but instead bent to inspect the rubbish mound before me.  I then heard Mr. Lawyer and team start up the stairs.  They stopped on the stairs when they could view the whole chamber.  “What are you looking at?” I heard one of the women say.

            “Bats” my partner replied.  I turned just in time to see the women turn and descend the stairs.  One of the women had her hand on the top of her head.  “I hate bats” said my partner to Mr. Lawyer.  He was still shining his flashlight up into a corner of the rafters and scrutinizing the lighted spot.  Mr. Lawyer looked at him, looked toward me, then turned and went down the stairs.  My partner looked at me.  I looked at him.  The exchanged looks were understood to mean “we are done”.

            “Breeze through” best explains the next few brief moments of the rest of the walk through inspection.  The barn was the biggest building …full of rubbish… of the whole estate.  The law team opened the front barn door and stood there in the daylight.  All this showed me was that the mother’s car was no longer parked where it had always been parked.  I said nothing about that.  My partner and I walked through the barn; all three floors… promptly.  We took just enough time to be sure “we did it” but sped along to be sure to NOT let the law team just stand there.  Down we came and back to the kitchen I lead them.  They followed leaving the barn door open.  In the kitchen I went directly to the kitchen table, took the paper slip from my pocket, started studying it then started tallying the marks.  My partner stood off by the kitchen door.  The law team studied ME.  I paused, looked up at them and said “OH.  Better check the CELLAR”.

            I went to the cellar door, opened it, descended the stairs, stood at the bottom for a full minute surveying more rubbish and two old rat traps.  I counted to ten and went back up.  The law team had not moved.  They stood watching me.  Both women held their blank legal paper pads before them.  I returned to studying and marking my little paper card.

            THIS LITTLE CARD… with all the tiny pencil marks… now told ME how much dollar value I… I… “have seen” in this estate.  Each tiny mark spoke a dollar value; $25., $50., $100, or … $500. or even $1000.  Very carefully marked in fact, these “little dots” told ME a full dollar value of “what I saw in there”.  Once I totaled them up that is.  I did this.  The resulting number IS NOT how valuable the estate is OR how much I will pay.  The value of the estate, by contents, is much higher than my dots show for I factor in the “cost of doing business”:  Trucks, truck loads, men, men hours, content extraction time, time-time-time plus extra time, access time, delay time, screw ups, theft, breakage, people bothering you, neighbors bothering you AND paid out cash bonuses… and more… including “lunch” (actually in this estate… LUNCHES for TWO WEEKS). 

            “What I will pay” is based on… a very little bit… the tally number minus the cost of doing business.  THIS NUMBER is applied to… what I… I… THINK… sort of… “what Mr. Owner” “WILL SELL FOR”.  THIS NUMBER is divined by ME using everything I know about the estate IN PROCESS and… HOW a given owner is acting, has been acting AND is gonna act when I give them “a number” (purchase offer).  SOMETIMES, please understand, that means “I will not pay enough I do not want this estate Thank you Goodbye”.  I say this and… go to lunch.

            In this estate… the nonchalant boredom of Mr. Lawyer, the bats in the hair “OH MY GOD I HATE THIS” of the women combined this their “full of trash” “PROBLEM FOR ME” “just awful in there who would do this (clean it out) core position that moved to THE WORDS … fire trap… was dexterously applied to my “MR. LAWYER HAS ALREADY HAD A PROFESSIONAL AUCTIONEER IN HERE; A PERSONAL FRIEND WHO NOT ONLY ADVISED HIM BUT TOOK OUT “the good stuff” AND SOLD IT at public auction soooo….:  This stuff is “junk” and “a problem” and Mr. Lawyer doesn’t even expect ANY “free money” from this AND… I AM HIS ONLY game in town AND… he wants to LEAVE NOW and EAT LUNCH.

            Next I figured in the I had all ready figured this out  “Just how much DID Mr. Lawyer get for all that “good stuff” at auction after “the cost of doing THAT business” was …paid down.  Figuring an “eighty-five hundred if lucky” “the auctioneer screwed him” base amount that … “I guess”… PASTED MUSTER with Mr. Lawyer I… KNEW that what number I needed to “buy this” had to just touch… an “enough”… below the auction figure to be a “pay THAT for THAT junk AND clean it out” BUT ALSO enough so…WE GET THE ESTATE CONTENTS… IN FACT.

            Looking up from the table directly at Mr. Lawyer I said “SIXTY-FIVE HUNDRED; SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND TWO WEEKS UNRESTRICED ACCESS TO CLEAN IT OUT”.  Mr. Lawyer said nothing.  Then he looked at one of the women.  She wrote something, presumably my offer, down on her legal pad.  I said nothing more.

            Mr. Lawyer then said to me directly “I’ll let you know”.

            I said “Very good.  Thank you very much.” and …walked out the kitchen door with my partner in front of me.  We got in the truck and drove away to… eat lunch.  It was twenty of twelve.  Mr. Lawyer and the women appeared at the shed doorway as we turned around.  They still had to …lock the place up.