Summer Place - Part Twenty - C

Summer Place

Part Twenty - C

            With the platter back in my armpit, let us get my direction and intention clear; ‘get out of here’.  Not even the scampered away porcupine turns around and comes back for more… intercourse.  Here… there were no more ‘antiques’… in sight.  And:  When, as a dealer, I am in an estate where there is ‘no more (antiques) in sight’ and this status is …endeavored to be elevated… by the owner-in-charge anyone… saying any form of ‘there are more like that’ ‘antiques’ …that I cannot see and THEY are the source of this …usually pathetic in-their-mind association THAT NEVER IS TRUE… offering of …more commerce?  This is just ONE MORE impediment to ‘get out of here’… here including, AGAIN, the sunglasses RETURNING to the hair… in an earnest gesture that roughly finalized that I WAS NOT ‘out of here’ until WE did THIS BARN DANCE together.  BUT… denoting the word “barn” bumped me… a little bit toward ‘exit’ for THAT unit of the property was, at the least, OUTSIDE and AWAY from this ‘NO ANTIQUES’ inside-the (“MY”) house so…:

            Knowing that there is ‘no way’ a kiddy’s picnic from FIFTY YEARS AGO in a ‘barn’ and ‘in the hay’ had left a clutter of …American scene historical Staffordshire transferware china… on the barn floor ever since that children’s festival… call it whatever you like FOR there PROBABLY ARE some sort of old ‘dishes’ there but …for the antiquarian… ‘no way’.

            Offering some sort of “Ah… SURE.” articulation of opportunity seizing (?) AND ignoring the sunglasses AND turning toward the FRONT DOOR (‘the way out’)… I ‘back to’ ‘Jenny’ and …step one step ‘toward’ and stop to… get a …sound of ‘your coming too’ from her that was, remarkably, affirmed by her starting to yell “BEAD”.

            This was actually “BEED” and was actually a calling to the ‘fine young man by name but, well, with my ‘back to’ and such I had a “what the?” moment but “BEAD” was told to “GET THE KEY TO THE BARN IT’S ON THE MILLIE’S DOG BONE BUNCH”.  There followed a whole bunch of sounds that included ‘Jenny’ passing by me toward the front door and a …clambering up out off the sofa (?) sound of male-rises-to-attention-performs-task and… appears from kitchen (?) moving toward Jenny-at-front door TOO.  Suddenly I was ‘a follower’.

            Outdoors I did a… from the rear of the troupe… barn scan that showed it to be a mere six steps off that direction to my truck cab door that I …immediately… arched off to …to open and face-down-on-seat the platter.  I mean; no need to carry that around.  Right?  Let us not set off a smoke alarm with that ‘gold-onboard’.  Then I paced up to catch up real quick to the ‘down to the barn’ progress of my …leaders.

            BEED competently unlocked and removed the padlock from the hasp while his mom watched approvingly AND commented the requisite oral utterance of all summer place property owners of “WE NEVER HAD TO KEEP THE BARN LOCKED BUT PEOPLE WERE GOING IN AND TAKING THINGS.”.

            Is there anything left?  I mean… do you think the ‘taking things’ group would leave the kiddy’s …dark blue American scene historical Staffordshire transferware …picnic dishes… on the floor in the hay? 

Obviously… BEED didn’t care about them.  Or the stuff in the barn.  Or the barn.  Or the house.  Or the whole property.   Or even… this… ‘summer place’.  After he pushed open the barn door …sort of… he stepped aside and let ‘us’ go in.  He was done?  Mission completed?  He disappeared.

            ‘Mom’ recalculated back to ‘Jenny’ as she strutted off into the SEA of HAY.  I followed, noting a ‘to the right’ small clutch of ‘old boards’ but otherwise ‘SEA of HAY’ TOO.  Down a left of center corridor of space we ‘between the hay bales stacked’ …we …passed the newest, newer and new hay bales to enter the land of ‘old hay’ that was roughly the same amount of stacked bales but they were ever older the further back.. “WE” ‘Jenny’ said “GO”.

            There was a wooden wall up ahead that blocked the bottom floor hay from continuing.  There was an open door in that wall.  On top; up above, the old hay continued back into the barn above on a ‘second floor’ of ‘old hay’ ‘up there’.  “Huh” I said to myself as I denoted that the FRONT section of the barn was ‘older’ therefore “THE OLD BARN” with this wooden wall being the ‘1860’s’ ‘added on’ ‘new barn’ (?).  “Actually probably older” I to myself and arrived, behind Jenny, at the open door ‘to the back’.  This back ROOM showed ‘full of’... looks like lumber, boards… etc.  “Huh.” again from me to me.  ‘Jenny’ had turned left behind the fore barn hay bale pile and was off toward a barn window ‘off over there’.  I did not follow but stepped into the room of lumber.  It was a very big room; a ‘whole back of the barn’ room… full… of ‘lumber, boards… etc’.  It was this last (‘etc.’) that I searched for but DID start tabulating ‘old lumber’ too.  Yep; ‘I can sell that’ status on… all that.  But I wanted gold.  I did not see any as I moved VERY FAST around and through the lumber jungle.  I KNOW I ONLY HAVE A FEW …seconds… MINUTES(?) to ‘do this’ AND ACT:  “HURRY – YES BOSS” I did.  As I rounded the room’s back corner and headed toward the entry door ‘up ahead’ ‘Jenny appeared at that entry door WITH A DISH IN HER HAND.

            Seeing her I came on even faster.  She sees me coming on fast “They’re HERE they’re the SAME I FOUND THEM” she says as …I arrive at her holding a …chipped dark blue NOT OLD 1950’s era ‘Enoch Wood’ type English “after the war” style… dark blue transferware ‘STAFFORDSHIRE’ …:  “Help me”.

            “NOT the same.” I say.

            “But YES.  SEE.” She say promoting the plate toward me AND:  “NO NOT THE SUNGLASSES!”

            “1950’s NOT OLD”. I say and move past her through the doorway thereby disrupting the sunglasses-in-hair removal.  I turn left away from the window lighted picnic ally. 

            “THERE ARE A WHOLE PILE”. she says.

            “NOT OLD.” I say as I keep moving away from her across the back of the hay.  A stairs to the second floor appears at ‘dead center barn’.  I pass that with a glance.

            “I REMEMBER THESE THEY ARE JUST LIKE THAT DISH” I hear her… CALLING… after me.

            “Help me” I say to myself again.  I continue into darkening darkness behind the old hay bale mounds.  Something blocks my progress; something blocks the path behind the old hay.  Its dark.  My hands feel cotton cloth covered with hay?

            “I’M GOING TO GET THESE.  THEY’RE JUST LIKE THE ONE YOU BOUGHT” I hear ‘Jenny’ saying as I try to get past this ‘what ever it is’ blocking me.  I stop.

I feel a stepped top edge; a ‘an overhang’. “Huh”.  I drop my hand down the side to the floor to feel a ‘base’.  “Huh”.  I bend over and from-shirt-pocket deploy my tiny flashlight and twist it on to …illuminate… on the floor against the wall and ‘buried’ in ‘old hay’ refuse a ‘bracket base’ ‘FOOT’; a ‘rear foot’ that I affirm by micro seconds shine-on the FRONT foot AS my right hand run up the front edge of the …chest… to… by feel… the drawers and their ‘pulls’.  I pull on a pull hard.  The drawer comes out an inch.  I shine-on the exposed edge; “dovetailed”.  My fingers touch the under drawer bottom’s edge; “(it’s) chamfered”.  “Period” I say meaning “of the period”; a …chest of drawers; bracket base Chippendale chest of drawers; I have found.  I stand up straight, turn the flashlight off and…  “Yep” to myself as I step away back to those centered stairs up and go right up them… to the second floor.’ 

“Time.  Buy time.” I say to myself at the top of the stairs.