Coon Hill - Part Four - "Folded Paper"

Coon Hill

Part Four

"Folded Paper"

            Picking up where I... ‘when I closed the door... I looked at it’ (the death chair)... ‘just sitting there’ and therefore... NOT returning to the sneak thief and I in the same space several days later (Part Two)...yet ... I

            Did close the door and did go back to ‘cleaning out’ her dresser drawers and... finding nothing... much... at all... in the dresser.  This old dead woman, when alive... was well settled of things.  Her socks... for example... were ‘her socks’ in her ‘sock drawer’... in the dresser.  She ‘had some socks’.  Not too few socks and...  not too many socks.  The sock drawer did not expand socks at me like a jack-in-the-box when I opened the drawer.  Many sock drawers do... do that; ‘expand when opened’.  I know this.  I have opened other people’s... who are usually ‘now dead’... sock drawers... for many... many... decades.

            It is always the same; old New England home... old dead people’s... old dresser’s drawer... sock drawer... contents... cleaned out by I.  I find something ‘good’ ‘too’?  A lot of times I do... such as little ‘old coin’ bags with... old coins in them... tucked (hidden?) in the back... with the... old socks that are not used ‘as much’ back there... too.  Then the drawer is empty; ‘cleaned out’.  The dresser is empty; ‘cleaned out’.  It is ‘tied off’ meaning a ‘rope’ is ‘tied around it’ to ...hold the drawers from ‘falling out’ as it (the dresser) goes on a commercial antiques JOURNEY with ME.  “Tied off’ also tells my eye that the old dresser ‘is empty’; has been ‘cleaned out’.  Of its old socks and... of its bags of old coins.

            At these points (moments)... in an old New England home ...on an old New England property ...I am, I remind... working alone... by VERY ‘my choice’.  I want to be alone so I can hear the DEAD PEOPLE talk to me.  I don’t want a ‘you’... ‘there’.  “BEAT IT”.

            The first day(s) I ‘hit it (the estate clean out) hard’ with “TRUCKS” and a crew... who are told exactly ...what to do.  After that day(s)... I get rid of them and, reminding that contractually I... have ‘like’ fourteen days ‘or something’ to get to the contractual state... of the estate... being... this is a titled state:  ‘Broom clean’:

            So I get rid of the... ‘help’... and am ‘there’ by ‘first light’ and alone and... just let it all come to me as I ‘clean out’ to ‘broom clean’.  Then, after I’m done with ‘THAT’ that here includes follow up... ah... contact (such as I on the ladder getting the Coon Hill sign) (Part One) with the neighborly sneak thief... ALONE with ME... ‘in there’ TOO.

            “Yeah... I know... but you get used to it.  I promise.  He is just another ...sock drawer.  Open it and... he pops out.”

            THEN... I bring the ‘some of’ the ‘crew’ back and ‘everything’ such as the tied off old dead woman’s dresser is ‘cleaned out’.  Then I come back the next day after that and ...begin a series of days that end as the old New England property being... ‘broom clean’.

            That’s a joke... sort of... this broom ‘CLEAN’.  Anything I broom... CLEAN... I TAKE TOO.  The joke is that the estate wants the estate... broom clean... clean... by contract but to the ‘I’ of this... broom clean ‘finds a lot of good stuff’ ‘in there’ that ‘most people would miss’... so legend says.  I take it all anyway; good, bad, indifferent and... the ‘who cares’... too.  I am well known in the trade for doing this.

            OK SO I am in the bedroom with the door closed and the dresser cleaned out and sheets stripped off the bed and the old pillows ‘designated’ ‘to packing’ (material... as are the bed clothing)... and the lamps unplugged and their cords wrapped up and... I ...ah... get over to this ...well let us just be really fruity and call it an... ‘occasional table’... that was sort of ‘floated’ in the bedroom.  ‘Floated’ means ...sort of not against a wall, sort of towards a window but not NEXT to a window and... sort of NOT covered with all kinds of ‘stuff’ that is ‘piled on it’ and never touched and OK SO

            I had had had my eye on THAT for ...well... right off ... from the ‘walk through’ (the before buy-out bid ‘tour’ I go on) with an ‘estate principal’ (lawyer’s office girl or two) to “SEE” the “ESTATE”.  That’s a lot more complex than that sounds but... you don’t need to know... that stuff.  OK SO... I... ‘finally’ NOW ‘get to that’; this occasional table.  And I already know what it is oh way long ago in all this so I’m not ‘palpitate on the front of my shirt’ about THAT.  It looks like it has six drawer but only three ‘work’ and the other drawer fronts ...with their original brass hardware too... are dummies and ...I already know that too and just pull out the... tiny... ‘real drawers’ and empty them of what is a skimpy cache.  And put the drawers back in and

            It’s ‘cleaned out now’ but roping the three drawers in is ‘hard’ because of their ‘in the round’ format.  And just right here... I record for advice... that one does not ever ‘separate’ a ‘drawer’ from the what the drawer’s ‘goes to’ for ... it may well never get back to ‘go to’ if you

            Do (that; separate the drawer (s)).  (Continuing for the record THIS explains why ‘a piece of furniture’ is ‘missing a drawer’.  That’s what happened:  When the piece of furniture was moved the drawer(s) was taken out and ‘separated’.  Forever.)

            Here I just take a bed sheet and wrap up the whole ... pedestal base stand‘s (formerly referred to as ‘occasional table’) top ...up in the sheet... that keeps the drawers from... falling out ...and I leave it sitting like that... ready to go... but... BUT THAT... meaning ‘ready to go’ for ME to ‘take that out’.  It (this old stand) is, too, ‘clean out’.  It’s just that... I like it... AND noticed off and over in the room beyond the closed bedroom door that there “IS” in that room a similar stand “TOO”... that I’m ‘gonna get to that too’... which does not mean much except to add that until THIS MOMENT in the estate contents purchase and clean out... I had shown no interest nor spoken of in any way at all about either of these ‘pieces of old furniture’.  I did be sure that I ‘own them’ when I ‘bought the contents’ of ‘this place’.  I did this last by attentively monitoring ‘anything’ the estate ‘did’ about... ‘anything’; ANY THING... ‘in it’ (the estate).  The whole estate had a ‘mine; all mine’ status at this moment

            Where I was standing alone in the old dead woman’s bedroom with ‘most of that room’ ‘cleaned out’.  I looked at the back of the closed bedroom door.  I opened it and stepped into the outer room.  I glanced at the ‘pedestal base stand’ across that room in the dark.  The bedroom stand... too... was ‘in the dark’ of that room.  My antiquarian eye raked it... in the dark... as my eye had... just now raked the other stand... in the dark.  In fact, I turned from one stand to the other stand... while standing at the threshold... and raked them both... with my antiquarian eye.  Again.  Then I

            Went outside to the truck and looked at the stupid cell phone and the rolling clouds and that kind of crap for one point seven minutes of ‘break time’ and then went back into the house and across the room toward the bedroom skirting aside for the death chair that was then still in the same position as ‘she died in it’ and not yet moved into the bedroom by me yet and

            I see a small old folded piece of paper on the floor ‘there’ sort of off by the death chair and I bend and pick that up and go on into the bedroom where I glance around with the little piece of paper in my hand that I then look upon... in my hand palm and seeing it is folded I unfold it and inside it is an old lock of hair and it says above that in old brown ink: 

This you see Remember me

for ever

            While “the clouds roll by the blue sky I use from the windows as light so cause that light to... always be toning and moving as if... I am not alone” (Part Three) in this...

            Dead woman’s bedroom.

            Dead woman’s house.

            Dead woman’s property.