Monday, December 8, 2014

Coon Hill - Part Twelve - "This Dirty Business"


Coon Hill

Part Twelve

"This Dirty Business"



            Now that I have supplied background.  Now that I have supplied insight.  Now that I have reported nuance.  Reported character.  Reported ‘the stuff’.  All that AFTER the first two parts (one and two) where my companion for and of this estate clean-out is ‘first appearance’ and his contribution is... titled ‘stealing’.  I am not really all that pleased to be writing THIS (‘this dirty business’) down to be read... perused... stipulated... queried... pondered... stepped in and ...treaded around... (“up the [front] stairs”?) by voyeurs who may feel pat that they have found TOO a secret antiquarian trade (‘stolen stuff’) TOO that they will tell me they
            “KNEW... OF... BEFORE”.
            “Oh go to Hell.” And after a half century of STOLEN-FROM-ME... I can say that without ever having to THINK ABOUT the ones I sent there... coming BACK from HELL I...:   “Stolen stuff”?  Nah... you ain’t there.  Ever.
            “Stolen stuff”?  I’ve put two people in jail for stealing from me.
            “Stolen stuff”?  Yeah I can remember the first ‘thing’ ‘good’ I had... “STOLEN”[1].
            And funny thing about that... it was in 1969 and ...funny thing about that... the:
GUY who did that; that stealing from me... was... ah
            SET UP across from me at the flea market for a WHOLE YEAR... a year ago... until he was ‘asked to leave’ for ‘not paying (his stall) rent.  So like... he was... ah...
            THERE for the WHOLE YEAR and I...
            Well...
            Had intercourse with him... for the WHOLE YEAR.
            Funny thing about that..  I mean... first off that’s just another tattoo proving my looking down that ladder at Asa (Part One) “AIN’T the FIRST TIME”... but:
            Funny thing about that is that... yeah, yeah, yeah don’t worry BOTH OF US BOTH very clearly and concisely ‘remember’ “THAT” (the 1969 stealing ‘incident) but ah
            FUNNY THING ABOUT... THIS... (him a forty years ago thief) is that... IN THE
            WHOLE
            Trading floor of the WHOLE flea market... he’s ah (this thief) is the
            MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE of ALL of the ‘yeah that’s what they call themselves’ DEALERS ‘in the place
            AND
            HE KNOWS THAT I AM ‘knowledgeable’ TOO.  He even knows that I am MORE knowledgeable ‘about antiques’ (and rare books) than HE IS ...ever... going to be BUT he... to be a career antiques thief AND do that for forty years...  yeah:  He DOES have to ‘know what he’s doing”
            STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?
            “Funny thing about that.”
            But he got ‘asked to leave’.


That’s not the only ‘piece of shit’ (unpleasant situation) I ‘go through’ (step in).  No... it is WEEEKLY, daily, hourly KEEP vigilant.  Keep vigilance.  Yes.
            “For what?”
            “Stealing?  Stolen stuff?”
            “Yeah... just say ‘where’d that guy get that stuff’ a few times and... one STARTS to get the FEEL of ‘something big out there’ in the antiquarian... beyond.  And that brings me back to Asa.


            Some ‘beyond’ he is.  I have (standing at the bottom of the ladder and then with me INSIDE ‘Her’ home)... a... trust fund financed moved to Maine fifty years ago blue bloody somehow remittance case living in a “MAINE FARM” where he guardingly keeps a locked barn that he has filled with CRAP that he ‘thinks is good’ that he has pilfered (in the name of ‘stealing’)... and I know all about this ...ah... chap and his... ah... career from... ‘seeing him’ (and specimens of his ‘stuff’) ‘at the flea market (et al) venues and ah...:
            “What am I gonna do about this piece of crap and his barn full of pieces of crap?”
            “I know!  Let’s burn him at the stake... in the middle of
            His
            BARN FULL OF CRAP!”


            That isn’t the way it works.
            Slithering in and out from under cool wet rocks these ‘this sort’ are more than capable of continuing.  They seem to move well and always a little ways ahead of the pack and... always know where the (escape) door is and the right... light... touch at the right... light angle in the right... light... light to be
            Prolifically
            Successful
            AT their ‘slight of hand’.


            NOW that dropping the Coon Hill sign down the ladder on Asa is... a viable action... I leave that missed opportunity (Part One) and reappear INSIDE the home (Part Two) where this ...ponderance of character... wants to ‘know where’ the (death) chair is; that I have it and he wants it and I
            Confronted him with his own emotional involvement with the ‘Her’ and the estate and the ... door to the THAT ROOM is closed and HE.
            YES HE HAD ONCE... ONCE... once... been in and out of that DOORWAY and THAT ROOM.... a ‘bedroom’.  But that was so long ago before the stealing and the HE was so much, much, much younger then; a ‘college boy’ and SHE was only but a younger and less deliberately formed ‘Her’ who, too... had eyes to notice a YOUNG MAN splitting wood.  Tending bees.  Parking trucks.  Wearing NO SHIRT AT ALL in the door yard before the BARN whose door was open to show ONLY BALES and BALES of new HAY ‘cut’.
            But that was a very long time ago before the door to that room; the bedroom... closed HIM OUT.  Why?
            I don’t know
            Exactly
            Nor do I care
            To know
            Exactly.


            Then the stealing began.  At the end of every little visit... that weaken;  each visit weakened, until the ‘He’ was but a puppy dog of ‘Her’:  The, as he said:
            “I’M the one that’s been the doggie here.  Not you.” (Part One).  That’s what happened to him.  “In here”.  Inside the estate.  The bedroom door was closed forever... until I ...stripped the bed.  Until I cleaned out the sock drawer in the ‘dresser’ and
            Put the ‘Death Chair’ in there... too.  Or is it ‘back in there too’.  WHERE DID SHE KEEP the ‘Death Chair’?
            Anyway.  She had a puppy dog... that stole from her.  And drank.  Yeah; don’t forget that.  And... did he really steal from her?  NO.  He stole ‘stuff’ from her outbuildings and the barn.  She did, being ‘well settled of things’ (Part Four), not care... to care... to notice any of that.  It was just ‘old stuff’ ‘in the barn’
            Anyway.
            Then he’d take it home and hide in the ever growing mound of his ‘full’ barn.  His hoard of his being a hoarder.  A hoard of he steals from ‘Her’ to hide ‘it’ from ‘Her’ in his locked barn to... ever very carefully upon a thoughtful occasion of some sort idiotic disconnected thought related... in most cases... to having ‘seen’ a ‘one like it’ at an ‘out there somewhere’ antiquarian venue he would puppy dog piddle around at some EQUAL venue harboring and holding; hoarding in his arms, his little “FIND OUT ABOUT” of the hoarder’s hoarding momentary mental and physical fantasy fetish.  Yes; fetish.
            Then he’d go home from that effort of hoarder’s conquest... and drink
            The whole bottle
            And pitch that bottle off the back porch into the Maine woods with the locked barn of his stolen hoard in sight to his ...immediate right.  Drunk as a skunk he would then ‘pitch back’ on either the (seasonal) old sofa on that porch or ...the old sofa ‘inside’.
            For a few days.
            Of no creature is stirring.


            She didn’t care about the stealing and she probably did actually enjoy his ...well managed by her... regular visits of ‘very often’ for decades and decades and that he was to her like a puppy dog that peed on her rug and ‘she never notices you know’.  She noticed.  She noticed and noted all of it and, correctly, concluded that... well...
            She was no great shakes herself.
            Then I come in and ‘have to’ ‘clean it out’.
            It is a dirty business.
            It is so dirty that it becomes, in its filth... an astonishingly beautiful,
            Rich,
            Epic
            For me
            when I come in and... ‘clean it out’.








[1] :  It was (r.i.p.) in short; a ‘blown three mold inkwell’ GIII-29.  Common type.  Keene, NH, 1825. Perfect.  They are (and look like) a hockey puck of Early New England glass. At that day and on to now... it is a $125.00 value.  Yes for all forty-five years (2014) that price.  $85.00 wholesale that day and... today.  WITH an occasional $225.00 aberration ‘over the years’.  THAT day of mine stolen; a ‘fain eighty-five’ to collect a quick ‘beaten down’ $65.00.  Easy money ‘at that’.  That day.  And today too.







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