Roughshod - Part Six - "Dependence"

Roughshod

Part Six

"Dependence"

            Now that I have presented the old fools... who feel that old New England antiques be those found as core and source finds... in old New England homes... with those homes being a requisite undisturbed (original) state (no ‘sanded floors’) and including as many ‘same family’ dependence as a timeline will allow...:

            Oh... I said ‘this is horrible... harsh and... simple” (Part Five).

            And now say it is wrote in... your... own blood too.

            That is right:  Blood in the old New England home and in their old New England ‘things’ (antiques).  The blood as the street is surveyed from the front doorway.

            In the sun

            Shine. (Part Five).

            Does the sun shine on all of this?

            Not really.  It is ‘around’ for three seasons of the year.  And is “hot” for the forth season.  A porch rocker will suffice for this forth season... “in the shade”.  The summer season in not the ‘good time’ to ‘go in’ and ‘look’ at the “antiques”

            “IN THERE”.

            No.  I like February.  And your (the reader’s) efforts to collect antiques are not around then either.  Did not notice that... did you.

            I do.

            When a door is closed... or actually locked... with its key kept in the lock... and all may ‘see their breath’ in the room that is locked by the closed door... is that room exactly the way it has been... historically... in the ‘this old New England home’ with its blood (hot blood?) dependence there too?  Do these hot blood dependence actually STEAM in that room on this one closed door New England February morning... when I have been “called” “to account”?

            By proxy?

            By vote?

            By summons.  Usually.

            Very strict rules:

            “GOD”

            “Good taste”.

            “I know”.  (Part Five)

            “GOD

            It is cold today”.

            That is when an English... American Federal Period... Neoclassical looking glass... is taken off the wall for the first time following a same family registration of two hundred years.  I lift the looking glass off the wall for the first time in two hundred years.  I carry it outside through the front doorway and across the frozen lawn to my truck cab and “PUT IT” “behind the seat”.  That was a dirty deed.

            Wasn’t it.

            Then we talk about the Strawberry Festival in July.

            And how Elmer Mason is about to die.

            The old home’s furnace sings its song

            It is cold today so that’s not wrong

            The church was cold last weekend too

            But there was nothing anyone could do.

            It is horrible... harsh and simple?

            No.  It is the way it really is with the ‘old things’ in the old New England homes.  That is (exactly) how it happens.  No riding roughshod.  No phony sophistication that bandies “I LIKE” as a judgment of taste.  No; the museums ‘like’.   In this world; in this realm.  Where one sees the breath and feels hot blood.  It is honor.

            It is privilege

            It is

            Good taste.

            Now then... return and look for yourself.  YES... YOU... this time ...go BACK to that room and LOOK at the wall and SEE the... light vertical rectangular spot... a light SHADOW that shows there was... long... a once ‘hung there’... right there... now missing excepting the single tack ‘there too’.  And say nothing

            AT ALL

            About what ...YOU... see:  KEEP YOUR FOOL MOUTH SHUT.  Have the ‘good taste’ to do that.  And your not going to own that looking glass either.  You will not buy it.  It is...

            “Too expensive.”

            For you.

            You don’t know what your looking at.  You don’t know what it is.  You don’t “I like it” anyway.  You don’t.

            You sand the floors... instead.

            And never hear that Elmer Mason... is... “finally”... dead.

            After the roughshod imperative is an ‘endeavored to be applied’ by a smattering of ‘those idiots’... it is shamefully denoted that they are not speaking of ...or even noticing... the light shadow blank space on the wall of the cold dark... locked... room.  No.  They have not ever reached for a looking glass.  But they do have a “drawer full” of their ‘table linen’ that, well, they “never use”.  Seating furniture is never used either.  That would require them to chase the BRAINS out of their ‘my butt’.  That’s right:  Just breeze through the dining room.  You wouldn’t decorate it that way... anyway.  I know; you’d “let the sun in”.  The old rug is taken out to be hauled away?  No.  I get that before anyone does that; I am the ‘taken out’ and ‘haul away’.  You never notice; never see this.  You see the floors of course, and amplify that “They are not that bad in THAT ROOM (the old dining room).  “The floors in some of the (cold dark locked) other rooms are even better”.

            “Once those rooms are cleaned out”.

            We get that done; the cleanout crew.  We said ‘take fourteen days’ but were done in ten.  We knew that before we started; that we’d get it done... “early”.  Or do we?  What if the selling of the old looking glass ‘keeps it (the old New England home) alive’... one more year.  Just that nominal remittance... keeps the old New England home full of old New England antiques... “alive”... “ONE MORE YEAR”.  It is a dirty job... but I do it.

            I arrive and find the dependence all self-tied (bound) to the mast of this sinking ship.  Will I share the (hardtack) biscuits and moldy cheese?  DRINK THEIR WELL WATER too?  Of course I do.  Actually relish it.  The little storied jokes of Elmer Mason’s life now creep into conversation.  Let me just say that he was well known for his ‘too much interest’ in one of the postal clerks.  That went on for forty years.  “Everyone knew about it”.  And it is funny... because Elmer was “ a little funny”

            Himself.

            I stand on their threadbare rugs and do not wipe my feet (Part Four).  They never look at my boots anyway.  They are the dependence... on me.  This visit we are in a room that I don’t recall admission to excepting one time, two decades ago... the we did ‘walk through’ the ‘this room’.  I recall.  “Porcelain” I hear my self saying.  “Silver Plate”  I say.  “This here though; perhaps this is a little something here.”  I feel the hot blood.  I see the steam vapor.  This room is “quite cold” today.  It is a “water pitcher” I am saying.  “Made in New York”.  “Coin Silver” “Not sterling”.  “It is too old to be sterling.”  “Eighteen forties probably”.  “Brought it home on the ship”.  “It was a present for his wife”.

            OH NO I DO NOT SAY THIS LAST.  I KEEP MY FOOL MOUTH SHUT.  NO need to anchor the water pitcher as family.  As dependence.  No... just brush by that ... “is obvious”.  No one wants to hear that.  It is cold in this room today.

Where is this room... Anyway?

            “Twelve hundred you said”.

            “Yes.”

            “That will suit us just fine”.

            “It is from one of the finer families of the village.  Very few things like this turn up.  I look for them.  In there; these old homes:  The things in there are better than the homes.  The homes just hold them.  Hoard them.  I know these homes well.  I can spot these homes very easily.  I know what to look for.  And how to manage what I see.  It is done with good taste.  Good sense.  Everyone agrees of course.  The other options are ‘vile’.  And have ‘bad taste’ (crass decorum).  On the next Sunday the eldest sister goes to church.  No one knows ‘a difference’.”