Ask Nothing.
The Best Antique I Ever Found
And
How I Found It.
By
A. Picker
Chapter Three
“Ursula. I DIDN’T KILL BLACKBOARD!”
“Toni: You know you did. Why else would he be dead?”
“HE
WAS DEAD ALL READY! All I did was
STOP. He was in the MIDDLE OF THE
ROAD! I couldn’t even drive AROUND
HIM!”
“So
you drove OVER HIM, didn’t you. He
ALWAYS sat in the middle of the road you know.”
“NO
URSALA! I stopped RIGHT
THERE. YOU KNOW THAT! You came right OUT. I was still getting out of my CAR! You saw me!”
“I
SAW YOU HIT HIM!”
“I
DID NOT HIT HIM!”
“Then
why was he DEAD?”
“BECAUSE
SOMEONE ELSE HIT HIM!”
“Toni. You were the only one THERE. You’d already stopped. YOU were the only one that COULD have
hit him”. Ursula paused and
diverted her eyes toward her parlor room window. “Poor Blackboard.
He never had a chance.
(sigh). Toni. Don’t you feel he was the MOST
beautiful cat you’ve EVER seen?”
“Most
beautiful? Well. OK. ... Yeah! He really was the MOST beautiful. That’s WHY I brought you this wreath
thing. I mean: I know that it’s not right; he’s not a
“MOM” but; I mean: I got it and...
you know: Those things cost a
FORTUNE”.
“MOM. I think he’d like that. Maybe not though. Really: HE was a LONER.
Maybe for MOSES.
Moses: He liked ALL the
girls. Anyway. HIS grave is getting old now. THIS would brighten it up. WAIT! IF... I put it BY the BIG rock I could SEE IT down here! THAT’S what I’ll DO!”
“Oh
Ursula. You can see them enough
from here. If you put that by the
rock EVERYONE will see it and then something could happen”.
“What
could happen?”
“They’d
find out you’ve been burying the cats up there and... OH GOD we’d NEVER hear
the end of it.”
“Hear
the end of WHAT.”
“That
you’ve made a God Damn GRAVEYARD up there full of DEAD CATS!”
“But
it’s the PERFECT SPOT for them.
They can see the river. ALL
of the trees are big and there are those two Sentinel Pines at the back.”
“What
is a “sentinel pine” Ursula? I’ve
been meaning to ask you that?”
“It’s
what Mr. Williams calls ‘em; “Sentinel PINES” he says. I thought it was because of the way
they SMELLED good. But it
isn’t. It’s from when he was a
little boy and they were PLANTED.
He says he watched them grow up and they are as OLD as he is.”
“So
why does he call them “sentinel pines” then.”
“That’s
why. I just told you. Why don’t we go up there and put the
wreath on Moses’ grave.”
“Up
there? Now? Me too? Wait a minute.
I got that for Blackboard’s grave.” I said. OH GOD why am I DOING THIS. EVERY TIME it’s this BLACKBOARD’S GRAVE PILGRIMAGE! UP the
embankment. Someone is gonna see
us. OH WHY do I DO THIS. All I wanted to do... . I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO DO. It was a BAD idea. Irene says “don’t do it; don’t do it”
but no NOT ME and I PAID twenty-nine bucks for a PLASTIC PIECE OF SHIT[1]. Why did I do that? I must have been out of my mind. But she likes it. I mean: She LOVES it.
LOOK AT HER. She doesn’t
care. I KNEW she wouldn’t care. “MOM”. There’s NO mom I said but THERE is what she’d WANT. That had to be the one just because she
COULD see it from down here. “OK
Ursula. I’ll go up there with
you. Your OK today? Your knees’ OK? It’s not that cold. In fact. The sun would do you some good maybe.”
“OH
will you? OH, oh. THAT’S just what I NEED. A little help for me so I won’t
fall. I’m so afraid of falling
since last FALL when I fell. Oh,
oh I’ll get my boots. Bandit has
my boots! He has ‘em in his OWN
box now. My baby boy is getting SO
BIG that I gave him his own box and HE WANTED the boots TOO”. BANDIT SHOULD COME TOO!”
“BANDIT
CAN’T COME!”
“He
can come if he wants to.
BANDIT! BANDIT! KITTY BOY; BANDIT. URSALA LOVES YOU!”.
Oh
shit but as long as I don’t touch one of ‘em I guess it’s OK. How does she know them apart? “HEY URSALA HOW MUCH IS MY PAINTING?”
“IT’S
NOT YOURS TONI.” she yelled from the other room.
“It
is TOO. HOW MUCH?”
“I
have a man who says he’ll pay me more for it.”
“YOU
do NOT. HOW MUCH IS IT.”
“Bandit. BAN-dit. Come LOVE ME Bandit”
“URSALA”. Jesus Christ don’t touch anything. My nails are dirty? NO. Why do I always look at my nails? Oh who cares.
My nails are the only CLEAN thing in here. Except for my clothes.
And my shoes. Well. My shoes are not CLEAN anymore. That’s OK. I was gonna buy new ones anyway. Don’t touch anything.
“URSALA. HOW MUCH”.
I
could hear Ursula coming back through the other room. She’d gone out of that room, probably downstairs to the cat
rooms. GOD is that AWFUL. AT least she doesn’t let ‘em in here
TOO MUCH. There’s one. That one. That’s Rodney?
No. That’s that old
BITCH: “GRAMMY”. Old thing. Poor old thing.
SHE’S older than ALL of them.
Look at her: Her fur’s
falling OUT. “URSALA. What’s wrong with GRAMMY?”
“What’s
wrong? NOTHINGS wrong with HER.”
“But
her furs falling out; look.”
“That’s
not falling out; she SHEDDING.”
“Shedding? With clumps like THESE?”
“She
always sheds in the spring. ALL
cats do.”
“I
don’t know Ursula. That doesn’t
look like shedding to me.”
“Grammy
DOESN’T SHED do you MY--LITTLE--GIRL.” Ursula said addressing what look like a
six month dead animal rolled into a ball in the dark corner of what was once
Ursula’s Mother’s “love seat”. On
the light side of this sofa; next to the window, was the hollow space where
Ursula usually sat. She can see
the front door from there; to the outside of it that is, AND see back to the
side door where the cats go in and out from their rooms downstairs. That door originally went upstairs to
an apartment but that was never rented after Ursula’s Mother’s MOTHER (Ursula’s
grandmother) died during World War One.
Ursula keeps the door closed but took a window out and twisted the
screen in the screen door (which is also locked shut) open so that cats jump up
to the window hole to come in and out.
That way she can see them from the sofa. That whole end of the house is closed off except for the
cats coming and going and upstairs.
Well. DOWNSTAIRS too but
that is where the cats live.
Upstairs is where Ursula used to keep the things she’d sell but I don’t
think she goes up there that much anymore.
I
only went up there a few times at first.
Since most of the stuff she had up there was junk except for the older
things her Mother kept (and those that were her grandmother’s), I could never
see anything to buy that Ursula would sell. I’d buy her Mother’s desk but Ursula won’t sell it. At least the cats don’t go up there.
“Ursula. Where is the painting today? I don’t see it in here any more.”
“I
moved it upstairs Toni. Mr.
Winters took a picture of it and said he was going to show it to his AUCTION
gallery. HE said the factory in it
was over in Dobbs Ferry; that part of the building was still standing. They’re going to make a RESTAURANT in
it he said”.
“Richard
(Winters) doesn’t have an auction gallery. He’s a STOCK broker Ursula. He really took a picture of it? When did he do that?”
“Last
Saturday. When his wife was
sick. She’s still sick you know.”
Sick. She’s not sick. Richard says that because the only time
his wife came here she almost DIED from it and still is trying to “get clean
again”. Bitch. I mean; it’s BAD but your not gonna
DIE. Poor Richard. He married a real bitch and even HE
knows it. And he’s not gonna pay
anything for that painting. All
he’s doing is showing that picture around. That’s a pain in the ass. NOW everyone will have SEEN it. “HOW much did HE offer Ursula?”.
“He
didn’t offer anything because he says he wants to find out how much it’s really
worth. I already KNOW how much it’s
worth NOW. I found out myself.”
“YOU
DID? How much is it worth? How’d you find out?”
“I’m
not going to tell you. But when
YOU find out WHAT the painting IS then you’ll want to pay a lot more for it
then what you said you would”.
“Well
WHAT is it?”
“It’s
not what you said it was. It’s
painted by a WOMAN from BOSTON.”
“A
woman from Boston?”
“That’s
what I said”.
“So
what does that mean?”
“It
means that a man looked at it and knew what it was right away and told me how
much HE’D pay for it. HE’S a
DEALER in PAINTINGS.
“Who
is he? How much did he offer?”
“I’M
not going to say. HE said that’s
just what you’d ASK! He said that
he gets upset when people like you find out how much he’d pay and then say
they’ll pay ONE dollar more! He
said people DO THAT. And that he
doesn’t like doing all the work for them so that I SHOULDN’T say how much and
LET YOU or Mr. Winters figure it out for yourselves.”
“He
really said that? Who is he?”
“I’m
not going to say.”
“Well
how much will he pay?”
“I’m
not going to say that either.”
“But
it’s more then I said?”
“A
lot more, Toni, but he DOES know what the painting is. I told him I promised to sell it to you
and he said that’s OK especially if you’ll pay MORE then he would. But not to tell you how much he’d
pay.
“But
I don’t know how much to pay. He’d
pay a lot? What is a lot? I don’t know about this. You REALLY had someone see it? WHO? It isn’t just RICHARD or one of his pals is it?”
“No. This man knows. I’ve sold him other things before and
he always knows just what he’ll pay.
Just like that he says this for this and that for that.”
“Huh. What’d you sell him?”
“He
buys a lot of the things you won’t even ASK about. He always does.
He’s the one that wanted that BENCH you bought.”
“He
offered you THAT?”
“He
did.”
“Well. I never could sell that. I mean. I still HAVE that.
Actually. Irene has it in
HER store. Come to think of it...
I haven’t seen that in a while.
That was TOO much for that.
I wish I hadn’t bought it”.
“THAT’S
what he SAID: That’s TOO
MUCH! He said that’ll hurt
‘em. THAT’S what he SAID!”
“Hurt’em?”
“Because
you had to pay so much. It won’t
go anywhere FAST he said.”
“Well...
It hasn’t. I still have that. Maybe. HEY: Maybe he’d
BUY it? From ME?”
Ursula
looked at me. I’d bought this..
“BENCH”... from her when I ... I DIDN’T KILL BLACKBOARD... but on THAT DAY..,
when I met Ursula BECAUSE Blackboard was lying DEAD in the road and I stopped
and I OHHH... so I saw the bench (It was on the front porch by the door) and
wanted to get out of here. This is
BEFORE I knew ABOUT Ursula and... so I bought this... BENCH. It looked really old and beat up and
like, it had been there, on the porch, FOREVER. Which it had because it was Ursula’s grandmother’s or
something like that and she would never sell it because of that and: And it isn’t even a BENCH because is
was something ELSE that they’ve SAWED THE TOP OFF OF: It’s a “settle” they call it and NOBODY WANTS IT. I wish I NEVER bought it AND it weighs
A TON!
When
I met Ursula; because of Blackboard.
Well: She picked up
Blackboard and was screaming at me and crying and went and sat on the bench and
was rocking him and well: I was
gonna vomit. I mean REALLY. I was dizzy, I felt sick, I couldn’t
believe this was happening. The
lady was crazy. She LOOKED
crazy. She had this dead cat and
was screaming. My car was blocking
the road. OH GOD it was
awful. She gets up and twirls
around and around with Blackboard flopping back and forth in her arms and cry’s
and then sits back down screams “YOU KILLED HIM” over and over and I didn’t
know what to do. I mean: Here I was on this little street up
above Grand View (on Hudson) or Piermont or where ever this place is and I was
LOST and I’d just tried to find the thrift shop and MY GOD this row of SHACKS
is along this narrow road and NO ONE ever goes here so there I was with this
WITCH waving around a dead cat!
She looks like a witch too:
She’s small, old, thin and dresses in blue jeans and these dirty old
shirts that MEN wear. She has this
really long scraggly gray hair that I don’t think she’s EVER washed! Combed it. Or ANYTHING.
And she moves really fast.
But she says she can’t move; that she’s old. But she isn’t.
I mean; she is old but she doesn’t ACT old except for the way she looks
which is, well, SO GROSS. And she
smells. She smells like the
cats. And pee. She smells like pee. I don’t think that she... well: It’s really bad; trust me.
So
what happened was I wanted to get out of here so I said; that is, I tried to
give her some money for Blackboard.
I mean; to get out of here.
But she didn’t want any money.
For Blackboard. See. So. I’d seen the bench and well... I can sell that: That is; SORT of sell it if it’s
CHEAP. You know: To another dealer who’d fix it up. That’s because I thought it was GOOD
then (I didn’t know it was cut off).
Anyway: I say OK how about
fifty dollars for that bench and THEN she went, like, NUTS and said she’d been
offered three hundred dollars and how it was her grandmother’s and had been
there forever and how this man had offered THAT for it and on and on that I was
trying to SCREW HER! NO ONE HAS
EVER SCREWED HER! But, you see,
THEN I didn’t realize that Ursula was a dealer. I mean; she’s not really a DEALER but all these dealers
around here come to her house because she finds things and sells them. Most of what she finds is TRASH. She finds it IN the trash. But, well, see: Everyone around here knows her. And the cats. And, well, this is what she DOES; getting the trash and
selling it. So, actually, they
GIVE her stuff. TOO. They, you see, SEE her and she goes
into their houses. Well, you know,
not INSIDE like the LIVING ROOM, but, you know: They give her stuff.
And, well... SOME of it’s good.
And she sells it to get money.
I guess she’s always done that and her mother did to. I don’t think her mother always did
that because Ursula’s father was a ferry man or something. But he died; drowned in the river
(Hudson) when she was young. I
guess. That’s what another dealer
told me. He’s this old guy who
used to buy from her mother until she died. I guess she died and Ursula didn’t know what to do so her
body was in the house for, like, a year or something. But that was a long time ago. I mean, Ursula doesn’t talk about that. Just her mother’s cats. They’re HER cats now but first her
Mother had them and SHE got them from HER mother. So; see, BLACKBOARD was actually generations old of Ursula’s
cats because she says he was the same as her mother favorite cat. She says. And, that day, she told me OVER and OVER in this, like,
hysterical WALE that, actually, was really scary.
My
friend says that this cat thing has always been like this; that Ursula’s mother
was the same way. I mean: The place smells like CAT. And more then just cat; you know: CAT PISS. And shit. OH
GOD! I went downstairs once. It’s, like, an old set of rooms below
the street but open on the rear.
Ursula’s house is pretty old, like, 1840 I think because that’s what
Richard says. Anyway, there was an
old lane into these bottom rooms once so they look out onto this little flat
spot. The cats live down there and
used to go out down there but, since Ursula couldn’t see them, she made it so
they have to go out upstairs now; through the window. In these cat rooms there is a real lot of junk that Ursula
and her mother piled down there.
But its been ruined by the cats.
And, well, I know Ursula doesn’t put anything down there much now
because... . Because she really
doesn’t find that much and, I found out, a lot of dealer come here and try to
buy from her. They bring her cat
food and stuff and, well, they want her mother’s stuff but she won’t ever sell
it but she will sell this CRAP she gets from the trash and every now and then
she DOES get something good like this painting I’m gonna buy. Or thought I was.
I
saw it first. That’s why I still
can buy it. But now she’s shown it
to EVERYONE so... well: They all
either want it or tell her it’s real valuable and, well, SEE: Richard can be a big DINK on something
like this because he’s got all kinds of money and doesn’t know what he’s doing
and... so can any of the rest of them.
ALL of the Nyack dealers come here and Irene says she knows a lot of the
Tarrytown dealers come here. Irene
won’t. It’s too gross for her;
Ursula is too dirty and, anyway, Irene only handles good stuff. But she talks to all the dealer so even
SHE knows about the painting now.
But I am still gonna buy it!
I don’t care what Ursula says for a price because I am sure it will be
cheap no matter what. Anyway; it’s
not THAT great a painting. I mean;
it’s the river and, I guess, Dobbs Ferry in the background. But, you know, nothing, like RARE so,
anyway. The frames good too; it’s
old. And all gilt.
“Ursula. Come out here. We don’t have much time if I’m going to
go too. I have to pick Shelly up
for her violin lesson. Cody isn’t
coming home until AFTER his soccer practice so that means I have to get Melissa
because he won’t be on the bus to watch her and you know she doesn’t know when
to get off. By the time I get
Melissa, Shelly will be ready except that usually I wait for her there. Huh. I may not be able to get there and back if I get Melissa
will I. And even if I do; how is
Cody gonna get in if the security system is on and I’m not THERE YET.”
“Why
don’t you turn the security system off.” Observed Ursula who had now returned
to the sitting room adorned in Army green man sized rubber boots. I thought I saw cat poop on them but I
didn’t say anything. If it is cat
poop it means she... tracked through the house? GROSS!
“If
I turn the system off that means I have to go home first... . Then I won’t make it to the school
before I’m supposed to pick up Shelly.
... Ursula: If I don’t pick up Shelly THEN we won’t
have time to get her something to eat (at MacDonald’s) BEFORE the lesson and
then she’ll be all cranky. Mr.
Poppen says she doesn’t concentrate!
OH how am I gonna do this Ursula?”
Ursula
thoughtfully paused before the window view of the front door. She really is very stable. I mean. I bet she’s never eaten at MacDonald’s in her life. How could she? “Ursula. Have you ever eaten at MacDonald’s?”
“MacDonald’s?”
said Ursula. She paused. “No.” She said. I know what that no means. It means she never has eaten there but
has heard of it; about it and, well, would like to only because she’s heard
about it but not because she knows what MacDonald’s is; that is; the
format. I mean she knows its a ...restaurant...
but not what kind of restaurant.
She probably thinks it’s, like, Mr. Williams’ down below; where you go
in and get breakfast. So I didn’t
say anything else. Except, you
know what. I’m gonna bring Ursula
some food from MacDonald’s! I bet
she’ll like that. That’s what I’ll
do.
“You
could bring Melissa here and I’d watch her while you get Shelly.” Said
Ursula. “When was the last time I
saw Melissa? She could wait here. We could go up to Blackboard’s grave
together then. She’d like
that. She likes ALL my kitties. Oh my she WOULD like that Toni!”
She
would like that and Oh my GOD. “No
Ursula. Melissa cannot come
over. This is the middle of the
school week and I don’t have time to wash her hair tonight! You know she fights me every inch of
the way and... OH Ursula: If she
comes here I’ll NEVER get her out of here by dinner time. Also; that means I’d have to come back
here and THEN go home and I still don’t know how Cody will get in without
setting off the alarm if, well:
I’d better go right now.”
I
try to NEVER let Melissa in here.
But it seems to always happen.
Melissa LOVES Ursula. I
mean; not Ursula because she’s so, well, gross but Ursula’s CATS. She knows more of the names then Ursula
does! And OH! She goes downstairs here and.. OH! You know what I mean. And it’s not like you can WATCH
HER. “Look. Ursula. I’m going to go.
This is making me panic.
HOW am I gonna do this?
HEIDI! Ursula! SHE’S THERE TODAY! Ruby is OFF! HEIDI’S THERE.
SHE can let CODY IN. I can
call her. I can... NO Ursula: I’ll call her from the car (because
Ursula doesn’t have a telephone).
Ursula: I’m going. I got to go...OH I didn’t realize this
was going to happen.”
[1]: It’s not a piece of shit, OK: It’s this rectangular cemetery wreath
made of fluffy red and white plastic supposing to resemble flowers the says
“MOM” in big letter in the middle with a double border. It has two metal stakes on the bottom
so Ursula can stick it by Blackboard’s grave. It’s really pretty nice. I mean: I
picked it out because I know Ursula will like it. Love it actually.
Blackboard was one of her cats.
She thinks I killed Backboard by running over him. I DIDN’T RUN OVER HIM. I think. I mean. I’m not
absolutely sure because, well:
First I saw this fur thing rolling in the road after I went over it in
the car. I guess. Then I backed up over it to see what it
was but I couldn’t so I had to get out of the car and then I saw it was a cat
that was dead but it didn’t look like I hit it or anything. I mean, it was just DEAD there in the
road. Anyway. Ursula came out of her house right then
and started screaming at me and that’s how I met her and that’s why I’ve been
coming back here ever since. That
was, like, three years ago?
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