“Most of What We Have Left”

“Most of What We Have Left”

Conversation did not “work well” past awkward and that awkward was elevated by my denial of access to the inside of the estate.  No... the heirs apparently wanted to interview my poise of interest in their dead grandparents estate (“THEIR HOME”) contents outside the actual buildings of the estate.  “Difficult to SEE.” I said.

I was ‘on property’ but certainly not “IN” anywhere....  No and they were very pleased that, for them, I was NOT ‘difficult to see’ out at the side of the driveway by the garden next to the side wall of the “OLD BARN”.

That was their title for that building.  I looked up and down the old shingled wall of the building but said nothing; I made no cover comment.  I’m good at doing that.

            We were all standing; “standing around”.  Normally the restlessness of standing proceeds to a ‘walk through’ of the ‘buildings’ and all their ‘rooms’ to (casually) ‘see’ all the ‘things’ here qualified as “most of what we have left”.  I looked along the base of the wall of the barn while the heirs said that.  It was a ‘said again’; they’d said that earlier when they came out on the porch from the front door they’d opened at my knock.  I was pushed back by them doing that and saying that.  I was pushed back up the ‘front walk’ onto the driveway and back toward my parked car.  I’d parked underneath an American Chestnut tree.  I noted that tree and parked there by preference for a ‘good luck place’.  American Chestnut trees are, in my realm (antiquarian senses), ‘good luck’ when encountered.  Nobody knows this.  It is a trade tip I pass on; old trees and old estates come together.  

            After passing the tree and my parked car we were quickly stuck on a grass patch just off the driveway, above the garden, off of the “OLD BARN” and opposite the large double sliding wooden doors (open) of the “shed” that lead into the ‘summer kitchen’ and onward to the door to the actual indoor kitchen.  “Maybe... we are going in that way” I considered.  Standing on the grass patch I was twenty five steps from that open double door.  I stood just in the shade from the Chestnut tree.  The shed doorway was a long passage in the open sunlight and

            I was not encouraged to go that way; “Over there” they titled it.

            No I was surrounded by five family people (heirs) and kept away.  Behind them a Barn Swallow flew low and then in through the shed doorway.  I noted that; ‘has a nest in there’.  That happens in old Maine estates.  Most people do not know this but I do.  It is too, a ‘good luck’ sign to an antiquarian eye.

            At this moment I had a fuzzy antiquarian sensation; a sort of mental brightness of the bright sun in the estate’s yard; a bright blurred vision of a much older doorway image apparition that took me mentally way back in time to a long lost moment when a woman stepped out of the shed doorway and stood while a man seated in a chair back in the doorway behind her was looking out.  That apparition took only two seconds of  time.

            And was gone.

            I wanted to follow that but I could not for the surrounding heirs were to fixed on their planned procedure to interview me as a person of interest in the interest of their persons in fielding me as a ‘possible’ who would “BUY” the titled ‘most of what we have left’ estate contents.  Well... I’d already seen enough from my limited access to be very sure that I was not only interested but was GOING TO BUY .... ALL... of the ‘most of what we have left’.

            Yes that was MY plan now that I had stood under the American Chestnut tree and before the open shed door with a Barn Swallow family nesting ‘in there’.  Of course there must be a few ‘other things’ to allow me to take the risk; the buy everything without ever even looking at it risk.  Yes, too, I know that:  That you do not do (“take”) that kind of risk.  You do not behave that way when it comes to your ‘taking risk’.

            Though... probably already you have a considered sense that “MAYBE” a “DOING THAT” is a possible probable “IF”... and I know well the hard focus you have on that word... all of the “IF” that can be is a ‘push through’ just the... same way as... the five heirs surrounding me intentionally intend to DO THAT SAME horse trade function (an ‘if push through’) THEMSELVES... for themselves.

            So if they are doing that it is not going to work for ME... is it.  But let’s us not get OUR bowels all bound up about all this like THEY HAVE.

            It is an easier ‘star cross’ (‘to cross the stars’) IF I let the them... and you... do the ‘if’ issues and I, now left alone... do the

            Risk

            Issues.

            They (the heirs) do not expect that.

            And neither do you.

            Now....:  I’ve parked under the tree and noted that.  I’ve seen the Barn Swallow swoop at the shed doorway and noted that.  You’ve been told... so accomplish a ‘know, now’ of that.  They (the five heirs) (airs?)... are in fact airs for they note nothing but, evidently, the keeping me ‘out’ of their ‘it’ (the estate).  Their reason(s), of course, are responsible:  They do not want me seeing the ‘mess’, ‘filth’, ‘trash’, ‘dirty... ness’ and foul residues of old New England generational existence PACKED into this dark old creepy space that, well, is called by them “GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE”.  No.  To their eyes the whole, including the grass patch of yard we are standing on... is a ‘how may we’... ‘get rid of this’.

            “We have taken their good things and all of what we want.” They tell me and then again say the “Most of What We Have Left”... “is trash”... “in there”.  The last two words were highlighted by a left arm gesture by one of the heirs toward her rear left evidently denoting ‘in there’ to mean the large Greek Revival (1830’s) main house and ell.  The gesture did not include the summer kitchen, shed, barn and attached outbuildings behind (chicken house, buggy storage shed, etcetera [old outhouse]).  The arm gesture just conveyed that the “Most of what we have left” that was “good” (?) was in the main house and ‘but the other building must be

            Cleaned out

            Too.’

            I was alright with the subliminal arm gesture and had already moved on from there.  Brutally, for those tracing risk, I directly asked “HOW MUCH ARE YOU THINKING FOR ALL OF IT?”

            “CLEANED OUT BY NEXT TUESDAY.” I forcefully added.

            THAT stopped them:  Did they or did they not have ‘a number’?  WELL let us just see... :

            Well no... they do not.  THAT took twenty seconds.  And their wagons are circled.

            I... am just coming back from another visual trip down the side of the barn.  That didn’t take long; only fourteen seconds.  And... just think of all that risk that may be taken in fourteen seconds... too.  I was coming BACK from the side of the barn to the grass spot across from the shed doors with a full bore ‘risk assessment’ qualifier that

            I...

            Well... It is all on me; that sort of risk leap; the leaps of risk.  Antiquarian risk.  One does not just do that.  No.  I pick up every little bit anything about me to... vaguely... assess my risk... assessment.  Then I step into the burning.

            Here-at... a round robin of the five heirs suddenly caucuses before me and I am told that they ‘need a moment’ and then they rapidly dish (serve) their number; a ‘their asking (?) price’ “TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS”.

            “Okay.” I say... promptly and assertively.  I am in the burning house now.  Am I not?  Their wagons stay circled.  “By Tuesday” is addressed and assured followed by the ‘Your check is fine.’ ‘Here is a key.’  The end statement from I is “Starting (early) tomorrow morning”.  With  “Sure.  It is fine for you to stop by”.  It is never fine but they never don’t do that; drop (stop) by and... “bother”.  But that is part of the risk management.  Let me go over that again to be sure you saw how it was done.

            The American Chestnut tree and the Barn Swallow in the shed are understood in their roles of showing ‘old New England (Maine) (estate) undisturbed’.  That is carried directly to I taking the risk that all of the buildings.... all of them... are undisturbed to the criteria purveyed by the chestnut tree and nesting swallows.  Therefore:  What are these people going to do after they have gained the “Most of What We Have Left” plateau in the... distribution of the things in... “Grandmother’s House”?

            They are not going to do anything... except huddle as a group of five OUTSIDE the buildings and, well... praying (in curious forms) for the requisite (required in order to sell the property; the ‘put on the market’)‘clean out’ to be done?  Done? No:  “THIS BE OVER”.  That IS what they want.

            So my risk of entering the burning may be so easily done simply because that is exactly what they want to happen as soon as possible.  All I did was follow the trail and give it (the ‘clean out’ purchase) a ‘little push at the end’.  I went with their most desired “IF”.

            And now am alone with my ‘risk’... within ‘the burning’.  But there is just a touch more to affirm my ‘safe bet’ risk.  Did you see it?  No.  No one did but I (eye).

            When I looked down the side of the barn in the old garden before the old barn’s wall I noted two old grindstones being used as garden decorations.  Anyone who cared (have antiquarian tastes) would have ‘spirited them away’.  But there they sat in plain sight.

            Further... and back along the old barn’s wall... were a row of handmade; hand hewn by axe, fence posts consciously gathered and leaned up in that row along the old barn’s wall.  No one just happens to do that.  One must know, care and do... that.  And no one notices these antiquarian woodenware treasures

            Except eye (I).

            I of course say nothing but... understand...:  If that is that way ...there... the “IF” of the estate is that it is LOADED with  “most of what we have left”... like the fence posts... treasure and...

            “Worth the risk (to purchase the contents sight unseen.  Actually... I do see the estate very clearly, don’t I... in addition to ‘not letting on’ and ‘not raising suspicions.  No:  I paid them and started the next morning.  I didn’t take the grindstones and fence posts until Monday afternoon.  By then all had stopped dropping by and nobody cared a hoot what “most of what we have left” was anyway...

            Except me.  I took it all.

Layers

Layers

            Layers, in this essay, are not about egg laying poultry production.

            Layers, in this essay, are not about the clothing worn in Maine during the winters.

            Layers, in this essay, are about the ‘things’ (“the stuff”) in old houses and the role the

            Layers of that “the stuff” play in my interest in pursuing an active excavation within the ‘things’ found in the layers of the stuff within an old house.  And:  How I make very rapid intuitive decisions about the state of the layers and their potential to harbor “good” antiques and rare books.

            Layers is about the behind my eyes walk through of what I see when I

            Walk through.

            To begin with, I am looking for layers.  Once I see them (sense them), I look at them “very hard”.  I am told.  Of course I never let on that I am doing

            That.

            I don’t even ever tell anyone at all about layers.

            And very few people ever figure that out

            Anyway.

            That pretty much leaves me alone... in an old house... looking at the layers.

            “If you don’t know... you don’t know” with this including the what... you... don’t know.

            Yes:  There is that much of a bottom drag on all this that the mire of that usually wins.  ‘Winning’ is that the ‘the stuff’ in the ‘the layers’ is protected and preserved for the ‘few people ever figure that out’ give up, cease actions and... go away.  Presuming I have been “let in”... I then am ‘left alone’ with the layers and... well...

            That is that.

            What does that mean?  It means that the next time any ‘few people’ go into the old house it is empty; it has been ‘cleaned out’.  I did that.  I don’t talk about that.  I just do it.  I take away everything including all the layers.  I take away every... thing.  That is what I do.

            I have to take away every thing so I may be sure that all ‘the stuff’ in the layers of household contents is... “complete”.  For example, I do not want to have you suddenly latching on to, and keeping (taking out of the estate contents), your grandmother’s teaspoon that she

            Administered her medicines to her self in addition to stirring her tea with it for

;            SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS.

            It is MY SPOON NOW; part of the LAYERS.

I BOUGHT and OWN IT

            Now.

            IN SHORT... I want it all; all ‘the stuff’ and all the layers, complete.  Nothing is left out or left behind.

            Of course there are stupid people meddling with this by, well, “wanting”... stupid things.  A good example is a “FAMILY” “PAINTING”.  The house contents “HAS ONE”; an ‘old’ ‘oil’ painting and it is too... an “I WANT”.

            “Yes.  Okay.  Here we go.”

            I say that and finalize with “Take it:  It is all yours.”  Delighted, they scurry away clutching the “PAINTING”... too.  Occasionally I am asked “what do I think” of the “PAINTING”.  For these sorts of paintings I do not have to think and... carefully sidestep what I actually ...feel... about the “PAINTING”.  No reason to spoil such fun.  Right?

            What am I conveying here exactly?  I am assuring that ...in most all cases... old “PAINTINGS” found in old New England layered home contents are of little merit or value.  The big feature is that they are “FREE” when found in an estate so... continue the heritage of the painting as being ‘good’ because it

            Allows folks who have never owned a painting... who would never buy a painting (Yankee Wasp characteristic)... who know nothing about “PAINTINGS”... have barely ever looked at a “PAINTING” and... etcetera.... to ‘smug up’ about a truly crummy ‘thing’ that they found in the bedroom of long dead great-uncle George. “WHERE” (what, how, why) “DID HE GET THAT!”

            Great Uncle George was a quasi trash picker later examination of his layer reveals.  But I never say anything about that fine old cheapskate Yankee bugaboo.  I, too, certainly do not stop the purloinment of the old painting “within the estate” (private family distribution).  A problem with this last is that the purloin does not have an ‘appraised value’.  I ‘don’t do those things’ (appraisals) I say when queried.  And... they DO ‘love’ “IT” (that painting) still:  “It is valuable”.  What ever that means.

            Turning from an example of stupid people meddling and ‘wanting’ to the actual layer-e (a plural), I advise from the get-go that that is where one should ‘seek’ layers.  Most all of those layer-e... who were any good at it... are

            Dead. 

But look for “fondly remembered family” trails and you’ll start to notice, for example, old but recent photographs of the short past generation’s grand old bitch matron who ‘rode herd’ over the house, the family, the things, the stuff and... their layers.  Spot that woman and you are way ahead of great-uncle-George (Dartmouth 1928)’s old painting that I assure the Matron dismissed too.

            Now I with her, eye to eye including she KNEW what I KNOW... lets me tie off with clothes line rope “HER” “DESK”.  That is, I tie the whole Grand Old Bitch Matron’s desk up like it’s a crate full of “stuff” packed by the “FAMILY” in its drawers and... never looked at...:  If the Matron was alive she would spend TWO WEEKS showing me EACH iota in the drawers ‘from her family’ but... as it is I am the best game in town so her ghost lets me tie it off and carry it out... unchallenged.  Yes and that cubby is full of ‘all about the family’ including great uncle George at Dartmouth in twenty-eight.  She, bless her ghost soul, gives me the maelstrom center of her layer whole.  It proves to be the skeleton key to ALL the home’s layers.

            Traveling from crummy old painting to tied off desk holding the family’s preserved archive... are one sensing the meaning of layers?  Who is doing better at this?  Once I locate and purloin the master vault box I simply pile the rest of all of the layers “in there” on top of this golden treasure chest and... I don’t, once I remove all the layers undisturbed and intact... have to touch them for years... should I choose. “Storage” is a big feature of my antiquarian dealer side.  And of course... am I in some sort of hurry doing this?

            No.

            That (hurry) is too... a fatal mistake.  Not in a hurry allows one to absorb the layers better (mentally and physically).  Six layers are like reading a six volume family history (as if they are old books in dust jackets).  I enjoy studying the souls of the layers for... as long as their intrigue lasts... preferring them with a strong “dash”, that they are characters and too... “did something”.

            May I review?

            Layers are a multitude of ‘things’ (“the stuff”) that make them up.  They are not ‘a thing’ or single things or great things or fine things.  No.  They are not an actual old painting.  But they are part of a layer’s painting.  They are the gathered material residue of old dead souls; the stuff they ‘left behind’.  They are little things in abundance that ‘don’t matter at all’ until noticed that they are part of a layer.  Perhaps even a very notable layer... that is surrounded by other related layers of related layer-e dead souls.  It (layers) do become quite rich and reaching “very fast”... should one learn to look.  For example the OLD SHAVING equipment for eight different men of a time passage of one hundred and ten years...  Each shaver was young, then old, then dead ‘in there’; in THEIR layers.  The shaving equipage is “worthless” without the association; its role in the layer.  The layer is worthless without its soul.  The soul is found in “the stuff”.  The more stuff in a layer...  It (an estate and its layers) may become vivid beyond words and last for decades.  By 1969 I had become familiar with and knowing of layered estates.  In 1973 I acquired my first full bore layers estate that “lasted for decades”.  There are still bits, pieces and smidgens of that one around to this day.

            “You may not want to wipe the old pigeon dung off the chair when you get one (a layered estate)” an old dealer advised me early.

A Family of Scoundrels - Part Two

A Family of Scoundrels

Part Two

By I. M. Picker

            My Grandmother taught me the use of linguistics in the trade.  She taught me the ratios of setting, style, timing, inflection, body language and smile.  She taught me to “show them the money”, the angle to stand to “see” into the barn; to peek past the clean and see the dirty, the old, the “junk”.  She suggested the development of vocabulary and its theater:  A Romeo & Juliet at the barn door, basement stairs or attic window.  The old fainting couch fills with the form of the swooning seller while the buyer refreshes that old treasure in its first fresh air in decades (centuries?) as it passes to the back of the... truck.  It’s an aura that is never cute, clean, polite or... given.  It is love and death.  One learns these things and their special soul.

            It is a special soul.  It is by far more vibrant to me than any THING I have ever owned.  It speaks in a linguistic clarity surpassing any fine art or prose.  My sense of “these things”, a wisdom of human sensation, rests as a utopia in my portfolio that many of my fellows seem to search for.  Language selection is a vital part of “these things”.

            Early in my career, when I was old enough to drive and be a dealer, but still young enough to lie in my childhood bedroom and consider HOW I could find “treasure” that day, I had an experience that began with language use and... has ended with it.  That is, if this incident has ended.

            My teenage stupor was roused in the barn yard by an older neighbor who rushed over to tell me “they” were “cleaning out a house” that we both knew had been closed for several years after “they” put the old witch that resided there in a “home” where she promptly... died.  “They” were from Connecticut.  “They” had appeared at the home and were now stuffing “junk” from the main home into large, plastic garbage bags and putting them into the back of the old truck of the aging town handy man AND drunk.  His name was “Stub” or “Stubby”.  I promptly went to the street corner and confirmed this report.  The truck was nearly loaded.  “They’re going to the dump.” I said.

            My friend said nothing.  “We’ll follow the truck.” I continued.  We did.  It went to the dump, the old fashion kind, along a bank of the river, where one backs up and dumps over the bank.  He backed up and dumped.  We waited, watching.  He left... to get the second load.  There was already a second load.  We had seen the mound of dark plastic bags on the screen enclosed porch.

            Over the edge of the bank I went.  My friend stood looking at me from above.  The bank was open to the heavens with a scenic vista of white pine trees dotting the river edge fading to a mountain landscape in the distance.  Aside from the raw mounds of rural Maine afoul that included the smell, rats, mushings, oozing and the visual disparity of this, it was a rather natural setting.  For myself, to whom the side of the town dump bank was familiar from extensive rat hunts,[1] these circumstance offered no ...trepidation.  My older friend, a mere antique hobbyist and sensible to his position in the community, wavered.  Looking down on me was his propensity turned to action.

            I tore open the first bag and spilled forth the treasure.  Treasure it was, the kind that one expects from people from Connecticut who have finally gotten their hands on “the old bitches” material obsessions and go to “cleaning it out”.  I beheld.  My friend beheld as I ferried the “junk” to him and he to our ...truck.  It was a direct line.

            “Go buy some beer.  Two six packs”.  He looked down at me.  I wasn’t old enough to buy, let alone drink, beer.  “GO GET IT.” I shouted to his blank stare.  “AT THE STORE on the hill.  BEFORE HE GETS BACK”.  He stopped staring at me, waffled and... left.  I rummaged; we’re talking about thirty bags in the load.  It takes time to sort that much “treasure” out of the “junk” on the hillside of a town dump.  He returned, with the beer.  Stubby returned, backing in.

            “HE’S BACK.” yelled my friend, this time staring away from the top of the bank.  I scrambled up and saw the truck swinging to back up.  I took one six pack and walked straight toward the reversing truck.  The driver’s side window was down.  As it moved toward me I stepped to it, presented the six pack to the window and said:

            “DUMP IT OVER THERE.” pointing to the clean far end of the bank.  He did that, taking the six pack first.  NO FURTHER WORDS WERE EXCHANGED, ever again.  As I said, this is about linguistics and their use to ...buy and sell... antiques.  My friend was awe struck.  He never went over the bank.  I started on the new pile.  We soon had the truck full.  Stubby returned with another load.  It took him longer to get there this time, the beer was cutting in.  I gave him the second six pack, non-verbally.  He took it non-verbally, dumped the load “over there” and ... left.  “I can’t believe it” my friend said.

            We decided the promptest solution was to re-load the bags, take them to my grandmother’s barn and sort them there.  We did this.  Stubby returned with another load while we took our first load to Grandmother’s house.  She, understandably, became, as we say in the trade, “interested”.  She knew the house, the stuff, the situation and acknowledged my act of, well, ...choreographing the ballet in progress.  She eyed the bags, tore one open.  “How many are left?” she said.

            “Two loads” I replied.  My friend was still waffling.  As I noted, he was a hobbyist, not a dealer.  He collected.  WE were dealers.  He muttered and pushed at some of the “finds”.  My Grandmother chatted him, filling the vocabulary void between an excited teenager and a responsible citizen of the community.  She continued to chat him.  And chat him.  He stopped peeking at the stuff.  Then he... “didn’t want any of it” he said.  Then he “didn’t want to go back”.  I went back.

            I got the loads, each time driving by the home to see if Stubby was still loading.  I knew it wouldn’t last much longer.  Subby would get drunk and “not show”.  The people from Connecticut would tire of throwing out “junk” and go off to the motel and to “clean up”.  This went as forecast; the house was locked up, the yard vacant.  I brought another load into the barn.

            My Grandmother was going through the bags.  She knew an antique so the residue of her sorting was confined to the “new” “collectibles”, subjects on the information highway of the antiques world she had not studied nor cared to.  I sorted these.  “How much is left?” she asked.

            “Just the stuff from the first load, in the garbage over the bank.  It’s too dirty to bring here.  I’m gonna finish it there”.

            “Let’s go.” she said.  My grandmother was in the truck and we... went.  We went to the dump.  WE ...went over the bank.  We had the place to ourselves, tearing the bags open with our backs to the mountain vista, river and pines.  Sea gulls hovered, rats scurried and garbage smelled.  We worked together, commenting on the discoveries and making small piles that I would ferry to the truck.  We worked side by side.

            Suddenly at the crest of the dump, a family appeared, trash in hand.  A local, prominent family, trash in hand.  “Mrs. Ashby, is that YOU?” the father said.  We both looked up.  The foursome family looked back.  The son was my age, the daughter a year older.  We were in school together.  “What are YOU DOING?” the father continued.

            She explained, as best as antique dealers can to the lay population that doesn’t know this refined business exists, that there is a material oblivion and that there is... .  Obviously, it did no good.  My grandmother, using her linguistic skills, did not try to enlighten.  They tossed their bags by us, stared again and left.  We continued our work, disregarding them and, in fact, forgetting them.  Their sighting of us did come up at dinner, in casual conversation.  The main conversation was on “buying the estate”.  The how to do it and the linguistics of that, among other considerations.  We devised the trajectory.  My grandmother would hit ’em a dawn, cash in hand, before they started “work”.  I would be along side to compliment the “We’ll get it ALL OUT NOW” clause that we always offered with the “YOU CAN KEEP ANYTHING YOU WANT” clause.  People from Connecticut have taste, know what they’re doing, what’s valuable and... what isn’t, especially in old witch’s homes in rural Maine.  Our plan worked; my Grandmother used the proper linguistics.

            This family at the top edge of the dump faded into my past.  I lived as an antiques dealer and did an antiques dealer’s world.  My girlfriend would become my wife and... a dealer too.  We would wander together being dealers.  One day, over a decade later, we had one of those chance encounters one has in life with someone from the past.  In this case it was the son of the family.  It was one of those neo-college days encounters, when both youths are passing to “career” (and destiny) of “choice”.  The fumbling conversation on the street extended to an invitation to the parent’s home on the “they’d love to see you” clause we ... hate.  My wife and I went, per invitation and endured one of those ridiculous movements of human interaction.  This situation was complicated because they, the parents, “collected antiques”.  They “ we always have, you know”.  Everything in the home was valuable, bought “right”(cheap) and showed their variably fine taste.  Nothing was for sale.  We withstood a show and tell; a “sharing” as they called it.  I told antiques dealing stories and deflected the inquisition proffered my wife.  Finally, the “Mother”, a women of the home, related to my wife the story, from their vantage point, of my Grandmother and I at the dump.  Self-satisfied at the end of her story she continued by confiding to my wife “You know, he comes from a family of scoundrels”.

            Such fine linguistic use, so carefully chosen, sticks with one.  A courageous compliment paid for the world to hear is actually hard to garner.  My grandmother was not dead yet so I passed it on.  She did not suffer the intellectually vain, nor bothered to respond about them.  Such stunning linguistic gold we treasure in our repertoire.  This example is one of the finest in our collection.  We always repeat it to ourselves when we’re listening to the spoken language used in an attic.  Then we listen past these nuncupative utterances.  We listen to the sound of old things in the attic.  We listen to the soul of this sound.  We are a family of scoundrels.

---

[1]:  We’ve all shot them at the dump, with a twenty-two, right?  It was a former wholesome Maine boy activity, now vanquished by “land fill”.

A Family of Scoundrels - Part One

A Family of Scoundrels

Part One

By I. M. Picker

            Careful language use.  I use that all the time to... buy antiques; old things negotiated verbally and the transaction closed with cash.  Selective language use is so easy and timeless, so fluid and raw, its hard to imagine it carries any puissance in the vast world of used material possessions.

            We were invited to a home of “collectors” outside of New York City.  Venerable, this home aired prosperity, taste, accumulation and refined sensibilities.  “Collectors” is a least favorite type of estate call; one cannot buy a thing because everything is “good”, “bought right”, “valuable” and... “not for sale”.  One sits and looks and touches and gets insufferably bored while the collectors extol taste and value and wave recent acquisitions around your face.  If your lucky, there is something good to eat.  In most cases, even that… “is bad”.  I try to estimate how many hours I’ll be “stuck there”, my word choice.

            In this case, we had to visit with two people; the daughter, a collector carrying on the family tradition as well as aspiring to be a dealer.  And the Mother, at mid-seventies, still bearing the torch of the family’s antiquarian accumulation and taste.  The daughter had first whack on us.  Her full time position as a power person on Wall Street compromises her infatuation of “being a dealer” “full time”.  Wall Street is very safe buying and selling compared to the antiques market.  One sits at the desk, twirls in the chair, looks out the window to the street far below while closing a “buy” or “sell” on the …old style client chat…telephone and then twirls back to the next... old style client chat… buy and sell.  After a few decades of this, the broker surveys the unregulated market of antiques with consternation.  The still darling daughter had been titillated with “being a dealer” long enough to absolutely hate that we “are one”.  Being “a dealer” has always been a very difficult “wish I could” for collectors.  I engage it all the time.

            We chatted briefly.  She’s very nice, don’t get me wrong.  Its just that I AM a dealer and a disparity exists.  I was about to start the requisite “Tales of the Antiques Dealer” story and suffer then die when Ms. Daughter announced in an undertone that she and Mother “had started to clean out the attic”.  I didn’t jerk in my chair.  I didn’t mumble.  I did antiques dealer on my fingertips:  The Attic.  The home was two generations, untouched, unsorted, “un-picked”... NO DEALERS.  They had position, taste, income and STUFF... in the attic.  Had to, could not have possibly thrown ANYTHING out.  I lifted my head from bored complacency to the daughter’s statement as seconds elapsed.  Sense of action issued:  ...Language use.  With no perturbation I enunciated “Attic?  Let’s go there.”

            She paused then repeated “We’re cleaning it out”.

            “Yes, let’s go there.” I …repeated… and looked straight at her.  “There’s nothing for sale here.” I continued, gesturing to the living room.  I straight armed her verbally.

            “Ah... OK, but we must wait for Mother”.  Like a torpedo at mid-ship my language smashed through her haul, she shuddered, listed and took water.  She was boarded and captured.  Please understand that my direct assaults are very pre-meditated.  Please particularly note that they come mere seconds after the initial muttering of the word “attic”.  One must be that fast and adept with language and its use to be this effective… and nasty… when in stranger’s homes and chasing their attics.  Otherwise… they “get away”.  These collectors in their collector’s home… changed.  They were strangers now; an old house, an old attic, an “estate call”, an open surface deposit of material oblivion to be probed with the ...tools of the trade.

            The Mother appeared.  Standing in the center of the room, she twisted as she said “The attic?”.  We were granted the viewing, including a verbalized cover documentation of “buying” “anything”.  Or was it “something”.  I forget what word I chose to INSERT into our voyage.  Off we went.

            We approved of the attic.  A Transitional Victorian home, ca. 1840, the “attic” was a former third floor; the Maid’s quarters.  As dealers describe, it was “untouched and totally original”.  This home above the home remained unchanged from the Civil War era.  Original blue-gray trim outlined the original white washed plaster.  This plaster was very Tom Sawyer style; smeared by rough hands, then smeared with whitewash and then… highlighted in “old blue” paint, the kind of “old blue” dealers ...buy.  Yummy.  We had no trouble smacking our lips and rubbing our hands together at this attractive workspace piled inconclusively full of boxes of... “junk” “everywhere”.  The junk of generations, untouched.  Other dealers could be less responsive to original paint and smeared plaster surface but surely they would sense… a good treasure trove?  After we had left with our plunder, we chatted about the site.  “I liked the way it had so many boxes to go through in every room” was said.

            Once on the third floor, without the Mother who waited on the second floor below, the process was simple.  We would spy and snare something they “HATED”, their language choice.  Saying only a “We will pay (a specific amount) for that” and linguistically including NO OTHER overture, we would move our selected acquisitions to the head of the stairs.  This stairs led past the second floor to the first floor front door.  That led to the back of our truck.  It was a very simple process, once verbally incited; a straight line from attic to truck.

            The touch and go of inception was the first “purchase”.  One must dance, always, on thin ice for those first few.  It must be “hated” and the offer must be “right”.  There will never be the prose to capture the swish of time, space, destiny and oblivion that comes with the first price and the first... “OK”.  Linguistics play a vital role, but supernatural spirits, Gods, fate, timing, oral spacing, inflection and facial expression all manifest too.  Once behind one; “the first few”, the festivity begins.  When selling is successfully initiated in an attic, usually the party continues the… “to sell”.  In this case the discoveries were approved by the daughter, then the price and object verified BY THE DAUGHTER to the Mother at the base of the attic stair.  That the mother didn’t care became evident quickly.  The money (cash) was conveyed.  The daughter liked the feel of real cash.  A “whisk it” into the truck was executed.  We washed our hands in their kitchen.  And left.  It was an agreeable afternoon using properly deployed antiques dealer linguistics in …an old attic.