hour, staring at the pinup girls, fiddling with a crossword, finally laying it down and sketching his Kilroy quickly, before anyone saw.
The photo of my Dad posing sent me whirling through time to Toronto’s Muscle Beach in the east end, and hearing the tinny AM radios playing weird psychedelic rock while teenagers lounged on their Mustangs and the girls sunbathed in bikinis that made their tits into torpedoes.
It all made poems. The old pulp novels and the pawn ticket, when I spread them out in front of the TV, and arranged them just so, they made up a poem that took my breath away.
~ * ~
After the cowboy trunk episode, I didn’t run into Craphound again until the annual Rotary Club charity rummage sale at the Upper Canada Brewing Company. He was wearing the cowboy hat, sixguns and the silver star from the cowboy trunk. It should have looked ridiculous, but the net effect was naive and somehow charming, like he was a little boy whose hair you wanted to muss.
I found a box of nice old melamine dishes, in various shades of green -- four square plates, bowls, salad-plates, and a serving tray. I threw them in the duffel-bag I’d brought and kept browsing, ignoring Craphound as he charmed a salty old Rotarian while fondling a box of leather-bound books.
I browsed a stack of old Ministry of Labour licenses -- barber, chiropodist, bartender, watchmaker. They all had pretty seals and were framed in stark green institutional metal. They all had different names, but all from one family, and I made up a little story to entertain myself, about the proud mother saving her sons’ accreditations and framing hanging them in the spare room with their diplomas. “Oh, George Junior’s just opened his own barbershop, and little Jimmy’s still fixing watches. . .”
I bought them.
In a box of crappy plastic Little Ponies and Barbies and Care Bears, I found a leather Indian headdress, a wooden bow-and-arrow set, and a fringed buckskin vest. Craphound was still buttering up the leather books’ owner. I bought them quick, for five bucks.
“Those are beautiful,” a voice said at my elbow. I turned around and smiled at the snappy dresser who’d bought the uke at the Secret Boutique. He’d gone casual for the weekend, in an expensive, L.L. Bean button-down way.
“Aren’t they, though.”
“You sell them on Queen Street? Your finds, I mean?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes at auction. How’s the uke?”
“Oh, I got it all tuned up,” he said, and smiled the same smile he’d given me when he’d taken hold of it at Goodwill. “I can play ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ on it.” He looked at his feet. “Silly, huh?”
“Not at all. You’re into cowboy things, huh?” As I said it, I was overcome with the knowledge that this was “Billy the Kid,” the original owner of the cowboy trunk. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did, with utter certainty.
“Just trying to re-live a piece of my childhood, I guess. I’m Scott,” he said, extending his hand.
Scott ? I thought wildly. Maybe it’s his middle name? “I’m Jerry.”
The Upper Canada Brewery sale has many things going for it, including a beer garden where you can sample their wares and get a good BBQ burger. We gently gravitated to it, looking over the tables as we went.
“You’re a pro, right?” he asked after we had plastic cups of beer.
“You could say that.”
“I’m an amateur. A rank amateur. Any words of wisdom?”
I laughed and drank some beer, lit a cigarette. “There’s no secret to it, I think. Just diligence: you’ve got to go out every chance you get, or you’ll miss the big score.”
He chuckled. “I hear that. Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in my office, and I’ll just know that they’re putting out a piece of pure gold at the Goodwill and that someone else will get to it before my lunch. I get so wound up, I’m no good until I go down there
The photo of my Dad posing sent me whirling through time to Toronto’s Muscle Beach in the east end, and hearing the tinny AM radios playing weird psychedelic rock while teenagers lounged on their Mustangs and the girls sunbathed in bikinis that made their tits into torpedoes.
It all made poems. The old pulp novels and the pawn ticket, when I spread them out in front of the TV, and arranged them just so, they made up a poem that took my breath away.
~ * ~
After the cowboy trunk episode, I didn’t run into Craphound again until the annual Rotary Club charity rummage sale at the Upper Canada Brewing Company. He was wearing the cowboy hat, sixguns and the silver star from the cowboy trunk. It should have looked ridiculous, but the net effect was naive and somehow charming, like he was a little boy whose hair you wanted to muss.
I found a box of nice old melamine dishes, in various shades of green -- four square plates, bowls, salad-plates, and a serving tray. I threw them in the duffel-bag I’d brought and kept browsing, ignoring Craphound as he charmed a salty old Rotarian while fondling a box of leather-bound books.
I browsed a stack of old Ministry of Labour licenses -- barber, chiropodist, bartender, watchmaker. They all had pretty seals and were framed in stark green institutional metal. They all had different names, but all from one family, and I made up a little story to entertain myself, about the proud mother saving her sons’ accreditations and framing hanging them in the spare room with their diplomas. “Oh, George Junior’s just opened his own barbershop, and little Jimmy’s still fixing watches. . .”
I bought them.
In a box of crappy plastic Little Ponies and Barbies and Care Bears, I found a leather Indian headdress, a wooden bow-and-arrow set, and a fringed buckskin vest. Craphound was still buttering up the leather books’ owner. I bought them quick, for five bucks.
“Those are beautiful,” a voice said at my elbow. I turned around and smiled at the snappy dresser who’d bought the uke at the Secret Boutique. He’d gone casual for the weekend, in an expensive, L.L. Bean button-down way.
“Aren’t they, though.”
“You sell them on Queen Street? Your finds, I mean?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes at auction. How’s the uke?”
“Oh, I got it all tuned up,” he said, and smiled the same smile he’d given me when he’d taken hold of it at Goodwill. “I can play ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ on it.” He looked at his feet. “Silly, huh?”
“Not at all. You’re into cowboy things, huh?” As I said it, I was overcome with the knowledge that this was “Billy the Kid,” the original owner of the cowboy trunk. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did, with utter certainty.
“Just trying to re-live a piece of my childhood, I guess. I’m Scott,” he said, extending his hand.
Scott ? I thought wildly. Maybe it’s his middle name? “I’m Jerry.”
The Upper Canada Brewery sale has many things going for it, including a beer garden where you can sample their wares and get a good BBQ burger. We gently gravitated to it, looking over the tables as we went.
“You’re a pro, right?” he asked after we had plastic cups of beer.
“You could say that.”
“I’m an amateur. A rank amateur. Any words of wisdom?”
I laughed and drank some beer, lit a cigarette. “There’s no secret to it, I think. Just diligence: you’ve got to go out every chance you get, or you’ll miss the big score.”
He chuckled. “I hear that. Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in my office, and I’ll just know that they’re putting out a piece of pure gold at the Goodwill and that someone else will get to it before my lunch. I get so wound up, I’m no good until I go down there
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