Secondhand People

One day in late spring John asked if I were going out to the market on Saturday. “No,” I said. “It’s going to be hot, and I’m tired of hauling stuff. I’m going to have a sale in my own yard.” My house sat a few hundred feet back from a well-traveled road, an ideal location for a yard sale. The garage had been closed in for a playroom. A board fence with a double gate shielded the garage’s apron from the street. Of course by this time the former garage was filled with my scavenged playthings. I started setting up Saturday while the morning sky was still pink. I had not even finished when John rolled in. Before getting out of his van he sat very straight for a moment. He wore that smile of his that says, “Well-here-I-am-and-ain’t-life-grand?” My first sale turned out to be well worth the try. We sold. John was a shameless flirt when he escorted lady customers to their cars. My dog, Fritzy, was delighted by a stream of visitors to greet. Our weekend yard sales became routine. I enjoyed the people watching, and soon recognized types. Usually the first arrivals are driving pickup trucks. They are either lawn workers browsing on their way to the job or early junkers. At first daylight, the latter type already has some large pieces of furniture lashed in the back of his truck–a good sign the driver plans to have a full load by noon. This type nods and smiles as he makes a quick survey. About the only conversation you can get out of him is a comment on the item’s condition and an offer of less than half the marked price. The lawn workers seem bashful. Maybe they don’t speak English. If they buy, it is usually tools or lawn equipment. Real estate agent ladies might as well be wearing a neon sign. It makes me wonder if the real estate class teaches the students to check out the yard sales in hopes of landing a contract. When a well-groomed lady (usually wearing hose and nice shoes) arrived, I would not be surprised when she asked if we planned to sell the house. Some customers stayed to chat–I liked asking people about their best finds or the funniest thing that happened to them while hunting for stuff. One man answered, “Yeah. Just last week we had a funny accident.” “That was not funny.” His wife said. “What happened?” I asked. “We were going down this country road when we saw what looked like a yard sale. Stuff spread out in front of a barn. Cars parked all along the road. Dora here, she’s a-bouncing up and down sayin’ ‘Let me out. Let me out.’ So I let her out and went on down the road to park. I looked in the rearview mirror, but she had already disappeared. I couldn’t imagine what she had seen to be so quick to get up there. I parked and walked back down the road toward the sale. When I got to the place where I let her out she was down in the weeds trying to climb out of a ditch. The weeds were so thick and tall they had hidden the ditch. Dora was so anxious to get to the sale she had jumped out of the car and slid down into it.” The man was chuckling and so was I, but Dora sniffed, “It wasn’t funny.” One guy told a story about a farm sale. He had been rooting around in the barn and asked the lady what that funny looking thing hanging up from the rafter was. It looked something like a length of rope or a walking cane. She looked embarrassed and told him to ask her husband. Her attitude made him even more curious so he made a special effort to find the old farmer. “That there’s a bull penis,” the old guy said, “When they slaughter the bull, they hang this piece up to dry. Makes a great walking stick. Twenty dollars and it’s yours.” Not everyone finds this business amusing. I asked one lady at the antique show what was the funniest thing that happened to her in this business. She said she didn’t think there was anything funny about the antique business. I learned later that she was there to keep an eye on her husband. John showed up every Saturday. He was a great help and good company. He asked for nothing more than a sandwich for lunch and ten percent of the take. We were having a fun time. I don’t know which I found more exciting–the buying or the selling. Just seeing the things brought in for auction fascinated me. A lot of it was old and most things exuded quality. Good wood underneath the worn paint, things that had been retained because of good design and durable materials, the charm or the name of a collectible maker stamped on the bottom. Half the world was shedding old stuff grandma had been hanging onto. And I found it rewarding to have people buy from me. It fed my ego as well as fattened my purse. As if the thrill of finding it wasn’t enough, there was the excitement of bidding, and hob-nobbing with fellow connoisseurs of junk. After a few months, I began to anticipate what our regulars were looking for and bought accordingly. Rusty old signs sold faster than popcorn at the movies. Hand painted signs both humorous and practical sold fast. I painted a few for myself. I got a lot of laughs for my sign that read ‘No Fishin’ Aloud’. I could spot those who were only snooping around the habitats of the locals as they enjoyed the Florida sunshine, they could loiter, shop and gossip for half and hour or more. The serious buyers, those who owned a shop or rented space in an antique mall, could make an assessment in less than five minutes. We had regular customers who found something at every visit, who knows what use they had in mind for it? Every few months two men in suits would stop by. The men hardly acknowledged our presence, barely glanced at our goods, took a quick peek into the garage and left. About the third time this happened, John asked, “What was that?” “Maybe the sheriff’s department checking for stolen goods” I said. I enjoyed John’s help, but John had two annoying habits. When he left his sailor uniform behind he kept the mouth. Occasionally he would forget himself and regurgitate some rancid verbiage, causing my nerves to cringe like curling bacon. He must have known that his language was unsuitable in proper company, for he attempted to curtail it in the presence of lady visitors, but I don’t think he realized that not all men swore like drunken sailors. The other thing was his anger at shoppers when they left without buying–especially if they drove a fancy car. “Look at that.” he would steam, “She could have bought everything here and never felt it. That soup tureen was perfect. “Stupid woman. If she wasn’t going to buy it, why did she pick it up?” “Think of it this way,” I said. “Maybe she spends all her money on car payments.” “Fancy clothes, too.” He added. “Car payments and clothes.” I glanced at my own tattered sneakers and tucked my feet under my chair. Many of our visitors became regulars. One lady bought only when the item was cheap. One day she offered two dollars for an item I had marked six dollars. I had seen the same bowl sell for twelve at the flea market. I said, “I’ll do four, but that’s the best I can do.” “Two dollah?” She said as if I had misunderstood. “No, four.” I repeated, holding up four fingers. She left and returned later with the same routine. Finally I said, “Four dollars is cheap, two dollars and you’re cheap. I felt like an ugly American, but she never argued after that. Pleased with our success, John and I decided we could sell more stuff if we could stoke our inventory by visiting more auctions. There were a number of auction houses popular with the secondhand trade. Some were bigger than Couch’s, some were new kids on the block and some had been in business for decades.