Chapter One
Junk
When I die, I will leave nothing but junk. If I went to my house,to my estate sale, after I died, I would buy everything. Of course,since I bought it all in the first place, that shouldn't be much of asurprise. Yet even if I wasn't me, I would buy it all. There areothers that would do the same. People come to my house andare amazed by my junk, covet my junk. But those people arejunkers. When people who aren't junkers come to my house, theylaugh at my things. Or they say my house is creepy because everythingin it was owned by people who are now dead. I tell them,"They're not all dead. Some are in nursing homes."
They just don't get it. If they walk into a house and don't seea plaid couch beneath a color-coordinated "Starving Artists"painting (the big, big sale in the parking lot of the SouthfieldRamada Inn—for all your art needs!), they become confused, disoriented,even hostile. I make a note of it: they will not be invitedto my estate sale. The ad for it would probably go something likethis, if I died today:
Estate Sale
Friday & Saturday, 10-5
15318 Vera
Thirty years' accumulation. Lots of items! 1940s Chinese-red armchair, 1960s genuine cowboy davenport with ten-gallon hat sewn into cushions, 1950s department-store mannequin (male), 1930s dining-room set, 1970s lamp and artificial potted plant, 1940s red/white kitchen table, 1950s cherry-wood Olympic Deluxe console hi-fi. Hundreds of LPs and eight-track tapes, large selection of lurid paperbacks, extensive black velvet art collection: crying clowns, matadors, naked ladies, thin Elvis and fat Elvis! Other collections include: kitchen clocks, ugly lamps, ashtrays, pitchers, cocktail shakers, bongos, souvenir buildings, souvenir spoons, salt & pepper shakers, and more! Full garage. Full basement. Spend the day! No early birds.
Occasionally, I am forced to deal with plaid-couch types in myhouse. E.g., those now-frequent occasions when my sister Lindacomes by, for some reason connected with my mother's health.
Linda believes everything has to be new. She drives a new car,lives in a new house in a new subdivision with her new husband.After a few minutes in my living room, Linda is in a dither. (Orwould it be a snit? I'm never sure about those two.) Linda simplydoesn't know what to do around objects from garage sales andSalvation Armies and thrift shops and secondhand stores. Shelooks at my stuff and I can tell she can't wait to get home and siton her beige plaid couch next to her beige plaid armchair acrossfrom the beige plaid love seat (parlor-tanned hand on the beigeplaid antimacassar), under the hotel painting done in tones of tan,bone, beige, sienna, and sepia. If Linda sits at my place at all, sheperches on the edge of my cowboy couch, like a small white birdtrapped in a smudgy, unclean cage. This is sad to me.
Personally, I find new things boring. They have no history, noresonance. I feel at home with junk. Secondhand. The word saysit all—other hands have touched that object. Think of all thethings we touch every day, the million tiny linchpins that hold ourlives together—the coffee mugs, the tie clasps, the alarm clocks,the sunglasses, the key fobs, the beanbag ashtrays. What if theyabsorbed some scintilla of you, as if the oil from your fingers carriedthe essence of your soul? Then think of all the stuff you'veever owned, that's ever passed through your hands, where it allmight be right now. Think of the million other lives you'vetouched through those things that you've owned, that carry theessence of you. Amazing, huh?
Oh shit. You're right. Most of it is probably in a landfill in NewJersey. But I do think that when you own something that oncebelonged to someone else, it's like some secret contact with them,with their past. A way to touch people without having things getall messy and emotional.
That's what secondhand is. But then there are always peoplewho worry about whether those hands were properly washed.
My Store
My store is located in a small, dingy town on the fringe of Detroit,Michigan (a large dingy town), on what was once a lovely littleMain Street. I assume things went to seed in the late Sixties,when a lot of things in and around Detroit went to seed—whatwith the '67 riot, white flight, urban sprawl, and then the malls.In my town, the only businesses to really survive the deadlyonslaught of the malls are the repair shops—shoe, shaver, vacuum,etc. Each run by one unkillable old guy just toiling away, fixingthings. Judging from what's in the thrift stores, I wouldn'thave thought anyone got anything repaired these days, but apparentlypeople do. There's also a used-book store on my street, aThai joint, a record store started by some young punks (blesstheir LP-loving hearts), and a few sistah businesses (hair salons,nail joints, wig shops). And lots of empty storefronts.
I opened my place about five years ago, with a little money myfather left me when he died, three thousand dollars to be used"for artistic endeavors." Which seemed a bit strange, frankly. Themoney didn't mean much to me, compared to having my fatheraround, but I wasn't going to argue. At that time, I was going toart school downtown, living in a roachtrap apartment on the CassCorridor, working two jobs, one waiting tables, the other sortingat the distribution center for the Salvation Army. I was still findingmy junk roots then (art with "found objects"), and workingthere allowed me to see stuff as soon as it came in. It was a piss-poorjob, but I picked up a lot of great things, filling my alreadytoo-small apartment with much more junk than I needed for mylittle "projects." I didn't realize it then, but I was stocking up forthe store.
I still don't know exactly where Dad got the three grand, but hehad it somewhere. After I got the money, I blew some of it onjunk, but I saved most of it. (Okay, so I save money. It's very Mid-westernof me, I know.) Shortly afterward, I got fed up with pretentiousart school rebop. I realized I liked the objects I wasfinding better than the art I was making. I started thinking abouta store.
My Idea of Junk
I stock a hodgepodge of items ranging from the Thirties (notmuch) all the way to the Eighties (even less). I can't say I specializein any particular era (though I do profess a weakness for thejunk of the Fifties). The criteria for merchandise is simple: If Ilike it, I sell it. A few items I have out right now: chrome kitchencanister set, old bar glasses (Harry & Alma's Show Bar for dancingand good food!), a wall of bowling trophies and majorette trophies,disco shirts, cobalt seltzer bottle, Boy Scout knife and canteen,Reddy Kilowatt playing cards, strings of glass grapes, Niagara Fallsnapkin holder, framed paint-by-number paintings of horse heads.
As you can see, I've got some quality junk. And at very reasonableprices. (But not ridiculously so. I learned that lessonwhen I opened up the place. I had all sorts of great stuff, dirt-cheap.A few people came in and bought it up. The next week Isaw it at some vintage stores uptown at three times the price.Bastards.) My clientele is mixed—tattooed black-leather types,hipsters, alterna-teens, design victims, weekend beatniks, psychobillies,people that just dig old stuff. If you had to use oneword to describe them, it would have to be "cool." Which alsoseems to be the highest accolade one of them can bestow upon aperson or object.
"Very cool."
"Extremely cool."
"That is just so cool."
"Fuck-king cool."
And so on. I hear this word in my store quite a bit, except inregards to my person. I get other folks, too: bargain-hunting locals,black and white, blue-collar and white-collar, who just come inlooking around, not necessarily for cool junk, but because my placeis in their neighborhood and it's actually still in business.
Have I mentioned the name of my store? It's called Satori Junk.I painted the sign for it myself, then encrusted it with all sorts ofstuff—pieces of broken plates, buttons, old doll parts, marbles.When the sun is just right, it looks really great. The rest of thetime, it just looks like a sign with a lot of crap hot-glued to it. Asfor Satori, I realize the Zen thing is a smidge on the egghead side,but I do believe that we can gain a kind of illumination from junk.We just have to be open to it. Unfortunately, most people livetheir lives without the wisdom junk can give them.
Bowling Shirts and Poodle Planters
Today, I open up and a few people straggle in. About one-thirty,one hipster buys an old bowling shirt that I picked up at a ValueVillage. I must say, it is an extremely cool shirt, white withturquoise sleeves, an original King Richard, Sanforized for yourprotection. The best part is the back of the shirt. Embroidered inred script it says:
Bowlero Lanes
According to the name over the breast pocket, the previousowner of the shirt was Pete. Strange thing, but hipsters will reallypay for a shirt with a name embroidered on it. The older andgoofier the name, the better—Herb, Sid, Marvin. Better yet, akooky nickname—"Bud," "Dot," "Buzz." Man, nothing sells likequotation marks.
The only other thing that happens is a gone chick in Fortiesglamour shades looks in my front window. Definitely a potentialcustomer and, well, kind of attractive in a wan, beat girl way. Iwave for her to come in. This sort of extroversion is against mycharacter, but as a merchant, when someone looks in your storewindow, you're under an obligation to get them to come in. Still,this hardly ever works for me. I think I wave wrong or something.People usually just kind of wave back, then clear out. But thistime the woman actually heads for the door. As she walks in, sheprops her glasses up on her head and looks at me.
"Hi. Cool store," she says.
I want to look over at her and smile, say hi, but I'm suddenlyvery embarrassed about the waving. Yet, for some reason, I waveagain. She gives me an odd look, then starts to browse. From myplace behind the cash register, I sort of check her out. She'sdressed in a short Seventies leather over a Fifties frock with pearlsand a black sling mom purse. I must say, this girl has something,and it could be style. She has that wraith kind of look, pale skinwith bobbed dyed black hair. There are dark circles around hereyes, but somehow she manages to pull it off, like she meant todo it, as if they were daubed with kohl. I notice that her pearlsare not pearls at all, but small skulls. This makes me a bit jumpy.
She skirts around the side of the store, behind my rack of dimenovels. She picks up a copy of Henry Gregor Felsen's Hot Rod. Shemight be avoiding eye contact with me. I don't blame her. She'sprobably afraid I'm going to wave at her again. I try to shake offthis cloak of weirdness. I am about to say something, then Ichange my mind. A sound is emitted unfortunately, a sort ofmonosyllabic grunt.
She looks up from the book, looks back down quickly, in a waythat tells me that she doesn't really want to talk to me. Whencustomers respond this way, I leave them alone. But for some reason,I start babbling.
"Can I help you with anything?" I say. "I could help you withsomething if you needed it." I laugh loudly. (The laugh echoesthrough the store, then just falls on the floor, dead.) She keepslooking at Hot Rod, then picks up a copy of Street Rod. (Perhapsshe is interested in the whole Gregor Felsen oeuvre, I think.)
Then she looks up and smiles at me. This is a very good smile.I like this smile. "Do you have any, like, dog stuff?" she says, nippingat a cuticle.
Finally, something to concentrate on. "Hmm. Anything in particular?"
"No. I don't know. Just some sort of knickknack thing. It's fora friend."
"I may have a little poodle planter somewhere," I say, walkingover to one of my tables of bric-a-brac. She starts to follow.
"Shit," she says, looking at her watch. "You know, I've got togo. I shouldn't have come in here. I don't really have time—"
At that point, the door rings open and in walks big hipsterstud: black on black on black leather, goatee, tatts, pierced ears,nose, etc.
"You ready?" he says to her. He doesn't even look my way, atthe doofus standing next to her.
"Yeah," she says. When the Prince of Darkness turns around,she follows him, but looks over at me, three crooked fingers in theair, hint of broken smile, shade of concern in her eyes. "Sorry.We gotta go."
Slam of door. No reason to apologize. It was all in my mindanyway.
Same Old, Some Old
The rest of the day is pretty normal. Quiet, yet full of small eventsthat I can control: mail, a few more customers, polishing an oldchrome penguin ice bucket, sweeping the sidewalk. I like it thatway. I can't get enough of the rut, the blur, the grind, the sameold. Every evening, when I sit down to eat at my boomerangFormica kitchen table, I say a little prayer to the god of repetition.He is a god of my own creation, a lowercase "g" god, but I amfond of him all the same. I don't really say my prayer out loud,just sort of in my head—I thank him for the sameness of this day,for the bounty of today's junk. I thank him for one more day likeso many other days....
How to put this. I need routine, I need stability, I need repetition,in order to be the best junker I can be. There is a preciseplace a junker needs to reside psychologically to keep his chops,to manipulate the fates, to maintain the search.
The Search
My merchandise comes from estate sales, thrift shops, garagesales, Salvation Armies, church rummage sales, block sales, tagsales, moving sales, you name it. I score the most salable items forthe store at estate sales, even though that's where competitionwith other store owners is the toughest. It's much harder to findgood stuff at all the garage sales and thrift stores and such, but Ihave to go to them. I have to go. Junking is much more than justobtaining merchandise, or even finding the things I want, thoughit started out that way. It's a way of life, a manner of thinking.Junking is my own grubby metaphor for everything; life portrayedas the long trudge through smelly, clotted aisles on the way towhat might seem like the big score, but is simply more junk.
When you're a junker, you surrender yourself to the search.The problem is, you never know exactly what you're looking for,until you see it. Even then, you're not always sure. Sometimesyou see something, but ignore it, or decide against it, or maybeyou're just not in the mood to buy. Then later, when you thinkabout it at home, or worse, when you notice it in someone else'shand, you realize that was the thing you had wanted all along. Isuppose I am looking for something of value, some unattainablepiece, but who knows what that is? Not necessarily somethingthat will let me retire and live out the rest of my days in luxury,like that guy who found the Dalí at the Salvation Army. I mean,what would I do with myself then? You have to keep looking.
The looking is something you are born with and die with. Isee it in the eyes of the chunky old women who haunt the Goodwilland the Council for the Blind. There they are, well into theirseventies, with their limited incomes, still shopping like maniacs,although one of the ineluctable prerequisites of ownershipis time enough to possess. They get around that by gift-giving. Isee them every day, Pall Malls dangling from rumpled mouths,holding themselves up with shopping carts filled with soiled toysand other articles that almost always look like offerings for lovedones.
When I see them, I go out of my way to be nice to them, showthem more than the usual courtesies, even more than I wouldextend to a fellow junker. They break my heart, these women.They are the swollen-ankle foot soldiers, living the junk life. Nomatter what I do or what I find, I am merely visiting. Understandthat there is an unnavigable gulf of difference between those whochoose to shop at thrift shops and garage sales and those whohave no choice, who would much prefer to be out chasing thedragon of newness along with the rest of the world.
My Secret Shame
After dinner, I give Mom a quick call at the hospital. ("Are youcoming tomorrow?" "Yes, Mom." "Don't bring me anything. I'vealready got too much garbage here as it is." "I won't, Mom.")After I hang up, I check the papers for estate sales. There's notmuch going on in the classifieds of the Free Press, but when I get tothe Observer, I grab my red pen. Right there under "Estate Sales,"between all the three- and four-column-inch sale ads run by auctionhouses and professional liquidators advertising items like"French hand-painted marble-top commode," is one tiny ad. Iwipe the old horn-rims before I read:
Estate Sale
Hamtramck
Sat only, 9-4.
40+ yrs accumulation.
Furniture; household; basement; garage.
Many unusual items! Don't miss.
Sale by Betty L. & Co.
These are the kind of ads I live for.
Hamtramck: ancient factory town, adjunct of Detroit, home ofthe now-defunct Dodge Main, one of the city's toughest plants;birthplace of Kowalski Sausage (note twenty-foot-tall neon kielbasa);labyrinth of cramped streets of prewar bungalows and two-flats(covered in trompe l'oeil brick asphalt sheet) withwelcome-mat lawns and porches so whopping big you could parka '57 Chrysler 300C on them; populated by factory rats who didtheir forty years at the plant, then keeled over in their first yearof retirement, leaving black-clad peasant-stock wives to liveanother thirty years, hobbling to church every day, clutching theirrosaries, cursing the invading blacks and Chaldeans andBangladeshi, then returning home to clean their forty year-oldovens. Junking demographics don't get much better than in Hamtramck.Not only is it filled with older folks who take care of theirthings (things that were built to last in the first place), but alsothere are more Eastern Europeans than practically anywhere outsideWarsaw—meaty people with a low center of gravity, so theydon't move around much. That's what you need for good junking.People who stay in one place forever.
At an estate sale, a person's life is laid in front of you. A man'sBakelite Donald Duck pencil sharpener from his Twenties childhoodcan be found in the same room as his walker and oxygentank. (I snagged that pencil sharpener, by the way.) It's strangeto see someone's life collapsed in this manner. Strange, but exhilarating.Like it or not, the blood rush of the estate sale is thatyou have won; you have outlived one of your villagers, you wereborn later, luckier—now you are entitled to what was theirs.When I buy this fondue dish, I have eaten the heart of my enemy.Maybe this is what makes people so nuts. (They scowl and push,toss elbows, body checks. A shame, really: People can't be pleasantwhile plundering.) It isn't just greed or competition or thethrill of the hunt that drives them—something else is going on:elemental, scary, addictive. When they call your number and letyou in that house and you start running around with all the restof the junk-crazed lunatics, something happens. A door has beenopened and you are suddenly privy to the secrets. Not just thedeceased's secrets, but to the secrets: fears, joys, angers, despairs,boredoms. Life and death were acted out, but you missed theshow and now you're backstage, going through the props, tryingto figure out if the production was Hamlet or Under the Yum-YumTree.
My Public Shame
The problem with estate sales is that I can't seem to get to themon time. You need to get at the houses very early in the morningwhen they hand out the numbers. That's how you get the goodstuff. The problem is, that's when all the dealers and other peoplewho own stores show up. They come at six and seven in themorning, sometimes earlier. They hand out their own numbers onthe street. I get there at eight and there are already twenty peopleahead of me. By the time I get in, a lot of the good stuff islong gone.
However, this is not what happens to me on Friday. I am thefirst person at this sale. This has never happened before. It's atan old house down a tree-lined street with no vehicles parked infront except for my truck ('69 avocado-green GMC Suburban) andBetty L.'s Toyota (license plate: SALE GAL). I can't believe it. Thereis no line of kibitzing store owners, no hipster chick handing outstreet numbers at the door, no whiny estate operator fending offthe crowd. There's not even an "Estate Sale Today" sign. I'm alittle afraid to even go up to the door, but I do.
I peek inside and even though the place is dimly lit, I can seesomeone in the living room applying price tags at a table oftchotchkes, very precious, a lot of porcelain figurines and salt cellarsand crystal, definitely not my cup of tea, but still not a badsign. I look around. The walls of the vestibule are brown withyears of nicotine, but beneath the haze I see stenciled designs onthe walls, arabesques of red and blue lining the walls. I see them inthe dining room as well. Decades ago, someone actually came inand hand-stenciled this person's walls. Probably some craftsmanthey knew from the old country. Amazing. I never cease to beastonished at how much care some people put in their houses.
I tap at the door hesitantly. The person at the table, a middle-agedblack woman with towering hair and a pair of silver sneakers,whom I recognize as one of Betty L.'s freelance assistants,looks up, then comes to the door.
"You handing out numbers, Dorothea?" I say to her throughthe screen.
"Not today, skinny," she says. "Just line up. We open at nine."
This is Dorothea's thing. She calls everyone by their mostnoticeable physical attribute. Every time I see her, I'm glad I don'thave a big nose. "Any chance of getting in early?" I say.
"Nine o'clock."
"Come on, don't I get a reward for being here before everyoneelse?"
Dorothea tips one of her jeweled claws at me. "I'll tell youwhat. When we open up, I'll let you in first."
"You're killing me here, Dot," I say, trying to keep from laughing.
Dorothea smiles and heads back into the house. I park it on theporch and pull out my book. I look around and think about howmuch I love this job. This is all I need, I say to myself. Eight-thirtyon a beautiful summer morning, first in line at a great old housein Hamtown that could be glutted with treasures. How many people'slives have this sort of excitement? I can feel the possibilitiesin the fillings of my teeth. There's something here for me, Iknow it.
Copyright © 2000 Michael Zadoorian. All rights reserved.
