Events Before an Auction
People come in to look. People leave because they don't see anything they may want. People bring stuff to sell. Stuff could be anything from watches and rings to bikes and couches. Old men unload their trucks. They bring in boxes carried by strong teenage boys. Books, figurines, dolls, shelves and statues. The auctioneer climbs up into his box. He announces that in ten minutes the auction will be starting so you need to get a number, and he points to the lady behind him that is hiding behind a glass window.
Television sets being hooked-up. someone turns the channel on a big colored consol set to the six o'clock news. Fair weather tonight, storms tomorrow. Here comes one of the regulars. He nods or talks to everyone. He sits in the second row in the middle of the room next to the center isle. Whenever something is put up for sale and it doesn't bring what he thinks it should, he hollers "Cheap, cheap, cheap!" sometimes fifty times a night. People just look at him and wonder who in the hell he is. Some more regulars come up with their boxed-in trailers or old remodeled school buses painted green, blue or a combination of two.
Overalls everywhere. Cowboy boots too. Boxes randomly placed in a corner under an abandoned staircase that leads to nowhere. Cement floors and barefoot children don't mix. Toilets that tilt when you sit on them. Someone is always waiting in line usually there is no toilet paper. Junk outside, junk inside. People buy boxes of items that should have gone to the dump. Suddenly a baritone voice announces that we will be starting in two minutes. People rush to find seats.
All the fans squeak, some more than other. Got to find a cool spot. No air to breath. A row of teenage boys line the back wall. They snicker at the fat women and poke jokes about marrying one. More people pile into the cramped chairs. An old man in overalls starts handling out cold metal chairs. A young woman hands out cardboard fans on a stick advertising the auctioneers name with dates, times and places. The auctioneer takes his place on a high stool, with a pillow for his hemorrhoids, in the small box with a blinding fluorescent light, next to a middle aged, frizzy blond he calls his ticket taker.