Chapter 31
"The Estate Sale"
THE NEXT TWO WEEKS TOOK A HEAVY TOLL ON THE THREE OF US, AND ON THE LAW FIRM OF FINN, GLADSTONE, STEIN AND LOFTUS. LUTHER WAS FORCED TO DELEGATE HIS OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES AMONG HIS PARTNERS TO SPEND MOST OF HIS TIME WITH ME … PROBABLY NOT ACTUALLY AS A FAVOR TO ME … BUT AS A FINAL TRIBUTE TO MY PARENTS, WHO HAD BEEN LONGTIME FRIENDS.
AT LEAST THAT'S HOW I SAW IT. THERE WAS SO MUCH TO DO, AND MOST OF THE TIME I FELT LIKE THE FIFTH WHEEL ON THE WAGON. I COULDN'T LIFT OR CARRY OR DO ANY OF THE HEAVY STUFF THE ENDEAVOR REQUIRED. SO I WAS THE LACKEY WHO COMPILED THE LISTS AND WROTE DOWN THE FIGURES WHILE WILLY AND LUTHER DID THE APPRAISING, WITH ME ADDING MY OWN TWO CENTS WHEN MOVED TO SAY SOMETHING.
THE MERCHANDISING ITSELF HELD LITTLE INTEREST FOR ME; IT ENTAILED A LONG LIST OF BORING NUMBERS, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT WAS ALL I HAD LEFT OF MY FAMILY HISTORY. EVERYTHING WAS GOING UP FOR AUCTION; TO BE LOST TO TIME AND SCATTERED TO THE FOUR WINDS. I FELT A LITTLE LIKE 'THE DOG IN THE MANGER': I DIDN'T WANT TO OWN ANY OF MOM AND DAD'S KEEPSAKES, BUT THE FACT THAT THEY WOULD SOON BELONG TO STRANGERS, TORE ME TO PIECES. I WANTED TO PROTECT FAMILY TREASURES FROM THE HANDS OF DEALERS WHO WOULD RESELL THEM ON THE OPEN MARKET … BUT I COULD NOT. I HAD TO GET OVER THAT HURDLE.
I KNEW LUTHER HAD CONTACTED A FIRM OF REAL ESTATE LIQUIDATION EXPERTS. THE ARRIVAL OF THEIR REPRESENTATIVE WAS IMMINENT.
IN THE MEANTIME, LUTHER AND WILLY TOOK ON THE EXTRA RESPONSIBILITY OF KEEPING A PROTECTIVE EYE ON ME. IF FOR ANY REASON LUTHER COULDN'T BE WITH ME HIMSELF IN THE DAYTIME, HE SENT WILLY. ALL MY PROTESTS THAT I WAS OKAY ON MY OWN FELL ON DEAF EARS. IT PISSED ME OFF BECAUSE I WASN'T FIVE YEARS OLD ANYMORE.
LUTHER, HOWEVER, HAD BEEN A PARTY TO THE BREAKTHROUGH PAIN AND MY INABILITY TO STAY FOCUSED, AND HE WAS NOT TAKING ANY CHANCES OF SEEING THAT HAPPEN AGAIN. HE TOLD ME THIS IN A STERN, FATHERLY MANNER THAT FRUSTRATED ME NO END. HE WANTED SOMEONE THERE WHO KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING AND COULD TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION IF I BEGAN TO SPASM OUT AGAIN. HOW COULD I YELL AT SOMEONE WHO WAS SO WELL-INTENTIONED? I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK THAT BEING A 'GOOD GUY' IS MORE OF A LIABILITY THAN AN ASSET …
FOR WILLY, IT WAS ALL PART OF THE JOB. OR SO HE SAID. BUT I DO PAY ATTENTION TO STUFF, AND SOMETIMES I WOULD CATCH HIM GLANCING AT ME WITH HOODED EYES WHEN HE THOUGHT I WASN'T LOOKING. I'M SURE MY BODY LANGUAGE WARNED HIM AWAY FROM SAYING ANYTHING WHEN HE SUSPECTED I WAS EXPERIENCING PAIN. BUT HE WAS NEVER FAR AWAY, AND HE WAS QUIETLY AMUSED BECAUSE HE KNEW IT ANNOYED THE HELL OUT OF ME. NEITHER OF US SAID ANYTHING, BUT THERE WAS ALWAYS THAT STATIC-FILLED SPACE BETWEEN US, MAINTAINING A RESPECTFUL DISTANCE. THERE WAS NO ANIMOSITY, BECAUSE WE GOT ALONG WELL. BUT THERE WAS THAT 'GUARDED-LOOK' THING; ALWAYS POKING INTO MY PERSONAL SPACE LIKE A SORE THUMB.
Early Monday morning a well-appointed man in a pin-striped suit and English chauffeur's hat stepped onto the back porch and knocked on the door. He was carrying a briefcase in one hand and a barrister's black umbrella in the other. This was the man whom Luther had hired to push the boulder up the hill; the expert who would do the setting up and organizing, the staging and pricing of everything from napkin rings to diamond rings. We had only the next two weeks in which to get everything ready.
Willy invited him into the kitchen.
He removed his hat, set down the umbrella and briefcase, and announced: "I am Reginald Thackery and I represent the firm of Thackery and Hines. I'm here to appraise the items you intend to display at your estate sale. I would like to speak to the owner, if I may, please."
He sounded like a bloke from Cambridge …
I was sitting in the living room, cataloguing Dad's phonograph records, both 78s and vinyls. I was wearing jeans and tee shirt with my leg propped on a pillow. I was still sucking at the dregs of this morning's coffee. I had taken an Immitrax upon rising, but it had yet to relieve the overnight ache. I raised my hand and called out: "That would be me, Mr. Thackery."
I wasn't overly impressed with our visitor … at first. He was tall and lean with what I considered a definite Sherlock-Holmesian hawkishness. I'd sat back and watched as he and Luther discussed my inheritance in friendly tones as though the two of them had been boyhood chums and even gone to ye jolly olde Dragon School together.
I thought to myself that Luther Finn would have fit right in with British aristocracy. He had the look, the bearing and the concentrated air of a dignified British frontbencher: a chubby Wooster to Thackery's complacent Jeeves.
Willy Ortiz, on the other hand, watching from the side, stuck out like a call girl at a Bar Mitzvah.
"Come on out here, Greg," Luther said.
I put down my coffee cup and the stack of records and rolled into the kitchen.
We looked each other up and down, Thackery and me. We nodded in polite greeting, mostly to fill the vacuum of: 'I-don't-know-what-the-hell-to-say-to-you.'
Reginald stared at me pointedly for a moment or two, and then looked up and away from my leg and crooked foot. I tensed, but Luther went right on, paying no attention. "Reggie, this is Gregory House, the sole heir to the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Bell and Colonel House."
As we shook hands, I got the impression that "Reggie" considered me just one more spoiled American that had inherited a big chunk of real estate I had done nothing to earn.
I considered him to be just another English fop.
We would both learn better. Later.
There were a few more moments of small talk while Thackery put his hat and umbrella aside and assembled a thick sheaf of papers. Presently he was prepared to go forth and begin the task of cataloguing and affixing price stickers and readjusting endless details.
Almost from the onset I discovered that this guy was freakin' smart! I mean, he spoke the language of percentages and probabilities and profit margins and market predictions; prices that dealers would pay for an item, as compared to a private collector. Slide-rule stuff and abstracts. As a doctor, I understood the concept, but in this endeavor I was very much a layman, listening carefully to someone well-versed in his vastly unpredictable profession. I decided he had to be half charlatan and half Oracle of Delphi …
I kept up with him for a while, but he chattered on in a manner that was giving me a headache. Just trying to absorb everything without looking like a dunce was difficult. Translating the verbiage that poured from his mouth in the stultifying British lingo was impossible.
Reggie carried a Smart Phone and an E Book, and a specialty calculator with little paper tapes that spewed numbers all over the place like a miniature ticker-tape parade. He took photographs and wrote copious notes with a bouquet of multi-colored fine-line magic markers. He left nothing to chance or to the imagination. All the while he worked, he and Luther kept up a constant banter with laughing and head nodding. I felt like I was about to fly off the end of a long sliding board into a vat of Cool Whip. It wasn't long before I peeled off and turned back to the living room to continue cataloguing old vinyl.
By the end of the day, Reggie had nearly finished the main floor of the house. He and Luther and Willy moved forward from the back storage room, the spare bedroom, and the housekeeper's suite where I was quartered. When they finished up with the living room and kitchen and Reggie thanked me for cataloguing the old record collection, there was still the attic, the upstairs, the basement and the garage. Plus a storage shed in the back yard and garden furniture scattered about.
I asked him how long the entire operation might take, and his answer resolved a concern I'd had. Reggie called me "Mister House", which indicated that he had not known my parents. Therefore, he did not know me, or even heard of me, and I decided that "Kyle Calloway" was safe in the closet as long as I got myself the hell away from Lexington as soon as the sale was over.
Reggie told me he would take his time with the rest of the inventory, and be ready to supervise the sale that would take place the weekend after next.
I asked if he had been told that the big Dodge pickup truck was not to be sold, and would be shipped to a hospital clinic on the island of Barbados. I told him also, that my mother's Baldwin spinet had already been shipped to a storage facility back east. He nodded in the affirmative and requested the truck be removed from the property while the sale was going on. "Out of sight, out of mind". I agreed, and Willy said he would take care of it.
Reggie wrote the info down and asked if there was anything else.
I said: "Nope. Just the truck and the piano … oh … and the family photos and picture albums. There's a slew of them. I definitely want to keep those. And some of the old phonograph records. Everything else goes."
He marked it down, crossed the items off the list, and the subject was settled.
I'd felt pretty good all day, much of which I attributed to the Immitrax and my decision to remain in the wheelchair. That night I slept well and woke up refreshed.
The remainder of the week was a repeat of Monday, and Luther had urgent business to take care of at the firm, so he wasn't there.
Reginald Thackery showed up in khakis and a sport shirt. The attic wasn't air conditioned, so he dressed accordingly. Willy helped out by lugging a pedestal fan up there and opening all the windows … which probably did nothing more than take stale air from one side of the space and shift it over to the other.
By 2:00 p.m. the attic was finished, and both men stopped long enough for sandwiches I'd concocted from the contents of the fridge. When they left again to start on the basement and garage, I did the cleanup from the wheelchair and chucked the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Later on, I sat at the table and went over the stack of paperwork Reggie had left on the counter. It was impressive. How on Earth had three people accumulated such a conglomeration of paraphernalia when so much of their time had been spent globe-trotting?
During my perusing, I found drafts of leaflets to be printed for visitors to the estate sale to pick up and use to locate items of interest. There was also a sketch of an ad to be printed in the local newspaper when the inventory was finished.
I had to admit: I was singularly impressed with this stuffy old Englishman.
The following Monday morning, Reggie 'tapped' on my bedroom door to announce that the pickup truck and the family photograph albums had been "seen to" …
*Seen to?*
I had just rolled out of the shower, so I called to him that I would be out shortly.
A little sick of the wheelchair, I clomped into the kitchen on my fancy red crutches. Squeaky clean, shaved, hair combed … sort of. Jeans, tee shirt, one shoe, sock-foot.
Reggie looked at me with a puzzled frown. Then he smiled and indicated the chair across the table from him. He had already poured me a coffee and toasted an English muffin, for which I thanked him when I sat down and leaned the crutches beside me. "What do you mean, you've 'seen to' the truck and the photo albums?"
His smile widened. "Well," he said, "if those items are not here, we won't have to explain the presence of a very nice pickup truck that isn't for sale when there are three other vehicles that are. Someone might be put out about it. Willy put all the photograph albums inside the truck and drove it to Luther's firm. It will remain parked in their underground garage and locked up until after the sale. Then you can make arrangements to ship it to Barbados."
I shook my head. "Reggie, your expertise kind'a blows me away. You're good. And you work fast. It was my dad's truck and he took meticulous care of it. It's about seven or eight years old now, but it looks and runs like new. I would like to have kept it, but it rides too high for me to get in and out of. I have to use hand controls these days, and the Ram is a stick shift." I shrugged with resignation and took a bite of muffin and a sip of coffee.
Reggie looked at me hard; appraising. "Greg, may I have your permission to ask a personal question please?"
I'd have bet it would come sooner or later, but at least he wasn't calling me "Mister House" anymore. I dipped my head and smiled. His polite inquiry made it okay that he should ask the question that used to tie me in knots. I had even invited it by discussing my disability first. I nodded.
"What happened to you, Greg?"
So I told him the story of the infarction without leaving anything out. Excerpt for the car-crashing-the-house part.
When I finished, he looked at me gravely. "You look like an athlete," he finally said. "But looks can be deceiving, can't they?"
I had not heard that approach before, and it surprised me. No one had ever told me I looked like an athlete after the infarction. "Nobody ever said that before, especially after seeing the cane or the wheelchair or the crutches. But I was one. Once. Sometimes a man loses track of all that when his reality gets pulled out from under him."
"Indeed," he replied. "I gather it's permanent …"
"Yeah."
He paused, watching me squirm with embarrassment.
*PLEASE … don't be pitying me …*
When I didn't answer further, he sighed. "All right then …"
Friday evening the inventory was finished. Everything! A team from Reginald Thackery's firm would arrive Monday to begin setting up displays of sale items in a pleasing manner in and around the house.
The weekend was spent going over the displays and sorting through stacks and stacks of itemized lists and columns of figures that were staggering in nature to me. I just couldn't fit it all into my brain without thinking I was living in a wonderful dream or a dreadful nightmare, and would wake up any second. Neither the former nor the latter happened, and the days followed one after another until finally, the house resembled a small used car lot-furniture-appliance-jewelry-hobby-music-used-clothing-second-hand store with boxes of tchotchkes on the side. Leaflets lay in stacks by the door.
Overwhelming. Transforming. The newspaper ran Reggie's ads.
Even the two beds in the housekeepers' quarters stood upended and stripped of sheets and blankets. I guessed that I was about to get kicked out. Turns out I was right.
Reggie told me I should make plans for the weekend that did not include hanging around here. "Call up a friend," he said, "or a nice lady. Go to a fancy restaurant. Take in a movie. Stay over in a good hotel … tonight, tomorrow, maybe Sunday also. We don't recommend that a prejudiced party remain on the premises while an estate sale is being conducted. I'm sure you understand. I will work the sale with my staff and Willy and Luther. I'm sure that when you return, you'll be very satisfied with the result."
I nodded absently, not really processing all the implications. He was really kicking me out of my own house, just like The Property Brothers did with their clients. I guessed that maybe a dude in a wheelchair or on crutches, nosing around the proceedings, getting in the way, would be not only a distraction, but a nuisance and a safety risk. I also guessed I could check into a local motel for a couple of nights. Tie one on, maybe.
*Nice lady?* Where the hell was I going to find one of those, gimping around the way I was? I was certainly not looking for a sympathy date!
*A friend?* My one 'friend' was in a galaxy far far away, and would probably rather have his throat slit than be caught in my company …
"By the way," Reggie said, "the Smithsonian would be honored to accept Mr. Bell's stamp collection as you suggested. I told them it was a direct bequeath from Mr. Bell, and must remain anonymous. No leaks to the media and no publicity. Your name was not mentioned, as you requested, so Mr. Bell has their undying gratitude for the bequest. Will that be all right?"
I looked across at him, wide-eyed. I had mentioned the stamp collection briefly. One time. I grinned. "Jesus, man, you're a miracle worker. Do you have Scottish blood? If you do, then your great-great-great grandson will grow up to be Chief Engineer of a starship I heard about once …"
He stared at me with a puzzled expression for a few seconds. "Ahh … I see … you meant that as a joke. Very good, Greg. I would be honored to be progenitor of that particular Scotsman."
… and we both smiled.
So that's how I ended up at the "Howling Wolf Motel" on the outskirts of Winchester, Kentucky, Friday night.
I registered at the front desk, dropped my backpak in my room, shoved a wad of bills into my pocket and wandered back to the bar. A row of working stiffs filled all the stools except the one next to the end, so that's the one I took, amid stares at the red crutches and my obviously screwed-up leg and crooked foot. Near the back of the room a couple of drunks were arguing over a billiards game, and four yahoos were bent over a poker table, serious as all hell.
Something old and catchy and scratchy was playing on a juke box that hadn't seen a cleaning cloth in ten years. Maybe longer. (It would get far better attention at Amos' Tiki Bar, I thought in a moment of nostalgia). I settled onto the one available bar stool, parked the crutches next to me, and ordered a Rolling Rock Ale … and keep 'em coming!
Across the large room a tall, makeup-heavy redhead gave me the hairy eyeball and began to wobble in my direction. I heard snickers from the men around me.
"Fresh meat," I heard one of them whisper …
She slithered her way between my stool and the guy next to me, and batted heavy lashes almost in my face. I cringed. She smelled like too much booze, too much greasy food and too much hard living, if you know what I mean. I could see tiny flakes of black mascara residue falling onto her cheeks. Her dress was too short, too wrinkled and too out-of-date. There were dirt streaks in the crevices of her neck.
*Eww …*
"What happened to your foot, sweetie? We could go back to your room and I'll massage it for you. After that, maybe we could massage somethin' else, huh?"
*Jesus H. Christ!*
"Not tonight, 'sweetie'," I said in a mocking tone, turning away. "I just want a drink or two and a bed to lie down in … alone."
"Wouldn't you like some company?" The pout was not cute; more like grotesque.
"Not yours, doll face. I just took a bath." There were baritone snickers on both sides of me.
That's when she belted me. Damn near knocked my ass off the bar stool with a big black patent leather purse across the back of my shoulder. At the other side of the room, in the same general direction from which she had approached, a big bruiser with a cue stick in his hand strode across the floor like he owned it.
"What the hell goes on over here?" The brute demanded.
I didn't answer; just hunched up to the bar a little further and bent over my drink. The men on either side of me looked over their shoulders, and one of them said quietly to the bruiser: "Back off, Matt …"
"Hey you! Loud-mouth cripple boy! What did you say to her?"
I turned to face him, doing a slow burn. Just like in the movies: man minding his own business is accosted by a brute twice his size. Only thing was, the guys in the movies are carrying six guns, not crutches. I guessed 'Matt' didn't go to the movies much …
Why was there always a sleazebag hanging around every rural bar in every hick town in the USA? And why did this one choose me to harass? Were my crutches a dare to him and his smelly girlfriend? Like a red cape pumps up a charging bull? I must look like easy pickings. Surely there were other cripples to hassle somewhere in the Commonwealth of Kentucky …
"I told your girlfriend I wasn't interested," I said angrily, and the titters throughout the room increased in volume.
Behind the bar, I saw the bar tender straighten; coming to swift attention. The room quieted, watching. I think they sensed the big-mouth cripple was about to end up out back in the dumpster.
I let my hand slide discreetly off the bar and wrapped my fingers around the top of one of my crutches. When 'Matt' drew back and took his first and last swing with the butt end of his cue stick, the crippled guy swung his bright red, rolled-steel, fancy Millennium crutch and caught the bully at the point of his shoulder and on up beneath his chin. The cue stick flew across the room and 'Matt's' feet almost lifted off the floor.
When he landed off balance and folded over onto his side, he looked less like a bully and more like a naughty little fat boy. The redhead cursed and bent over him.
I turned around and leaned my crutch against the bar with the other one and picked up my drink. This was even better than the feeling of freedom I'd had when I was told I'd whacked the drug dealer on the head with the lucky toss of an old arm cane. I was motivated! I lifted my glass to 'Matt-the-Floor Mat' and drank the rest of the Rolling Rock down.
I banged the bottle down on the bar and said to the bar tender: "Fill 'er up … fill 'em all up!"
There was a rallying cry and I was suddenly surrounded by boisterous, laughing rednecks, bluenecks, pinknecks, yellownecks … and everybody else who could still walk straight.
Somewhere behind us came the sound of the redhead blubbering over her fallen hero. I sensed she was about to clobber me again, and I ducked. Her tone shifted again to anger, and I turned to take a look.
I was tempted to do the 'doctor thing' and check to see how much damage I'd done to the fat boy. Then he groaned and moved. I thought better of it. One of the poker players had "Miss Kitty" by the arm and was pulling her back before she could take a spike-heel shoe to the back of my head.
Gently and firmly, two men from the poker table escorted the troublemakers through the bar, into the lobby and out the front door. After that we all sat around shooting the shit and playing poker and getting blitzed until the bar closed at 2:00 a.m. The sober ones drove the drunken ones home, and I went to my room, staggering a bit, but still ambulatory.
They would see me tomorrow, the men said with grins on their faces.
Two points for the crippled guy!
Thackery had suggested that I spend some time with friends …
And I did. About ten of them. Two days straight.
Sunday night I slept like a hibernating grizzly bear.
Monday, noonish, when I showed up in Lexington again, Mom's house had a "SOLD" sign in the front yard. The place looked bleak and empty as the weekend's booze bottles.
It was time to say goodbye to Reggie and Luther and Willy, and thank them for everything … and then get the hell out of Dodge.
When all the bills and utilities and expenses were added up and paid, I would still be a millionaire. And I could search for that different dream in New England …
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