In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [91]
SHERIFFS SALE
TO BE SOLD AT AUCTION. TOMORROW AT ELEVEN AM ON THE PREMISES AT 8745 CLEVELAND STREET THE GOODS AND TOTAL CHATTELS OF LUDLOW L. KISSEL OF THAT ADDRESS WILL BE AUCTIONED AT SHERIFF’S SALE. THE SUM REALIZED TO DEFRAY DEFAULTED PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES. THE SALE WILL BE PUBLIC, COMMENCING AT ELEVEN AM. BY ORDER OF THE ASSESSOR’S OFFICE.
BUREAU OF TAXATION,
STATE OF INDIANA.
That was all. It was enough. None of us had ever seen a sign like this before, but our instincts, deep and animal-like, told us that it was serious; a dangerous sign. Other dangerous signs showed up from time to time on front porches and screen doors. QUARANTINED—DIPHTHERIA. SCARLET FEVER. SMALLPOX. This wAS one of those, but different, somehow worse.
The neighborhood was unusually quiet, we noticed for the first time. Flick dropped a rock at his feet with a hollow clunk. Junior Kissel, without a word, turned and ran, cutting across the street, up the sidewalk, disappearing toward his house. Halfway down the block another identical sign gleamed in the bright sunshine. Schwartz, in an odd scared voice, broke the silence:
“What’s an auction?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of card game or something,” Flick answered.
“Maybe it’s like on the radio. That Lucky Strike auctioneer.…” Schwartz said.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
We broke up and headed for home, through the quiet hushed neighborhood. My mother was down in the basement, wringing out the wash in the gray, murky gloom, the concrete floor around her wet and flecked with patches of dank soapsuds. The old Thor washing machine muttered as it squeezed the clammy water from overalls, pillow cases, and housedresses. Her face was red from the steam and soap as she bent over the basket, twisting each garment for the final drops. Weak sunlight filtered in through the narrow basement, ground-level windows fading out in the perpetual dark of the basement.
“Ma, what’s an auction?”
She straightened up, never missing a beat as she snaked a long, heavy bedsheet through the rubber rollers.
“What’s a what?”
“What’s an auction?”
“An auction?”
“Yeah, what’s an auction?”
“Why?”
She was talking in her half-hearing, hardly listening, working, answering-silly-questions MOTHER voice.
“Well, there’s a sign on the telephone pole that says they’re going to have an auction at Mr. Kissel’s house. The Sheriff is going to be there.”
The sheet squished on for what seemed like a long time. Suddenly she reached over quickly, snapping off the washer with a movement she had used for years. The basement was deathly still. She turned and looked right at me. Her voice sounded strange.
“What did you say? What was that? What are you talking about?”
“There’s a sign on the telephone post that says they’re having an auction at Mr. Kissel’s house. With the Sheriff. And it says.…” Now I was scared.
She rushed up the basement stairs, wiping her hands on her apron as she went.
“Don’t leave the house until I come back.”
She was gone, out the back door. I was alone in the kitchen now, looking out the window over at the Kissel’s house where she had gone. Another lady, tall, skinny Mrs. Anderson crossed the alley and disappeared into the house. No kids played in the yards. No radios were turned on as they always were. My kid brother came up through the back door into the kitchen where I stood on tiptoes, watching the Kissel house.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Mom said not to go out.”
He said nothing more. Finally, after what seemed like hours, she came into the kitchen and without saying a word began making supper. That night we ate quickly. Almost immediately after the dishes were washed we were sent to bed, and for the first time in a long while did not cause the usual protesting uproar.
Late that night I could hear my mother and father talking in low tones in the living room, through the closed door, until I fell asleep.
Somehow the sun always shines on Saturdays in Indiana. Outside the bedroom window a yelling crowd of spatsies, the generic Kid name for sparrows, argued, swore, made clattering love.