In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [93]
Once my father turned to my mother and said:
“I guess they’re not home. I don’t see them anywhere.”
She didn’t answer, but I knew that Junior Kissel wasn’t around.
Someone bought Grandpa Kissel’s World War I helmet which Mr. Kissel had hung on the inside of the basement door. It was a great thing to play with. I guess someone bought it for their kid. No one wanted the mattress, a lumpy, yellow-stained, blue-striped heirloom that had come down from Mrs. Kissel’s parents and had seen the raising of ten kids. It lay under the truck bed, shoved out of the way while the more valuable items were bartered off.
Rusty saws, an old single-barreled 12-gauge shotgun that brought four dollars, a spectacular oil tablecloth with red ornamental lettering: A CENTURY OF PROGRESS. CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR, with a gold picture of the Hall of Science. The bidding for this one was sharp and bitter.
Finally it was over. It didn’t last long, maybe forty-five minutes or so, but when it was over the end was definite. The sheriff got up and announced that the auction was now officially completed. He mentioned an address where another was scheduled in a day or two, on the west side of town. The people got back into their cars, trucks, station wagons and left as quickly as they had come, loaded down with their loot.
Without confusion or hesitation the men and the sheriff packed away their gear like a well-practiced team, and were gone. All that remained in the backyard was a jumble of lunch bags, pop bottles, chicken bones, crushed cartons, empty barrels, and the mattress.
By now it was almost lunchtime and I was already getting hungry. My mother, watching the final truck disappear, said:
“Oh well.”
The Old Man went down into the basement to get his glove for the game of Catch.
Later that afternoon someone said that the Kissels had gone to Lowell, a town a few miles away, to spend the weekend with Mrs. Kisser’s brother-in-law and sister. They never came back. Somewhere along about the middle of the next week a FOR RENT sign appeared on the Kissels’ front door. Not long afterward a new family moved in. We never saw Junior Kissel again.
XXIX THE POSSE RIDES AGAIN
I glanced at my stainless-steel Rolex, noting that it was getting along toward 4:00, Shift-Change time. I could see that Flick was showing the tenseness of a man about to swing into action.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Flick said, “I keep up with the bills. I don’t owe nobody. Just a minute; I’ll be right back.”
He moved on down the bar, checking his ammunition for the first wave of serious drinkers, which would arrive within the half hour. I looked again at my Rolex. For some reason I didn’t quite recognize it at first as belonging to my arm, and to be honest I wasn’t sure that it was even my arm. Somehow that sleeve and that watch all belonged in New York. Another world. Back there they probably would not even believe there was such a man as Flick. Or Stosh, or Kissel, or Yahkey. They’d probably figure I made ’em all up.
I fleetingly thought, Maybe I should try to tell Flick about Les Misérables des Frites, and Henri, the lascivious headwaiter. How could I tell him about the expense account, and how hardly anybody I knew ever paid for anything, ever, and that the vast Gravy Train they were on considered cash itself to be vaguely insulting and out of date. I figured it was no use.
In the booth, the three Sheet-Metal men began hollering at Flick, who looked up from his inventory and yelled back:
“HOLD YER WATER, FER CHRISSAKE! I GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN FEED YOU BASTARDS ALL DAY!”
The red-faced one wearing an orange safety helmet shouted:
“TURN ONNA TV, FLICK! WHAT THE HELL YOU GOT IT FOR?”
This exchange took place at full voice, since the jukebox was shaking the floor.
“I’LL TURN IT ON WHEN I’M DAMN GOOD AND READY!”
I wondered briefly how Flick would get along with Henri, the effete and painfully elegant headwaiter who