The face is what Joseph expects. Roman numerals on the hour marker and a complete non-numerated minute track. It is framed in a hinged brass bezel that sits snugly in a wood bezel. Beneath this he sees less. The pendulum assembly with its brass manta, stops, and springs. He is aware of the mighty and gold lenticular bob as it is, a genital to say and a genital to watch. The case has a side inspection door and at the bottom, behind the bob, a hatch. The key is there too, the winding and the bottom door key, which are often missing from these old mechanicals. It has been wound and the time is correct though who knows how she keeps it. It’s easy enough to bend over when the attention’s elsewhere and push a hand. He doesn’t know if it’s working, and this upsets him unreasonably. He could ask, but he will be told either that it works perfectly or that it is as it is. Its gong could have an ugly sound and no matter where you mount it you will hear this. It might need winding constantly and slip when you try. It may be something he will neglect. Regret. Sitting on the wall like a shadow. It might be a last straw of some kind. He might be acquiring his last straw and not even know it. But if it is that, a last straw, isn’t it the best of all the straws? Isn’t the last straw the one that makes an impossible burden finally what it should be? Does he get this thing, which he’ll call fine, because he knows, or hopes that is not? He looks twelve or so inches past that to a shallow sheet metal case. Homemade. The green surface paint is chipped and scratched. Rust orange and two circular black marks and a heavy diagonal smear that may be a burn scar. The clasp on the side is loose. He flips the lid. Four or five screwdrivers. Each from a different set. Translucent handles. Green. Red. The Phillips has a messy, burred tip. There’s an old slip of wood. A level. He closes the case lightly, more lightly that anyone has in years. An ashtray with a clear glass plate circled by a heavy rubber replica of a snow tire. Ten hacksaw blades. An old Palm Pilot. It looks big as a box spring. The stylus missing. There are pick axes under the table. None of this stuff, at least nothing at this table, is going to help him. He pushes the pointer fingers on either hand down on the table edge so his hands bend in at the wrists. Melissa is probably watching me, he thinks. After eight years together it has come to this. Money. It’s all there is in the end. The terrible dying baby in the hall. His chest streaked with rage. The hour before you eat. The hour before you sleep. Melissa is back there somewhere watching. She knows he’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong. What they need is a gas stove. That would help hydro bills. They need a vacuum cleaner. Melissa is four tables over, holding a long glass. She’s holding it up in the light. There are windows lining the top of the arena walls and sunlight stands like an inverted pyramid. Melissa has managed to hold this imperfect stein into the heavy gold of the inverted apex. He thinks she looked at him, then away quickly. She is saying: Don’t look at me.
Don’t look at me. People are making their way to the northeast. A short man with a straw hat stands saying nothing while they move on him. He holds a black microphone wrapped in a light blue hanky. He has a cruel face and he is impatiently watching a young man rearrange boxes.
What we have here we have here we have the main event ladies and boys and boys and girls the main event here we go. We’re gonna do boxes everything in the box you bid on the box and take the box the first box here we start some handy things for handy men, some tools hammer and flashlight and things you can take home and take a look … two dollars two dollars the man in suspenders three do I hear three for the box with the hammer do I have three … once it’s gonna be yours ya you … once twice and that’s your box for three and one the next box we have some … turn these around so I can see we have a box of canning equipment … get it all at once … the whole kit starts at two and do I hear two and two everything you need to start canning all in a box there’s two the lady in the red rain coat … that’s for this box here … move the box, move it … that’s two two dollars come on folks that’s a fine box of canning accessories going for two do I hear three three three dollars for the going once for two twice for two and sold to the lovely lady in the red … she’s gonna have homemade jams and jellies … next box folks next box. What is that? What is that? Looks like a mixed box. We’ll start at one buck for the mix box … one buck … anybody got a buck for this box right here … right here right here a box of mixed things … different stuff only a buck a single dollar … take a look if ya want take a look one dollar and a dollar and a dollar dollaree. Moving on … to the back here. Move! Move! Move back! We have some things from the kitchen the kitchen lotsa beauties for the kitchen and we start with the kitchen with the stove this stove it’s a gas stove heats great cooks great … all the parts are there the parts the parts are all there … I used to have one just like this … self-cleaning no muss no fuss gas oven folks and in here there should be a rotisserie no siree no rotisserie that’s fine we start the bid at fifty dollars fifty dollar fifty dollar fifty dollar … right there do I hear seventy-five? Seventy-five for this working gas stove she’s a beaut seventy-five seventy-five seventy-five! Young man not payin’ attention down here did you say seventy-five? Young man with the hand there says seventy-five go eighty go eighty go eighty. Eighty to grampa out with the grandkids wants to make thanksgiving dinner the way it wants to be … go a hundred dollars go one hundred go one hundred … this is a beaut folks … had one myself … cleans itself and heats instantaneously … one hundred … the young man with the hand … do I hear a hundred and twenty, gramps, a hundred and twenty? Mr. Hands wants it for the wife. Here she comes. Do I hear a hundred and thirty? Going once. Gramps likes the price … Mr. Hands impresses the wife. Going once going twice and sold to Mr. Hands!
Joseph’s face is burnt now. It was like being on fire. The auctioneer has such hard hard eyes and he won’t stop. Blow that hanky. Cough on that mic. Joseph takes a step toward his new stove and looks up. The auctioneer sees him sideways through lids that are sliding laterally across his yellow eyes. He lets him reach the oven, then points. Joseph smiles stupid and turns like a game show blonde with his hands backward to the prize. Melissa has left. He is alone now. It didn’t matter what they bought here today. He was going to be alone. Had he not bought the stove, she would still be here. To fight one last time. Things going bad has been their theme for a long time. She’s happy now. He waits here in front of these grim bargain hunters, feels the woolly breath of the auctioneer. The auctioneer’s a cattle man; he eases livestock through the bottleneck. Joseph’s a pigeon. A crow. A mouse lying backwards on a post. The three older women in the front row brush the bins and sniff. A boy in a yellow cap steals a stubby knife then chews his food. Joseph tries to make a sad face so someone will cry, but no one does so he drops his head back. The highest roof he has ever seen. Shooting metal rafters and wide ribs of steel turn above him. He expects to see the moon here, trapped and rootless, in the night sky near a nest. It’s not that he wanted Melissa to stay. It’s that he knew that when she left he would want to die. A pale red cable is woven through the rafters in chaotic lines.
Joseph brings his face down and the smooth floor pools around him.
“Sorry?”
“I got a rotisserie for this. Wannit?” The auctioneer’s teeth are bark brown. He spits. “No charge.”
“Okay.”
The auctioneer blinks for a moment as if he’s never laid eyes on Joseph.
“Okay.”
He turns away to the boy that helps him. “I’m takin’ lunch and gonna run this guy over to my place.”
The kid looks at Joseph, then nods obediently to the auctioneer. The auctioneer omits details and does not like questions.
In the parking lot Joseph walks beside the auctioneer and the auctioneer doesn’t seem to like this. He slows and speeds up to make Joseph look awkward doing the same. He turns abruptly down a row of parked cars and Joseph is forced to step in a puddle. He stops in front of an old red pickup. The bed is ringed by warped wood rails pulled together by heavy wire. Joseph looks back to the arena. It is small now and far away. He notices this and disapproves.
“Where’s your car?”
Joseph goes to answer.
“Get in.”
The door moves as if it’s breaking and it closes as if it can’t. The seat is a red that has faded to pink and the cab smells like uncooked meat. Joseph sits waiting. The auctioneer starts the engine.
They bounce along in silence. Joseph notices the auctioneer’s hands. Swollen and dry, and the wheel glides through his palms. Such soft quiet hands. Like his throat. Pink and petal smooth.
They hit a pothole and the auctioneer’s teeth clap. They are false and he must keep them loose in there.
Joseph thinks: I should put on my seat belt.
They pull up a long mud driveway but there is no house; just a wide low garage.
The auctioneer reaches down as if he’s looking for a parking brake, but he brings up a tire iron. When he hits Joseph across the cheek, Joseph can see the side of his house peeking out from behind the garage. Some trees at the edge are keeping the snow on the ground. Joseph sees a purple curtain fall halfway across the windshield. The auctioneer hits his nose with something and Joseph thinks, That’s right, that’s how to stop me. It’s not so much that Joseph is hurt; it’s that the auctioneer has suddenly switched him off. Joseph’s legs and arms are turning in directions without him.
Oh White Christmas! Oh Mama Mia! Oh!
