{"id":57,"date":"2008-04-06T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/?p=57"},"modified":"2022-12-05T19:06:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T00:06:31","slug":"craphound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/articles\/craphound\/","title":{"rendered":"Craphound"},"content":{"rendered":"

C<\/strong><\/span>raphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of uselessness for me not to like him \u2014 respect him, anyway. But then he found the cowboy trunk. It was two months\u2019 rent to me and nothing but some squirrelly alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound.<\/p>\n

So I did the unthinkable. I violated the Code. I got into a bidding war with a buddy. Never let them tell you that women poison friendships: in my experience, wounds from women-fights heal quickly; fights over garbage leave nothing behind but scorched earth.<\/p>\n

Craphound spotted the sign \u2014 his karma, plus the goggles in his exoskeleton, gave him the advantage when we were doing 80 kmh on some stretch of back-highway in cottage country. He was riding shotgun while I drove, and we had the radio on to the CBC\u2019s summer-Saturday programming: eight weekends with eight hours of old radio dramas: \u201cThe Shadow,\u201d \u201cQuiet Please,\u201d \u201cTom Mix,\u201d \u201cThe Crypt-Keeper\u201d with Bela Lugosi. It was hour three, and Bogey was phoning in his performance on a radio adaptation of The African Queen<\/em>. I had the windows of the old truck rolled down so that I could smoke without fouling Craphound\u2019s breather. My arm was hanging out the window, the radio was booming, and Craphound said \u201cTurn around! Turn around, now, Jerry, now, turn around!\u201d<\/p>\n

When Craphound gets that excited, it\u2019s a sign that he\u2019s spotted a rich vein. I checked the side-mirror quickly, pounded the brakes and spun around. The transmission creaked, the wheels squealed, and then we were creeping along the way we\u2019d come.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere,\u201d Craphound said, gesturing with his long, skinny arm. I saw it. A wooden A-frame real-estate sign, a piece of hand-lettered cardboard stuck overtop of the realtor\u2019s name:<\/p>\n

EAST MUSKOKA VOLUNTEER FIRE-DEPT
\nLADIES AUXILIARY RUMMAGE SALE
\nSAT 25 JUNE<\/p>\n

\u201cHoo-eee!\u201d I hollered, and spun the truck onto the dirt road. I gunned the engine as we cruised along the tree-lined road, trusting Craphound to spot any deer, signs, or hikers in time to avert disaster. The sky was a perfect blue and the smells of summer were all around us. I snapped off the radio and listened to the wind rushing through the truck. Ontario is beautiful<\/em> in the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere!\u201d Craphound shouted. I hit the turn-off and down-shifted and then we were back on a paved road. Soon, we were rolling into a country fire-station, an ugly brick barn. The hall was lined with long, folding tables, stacked high. The mother lode!<\/p>\n

Craphound beat me out the door, as usual. His exoskeleton is programmable, so he can record little scripts for it like: move left arm to door handle, pop it, swing legs out to running-board, jump to ground, close door, move forward. Meanwhile, I\u2019m still making sure I\u2019ve switched off the headlights and that I\u2019ve got my wallet.<\/p>\n

Two blue-haired grannies had a card-table set up out front of the hall, with a big tin pitcher of lemonade and three boxes of Tim Horton assorted donuts. That stopped us both, since we share the superstition that you always<\/em> buy food from old ladies and little kids, as a sacrifice to the crap-gods. One of the old ladies poured out the lemonade while the other smiled and greeted us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome, welcome! My, you\u2019ve come a long way for us!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust up from Toronto, ma\u2019am,\u201d I said. It\u2019s an old joke, but it\u2019s also part of the ritual, and it\u2019s got to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI meant your friend, sir. This gentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craphound smiled without baring his gums and sipped his lemonade. \u201cOf course I came, dear lady. I wouldn\u2019t miss it for the worlds!\u201d His accent is pretty good, but when it comes to stock phrases like this, he\u2019s got so much polish you\u2019d think he was reading the news.<\/p>\n

The biddie blushed<\/em> and giggled<\/em>, and I felt faintly sick. I walked off to the tables, trying not to hurry. I chose my first spot, about halfway down, where things wouldn\u2019t be quite so picked-over. I grabbed an empty box from underneath and started putting stuff into it: four matched highball glasses with gold crossed bowling-pins and a line of black around the rim; an Expo \u201967 wall-hanging that wasn\u2019t even a little faded; a shoebox full of late sixties O-Pee-Chee hockey cards; a worn, wooden-handled steel cleaver that you could butcher a steer with.<\/p>\n

I picked up my box and moved on: a deck of playing cards copyrighted \u201957, with the logo for the Royal Canadian Dairy, Bala Ontario printed on the backs; a fireman\u2019s cap with a brass badge so tarnished I couldn\u2019t read it; a three-story wedding-cake trophy for the 1974 Eastern Region Curling Championships. The cash-register in my mind was ringing, ringing, ringing. God bless the East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies\u2019 Auxiliary.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d mined that table long enough. I moved to the other end of the hall. Time was, I\u2019d start at the beginning and turn over each item, build one pile of maybes and another pile of definites, try to strategise. In time, I came to rely on instinct and on the fates, to whom I make my obeisances at every opportunity.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hear it for the fates: a genuine collapsible top-hat; a white-tipped evening cane; a hand-carved cherry-wood walking stick; a beautiful black lace parasol; a wrought-iron lightning rod with a rooster on top; all of it in an elephant-leg umbrella-stand. I filled the box, folded it over, and started on another.<\/p>\n

I collided with Craphound. He grinned his natural grin, the one that showed row on row of wet, slimy gums, tipped with writhing, poisonous suckers. \u201cGold! Gold!\u201d he said, and moved along. I turned my head after him, just as he bent over the cowboy trunk.<\/p>\n

I sucked air between my teeth. It was magnificent: a leather-bound miniature steamer trunk, the leather worked with lariats, Stetson hats, war-bonnets and six-guns. I moved toward him, and he popped the latch. I caught my breath.<\/p>\n

On top, there was a kid\u2019s cowboy costume: miniature leather chaps, a tiny Stetson, a pair of scuffed white-leather cowboy boots with long, worn spurs affixed to the heels. Craphound moved it reverently to the table and continued to pull more magic from the trunk\u2019s depths: a stack of cardboard-bound Hopalong Cassidy 78s; a pair of tin six-guns with gunbelt and holsters; a silver star that said Sheriff; a bundle of Roy Rogers comics tied with twine, in mint condition; and a leather satchel filled with plastic cowboys and Indians, enough to re-enact the Alamo.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my God,\u201d I breathed, as he spread the loot out on the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are these, Jerry?\u201d Craphound asked, holding up the 78s.<\/p>\n

\u201cOld records, like LPs, but you need a special record player to listen to them.\u201d I took one out of its sleeve. It gleamed, scratch-free, in the overhead fluorescents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a 78 player here,\u201d said a member of the East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies\u2019 Auxiliary. She was short enough to look Craphound in the eye, a hair under five feet, and had a skinny, rawboned look to her. \u201cThat\u2019s my Billy\u2019s things, Billy the Kid we called him. He was dotty for cowboys when he was a boy. Couldn\u2019t get him to take off that fool outfit \u2014 nearly got him thrown out of school. He\u2019s a lawyer now, in Toronto, got a fancy office on Bay Street. I called him to ask if he minded my putting his cowboy things in the sale, and you know what? He didn\u2019t know what I was talking about! Doesn\u2019t that beat everything? He was dotty for cowboys when he was a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another of my rituals to smile and nod and be as polite as possible to the erstwhile owners of crap that I\u2019m trying to buy, so I smiled and nodded and examined the 78 player she had produced. In lariat script, on the top, it said, \u201cOfficial Bob Wills Little Record Player,\u201d and had a crude watercolour of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys grinning on the front. It was the kind of record player that folded up like a suitcase when you weren\u2019t using it. I\u2019d had one as a kid, with Yogi Bear silkscreened on the front.<\/p>\n

Billy\u2019s mom plugged the yellowed cord into a wall jack and took the 78 from me, touched the stylus to the record. A tinny ukelele played, accompanied by horse-clops, and then a narrator with a deep, whisky voice said, \u201cHowdy, Pardners! I was just settin\u2019 down by the ole campfire. Why don\u2019t you stay an\u2019 have some beans, an\u2019 I\u2019ll tell y\u2019all the story of how Hopalong Cassidy beat the Duke Gang when they come to rob the Santa Fe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In my head, I was already breaking down the cowboy trunk and its contents, thinking about the minimum bid I\u2019d place on each item at Sotheby\u2019s. Sold individually, I figured I could get over two grand for the contents. Then I thought about putting ads in some of the Japanese collectors\u2019 magazines, just for a lark, before I sent the lot to the auction house. You never can tell. A buddy I knew had sold a complete packaged set of Welcome Back, Kotter action figures for nearly eight grand that way. Maybe I could buy a new truck. . .<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is wonderful,\u201d Craphound said, interrupting my reverie. \u201cHow much would you like for the collection?\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt a knife in my guts. Craphound had found the cowboy trunk, so that meant it was his. But he usually let me take the stuff with street-value \u2014 he was interested in everything<\/em>, so it hardly mattered if I picked up a few scraps with which to eke out a living.<\/p>\n

Billy\u2019s mom looked over the stuff. \u201cI was hoping to get twenty dollars for the lot, but if that\u2019s too much, I\u2019m willing to come down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll give you thirty,\u201d my mouth said, without intervention from my brain.<\/p>\n

They both turned and stared at me. Craphound was unreadable behind his goggles.<\/p>\n

Billy\u2019s mom broke the silence. \u201cOh, my! Thirty dollars for this old mess?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will pay fifty,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeventy-five,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my,\u201d Billy\u2019s mom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive hundred,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

I opened my mouth, and shut it. Craphound had built his stake on Earth by selling a complicated biochemical process for non-chlorophyll photosynthesis to a Saudi banker. I wouldn\u2019t ever beat him in a bidding war. \u201cA thousand dollars,\u201d my mouth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen thousand,\u201d Craphound said, and extruded a roll of hundreds from somewhere in his exoskeleton.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Lord!\u201d Billy\u2019s mom said. \u201cTen thousand dollars!\u201d<\/p>\n

The other pickers, the firemen, the blue haired ladies all looked up at that and stared at us, their mouths open.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is for a good cause.\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen thousand dollars!\u201d Billy\u2019s mom said again.<\/p>\n

Craphound\u2019s digits ruffled through the roll as fast as a croupier\u2019s counter, separated off a large chunk of the brown bills, and handed them to Billy\u2019s mom.<\/p>\n

One of the firemen, a middle-aged paunchy man with a comb-over appeared at Billy\u2019s mom\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on, Eva?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis. . .gentleman is going to pay ten thousand dollars for Billy\u2019s old cowboy things, Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fireman took the money from Billy\u2019s mom and stared at it. He held up the top note under the light and turned it this way and that, watching the holographic stamp change from green to gold, then green again. He looked at the serial number, then the serial number of the next bill. He licked his forefinger and started counting off the bills in piles of ten. Once he had ten piles, he counted them again. \u201cThat\u2019s ten thousand dollars, all right. Thank you very much, mister. Can I give you a hand getting this to your car?\u201d<\/p>\n

Craphound, meanwhile, had re-packed the trunk and balanced the 78 player on top of it. He looked at me, then at the fireman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if I could impose on you to take me to the nearest bus station. I think I\u2019m going to be making my own way home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fireman and Billy\u2019s mom both stared at me. My cheeks flushed. \u201cAw, c\u2019mon,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll drive you home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I prefer the bus,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no trouble at all to give you a lift, friend,\u201d the fireman said.<\/p>\n

I called it quits for the day, and drove home alone with the truck only half-filled. I pulled it into the coach-house and threw a tarp over the load and went inside and cracked a beer and sat on the sofa, watching a nature show on a desert reclamation project in Arizona, where the state legislature had traded a derelict mega-mall and a custom-built habitat to an alien for a local-area weather control machine.<\/p>\n

T<\/strong><\/span>he following Thursday, I went to the little crap-auction house on King Street. I\u2019d put my finds from the weekend in the sale: lower minimum bid, and they took a smaller commission than Sotheby\u2019s. Fine for moving the small stuff.<\/p>\n

Craphound was there, of course. I knew he\u2019d be. It was where we met, when he bid on a case of Lincoln Logs I\u2019d found at a fire-sale.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d known him for a kindred spirit when he bought them, and we\u2019d talked afterwards, at his place, a sprawling, two-storey warehouse amid a cluster of auto-wrecking yards where the junkyard dogs barked, barked, barked.<\/p>\n

Inside was paradise. His taste ran to shrines \u2014 a collection of fifties bar kitsch that was a shrine to liquor; a circular waterbed on a raised podium that was nearly buried under seventies bachelor pad-inalia; a kitchen that was nearly unusable, so packed it was with old barn-board furniture and rural memorabilia; a leather-appointed library straight out of a Victorian gentlemen\u2019s club; a solarium dressed in wicker and bamboo and tiki-idols. It was a hell of a place.<\/p>\n

Craphound had known all about the Goodwills and the Sally Anns, and the auction houses, and the kitsch boutiques on Queen Street, but he still hadn\u2019t figured out where it all came from.<\/p>\n

\u201cYard sales, rummage sales, garage sales,\u201d I said, reclining in a vibrating naughahyde easy-chair, drinking a glass of his pricey single-malt that he\u2019d bought for the beautiful bottle it came in.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where are these? Who is allowed to make them?\u201d Craphound hunched opposite me, his exoskeleton locked into a coiled, semi-seated position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho? Well, anyone. You just one day decide that you need to clean out the basement, you put an ad in the Star<\/em>, tape up a few signs, and voila, yard sale. Sometimes, a school or a church will get donations of old junk and sell it all at one time, as a fundraiser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how do you locate these?\u201d he asked, bobbing up and down slightly with excitement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there\u2019re amateurs who just read the ads in the weekend papers, or just pick a neighbourhood and wander around, but that\u2019s no way to go about it. What I do is, I get in a truck, and I sniff the air, catch the scent of crap and vroom!<\/em>, I\u2019m off like a bloodhound on a trail. You learn things over time: like stay away from Yuppie yard sales, they never have anything worth buying, just the same crap you can buy in any mall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think I might accompany you some day?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHell, sure. Next Saturday? We\u2019ll head over to Cabbagetown \u2014 those old coach houses, you\u2019d be amazed what people get rid of. It\u2019s practically criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to go with you on next Saturday very much Mr Jerry Abington.\u201d He used to talk like that, without commas or question marks. Later, he got better, but then, it was all one big sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall me Jerry. It\u2019s a date, then. Tell you what, though: there\u2019s a Code you got to learn before we go out. The Craphound\u2019s Code.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is a craphound?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re lookin\u2019 at one. You\u2019re one, too, unless I miss my guess. You\u2019ll get to know some of the local craphounds, you hang around with me long enough. They\u2019re the competition, but they\u2019re also your buddies, and there\u2019re certain rules we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then I explained to him all about how you never bid against a craphound at a yard-sale, how you get to know the other fellows\u2019 tastes, and when you see something they might like, you haul it out for them, and they\u2019ll do the same for you, and how you never buy something that another craphound might be looking for, if all you\u2019re buying it for is to sell it back to him. Just good form and common sense, really, but you\u2019d be surprised how many amateurs just fail to make the jump to pro because they can\u2019t grasp it.<\/p>\n

T<\/strong><\/span>here was a bunch of other stuff at the auction, other craphounds\u2019 weekend treasures. This was high season, when the sun comes out and people start to clean out the cottage, the basement, the garage. There were some collectors in the crowd, and a whole whack of antique and junk dealers, and a few pickers, and me, and Craphound. I watched the bidding listlessly, waiting for my things to come up and sneaking out for smokes between lots. Craphound never once looked at me or acknowledged my presence, and I became perversely obsessed with catching his eye, so I coughed and shifted and walked past him several times, until the auctioneer glared at me, and one of the attendants asked if I needed a throat lozenge.<\/p>\n

My lot came up. The bowling glasses went for five bucks to one of the Queen Street junk dealers; the elephant-foot fetched $350 after a spirited bidding war between an antique dealer and a collector \u2014 the collector won; the dealer took the top-hat for $100. The rest of it came up and sold, or didn\u2019t, and at end of the lot, I\u2019d made over $800, which was rent for the month plus beer for the weekend plus gas for the truck.<\/p>\n

Craphound bid on and bought more cowboy things \u2014 a box of super-eight cowboy movies, the boxes mouldy, the stock itself running to slime; a Navajo blanket; a plastic donkey that dispensed cigarettes out of its ass; a big neon armadillo sign.<\/p>\n

One of the other nice things about that place over Sotheby\u2019s, there was none of this waiting thirty days to get a cheque. I queued up with the other pickers after the bidding was through, collected a wad of bills, and headed for my truck.<\/p>\n

I spotted Craphound loading his haul into a minivan with handicapped plates. It looked like some kind of fungus was growing over the hood and side-panels. On closer inspection, I saw that the body had been covered in closely glued Lego.<\/p>\n

Craphound popped the hatchback and threw his gear in, then opened the driver\u2019s side door, and I saw that his van had been fitted out for a legless driver, with brake and accelerator levers. A paraplegic I knew drove one just like it. Craphound\u2019s exoskeleton levered him into the seat, and I watched the eerily precise way it executed the macro that started the car, pulled the shoulder-belt, put it into drive and switched on the stereo. I heard tape-hiss, then, loud as a b-boy cruising Yonge Street, an old-timey cowboy voice: \u201cHowdy pardners! Saddle up, we\u2019re ridin\u2019!\u201d Then the van backed up and sped out of the lot.<\/p>\n

I get into the truck and drove home. Truth be told, I missed the little bastard.<\/p>\n

S<\/strong><\/span>ome people said that we should have run Craphound and his kin off the planet, out of the Solar System. They said that it wasn\u2019t fair for the aliens to keep us in the dark about their technologies. They say that we should have captured a ship and reverse-engineered it, built our own and kicked ass.<\/p>\n

Some people!<\/p>\n

First of all, nobody with human DNA could survive a trip in one of those ships. They\u2019re part of Craphound\u2019s people\u2019s bodies, as I understand it, and we just don\u2019t have the right parts. Second of all, they were<\/em> sharing their tech with us \u2014 they just weren\u2019t giving it away. Fair trades every time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as if space was off-limits to us. We can any one of us visit their homeworld, just as soon as we figure out how. Only they wouldn\u2019t hold our hands along the way.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>  spent the week haunting the \u201cSecret Boutique,\u201d AKA the Goodwill As-Is Centre on Jarvis. It\u2019s all there is to do between yard sales, and sometimes it makes for good finds. Part of my theory of yard-sale karma holds that if I miss one day at the thrift shops, that\u2019ll be the day they put out the big score. So I hit the stores diligently and came up with crapola. I had offended the fates, I knew, and wouldn\u2019t make another score until I placated them. It was lonely work, still and all, and I missed Craphound\u2019s good eye and obsessive delight.<\/p>\n

I was at the cash-register with a few items at the Goodwill when a guy in a suit behind me tapped me on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry to bother you,\u201d he said. His suit looked expensive, as did his manicure and his haircut and his wire-rimmed glasses. \u201cI was just wondering where you found that.\u201d He gestured at a rhinestone-studded ukelele, with a cowboy hat wood-burned into the body. I had picked it up with a guilty little thrill, thinking that Craphound might buy it at the next auction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond floor, in the toy section.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t anything else like it, was there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Fraid not,\u201d I said, and the cashier picked it up and started wrapping it in newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d he said, and he looked like a little kid who\u2019d just been told that he couldn\u2019t have a puppy. \u201cI don\u2019t suppose you\u2019d want to sell it, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I held up a hand and waited while the cashier bagged it with the rest of my stuff, a few old clothbound novels I thought I could sell at a used book-store, and a Grease belt-buckle with Olivia Newton John on it. I led him out the door by the elbow of his expensive suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much?\u201d I had paid a dollar.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen bucks?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nearly said, \u201cSold!\u201d but I caught myself. \u201cTwenty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty dollars?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019d charge at a boutique on Queen Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

He took out a slim leather wallet and produced a twenty. I handed him the uke. His face lit up like a lightbulb.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>t\u2019s not that my adulthood is particularly unhappy. Likewise, it\u2019s not that my childhood was particularly happy.<\/p>\n

There are memories I have, though, that are like a cool drink of water. My grandfather\u2019s place near Milton, an old Victorian farmhouse, where the cat drank out of a milk-glass bowl; and where we sat around a rough pine table as big as my whole apartment; and where my playroom was the draughty barn with hay-filled lofts bulging with farm junk and Tarzan-ropes.<\/p>\n

There was Grampa\u2019s friend Fyodor, and we spent every evening at his wrecking-yard, he and Grampa talking and smoking while I scampered in the twilight, scaling mountains of auto-junk. The glove-boxes yielded treasures: crumpled photos of college boys mugging in front of signs, roadmaps of far-away places. I found a guidebook from the 1964 New York World\u2019s Fair once, and a lipstick like a chrome bullet, and a pair of white leather ladies\u2019 gloves.<\/p>\n

Fyodor dealt in scrap, too, and once, he had half of a carny carousel, a few horses and part of the canopy, paint flaking and sharp torn edges protruding; next to it, a Korean-war tank minus its turret and treads, and inside the tank were peeling old pinup girls and a rotation schedule and a crude Kilroy. The control-room in the middle of the carousel had a stack of paperback sci-fi novels, Ace Doubles that had two books bound back-to-back, and when you finished the first, you turned it over and read the other. Fyodor let me keep them, and there was a pawn-ticket in one from Macon, Georgia, for a transistor radio.<\/p>\n

My parents started leaving me alone when I was fourteen and I couldn\u2019t keep from sneaking into their room and snooping. Mom\u2019s jewelry box had books of matches from their honeymoon in Acapulco, printed with bad palm-trees. My Dad kept an old photo in his sock drawer, of himself on muscle-beach, shirtless, flexing his biceps.<\/p>\n

My grandmother saved every scrap of my mother\u2019s life in her basement, in dusty Army trunks. I entertained myself by pulling it out and taking it in: her Mouse Ears from the big family train-trip to Disneyland in \u201957, and her records, and the glittery pasteboard sign from her sweet sixteen. There were well-chewed stuffed animals, and school exercise books in which she\u2019d practiced variations on her signature for page after page.<\/p>\n

It all told a story. The penciled Kilroy in the tank made me see one of those Canadian soldiers in Korea, unshaven and crew-cut like an extra on M*A*S*H<\/em>, sitting for bored hour after hour, staring at the pinup girls, fiddling with a crossword, finally laying it down and sketching his Kilroy quickly, before anyone saw.<\/p>\n

The photo of my Dad posing sent me whirling through time to Toronto\u2019s Muscle Beach in the east end, and hearing the tinny AM radios playing weird psychedelic rock while teenagers lounged on their Mustangs and the girls sunbathed in bikinis that made their tits into torpedoes.<\/p>\n

It all made poems. The old pulp novels and the pawn ticket, when I spread them out in front of the TV, and arranged them just so, they made up a poem that took my breath away.<\/p>\n

A<\/strong><\/span>fter the cowboy trunk episode, I didn\u2019t run into Craphound again until the annual Rotary Club charity rummage sale at the Upper Canada Brewing Company. He was wearing the cowboy hat, sixguns and the silver star from the cowboy trunk. It should have looked ridiculous, but the net effect was naive and somehow charming, like he was a little boy whose hair you wanted to muss.<\/p>\n

I found a box of nice old melamine dishes, in various shades of green \u2014 four square plates, bowls, salad-plates, and a serving tray. I threw them in the duffel-bag I\u2019d brought and kept browsing, ignoring Craphound as he charmed a salty old Rotarian while fondling a box of leather-bound books.<\/p>\n

I browsed a stack of old Ministry of Labour licenses \u2014 barber, chiropodist, bartender, watchmaker. They all had pretty seals and were framed in stark green institutional metal. They all had different names, but all from one family, and I made up a little story to entertain myself, about the proud mother saving her sons\u2019 accreditations and framing hanging them in the spare room with their diplomas. \u201cOh, George Junior\u2019s just opened his own barbershop, and little Jimmy\u2019s still fixing watches. . .\u201d<\/p>\n

I bought them.<\/p>\n

In a box of crappy plastic Little Ponies and Barbies and Care Bears, I found a leather Indian headdress, a wooden bow-and-arrow set, and a fringed buckskin vest. Craphound was still buttering up the leather books\u2019 owner. I bought them quick, for five bucks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are beautiful,\u201d a voice said at my elbow. I turned around and smiled at the snappy dresser who\u2019d bought the uke at the Secret Boutique. He\u2019d gone casual for the weekend, in an expensive, L.L. Bean button-down way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAren\u2019t they, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sell them on Queen Street? Your finds, I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes. Sometimes at auction. How\u2019s the uke?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I got it all tuned up,\u201d he said, and smiled the same smile he\u2019d given me when he\u2019d taken hold of it at Goodwill. \u201cI can play \u2018Don\u2019t Fence Me In\u2019 on it.\u201d He looked at his feet. \u201cSilly, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all. You\u2019re into cowboy things, huh?\u201d As I said it, I was overcome with the knowledge that this was \u201cBilly the Kid,\u201d the original owner of the cowboy trunk. I don\u2019t know why I felt that way, but I did, with utter certainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust trying to re-live a piece of my childhood, I guess. I\u2019m Scott,\u201d he said, extending his hand.<\/p>\n

Scott?<\/em> I thought wildly. Maybe it\u2019s his middle name?<\/em> \u201cI\u2019m Jerry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Upper Canada Brewery sale has many things going for it, including a beer garden where you can sample their wares and get a good BBQ burger. We gently gravitated to it, looking over the tables as we went.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a pro, right?\u201d he asked after we had plastic cups of beer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an amateur. A rank amateur. Any words of wisdom?\u201d<\/p>\n

I laughed and drank some beer, lit a cigarette. \u201cThere\u2019s no secret to it, I think. Just diligence: you\u2019ve got to go out every chance you get, or you\u2019ll miss the big score.\u201d<\/p>\n

He chuckled. \u201cI hear that. Sometimes, I\u2019ll be sitting in my office, and I\u2019ll just know<\/em> that they\u2019re putting out a piece of pure gold at the Goodwill and that someone else will get to it before my lunch. I get so wound up, I\u2019m no good until I go down there and hunt for it. I guess I\u2019m hooked, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCheaper than some other kinds of addictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess so. About that Indian stuff \u2014 what do you figure you\u2019d get for it at a Queen Street boutique?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked him in the eye. He may have been something high-powered and cool and collected in his natural environment, but just then, he was as eager and nervous as a kitchen-table poker-player at a high-stakes game.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe fifty bucks,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifty, huh?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout that,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it sold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is that,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMight take a month, might take a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMight take a day,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might, it might.\u201d He finished his beer. \u201cI don\u2019t suppose you\u2019d take forty?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d paid five for it, not ten minutes before. It looked like it would fit Craphound, who, after all, was wearing Scott\/Billy\u2019s own boyhood treasures as we spoke. You don\u2019t make a living by feeling guilty over eight hundred percent markups. Still, I\u2019d angered the fates, and needed to redeem myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake it five,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He started to say something, then closed his mouth and gave me a look of thanks. He took a five out of his wallet and handed it to me. I pulled the vest and bow and headdress out my duffel.<\/p>\n

He walked back to a shiny black Jeep with gold detail work, parked next to Craphound\u2019s van. Craphound was building onto the Lego body, and the hood had a miniature Lego town attached to it.<\/p>\n

Craphound looked around as he passed, and leaned forward with undisguised interest at the booty. I grimaced and finished my beer.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>  met Scott\/Billy three times more at the Secret Boutique that week.<\/p>\n

He was a lawyer, who specialised in alien-technology patents. He had a practice on Bay Street, with two partners, and despite his youth, he was the senior man.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t let on that I knew about Billy the Kid and his mother in the East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies\u2019 Auxiliary. But I felt a bond with him, as though we shared an unspoken secret. I pulled any cowboy finds for him, and he developed a pretty good eye for what I was after and returned the favour.<\/p>\n

The fates were with me again, and no two ways about it. I took home a ratty old Oriental rug that on closer inspection was a 19th century hand-knotted Persian; an upholstered Turkish footstool; a collection of hand-painted silk Hawaiiana pillows and a carved Meerschaum pipe. Scott\/Billy found the last for me, and it cost me two dollars. I knew a collector who would pay thirty in an eye-blink, and from then on, as far as I was concerned, Scott\/Billy was a fellow craphound.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou going to the auction tomorrow night?\u201d I asked him at the checkout line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t miss it,\u201d he said. He\u2019d barely been able to contain his excitement when I told him about the Thursday night auctions and the bargains to be had there. He sure had the bug.<\/p>\n

\u201cWant to get together for dinner beforehand? The Rotterdam\u2019s got a good patio.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did, and we did, and I had a glass of framboise that packed a hell of a kick and tasted like fizzy raspberry lemonade; and doorstopper fries and a club sandwich.<\/p>\n

I had my nose in my glass when he kicked my ankle under the table. \u201cLook at that!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Craphound in his van, cruising for a parking spot. The Lego village had been joined by a whole postmodern spaceport on the roof, with a red-and-blue castle, a football-sized flying saucer, and a clown\u2019s head with blinking eyes.<\/p>\n

I went back to my drink and tried to get my appetite back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas that an extee driving?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Used to be a friend of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a picker?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh.\u201d I turned back to my fries and tried to kill the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know how he made his stake?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chlorophyll thing, in Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSweet!\u201d he said. \u201cVery sweet. I\u2019ve got a client who\u2019s got some secondary patents from that one. What\u2019s he go after?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, pretty much everything,\u201d I said, resigning myself to discussing the topic after all. \u201cBut lately, the same as you \u2014 cowboys and Injuns.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed and smacked his knee. \u201cWell, what do you know? What could he possibly want with the stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do they want with any of it? He got started one day when we were cruising the Muskokas,\u201d I said carefully, watching his face. \u201cFound a trunk of old cowboy things at a rummage sale. East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies\u2019 Auxiliary.\u201d I waited for him to shout or startle. He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah? A good find, I guess. Wish I\u2019d made it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to say to that, so I took a bite of my sandwich.<\/p>\n

Scott continued. \u201cI think about what they get out of it a lot. There\u2019s nothing we have here that they couldn\u2019t make for themselves. I mean, if they picked up and left today, we\u2019d still be making sense of everything they gave us in a hundred years. You know, I just closed a deal for a biochemical computer that\u2019s no-shit 10,000 times faster than anything we\u2019ve built out of silicon. You know what the extee took in trade? Title to a defunct fairground outside of Calgary \u2014 they shut it down ten years ago because the midway was too unsafe to ride. Doesn\u2019t that beat all? This thing is worth a billion dollars right out of the gate, I mean, within twenty-four hours of the deal closing, the seller can turn it into the GDP of Bolivia. For a crummy real-estate dog that you couldn\u2019t get five grand for!\u201d<\/p>\n

It always shocked me when Billy\/Scott talked about his job \u2014 it was easy to forget that he was a high-powered lawyer when we were jawing and fooling around like old craphounds. I wondered if maybe he wasn\u2019t<\/em> Billy the Kid; I couldn\u2019t think of any reason for him to be playing it all so close to his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell is some extee going to do with a fairground?\u201d<\/p>\n

C<\/strong><\/span>raphound got a free Coke from Lisa at the check-in when he made his appearance. He bid high, but shrewdly, and never pulled ten-thousand-dollar stunts. The bidders were wandering the floor, previewing that week\u2019s stock, and making notes to themselves.<\/p>\n

I rooted through a box-lot full of old tins, and found one with a buckaroo at the Calgary Stampede, riding a bucking bronc. I picked it up and stood to inspect it. Craphound was behind me.<\/p>\n

\u201cNice piece, huh?\u201d I said to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like it very much,\u201d Craphound said, and I felt my cheeks flush.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have some competition tonight, I think,\u201d I said, and nodded at Scott\/Billy. \u201cI think he\u2019s Billy; the one whose mother sold us \u2014 you \u2014 the cowboy trunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d Craphound said, and it felt like we were partners again, scoping out the competition. Suddenly I felt a knife of shame, like I was betraying Scott\/Billy somehow. I took a step back.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry, I am very sorry that we argued.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sighed out a breath I hadn\u2019t known I was holding in. \u201cMe, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re starting the bidding. May I sit with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the three of us sat together, and Craphound shook Scott\/Billy\u2019s hand and the auctioneer started into his harangue.<\/p>\n

It was a night for unusual occurrences. I bid on a piece, something I told myself I\u2019d never do. It was a set of four matched Li\u2019l Orphan Annie Ovaltine glasses, like Grandma\u2019s had been, and seeing them in the auctioneer\u2019s hand took me right back to her kitchen, and endless afternoons passed with my colouring books and weird old-lady hard candies and Liberace albums playing in the living room.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen,\u201d I said, opening the bidding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got ten, ten, ten, I got ten, who\u2019ll say twenty, who\u2019ll say twenty, twenty for the four.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craphound waved his bidding card, and I jumped as if I\u2019d been stung.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got twenty from the space cowboy, I got twenty, sir will you say thirty?\u201d<\/p>\n

I waved my card.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s thirty to you sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForty,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifty,\u201d I said even before the auctioneer could point back to me. An old pro, he settled back and let us do the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne hundred,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne fifty,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The room was perfectly silent. I thought about my overextended MasterCard, and wondered if Scott\/Billy would give me a loan.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo hundred,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

Fine, I thought. Pay two hundred for those. I can get a set on Queen Street for thirty bucks.<\/p>\n

The auctioneer turned to me. \u201cThe bidding stands at two. Will you say two-ten, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shook my head. The auctioneer paused a long moment, letting me sweat over the decision to bow out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two \u2014 do I have any other bids from the floor? Any other bids? Sold, $200, to number 57.\u201d An attendant brought Craphound the glasses. He took them and tucked them under his seat.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>  was fuming when we left. Craphound was at my elbow. I wanted to punch him \u2014 I\u2019d never punched anyone in my life, but I wanted to punch him.<\/p>\n

We entered the cool night air and I sucked in several lungfuls before lighting a cigarette.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

I stopped, but didn\u2019t look at him. I watched the taxis pull in and out of the garage next door instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry, my friend,\u201d Craphound said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?<\/em>\u201d I said, loud enough to startle myself. Scott, beside me, jerked as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going. I wanted to say goodbye, and to give you some things that I won\u2019t be taking with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I said again, Scott just a beat behind me.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy people \u2014 we\u2019re going. It has been decided. We\u2019ve gotten what we came for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without another word, he set off towards his van. We followed along behind, shell-shocked.<\/p>\n

Craphound\u2019s exoskeleton executed another macro and slid the panel-door aside, revealing the cowboy trunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give you this. I will keep the glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re all leaving?\u201d Scott asked, with a note of urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been decided. We\u2019ll go over the next twenty-four hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why<\/em>?\u201d Scott said, sounding almost petulant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something that I can easily explain. As you must know, the things we gave you were trinkets to us \u2014 almost worthless. We traded them for something that was almost worthless to you \u2014 a fair trade, you\u2019ll agree \u2014 but it\u2019s time to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craphound handed me the cowboy trunk. Holding it, I smelled the lubricant from his exoskeleton and the smell of the attic it had been mummified in before making its way into his hands. I felt like I almost understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for me,\u201d I said slowly, and Craphound nodded encouragingly. \u201cThis is for me, and you\u2019re keeping the glasses. And I\u2019ll look at this and feel. . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou understand,\u201d Craphound said, looking somehow relieved.<\/p>\n

And I did<\/em>. I understood that an alien wearing a cowboy hat and sixguns and giving them away was a poem and a story, and a thirtyish bachelor trying to spend half a month\u2019s rent on four glasses so that he could remember his Grandma\u2019s kitchen was a story and a poem, and that the disused fairground outside Calgary was a story and a poem, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re craphounds!\u201d I said. \u201cAll of you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Craphound smiled so I could see his gums and I put down the cowboy trunk and clapped my hands.<\/p>\n

S<\/strong><\/span>cott recovered from his shock by spending the night at his office, crunching numbers talking on the phone, and generally getting while the getting was good. He had an edge \u2014 no one else knew that they were going.<\/p>\n

He went pro later that week, opened a chi-chi boutique on Queen Street, and hired me on as chief picker and factum factotum.<\/p>\n

Scott was not Billy the Kid. Just another Bay Street shyster with a cowboy jones. From the way they come down and spend, there must be a million of them.<\/p>\n

Our draw in the window is a beautiful mannequin I found, straight out of the Fifties, a little boy we call The Beaver. He dresses in chaps and a Sheriff\u2019s badge and sixguns and a miniature Stetson and cowboy boots with worn spurs, and rests one foot on a beautiful miniature steamer trunk whose leather is worked with cowboy motifs.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not for sale at any price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story, originally published in Science Fiction Age<\/em>, March 1998, sums up how I feel about the Space Western genre in a lot of ways. These Space Westerns, the ones on this site and the many more that have yet to appear, the reprints and the original works, the Space Western fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the hard science fiction Space Westerns of Isaac Asimov, even the crappy little Space Operas and Bat Durstons, all of them are “a poem and a story.” — ed, N.E. Lilly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5],"tags":[99],"media":[299],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}