by Luke Geddes
3 RONALD
Although Ronald Marsh was an optimist by nature, even he had his unhappinesses. For the good of himself, his friends, and the friends he had yet to make, he kept them inside and private. The last thing he wanted to be thought of was as a lonely old widower.
He always made sure to sign up for walking duties on the first Thursday of every month, when Dealer Association meetings were scheduled. He loved the hustle and bustle of the mall when so many dealers were present, haggling with one another, loading their booths with newly acquired merchandise, comparing sales sheets, and just plain shooting the breeze. If he was said to collect anything other than the postcards arranged by subject matter in sharp-edged rows in the cabinets that lined his booth, it would be the small social exchanges he gathered while walking: reciprocated smiles, hearty hellos, chats about the weather or current events. Each, however brief or seemingly trivial, was an opportunity to partake in human connection. Ronald regarded small talk with uncommon reverence. Even a brief conversation between strangers before going their separate ways was, for its duration, a kind of friendship.
And today of all days Ronald needed to talk. He’d always fancied himself a particularly adept small talker, but what weighed presently on his mind was quite big. Ronald was clumsy and scatterbrained by nature, had a habit of knocking over juice glasses and stumbling into closed doors, leaving his wallet at the checkout stand and driving with the trunk open. With warmth, his dear Melinda, rest her soul, had referred to such incidents as Ronald’s “oopsies.” Ronald was currently in the midst of an oopsie he had no idea how to fix. To clear his mind, to gain the perspective he needed to shimmy himself out of this pickle, he would embrace routine. He would go about his duties as if it were any ordinary day. He’d figure it all out, he was sure. If he put his faith in himself, things would work out just fine. That he believed.
Yes, indeed. Ronald thrived on conversation. He was his best version of himself when engaged in the verbal patter that punctuated his lively existence. It was just the thing to put him back in his right mind. As a child he’d fantasized about being a TV talk show host, the kind who is so interesting and urbane that all his famous guests usually end up asking him the questions. Melinda had once pointed out that his love of postcards was not unrelated to his passion for chitchat, for what was a postcard but one half of a conversation, taken place over days or weeks or months, sometimes across continents or oceans, preserved by enthusiasts like Ronald. Some collectors preferred their pieces unused and like new, but not Ronald. For him the back held as much thrill as the front—what a wonder to eavesdrop on the handwritten voices of the past! Yet there was nothing that could compare to the spontaneous magic of being right in front of your fellow man. The finest breeze-shooters in the business could make an ordinary exchange of hellos look like an athletic feat, and soon enough Ronald would be partaking in a televised bull session of his very own. On Monday Mark and Grant from television’s popular Home Channel were coming to film at the mall, and Ronald just knew he would impress them with his preternatural gift of gab.
He exercised it now as he stopped by Jake Backer’s booth of sports memorabilia in Hall Two. Leaning against a bundle of game-used baseball bats stored in a tin trash can, he said, “Some game the other night, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” Jake tapped the bill of his Kansas City Chiefs cap. “It’s why I’m wearing my victory crown.”
“Football is a fascinating game,” continued Ronald. “May the best team win.”
“Yeah,” said Jake. “The best team won.”
Jake turned his back to Ronald and began flipping through a box of trading cards. Satisfied, Ronald waved goodbye, although Jake couldn’t have seen, and continued on. Yes, Ronald thought to himself, it had been a wonderful talk, a very successful talk, a charged sort of dialogue, few words exchanged but emotions running high—sports talk, manly talk. It was lucky Jake hadn’t called his bluff. Ronald didn’t follow sports and was only guessing that some sort of game had even occurred. But then again, it wasn’t luck at all but really a display of Ronald’s expert confabulation abilities in action. He was just such a likable and easygoing fellow that others couldn’t help but relate to him. Today was already turning into a good one.
The way booth rental at Heart of America worked was you could get fifteen dollars off your rent for each four-hour shift of “walking”—that is, wandering the pathways of the mall while wearing an official Heart of America name badge, helping customers pick out items from the locked cases, carrying their intended purchases to the lobby storage racks for when they were ready to check out, and overall being a friendly representative of the business, as well as watching for shoplifters and tag switchers. Ronald had never witnessed any thievery himself, even though, funnily enough, a number of shoplifters had been captured on the mall’s CCTV cameras during his walks. Keith and Stacey had shown him the tapes, gently reprimanded him for his lack of presentness—that was the way they put it. The way he would put it, proudly, is that he lacked cynicism. He wasn’t out on the antique mall beat with a billy club and a gun in his holster, looking to crack skulls and finger some perps like the cops on prime-time television. He was there to be helpful, and just think how rude he’d come across if he started pointing suspiciously at every customer with bulging pockets or a purse that jingled a little too heavily. Besides, the accused had all seemed like good kids, kind ladies. Probably a few or even most had simply forgotten what they were carrying, had only accidentally walked to their cars and driven off without paying. (Heaven knew it was the sort of thing that could just as easily have happened to Ronald.) When he’d said as much to Keith and Stacey, they didn’t get it. Keith kind of sneered and Stacey said she didn’t share Ronald’s idealism.
But Ronald had no ill feelings toward them. They were fine people and wise business owners, and he sympathized with the tough financial decisions they often had to make, even when they imposed a fifty percent maximum discount per month on booth rental for walking duties. Prior to this, Ronald had walked enough to cover expenses for six months. But nope, he didn’t mind at all. He would walk for free if it came down to it, and he happened to be doing that now, as he’d already reached the limit for the month.
He made his way down Bicentennial Boardwalk, calling a jolly hello to Jimmy Daniels, who held the distinction of being Heart of America’s most profitable dealer for many months running, with a diverse stock that changed entirely on a week-to-week basis. His picture had been pinned on the bulletin board in the lobby for so long the paper was curled and yellow. If only once Ronald’s own picture got to adorn that tinfoil frame. But postcards were not where the money was, and he rarely sold anything more collectible or higher priced than the odds and ends from his ten-for-a-dollar bin.
“Ronald!” Jimmy said, pantomiming a fisherman’s cast and reel.
Ronald eagerly took the bait. “Jimmy, my good man,” he said. “I hate to tell tales out of school, but with the Home Channel’s Mark and Grant show visiting our humble abode next week, I’ve a mind to—”
“Oh sure, man. Think of the exposure. You and me, buddy, we’re gonna clean up,” Jimmy said. “And there’s no better way to celebrate making money than by spending a little. Have I got the find of the century for you.” He moved some 1940s movie posters out of the way—“Hot sellers among aging cineasts and young hipsters alike”—shuffled some metal advertising signs—“Big moneymakers with young husbands, you know, decorating their man caves—I mark these up, like, six times what I pay and I couldn’t hold on to them if I tried”—reached under a shelf holding a bundle of silver-and-turquoise Navajo jewelry—“Slightly imperfect, priced to sell”—until finally he found what he was looking for, a nondescript white box. “You’re the postcard guy, right?”
“That I am,” Ronald said with delight. His reputation preceded him.
“Well.” Jimmy held the box out and then pulled it back. “You know what, on second thought, forget it. You don’t want this. You’re,
like, the postcard guy. I’m sure this is just common scraps to you.”
“I do have over ten thousand unique cards in my personal collection, but please, I’m always interested in anything deltiological.”
Jimmy tucked the box under his arm. “Wow, man, wow. Over ten thousand. Wow. Then doubly forget it. This is useless to a master delti—what is it—deltiologist like yourself.”
“No, no,” Ronald said. “I insist. You never know what treasures you’ll find in the unlikeliest of places. And it would haunt me personally if I never considered what you’re offering.”
Jimmy gazed over Ronald’s head for a long, deeply quiet moment—quiet aside from oldies tunes that played on the mall’s speaker system—and held the box gingerly in his hands like a sacred artifact. “Okay, Ron, okay. You’ve convinced me. But I’m gonna warn you that I’m a little weird about this.” Ronald could barely concentrate on what Jimmy was saying. He couldn’t take his eyes off that mysterious box. “This is totally ridiculous of me, I know, and a personal insult to you, but while I can tell you that this box is full of a wide assortment of vintage postcards”—he shook the box, the sound of accumulated paper rectangles so familiar to Ronald that it shuffled eternally in the deepest caverns of his ears—“I can’t, for strange, personal reasons—unreasonable reasons, I readily admit—let you see the postcards inside.”
“You’re fooling me,” Ronald said.
“I wish I was.” Jimmy gave the box another maraca-shake. “I picked these up at a swap meet back in Nebraska. It was more of a gift, really. My great-uncle—he’s not really my uncle but we’re so close I call him that—he’s a big postcard collector since way back when, used to travel the country—a traveling salesman, vacuum cleaners, right? He’d pick up a few here, a few there. That’s how he got started. He even has some of those, um, ah—you’re the expert. Tell me, what are some of the rarest kinds of postcards?”
“Well, there are what you might call holy grails and one-of-a-kinds, like the hand-drawn postcard mailed by novelist Theodore Hook to himself with a penny black stamp in 1840, considered by expert deltiologists to be the very first postcard ever. And there are too many profitable niches to name them all. Railway stations from before 1950 are quite valuable, for example. Halloween-themed cards, such as those by the artist Ellen Clapsaddle—”
“Exactly. Old Uncle had gallons of them. Anyway, the reason he gave me this gift—he said that if I was ever in any trouble, I wouldn’t need to call him and ask for money. These would see me through. But he was a weird guy, insisted that they only be sold as a set and for the box to be opened only by the buyer. Said the right person would know to purchase them blindly. Like I said, he was a superstitious guy. You know that old-time spiritual bullshit. But I loved him, so I got to honor his request.”
“Of course,” Ronald said. “I understand. My wife, she recently passed, and—”
“So you want ’em or not? I hate to part with them, but I just don’t have the room anymore, you know? If you don’t take them, no hard feelings. I’ve already got an offer from another guy, a serious collector. What do you say?”
“Well, it is intriguing.” Who could fathom what sorts of surprises the box contained?
“I’ll do you a favor. Fifty bucks. That’s like giving them away. The other guy offered me a hundred, but I like you. They’re yours. I feel like they already belong to you.”
“Okay.” Ronald reached into his billfold and removed a crisp fifty-dollar bill. “I’ll take them.”
Jimmy clenched the bill in two fingers hesitantly. “Are you sure? I don’t wanna mislead you. There’s probably some junk in there, but I feel pretty confident that my uncle would leave some diamonds in with the rough.”
Ronald nodded so vigorously it made him a little dizzy as Jimmy handed him the box. There was something mystical about it, he felt. He turned it over and over, listening to the satisfying clomp. Perhaps he should leave it as is and preserve the mystery. But he couldn’t contain his curiosity. He tore open the lid and picked eagerly through the stack.
Something in Ronald’s chest evaporated, and the sucking emptiness brought his ribs into his heart like needles. This fabled box contained nothing but countless identical sets of novelty cards in the “Men’s Humor” category, photos of obese women in tiny bikinis with the caption “Glad you’re not her!” The worst part was that Ronald had seen them all before; these had been his cards once, from his ten-for-a-dollar bins. They’d been included in a large lot he bought off a very elderly gentleman who couldn’t be bothered to leave his nursing home to travel to shows anymore. When he’d needed to make room for some new inventory last month, Ronald tossed them in the mall’s “free” box. Through some strange series of circumstances, they’d been returned to him.
“So how great are they?” Jimmy asked, grinning, seemingly so overjoyed for Ronald’s luck that he was on the verge of laughter.
“Great,” Ronald said and tried to smile. He slunk away as Jimmy said that it had been a pleasure doing business with him. Ronald wouldn’t complain or ask for a refund. Jimmy had so much stuff coming in and out of his booth, he’d probably confused Ronald’s cast-offs with the gift from his uncle. He didn’t want to insult the man who was just trying to do him an honest favor. Anyway, if fifty dollars was the price for keeping Jimmy’s friendship, that was just fine. A friend was priceless.
He wondered what to do with the cards. It seemed they were attached to him. Melinda had always teased him about the way he treated objects as if they had feelings. It was one of the reasons he had accumulated such a large and impressive collection. What had once been a couple of boxes in the basement had reproduced, multiplied, and spread throughout their home. Melinda couldn’t even open the silverware drawer to get a fork without coming across a stack. She lived with him, she’d said, in a house of cards. It had been her idea for him to rent the space in the Heart of America as a way of paring down the collection or at least getting a portion out of the house. And, as always, she was right. He’d made so many friends here that had helped him through his wife’s passing, he didn’t know what he would have done without them.
His eyes downcast in thought, he nearly collided with Delores Kovacs carrying a case of Barbie dolls to her booth on Victoria Street.
“Pardon me, Delores,” he said. Now, she was a real looker—not that Ronald was prone to looking with romantic fervor. Besides that his heart belonged forever to Melinda, she was far too young for him. Based on her collecting interests, Ronald guessed that Delores was in her late thirties or early forties, though it was hard to tell. There was an ageless glow about her, a silver-screen luster. She could be a movie star or model, not a hair or thread out of place, wrinkleless on both garment and skin.
Hugging the case tight to her chest, she looked at him with hard, glassy eyes. “Do you know what’s in here? A 1964 swirl-ponytail Barbie in titian.” Ronald followed her to her booth, a U-shape of bright pink shelves with teal trim on which was displayed an impressive collection of vintage Barbies. There were curly-banged Barbies in zebra-striped swimsuits; Barbies in high heels and bikinis; Barbies with sleek bubble cuts and deep red lips; blond, brunette, and redhead Barbies; Fashion Queen Barbies with interchangeable wigs, with sheared scalps like dear Melinda during her treatments; ditzy, sun-bronzed Malibu Barbies; thin-waisted, big-eyed Twist ’n Turn Barbies in colorful mod fashions; walking Barbies, talking Barbies, driving Barbies, toenail-painting Barbies; Barbies living the American dream in lush pink estates; Barbies down on their luck and trying to make ends meet, working the drive-through at McDonald’s; and not just Barbie but her friends, family, pets, and associates, too: freckle-cheeked Midge; multiple Cousin Francies in varying hair colors and skin tones; Kens with clean-cut features and haggard, overworked ones, too; Alans and Rickys and Caseys and PJs; Barbie’s pet dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, monkeys; there were even some off-brand Barbie wannabes mixed in: Barbara and Barb and Bar Bar and Barbé and Blarbie, on whose box Delores had a
ffixed a label that read “Early black knockoff test-marketed in the South VERY RARE.”
There were so many dolls that Ronald felt a certain kinship with Delores. Most dealers at the mall had their specific areas of expertise, had arrived at these areas through an initially casual interest that bloomed into an avocation and then maybe even into an obsession. But few had so comprehensive a collection as he and she. Others dabbled, spreading a wider net of interest. They liked different types of things, incongruous categories, pairing clocks and Christmas decorations, Disneyana and nineteenth century medical tools, for example. Not Delores and Ronald. They had honed their interests with laser precision. Yes, he and Delores were two of a kind. In their own way, they lived life to the fullest. Ronald had been attending an annual postcard show called Deltiomania for some years now, and it was true that he was in a sense a deltiomaniac. Collecting was addictive, like any vice, but he’d take his postcards over boozing or smoking.