by Luke Geddes
“Yeah, okay.” Pete knelt and lifted the box flaps. “Oh wow! Holy jeez!” Delores could not see what was inside, Pete’s enormous quaking back blocking her view.
“Oh lord, what is it?” She pushed him out of the way.
“Battlestar Galactica! The original, complete and in brand-new condition.” He held a couple of boxes displaying robots and spaceships.The package was full of them. Delores was not interested in science fiction toys, save for Astronaut Barbie, especially the 1965 edition. “Oh man! The Cylon Raider! Colonial Landram! Mark and Grant are gonna love this.” Somehow the Barbies had been wrong, but Delores felt like she was the one who had failed them. Whatever preternatural intuition they had about these things must have been thrown off by Delores’s petulance. She’d known better than to eat that doughnut! When she got home, she’d face the Barbies and vow to be better. Hopelessly she eyed the door. It seemed an improbably long trek down the stairs and to the exit. “I’ve got some episodes recorded we can watch later. Can you believe they’re actually coming to the Heart of America on Monday?”
Yes, the TV show filming, Delores thought sadly. Keith Stoller had let slip that the producers had already expressed interest in filming a special segment about her. Evidently her reputation preceded her. It would not be the first time she was subject to media coverage. Her collection was so revered in some circles that she’d been featured in venues such as American Dolls Quarterly and Collectors’ Monthly. She’d even once been quoted in a USA Today article on a proposed Barbie redesign. They’d referred to her as a foremost expert on the brand. But that was a lie. She was nothing without the Growing Up Skipper prototype to complete her collection.
She stood to make a brisk exit when she heard a sound from within the package, the whisper of a whisper.
She shoved Pete out of the way and dug in, flinging Battlestar Galactica toys at him as she made her way to the bottom. He cheered as he caught each one. “Yeah! It’s like Christmas!” Finally, all that remained was a plain white unlabeled box. She lifted the lid and the revelation of what was inside knocked her back onto the bed.
“Well, hello, Dolly. Took you long enough.”
It was her: 7259-A, the ultra-rare Growing Up Skipper prototype with additional menstruation feature. Delores twisted her trigger arm and wrist, some internal mechanism clicked, and all at once Skipper grew in height, her breasts expanded, and—yes, it was true, a flip of her checkered skirt proved it—a droplet of water leaked out from Skipper’s refillable torso, initiating the color-change spot in her undergarment accessory. After all this time, Delores had her, she finally had her! She couldn’t wait to display her (under lock and key, of course) at the next convention. She had done it. She had completed her collection. She had achieved perfection.
Pete finished sorting through the Battlestar Galactica junk and joined Delores on the bed, his leg touching hers.
All that was left was the matter of getting Skipper away from Pete. “Peter, Pete, Petey. I’m so impressed with your collection.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t suppose you really want this Skipper.”
Pete grabbed Delores’s wrist and studied the doll, eyeing the stained underwear. “Gross! Hmm. Not really, I guess.”
Delores bit her lip. “I’d give you a fair price. Really I would.”
Pete blushed. “Oh, Delores, I couldn’t sell anything to you. We’re friends.” He sucked on his inhaler but the way he pressed it to his lips was almost like a kiss.
“Then, you mean you’d—”
The metallic groan of Pete’s fly zipper echoed, and in an instant, without the click of an unseen internal mechanism, his erect penis appeared like a red rubber doll between his thighs.
Delores looked to Skipper, who shrugged without moving. So long as she did not have to offer Pete the privacy of her own body (in truth, she hated that thing itself, so complicated and busy was all that stuff compared to the smooth perfect blankness between Barbie’s legs), she could distance her mind from the actions she was about to perform. She turned Skipper’s head so she would not see and looked with dread at her own trembling palm. But before she could touch him, Skipper said, in the tone of a wink, “A girl does what she has to, Dolly, but a woman does only what she wants.”
At once Delores understood perfectly. She said to Pete, “I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh boy, a surprise!”
“But I’m shy. Close your eyes. It’ll be worth it.”
Pete took one last proud look at his throbbing member and closed his eyes.
“No peeking. Or else no surprise.” Off the floor she picked up a HOT WHEELS CONVENTION 1998 sweatshirt and tied it as a blindfold around his face.
He leaned back on his elbows. “Okay, I’m ready for my surprise.”
“It’s going to take me a while to get ready. Count to thirty. Slowly.”
Pete had not quite made it to twenty by the time Delores burst through Pete’s front door, Skipper in hand. She’d have escaped even quicker if she had not stopped to knock on Pete’s mother’s bedroom door to tell her that Pete needed to talk to her about something right away.
She buckled Skipper into the passenger seat and climbed in beside her.
“I see my sisters have taught you a thing or two about a woman’s resourcefulness. I sure have missed my family.”
“We’ve missed you, too.”
Skipper did not talk much after that but in the middle of the short drive home she shrieked. Delores pulled over to the curb and asked if she was feeling well.
“The man in that house. I don’t like him.”
“Of course not. Pete and his boys’ toys, but we got him—”
“No! Not that man.”
“K-Ken?”
“I mean the man in that house.” They were parked on Belmont Street. Skipper directed her voice at the dingy ranch house with the weird lawn ornament and pathetic decayed wreath on the door. “He’s hiding something. He’s bad. Bad for pretty girls. Beautiful girls like us look out for our own.”
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“Not you, Dolly. Do you remember when you first met my sister?”
“Of course. On my sixth birthday. I can still picture the wrapping paper—”
“Uncharge your batteries, Dolly. I wasn’t asking for a soliloquy. Do you know why Barbie chose you? Don’t answer. You were in trouble. Such an unhappy child.”
“It’s unbecoming to frown.”
“Yes. It’s a shame for pretty little girls to be in trouble. But I have a plan, Dolly. Are you going to be a good girl and do exactly what I say?”
17 SEYMOUR
A miasma of B.O. filled Jimmy Daniels’s basement as the horde of collectors swept frenziedly through the record crates set up in rows too narrow for some of the portlier among them to comfortably fit, marking their territory with outspread elbows and surreptitiously released farts. They were nearly identical in their wrinkled and untucked button-ups, their baggy pants, their unkempt or grease-slicked hair. Though Seymour had always idolized the monomaniacal, socially guileless types that surrounded him, with their near-autistic focus and endless depth of trivial expertise, he’d also prided himself on being better than them; he had a multitude of interests apart from vinyl, a robust sex life (up until recently, at least), a wardrobe that consisted of more than just a couple faded checked oxfords, a few pairs of khaki chinos, and a tweed jacket for special occasions.
But that wasn’t true. He had lied to Ellie about not being one of them. He had lied to himself. He was as bad as these guys or any collector scum, even Pete Deen or Margaret. Worse, actually, because he had the unfortunate self-awareness to realize how pointless it was and he still couldn’t stop himself: terminally unimpressed, incapable of having a conversation that didn’t involve such scintillating topics as the minute differences in mixes across international pressings or impassioned defenses of 1970s Doug Yule–era Velvet Underground bootlegs. When he was a kid, he’d had such an easy tim
e talking to anyone and everyone, was on a first-name basis with all the homeless people in his neighborhood. He’d long forsaken his natural curiosity. He had too much information in his head already, and none of it was interesting.
In his career, Seymour had gotten used to the particular melancholy of estate sales; seeing a person’s or a family’s entire material life price-tagged and on display was worse than a funeral. And he’d had countless awkward and soul-deadening encounters buying stuff off craigslist from lonely spinsters, teenage drug addicts, poor single mothers in desperate need of rent money. But this was depressing in a new way.
He could guess exactly how Jimmy had ended up with this collection. He’d seen it before. In Seymour’s crowd they called it the Purge, an existential sickness hitting in late middle age that drove collectors to a complete and total divestment. Of all the guys he knew who’d done it, there were none for whom it wasn’t their greatest-ever regret. One sad sack seen regularly at shows around Boston used to tell anyone willing to listen about the collection he’d once had that he was now trying to rebuild piece by piece. A long while back, this guy had been evicted from his apartment after a bad divorce and a job loss and had to move into a buddy’s studio where there was no room for his vinyl. He didn’t have any friends or family who could offer storage space, so he carried them—“four thousand and thirty-eight total, including about sixty minty Blue Notes, a bunch of Sun 78s”—to the dumpster behind his apartment building and trashed them all. “I could have sold them,” he’d said, “but I just couldn’t stand the thought of someone else having them.” Not a day went by, the guy said, that he didn’t think about it. “The ones that nag me the most are the ones I can’t remember. How can I replace them if I don’t know I used to have them?”
As Seymour browsed among the vultures, he struggled to think of a single record on his personal checklist. Not that it stopped him from building a to-buy stack heavy enough to strain his arms. The guys flanking him side-eyed each LP he pulled with envy and judgment, and he soon found himself participant in the inane patter of the connoisseur. So far he had selected: Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake (Guy: “Let me know if you change your mind on that. I’ve got the stereo already but not the mono.” Seymour: “Mono’s much better, I heard.”), The Raspberries’ Fresh (Guy: “Carmen’s one of the rare few who transcend their influences. He’s a better songwriter than McCartney, in my opinion.” Seymour: “I agree, but only because McCartney’s overrated.”), the Beach Boys’ Love You (Guy: “One of my favorites.” Seymour: “Gloriously stupid lyrics.” Guy: “I don’t know, I think they really work in their own way. For the Beach Boys especially. You don’t have to be Dylan to be profound and—” Seymour: “No, I totally agree. I know it’s a crime but I’ve never been that big on Dylan. I can dig him up through Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde on Blonde but after…”), the Osmonds’ The Plan (Seymour: “Um, no comment.” Guy: “Actually, it’s better than its novelty reputation. ‘Let Me In’ and ‘Goin’ Home’ are really decent cuts.”), The Scruffs’ Wanna Meet the Scruffs? (Seymour: “Been looking for that one for a while.” Guy: “It’s a fair price, especially for a target purchase.”), Shangri-Las-65! (Guy: “Almost grabbed that one myself, but the B-side’s got a nasty crack.” Seymour: “Doesn’t bother me. I’ve already got two copies of this in better condition. But I never not buy the Shangri-Las when the price is right. My all-time favorite but also the single most important group of the 1960s. I love the Beatles, but fuck the Beatles.”), Tommy James & the Shondells’ It’s Only Love (Guy: “Not their best.” Seymour: “I’m a completist.”), Shoes’ Present Tense (Guy: “Excellent choice, sir.”), and Roger McGuinn’s self-titled (Guy: “Love the Byrds.” Seymour: “I go back-and-forth on ’em.”).
When he’d had enough, Seymour took refuge at a card table near the door. He separated his finds into Yes, No, and Maybe piles while stragglers barreled through with the emotionless determination of Black Friday spree-shoppers and suicide bombers. No point in getting that excited. Ultimately he found the selection rather pedestrian—no mono Velvets, no OG #1 Record, as Jimmy had teased. With each pass-through, his Yes and Maybe piles shrank, and his No pile grew. He was having a hard time convincing himself there was anything here he actually needed or wanted to own.
Finally, it all ended up in the No pile. What was wrong with him? There was some great stuff here. He remembered the ruthless macho hunter instinct that used to overcome him when he entered a sale like this. There was no greater feeling than finding that one thing that for months or years or your entire life you’d been searching for and paying next to nothing for it—that is, other than finding that thing you never knew existed, the thing you never could have thought to look for, the electric jolt of discovery like a drug or orgasm—creating a new, bigger hunger even as it satisfied an old one.
He could pinpoint the portion of his life in which he’d been happiest with sober accuracy. It was when he and Lee spent a few months traveling cross-country, stopping at every flea market, antique mall, barn sale, and swap meet they passed. The idea was to build up stock for Tragic Treasures, the little vintage shop they opened in Cambridge that hemorrhaged money for a year before they jumped ship and washed up in Wichita.
He could see why Lee found him so irritating lately. He didn’t know who he was anymore. Seymour’s personality was a collection of quirks and affectations, defined more by the clothes and furniture and assorted junk he owned than attitude or disposition. His was more a commentary on what a personality was than a personality itself. He didn’t hate himself. He hated his stuff. He was starting to question his trenchant belief that you are what you like. What were you if you didn’t like what you liked anymore?
Probably most people felt this way. Probably most people acted in accordance with the personality they’d decided on, or that had been decided for them, when they were much younger, even if inside they felt fundamentally alienated from who that self was. Seymour didn’t want to think about it anymore. He abandoned his pile and left no opportunity to regret it; collectors had descended upon it by the time he took one step away.
Upstairs, Jimmy stood guard over a money box while a young woman—his wife, his girlfriend, his daughter, who knew?—handled all the transactions. Seymour had to admit it was a good strategy; the overwhelmingly hetero male clientele was less likely to attempt haggling when faced with an attractive woman.
“Seymour, my man,” Jimmy said, eying his empty hands. “I’m offended. My wares aren’t good enough for ya?”
“Looks like you’ll do just fine without me.”
“I’m not in it for the money. It’s the personal connection I make with each of my buyers.”
“Consider the connection made. No charge,” Seymour said. “Turns out I’m not really in an acquisitions phase.”
“You said that before.” Jimmy narrowed his eyes. “But I get it, you’re on a budget.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“I overheard you and your guy the other day,” Jimmy said. “I used to have a wife like yours. Spouse, I mean. Whatever you call him. Used to have a spouse who didn’t understand the value of spending money to make money, let alone spending money to get stuff. I said, Hey, if you’re such a minimalist, I’ll do you a favor and make sure you get nothing in the divorce. That was three wives ago now.” He nodded at the woman presently accepting a wad of cash from the heavy breather who’d accosted Seymour with his opinion on the Osmonds. “No hard feelings. I’ll let you know the next time I hit the motherlode. It’ll be a while. Lots like these don’t come along every day.”
“I don’t plan to stick around much longer.” The words emerged without thought or foresight, but now, hearing them, more as listener than speaker, Seymour understood them to be completely true.
“Well, in that case,” Jimmy said. Repeating the gesture from the day they’d met, he produced a business card from his sleeve. “Moving’s a bitch, ain’t it? Especially for guys with fine tastes like
you and me. When the time comes, I’d be happy to lighten the load in your U-Haul. Ask around, I pay fair prices, all things considered.”
Seymour went straight from Jimmy’s to the sad bar across the street from the grocery store whose décor could most charitably be described as retirement community for leather-skinned Parrothead burnout trash and brooded on a stool upholstered with duct tape among a surprisingly robust crowd of career alcoholics and grunting enthusiasts of loudly branded sports apparel.
What was wrong with him? Nothing these days, as the Soul-Array Method put it, initiated “a feeling of belonging,” nothing in his old collection, not any new acquisition. It used to be the glow of a choice find like a mono Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake would last weeks. What could it mean now that regret struck preemptively, before point of purchase? In a strange way, it was almost a relief. Getting what you wanted only reminded you of all that you didn’t yet have. But then again, so did not getting what you wanted.
He struggled to recall the last time he felt true desire, the last object which upon a glance he wanted not because it fit with his collection or because he could resell it for a profit but because he just had to fucking have it. All he came up with was Ronald Marsh’s lawn ornament. Even if Seymour’s hunch that it was a rare limited-run piece was correct, Heatherstone blow molds weren’t worth much on the market. There weren’t enough dedicated collectors to drive up values. And it wasn’t in his usual wheelhouse; lawn ornaments were so Kitsch 101, a suburban housewife’s idea of “character.” That Ronald’s wife had picked it out only proved it. But there was something special about it. Like the later work of Sid and Marty Krofft, it embodied both the whimsy and horror of the American early seventies, the love generation’s sellout countercultural hangover. It was no coincidence that this period coincided with Seymour’s own coming of age; deep down he was just another loser nostalgic for the trinkets of his misbegotten youth.
Two faces have I, he thought. The phrase was familiar but he couldn’t place it. Song lyrics, maybe. There were too many songs in this world already. He resented anyone with the audacity to start a band. There was too much everything.