by Dave Crehore
“Sold for four hundred dollars to Roman Pankratz, item number
176, the Farmall tractor,” Sousa said. He tore a sheet of paper off a clipboard and handed it to Romy. “There ya go, Romy,” he said.
“Signed, sealed, and delivered. Just take that around to the cashier on the porch.” Convinced that he had a bargain, Romy beamed
contentedly and tottered off to the front of the farmhouse.
Sousa winked at the crowd and clapped his hands to regain their
attention. “OK,” he said, “right over this way, item number 177, a disk harrow, looks like a John Deere—at least it’s green—so who’ll start me out . . .”
Sousa stopped in midstride. He was standing in front of the
outhouse. “What the hell, boys, they said sell it all, so by God I will!”
He gave the side of the outhouse a resounding whack with his
cane. “Here she is, the genuine article, solid red cedar, don’t hardly stink at all, she’ll come in handy this winter when the septic tank 133
How Now, Frau Blau?
freezes up, just pull out them bolts and you can take her right along, who’ll start me out at twenty-five dollars . . .” Sousa smote the privy a second time and looked rapidly back and forth at the crowd for signs of interest.
“Judas priest!” Dad said.
He and I had been looking on, wondering if Mrs. Blau could
summon the courage to escape from the outhouse under the eyes of all those men. We never thought Sousa would actually try to sell it, but now that he was, Dad knew it was time to step in.
“Hold on a minute!” Dad said, and elbowed his way through the
audience. He bent down and whispered into Sousa’s ear.
Sousa turned and gave the outhouse a close look. Then he turned
back to Dad and snorted incredulously. “Occupied?” he asked, in a low voice. “Old lady Blau?” Then Sousa’s multiple bellies started to shake. He alternated between fits of laughing and coughing. Finally he caught his breath. “I was about to open the door,” Sousa said.
“God, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!” He saluted Dad with his cane and cleared his throat loudly to reassemble the crowd.
“Forget the outhouse,” Sousa said. “Now, then, item 177, the disk harrow. Who’ll start me out . . .”
When the harrow was sold, Sousa led the crowd to the barn.
Quiet returned to the outhouse and its clump of lilacs. Dad tapped gently on the door with the stem of his pipe. “It’s all right, Mrs.
Blau, you can come out—they’re all gone,” he said.
The door eased open about an inch. The metal ferrule of Mrs.
Blau’s rolled-up umbrella appeared first, followed by her prominent nose. Then she scuttled out, jabbed the umbrella into the soft earth, and smoothed down her long black cotton dress.
“Woo!” Mrs. Blau said, exhaling sharply. “That was close. I was
watching through a knothole and I saw what you did. I owe you
one, Mr. Crehore.”
134
How Now, Frau Blau?
“Hell, Mrs. Blau, call me Dave,” Dad said, grinning. “We haven’t got any secrets from each other anymore.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Blau, “then you may call me Mary.”
Dad filled his pipe with Walnut. As he did, Mrs. Blau pulled a
crumpled pack of Chesterfields from the pocket of her dress. “Need a light, Mrs.—um, Mary?” Dad asked. Mrs. Blau leaned forward as
Dad thumbed his Zippo. She dragged deeply on her cigarette as Dad lit and tamped his pipe. They smiled at each other through the
smoke.
“You know, Dave, I just said I owed you one, and I think you can collect on it today,” Mrs. Blau said. “One time you asked me to let you know if I ever came across a Lefever shotgun in my travels. Well, there’s one here at this farm. It’s an Uncle Dan to boot, and it’s in pretty good shape. There’s a nice Parker, too—and yes, I know what I’m talking about. My father was a gunsmith in Germantown and I
used to help him. I grew up with those guns.
“The problem is, the newspaper ad for this auction says three
shotguns will be sold, but there’s only one actually tagged for sale, and it’s an old Crescent Arms wall-hanger. But when I was in the farmhouse looking things over before the auction started this morning, I poked around and found the Parker and the Lefever hidden
behind an ironing board in the kitchen closet.”
Mrs. Blau glanced over at the barn. “Jolly old Colonel Sousa ain’t exactly Santa Claus,” she said. “I’ll bet you anything he’ll pretend to find them after the auction is over and make some kind of a low-ball offer to Gertie, the widow that owns this farm. She needs the money and she’ll probably take anything he gives her.”
“Dirty work at the crossroads,” Dad said. Mrs. Blau looked up at him. “Oh, yes, it happens,” she said. “How much money have you
got with you?”
“I’ve got two hundred and fifty in my Lefever fund,” Dad said.
135
How Now, Frau Blau?
“Well, that might be enough,” Mrs. Blau said. “I’ll make a phone call and see what I can do.” She took a final pull on her Chesterfield, ground the butt into the grass with her heel, and strode purposefully to the back door of the farmhouse.
“Good grief,” Dad said. “You come out here in the country for a
little light entertainment and all of a sudden it’s high intrigue! Come on, let’s eat our lunch before the egg salad goes bad.”
Our Studebaker station wagon was parked along the road in
front of the farmhouse. We ate sitting on its tailgate, where we had a good view of the front porch. Something clearly was going on—
there were raised voices inside, including Mrs. Blau’s raspy tenor, and for a moment we saw her nose-to-nose with Sousa’s cashier.
Finally she emerged backward through the screen door, carrying
two shotguns. She laid them on a table beside the Crescent Arms
gun and some boxes of dishes and kitchenware that were to be sold from the front porch. She saw us and gave us a quick thumbs-up.
Dad nodded, opened the glove compartment of the Studie, and
removed an envelope full of tens and twenties.
When the auction started up again, Sousa disposed of the dishes
for seven dollars, and Romy walked off with the Crescent Arms gun for fifteen. “I gotta lampshade at home that’ll just fit this baby,” he said, and everyone laughed. Then Sousa looked down and saw the
Parker and Lefever. He turned to the cashier and berated him in an angry whisper. The cashier shrugged and nodded toward Mrs. Blau, who stood in the front row of onlookers, fixing Sousa with a narrow-eyed stare.
Sousa recovered his voice. “OK, we’re almost done.” He walked
past the shotguns and picked up one of the cardboard boxes. “Here we got everything you newlyweds need to get started out in life.” He rummaged in the box and started pulling things out. “Colander,
eggbeater, spatula, lefse roller. Who’ll start it out at a quarter?”
136
How Now, Frau Blau?
“Hey, not so fast!” shouted Mrs. Blau, waving the newspaper ad.
“Sell the shotguns!”
Sousa glared at Mrs. Blau and picked up the Lefever. A middle-
aged man in a brown fedora hat, who had been looking on from a
distance, walked up and joined the crowd.
“All right,” Sousa said, “the lady says sell ’em so I will. This here is a Lefever of some kind, looks like a fancy one, so we’ll start her out at fifty bucks. Who’ll give me fifty?”
“Here!” said the man in the fedora.
“OK, fifty I got, who’ll go a hundred?”
“One hundred,” Dad said. Sousa scowled; he wasn’t expecting
any other bidders.
“One fifty!” snappe
d the fedora.
“Two hundred,” Dad said.
The fedora jumped back in. “Two fifty!”
Dad hesitated.
“Three hundred,” said Mrs. Blau.
A stunned silence fell over the onlookers. No one in Manitowoc
County had ever offered to pay three hundred dollars for a shotgun.
In the distance, crows cawed and a windmill squeaked.
“Three hundred is bid!” said Mrs. Blau. Sousa’s face turned an
ugly crimson. He glanced at the man in the brown fedora.
“Three fifty,” said the fedora.
“Four hundred,” Mrs. Blau said.
“Four . . . ,” said the fedora, but Sousa shook his head almost im-perceptibly from side to side. The man in the fedora looked down.
“All done?” said Sousa, scanning the crowd. “Sold! The Lefever
shotgun for four hundred dollars to Mrs. Blau. See the cashier when we’re through.”
Dad turned to me and frowned. “Dammit, there it goes,” he said.
“That’s about as close as I’m ever going to get to an Uncle Dan. Even 137
How Now, Frau Blau?
if Mrs. Blau would sell it, I haven’t got four hundred bucks to spend on a shotgun.”
Up on the porch, Sousa picked up the Parker. His professional
good humor had evaporated. “Now here’s another nice one,” he said in a gritty voice, “a real Parker, the Old Reliable, nice VHE grade, partridge season comin’ up before you know it. Gotta start this one out at a hundred and fifty.”
Dad had the fever. “Hundred and fifty,” he said.
“Two hundred,” countered the fedora.
“Two fifty,” Dad said.
The fedora raised his hand. I saw Sousa give that quick shake of the head again. The fedora lowered his hand. There were no other bidders.
“All done?” Sousa shouted. “All done? All right, sold for two
hundred and fifty dollars to the man with the pipe!” He waved his hand contemptuously at the colanders and eggbeaters and stalked
into the farmhouse, the high heels of his cowboy boots thudding on the worn floorboards. The auction was over.
Mrs. Blau walked briskly over to Dad, carrying the Uncle Dan.
“Hurry up, pay for that Parker before Sousa takes a close look at it,”
she said. “Right away!” Dad went up to the cashier’s table, emptied his envelope, and hooked the Parker over his arm.
We headed for the car. Dad raised the Parker to his shoulder and looked down the rib. “Shoot!” he said. “I never should have bid on this thing. It’s in beautiful shape, but the stock’s got way too much drop—doesn’t fit me at all. I’ll never be able to hit anything with it, and now I’ve got to find somebody who’ll pay me two hundred and
fifty dollars for it!”
“I’ll give you that,” said Mrs. Blau, who had walked with us. “It doesn’t matter if it fits you or not. It’s a collector gun. See, I called Gertie over at her daughter’s place during lunch—she didn’t want to 138
How Now, Frau Blau?
be here and watch her stuff being sold. She said her husband used to hunt with the Lefever, but he won the Parker in a raffle back in 1936
and never shot it, never even took it out of the house. Maybe Sousa knew he was selling a mint-condition gun, maybe he didn’t—it
doesn’t matter, because it’s yours now!”
Dad leaned forward and gave Mrs. Blau a resounding kiss on
the forehead. “Mary, now I owe you one,” he said. “You saved my
bacon. More important, you saved my Lefever fund!”
“Oh, that’s right, you wanted this Lefever, didn’t you,” said Mrs.
Blau, her face wrinkling into a smile. She took the Parker from Dad and handed him the Uncle Dan.
Dad looked down at her. “What in the hell is going on here?” he
asked.
“Well,” Mrs. Blau said, “it looks like the man in the brown hat
was Sousa’s shill. I forced Sousa to auction those guns, so the shill’s job was to bid and get them for Sousa. I think he wanted both of those guns for the big-city market, and it looks like he was willing to pay $350 for the Lefever and $200 for the Parker. Now, most of these people here are farmers, and they wouldn’t dream of paying 40 bucks for a shotgun, let alone 400. Sousa knew that and he figured he’d get both guns for a song. But he didn’t figure on me!” Mrs. Blau laughed a hacking cigarette laugh, like the crumpling of tinfoil. She smiled up at Dad. “If Sousa can have a shill, so can you!”
“More dirty work at the crossroads,” Dad said.
“Yes, there are wheels within wheels, even in Menchalville,” Mrs.
Blau said. “So, let’s get down to business. Dave, you’ve got $250 in the Parker, and I’ve got $400 in the Lefever. Let’s call it an even swap.”
“Hell, no, Mary,” Dad said. “I owe you $150, and I haven’t got it.”
“OK,” said Mrs. Blau. “Let’s just say I’m paying you $150 for
services rendered in the backyard. It was worth that much to retain 139
How Now, Frau Blau?
my dignity. Besides, I’ll probably make up the difference when I sell the Parker.”
Dad shouldered the Uncle Dan and then lowered it and ran his
fingers over its intricate engraving and gold inlays. “There’s a little wear,” he said, “but it fits like a dream.” He put the gun in the canvas case he always took to auctions—the “just-in-case case,” he called it—and laid it on the backseat of the Studie. Then he turned and took Mrs. Blau’s skinny hand in his. “I can’t thank you enough,
Mary,” he said.
“Oh, hell, Dave—the pleasure was all mine. I was almost caught
with my . . . well, I was almost caught!”
Dad started up the Studie, but before he drove off he reached
back and patted the gun case. Then he laughed and we headed for
home.
140
l
The Dorking Rooster-Catcher
B ack in the 1950s, telegrams and long-distance calls usually meant trouble. We got one of each on a quiet Thursday evening in October 1956, when I was thirteen. They were the opening guns of our first and only day of hunting with an Englishman.
The telegram was delivered just as Mom, Dad, and I were sitting
down to supper in the kitchen. A taxi pulled up and the driver
honked the horn.
Dad took his pipe from the counter and followed Rip and Nip,
our beagles, to the front door. The driver walked up to the porch, carrying a yellow envelope.
“Western Union,” he said. “That’ll be a dollar.” Dad took a single from his wallet and found a fifty-cent piece among the keys and pipe tools in his pocket. Fifty cents was a good tip in 1956.
Back in the kitchen, Dad slit the envelope with his pocketknife.
Mom and I waited, barely breathing, expecting the worst. Dad read 141
The Dorking Rooster-Catcher
the narrow strips of paper pasted to the telegraph form. “Well,” he said, “don’t get excited, everybody’s still alive. But we’re going to have company for the weekend.”
Mom and I looked at the telegram. It was a marvel of economy,
from the New York office of the company Dad worked for. It said: P P L A M F F
T PM C&NW E H J NY.
Dad translated. “Old man Jones says a guy named Perkins from
London is coming on the train tomorrow afternoon. Why, he doesn’t say. And we’re supposed to extend hospitality. I guess that means we put him up.”
The phone rang and I went into the dining room to answer it. “I
have a person-to-person call for David Crehore,” the operator said. It couldn’t possibly have been for me, so I han
ded the receiver to Dad.
After a couple of minutes Dad hung up. “That was Harry from
the Chicago office,” he said. “He says this Perkins guy has done us some favors in the past. He had business in Chicago, and now Jones wants us to roll out the red carpet for him. Apparently he likes to hunt birds, so this trip has the earmarks of a junket. I wondered what was going on, and now I know—I’m elected to play grouse
guide this weekend.”
Mom shifted quickly into hostess mode. “Let’s see,” she said,
“how can we make him feel at home? We have some tea, but beyond
that, I’m not sure—English people eat things like herring and
kidneys, and I don’t think the A&P carries them.”
“We can have a beef roast Friday night, a ham on Saturday,
grouse on Sunday, and sausages for breakfast. That’ll have to do,”
Dad said. He was really extending hospitality; for us, that was about a month’s supply of high-grade meat.
I couldn’t wait. Through my reading I had met many fictional
Britons, ranging from the Water Rat to Sherlock Holmes, but never 142
The Dorking Rooster-Catcher
a real one. Best of all, it was the weekend of the teachers’ convention, there would be no school on Friday, and I wouldn’t miss a thing.
By the time I woke up the next morning, Dad had left for the
office and Mom was giving the house an unscheduled fall cleaning.
She had just started dusting the venetian blinds when Dad came
home early. “That’s enough, Charlotte,” he said. “He won’t look at the blinds. The train comes in at four thirty, and I’ve got to get going. You coming, Davy?”
At the station, Dad drummed his fingers nervously on the steer-
ing wheel. Maybe, like me, he was picturing Percival Perkins as a superior being: tall and imperious, impeccably dressed in tweeds, a man who would outshoot us in our own woods, condescend to us
ever so politely, and make us feel like the small-town people we were.
Before the tension could grow much more, the train pulled in and we walked to the platform. Six people got off, none of them remotely English. The conductor called, “’Board!” and the engineer gave a double toot on the whistle. Just as the train started moving, a thin middle-aged man jumped down to the platform. He had a tangled