Junkyard Man

by Libby Howard

  Aunt Linda was in a nursing home in Milford. She didn’t remember the name of her favorite cat. I was pretty sure she didn’t remember that she gave us this pitcher for a wedding gift, even if she somehow happened to pop by.

  Wrapping it carefully in newspaper, I headed out of the attic and across the street.

  It took a while for Mr. Peter to answer my knock, but given the boxes and piles he needed to navigate, I wasn’t surprised. There was an odd expression on the man’s face when he peeked through the door opening—one part wary, and two parts defeated. The argument with his nephew had taken a lot out of him. Mr. Peter wasn’t a young man. Although I’m sure it was exhausting at any age to stand on your front porch and scream at someone.

  “Oh. Hello. I thought…”

  I smiled and unwrapped the pitcher. “You said you wanted to see this? I figured it would be nice for you to end the evening on a good note.”

  He caught his breath, his hands reaching toward the pitcher. Then he stopped, yanking his hands back and smiling sheepishly. “Please come inside.”

  I stepped in, carefully navigating the shelving units with their vases. “Are these new?” I pointed to a set of bone china cat figurines.

  “Yes, they are! I just got them yesterday. And look at these.” He showed me a series of fish-shaped plates, clearly hand painted. Two had scenic pictures with a woman holding a flower and a milkmaid on them, and the other had...George Washington. I knew it was George Washington because his name was spelled out over his head with the years of his birth and death underneath.

  “1945 Quimper. I found these lovelies at an online estate auction and bought the whole set.” He motioned to another set of boxes that blocked the path I’d walked to his kitchen just yesterday. How in the world did he get to the back of his house? I looked around and tried to imagine him climbing over boxes, shelves, and stacked items like a child on a playground, and just couldn’t see it.

  He took the pitcher with far more reverence than I’d ever handled it. “Oh, this is truly exquisite.” He turned it over. “See, here’s the mark with the swoosh underneath and the three crowns. Rorstrand started making pottery in the late eighteenth century in Stockholm, Sweden. The three-crown mark has been in use since 1884. This English style of porcelain was in production in the late nineteenth century. This is a lovely piece, obviously well taken care of. You could probably get between three and four hundred for it, and I’m sure collectors would be eager to snatch this beauty up.”

  I had a feeling that the reason it was so well preserved was that it had been owned by people who felt it was too ugly to take out of the attic, let alone actually use. But it was the fact that a pitcher that had spent the last fifteen years stuffed in a box in my attic was worth hundreds of dollars that amazed me. This little visit was like an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Three hundred dollars. Or possibly four hundred dollars.

  Huh. Maybe Aunt Linda didn’t hate us after all.

  He handed it back. “Swansons in Milford might buy it off you. They carry a lot of estate pieces, although they tend to specialize in paintings and furniture.”

  I got the idea he was hoping I’d give it to him from the longing in his face as I took the pitcher. Sorry, buddy. This thing is going to pay for my hot tub repair.

  “How do you know so much about pottery and china?” I asked to fill the awkward I’m-not-giving-you-the-ugly-pitcher silence.

  He smiled, picking up a plate from on top of a book and wiping the dust from it with his hand. “When I was little, my grandmother loved china. She had three sets and rotated use of them depending on the season. I’d stand in front of her china cabinet and stare at the patterns. Her end tables had little figurines and crystal knickknacks on lace doilies. The bookshelves had bisque animals, glossy cherub angels, little painted metal pugs, but it was the china that had fascinated me. She’d had these special collector’s plates mounted on the walls where most people would have pictures. In a way, they were her pictures—blue Delft scenes of Holland, little girls with curled hair, sitting on a stool reading while a fluffy dog curled at her feet, detailed flowers with gold foil accents covering the entire surface of the front of the plate. All that meant ‘Grandma’ to me, so when she died, that’s what I kept from her estate.”

  I understood the sentimental value of things, how they linked to memories and invoked a visceral emotional response, but Mr. Peter clearly had a lot more china in his house than his grandmother’s collection. “When did memories of your Grandma grow into a…collecting hobby?”

  It seemed rude to call it hoarding to his face, although clearly this had long gone beyond collecting.

  “Once I got Grandma’s plates out of the holders and got to look at the back, I got curious, so I started researching what the marks meant, what years the plates had been manufactured. Then I’d think about what was happening that year in history and imagine my grandmother, or anyone actually, in that period of time. I started buying plates similar to Grandma’s, feeling like I was dipping my toe in a little bit of history each time I held one. Then I started buying depression-era glassware, then Faience. For a while I bought silverware. I’ve got a box over here with a twelve-piece set of rose-patterned Stieff. I’ve even got all the serving pieces—pickle forks, mustard knives, and all.”

  It was an enchanting story, pulling at the journalist side of me. What an amazing lifestyle article this would make. But clearly there was somewhere this had all gone wrong, where Mr. Peter’s nostalgic collection of china and dinnerware had turned into musty boxes and a house that resembled an overstuffed storage unit. And none of this explained the yard full of rusted washing machines.

  “I heard you were an appliance repairman before you retired,” I commented. “Do you still work on stuff on the side?”

  Mr. Peter’s face fell. “I want to. I try, but it’s hard to get parts anymore, and the arthritis in my hands and back makes it difficult for me to work on anything. Small engines and major appliances were my specialty, my career. I used to fix things like stoves and washing machines, window air conditioners, and lawn mowers. That was back when people didn’t just throw things away every time they broke. Appliances were expensive. It was like buying a car. You fixed them when they broke and wanted them to last your whole life.”

  I thought of all the old washing machines in his front yard and remembered how my mother had kept her stove for nearly forty years. She’d had elements replaced, but beyond that, the thing had always worked reliably. Yeah, it looked old and dated, and there was a place where the enamel had chipped from dropping a wrench on it. She’d gone to Sears and bought a little bottle of paint to cover the chip, but had picked up the wrong shade, so there had been a dark blob of paint on a sea of lighter avocado green. When she’d died and we’d had some charity haul it off, it had still worked.

  “It’s a shame,” I commented. “Retro appliances are really in fashion right now. I’m sure the real thing, fixed up and working, would fetch a good bit of money.”

  His eyes lit up. “I’ve got three fifties-era stoves in the backyard. Maybe I could use one for parts, order what else I need, and get two of them running. Do you think someone would want them?”

  My heart twisted. It wasn’t the money. Mr. Peter clearly had enough money if he was buying truckloads of china from estate sales. He wanted to be useful, to be remembered, to be seen. If an old plate kept his grandmother alive in his memory, if a set of silverware harkened back to a history that shouldn’t be forgotten, then maybe he’d be remembered, too. If stoves that had been thrown away as old, as no longer useful, could be loved and cherished once more, then maybe the same could be true of him. Then I looked down and saw his thin fingers with their big swollen knuckles, saw how he leaned on a box for support, wheezing with each breath, and realized that there was no way Mr. Peter was going to be able to fix up old stoves in the back yard.

  But neither of us had to acknowledge that. A little bit of fantasy went a long way toward soothing a ragged
soul. “That’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Peter!” I exclaimed. “I’m sure you’ve got lots of treasurers here that with the turn of a screw could be useful once more. Personally, I’d love it if you had an old-style toaster, one where the sides opened up?”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling with deep lines at the corners. “I do have some of those toasters. As I recall, they’re upstairs in one of the back bedrooms with the mixers.”

  “Oh, I’d love a mixer too,” I told him. So much for selling this pitcher and using it to pay for the hot tub repair. It seems instead I was going to be buying refurbished appliances that I didn’t need from my eccentric neighbor. It would be worth it to see the happiness on the man’s face.

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Carrera. Come by next week and I should have one, or maybe both, ready for you.” He escorted me through the winding pathways of his living room to the front door. “You have a good evening, now. And take care of that beautiful pitcher.”

  Oh, I intended to. And first chance I got, this pitcher was going straight to Swanson’s in Milford.

  Chapter 5

  I made my way back across the street, squeezing through my doorway while clutching the pitcher in my arms and trying to keep Taco from slipping out the door with my foot. I managed to get myself in and the door closed with the cat on the right side of it. In response, he plopped his butt down, stared up at my face, and meowed repeatedly at me.

  “No. You keep going over to Mr. Peter’s house and he’s feeding you, so inside you stay until you lose some weight.”

  Meow.

  Because Taco knew if he persisted, he’d most likely wear me down and I’d end up letting him out. Maybe I could at night, when Mr. Peter would be asleep and less likely to feed him? But I liked having my cat safely in the house at night, curled up on the end of my bed. No, I’d just worry if he was out all night.

  I set the pitcher on the dining room table, then went into the kitchen to contemplate dinner options. It was getting kind of late to cook anything requiring prep work or a lengthy time in the oven, so I ended up just making a big sandwich with some iced tea to counteract the happy-hour porch wine I’d had earlier.

  Taco’s I-want-to-go-outside meows turned into I-want-some-of-your-sandwich meows. I ignored him and he finally gave up, heading upstairs in a huff. I hoped he wasn’t the sort of cat who’d take revenge on me by clawing up one of my plants or pooping on the floor. If he was going to be more of an indoor cat than an outdoor cat, I’d need to invest in additional cat toys. Cat enrichment devices. Maybe there was something I could make? I had some carpet scraps up in the attic. Actually, I had a lot of stuff up in the attic. One of the downfalls of owning a large house was that a person tended to fill the space and not be as diligent about getting rid of things. It was easier to just throw stuff up in the attic or haul it off to a charity then think about whether I really wanted it or not. I was far from living like Mr. Peter, but there were a lot of things that probably needed to go. And perhaps some of them, like this pitcher, could yield some much-needed money.

  I ate my sandwich at the dining room table, looking at the ugly pitcher and trying to remember all the stuff up in the attic. Crystal I didn’t need. That holiday-themed dish set. The beads and wire and tools I’d bought ages ago when I thought I might want to make jewelry and sell it. Baskets I’d kept because they were handy to put banana nut bread in when I was giving baked goods as Christmas gifts. And speaking of which—all that Christmas wrapping paper I’d bought from local kids before I realized it was so much easier to use gift bags and tissue paper.

  That wasn’t all. There were a lot of Eli’s things that I probably needed to go through. I’d boxed up and donated his clothes the month after the funeral. There was no reason for me to keep them, but even that had been hard. There were the clothes that Eli had worn the last ten years of his life, but I’d also had an entire closet upstairs of his pre-accident clothes. There were the suits, the dress shirts, pants, and bow ties that he’d worn each day to the hospital. There were his scrubs, the emblematic white “doctor” coats that he wore over his dress clothes when not in surgery. I’d kept them in the closet after the accident, not wanting at first to accept that my husband was never going to be that surgeon again. It seemed wrong to pack them away at that time, like I was giving up on him, like I didn’t have faith that he’d pull through this and after some rehab, after both physical and cognitive therapy, he’d be able to return to work once more.

  Then as months stretched into years, I’d kept them in the closet for another reason. The Eli downstairs wasn’t the man I’d married. He wasn’t the man I’d fallen in love with when I was an English major in college. He was somebody else, and if I packed away the earlier Eli’s clothes, I’d be not only admitting that, but I’d be letting go of those little bits of my—of our—life before the accident took it all away. I kept those clothes, holding onto them just as I held onto the hope that one day, someday, he’d be that person again. I couldn’t be the one to smash those dreams, to take away the chance that he’d once more be Dr. Carrera, because I, too, was living that fantasy.

  A decade he’d lived like that after the accident. Even on the day before the stroke took him from me forever, even though I knew in my mind that he’d never be the old Eli again, I’d still held hope. I’d still, deep in my heart, had a tiny glimmer of faith. I’d still kept those clothes in our closet.

  It took weeks after his death for me to box them up and send them away. I’d packed up all his other belongings. I’d already sent his other clothes to charity. Those trappings of the surgeon he’d been were the last to go.

  After I’d finished my sandwich, I poured a measured amount of Happy Cat into Taco’s bowl, and while he was scarfing it down, I snuck up to the attic. In an hour, I’d carted down a few boxes of things I felt might be of interest to Swanson’s. The rest could wait for another day. The whole exercise made me feel empathy for Mr. Peter because one hour of deciding what could go and what should stay was exhausting. If my house had been at all like his, I would have found the whole thing overwhelming.

  It was close to ten o’clock when Judge Beck arrived home with the kids. Madison was still wearing her softball uniform, half-dragging a backpack that looked like it weighed fifty pounds. Henry was more energetic, and I remembered that he’d only had practice tonight, while his sister had a game. Tomorrow that was reversed, with Madison’s practice early, and Henry’s game later. The kids headed upstairs with quick ‘good nights’, but Judge Beck went back out to his car and returned with a box, which he proceeded to unpack on my dining room table. Folder after folder came out of the box, as if it were one of those containers magicians use to produce an endless stream of colorful scarves.

  “Feel free to use the desk in the study,” I told him. Not that I cared whether he worked at the dining room table. I simply thought he might get more privacy in the study.

  “There’s no desk in the universe big enough to hold all this.” More folders appeared from the box. “I’m not even sure your dining room table is big enough. I may need to use the floor space.”

  Yikes. “Can I help? Is there anything I can do?”

  “Clone me? I’m just grateful I don’t have court on the weekends or I’d be in big trouble.”

  “My cloning devices are all on the fritz right now, but I can offer you a sandwich, or put on a pot of coffee.”

  He looked up, a tired smile on his face. “Coffee would be lovely. We ate at the game, although I’m not sure I can call microwaved hotdogs or those little square frozen pizzas to be food.”

  “Snob,” I called back to him as I headed to the kitchen. Within minutes the coffee was percolating, sending its intoxicating aromas throughout the lower floor of the house. I waited until the pot was half full, then paused it to pour the judge a cup. “What do you take in it? I can’t remember.”

  “Just a spoonful of sugar, please.”

  Helps the medicine go down? Helps the briefs and summaries read easier? I stir
red in a spoonful of sugar and carried the cup out to the dining room to see Judge Beck, folder poised in mid-air as he stared at the object on my table.

  “What in the world is this ugly—I mean, this…this.”

  He must be exhausted to have been jolted out of his normal calm poise by a piece of china.

  “You mean that hideous thing? Why, it’s a nineteenth-century Rorstrand pitcher which, I’m informed, is worth anywhere between three and four hundred dollars.”

  The judge’s mouth dropped open, folder still hovering a foot above the table’s surface. “You’re joking.”

  “No, I am not. Eli’s Aunt Linda gave it to us for our wedding and after suffering through five years of having it displayed in our front window, we packed it up in the attic. I’m going through a bunch of things up there, clearing out what I don’t want. Fortunately, I don’t want that, and it’s worth money, so win-win.”

  “And what will you do with your newfound riches?”

  Pay for the hot tub repairs. “Buy a toaster. And a mixer.”

  He blinked, finally lowering the folder to the table. “I used the toaster this morning. It’s fine. And I don’t recall you saying there was anything wrong with the mixer.”

  “Oh, both appliances are still working perfectly,” I told him blithely. “But Mr. Peter from across the street does antique appliance restoration and he has one of those side-opening toasters and a mixer from the fifties that he’s going to sell me.”

  Judge Beck stared at me. “Who are you and what have you done with my landlady? Are you Kay’s evil twin? An alien who has assumed her likeness in order to replace our perfectly good modern appliances with heavy, less-functional and far more expensive antique ones?”

  “I’m still Kay. I’m just a sucker with a soft heart,” I told him. “I’ve lived here for over thirty years and I’ve never really talked to the guy across the street until yesterday.”