Are There Others Like Me?
"Are there others like me?" she asked with a wistful far off look that made her soft brown eyes moisten.
"Yes there are Claudia," I slowly responded, wanting to assure her that she was not alone in her plight.
Her eyes blinked slowly as she put the question to me that had to be asked. "Is there any hope for us?"
I looked away briefly before turning to face those misty sad eyes again with the reality of her situation. "We can try to control it, but there is no cure. I'm afraid you'll go on like this forever--you and your ilk. And as long as there are places like this, your kind will come to join you in the ritual and function as you do."
"Sounds like a forever thing," she whispered as she lowered her head. "But I'm not ashamed. It's….It's just who I am now," she continued as her head rose and her eyes met mine with conviction.
With those words I watched Claudia turn away from me and slowly but deliberately walk away clutching her latest acquisition, a vintage wind-up toy drummer clown with faded colors, made by the Cragstan company in the 50's. She was off to the alter of possession-- the check-out counter.
We were in a large antique dealer about 40 miles north of Baltimore filled with stalls of numerous vendors of antique wares. I knew her latest acquisition would join the others somewhere on a shelf in the loft of her condo, maybe next to the old tattered and worn Stieff teddy bear or perhaps next to the Fenton Marigold Carnival glass vases.
Yes, Claudia was an addict—addicted to the wondrous world of collecting. Once a proud settlement attorney solely dedicated to her profession and married to a litigation attorney, this attractive brunette had found what many others have—the world of collecting.
A trip to a client's house however had changed her. During a tour of the house Claudia was seduced by a collection of beautiful vintage dolls the owner had collected over years. On display in hand-crafted oak cabinets, special lighting almost made the dolls appear to come to life. Claudia's imagination was captured and she too began to collect. At first it was salt and pepper shakers, then doll house furniture, then Carnival glass, and then on to other things.
After a brief period her priorities had changed. It was a new and fresh direction for her and she felt it was time to move on with her life. She divorced—he was a slug who cheated on her anyway--and her life force now centered around collecting. Weekends were no longer spent at the office, but instead, traversing the countryside in search of these places where sellers would display their wares for people just like Claudia. She had bought a two bedroom condo with a loft which became the storage and showcase area for the acquisitions from her new avocation.
I had brought her to this dealer, which I had discovered, so she could feed her habit just as a vampire must sustain itself by acquiring human blood. I had followed her around from booth to booth as she searched each one like a detective on a new case. She lifted, inspected, smiled at, frowned at, and touched various items, which captured her attention. This is what they all seem to do in this ritual. Such is the life of a collector.
Now I watched her take the only thing that had captured her fancy on this particular day to the counter. Carefully caressed in her hands the little clown seemed to look back at me with joy with its permanent smile as Claudia's motion briefly caused its little hands to pound away on its little drum triumphantly. When she had reached the counter my body sank into the old Koken Company barber chair on display in a vendor's booth behind me, a relic of the 1930's.
I further pondered where she would place the old toy as she joined others at the checkout counter in the checkout ritual. The ritual involved the clerk carefully removing the attached tag indicting what seller's booth the item had come from so it could be properly credited to that individual. Then it could be officially rung up and pass over to her--after she had parted with her payment-- and become part of her personal collection. Of course the experienced collectors would always barter to get at least 10% off the marked price. Claudia was getting quite good at that.
As my posterior settled comfortably into the well-worn red leather of the seat I gave further thought to this collecting habit. I rotated slowly in the old chair as my gaze took in the many others milling about the other booths in this large structure, which at one point had been a small sports arena.
Yes they were all addicts I concluded to myself, but they seemed like happy addicts. I can't say that I understood it. Actually I had tried to understand why people collect things by listening to others talk, reading little snippets here and there, and listening to pundits in the mass media. Indeed it had been concluded that these people collect all sorts of things from toys to quilts to battle armor to bottle caps—anything and everything. Well it didn't take an expert to conclude that—that was quite evident. I had learned that just by following Claudia around for weeks and observing others.
I had made it a habit to engage these people in small talk at these places. Sometimes there was an area set up for the patrons to sit and have free coffee, which made an ideal meeting place. This prodigious body of unscientific knowledge obtained by me while consuming large amounts of caffeine had led to one conclusion: they all seemed like normal appearing and likeable human beings but nonetheless they also all exhibited this fascination with collectibles.
Additionally, each had his or her own idea of what a desirable collectible was. One individual insisted that bottle caps were the most interesting items to collect while another told me his life was consumed with a passion for old beer trays. A woman in her late 60's showed me a picture of her guest bedroom at home, completely filled with old quilts.
This home grown coffee nook research had also revealed that some collections are small, occupying only a drawer while others may be housed in basements—or lofts-- and some can be large enough to take up several buildings but they all represented proud assemblages of these modern day hunter-gatherers, who foraged for collectibles instead of food.
I stroked the leather-sharpening strap (or strop) attached to the old Koken chair as some of the conclusions for why people collect things came to mind from these conversations. It was all a mish-mash of ideas from people wanting to be in control of things, to people re-living their childhoods, to people buying things on a whim and ending up with documented collections.
As I slapped the strap against the chair just to hear the sound, I asked myself who am I to judge these people, especially since I was beginning to take a liking to the old relic I had been sitting in. It was rather comfortable although obtrusive. I wondered what it would look like in my basement den and momentarily I even had the urge to buy it, but I quickly shook off the strange feeling as I saw Claudia walking toward me.
I rose from the chair as she rejoined me. "It's over," she said. "Now it belongs to me."
"Are you happy?" I asked.
She clutched the paper bag in which the old toy had been placed, ever closer to her chest. "Very," she replied.
"Then that's all that matters, isn't it?"
"Yes," she replied. "That's all that matters."
I led her outside as twilight approached--out through the two swinging glass doors but I sensed she had stopped behind me. Indeed she had. I turned to focus on her. Her thin attractive shape was outlined against the light emanating through the glass doors, her gaze frozen, looking back through the doors to the beckoning interior she had just left, not wanting to leave.
I tugged gently at her sleeve. "We'd better go," I said.
She reluctantly turned away from the doors but then suddenly ran ahead of me, stopped and turned with her palm out to stop me. "But I'll be back though."
I nodded in acknowledgement. "Yes we'll be back." Then I led her toward the car. As I opened the door for her to get in I also found myself drawn back as I instinctively turned back toward the building wondering how much that old barber chair cost and if my brother would loan me his pickup truck for an afternoon.
I knew then I was transforming. I did not know why. Perhaps Claudia had bitten me when I had not noticed—after all I had put my finger in her mouth earlier as I had fed her part of my stale blueberry pop-tart-- and I was becoming one of them. I would soon be like the others—a weekend creature seeking out collectibles.
But wait—suddenly I realized what was wrong. It was then I understood that what I had been doing was all wrong. I had spent too much time studying a subject I was obviously fascinated with, instead of engaging in it. Scholarship is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't take the place of the fun of collecting. Drinking coffee, eating stale pop-tarts from a vending machine and searching for things like old barber chairs suddenly seemed appealing to me.
I turned to Claudia as I got into the car. "Yes, we'll be back," I said. She was barely paying attention to me as she watched the toy clown in her lap triumphantly beating on its drum.
About the Author
Frank Arcilesi is the author of the 5 star romance/drama novel Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly, set in the nostalgic 1950's, available in ebook format on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, (Pubit.com), www.smashwords.com, and in printed version on Amazon.com. He has also authored several sci-fi and humorous short stories also available for download on these sites. Autographed copies of the novel are available through the author's website :www.abirdlearnshowtofly.com
RULE OF MAN--CHRISTIAN VIDEO by NEW INDIE ARTIST-BRANDT MORAIN (song sounds best at top HD setting)
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