junk

A car’s tires crunched on the gravel and the squeaks began. Evie’s body tensed, and she pulled her feet up even though the rain boots came up to her knees, not that it mattered; the mice would run over anything: shoulders, knees, heads, whatever was even with the disturbed piles they had nested in. Luckily the squeaks and pitter-patter beat a retreat in another direction, and she put her feet back down on the stack of newspapers that stepped their way to the pile of Life magazines that had absorbed her last half hour.

The cover showed a smiling child sitting in the shopping cart taking something from the gloved-hand-supposed-mother. The cart was full chock full of purchases including a tinned ham and a bottle of milk from a bygone era. The date was obscured, but it looked like something from the fifties. This was the only salvageable one; all the others beneath were probably even older but they had been ransacked by the mice and were melded together in a pile of mulchy, pulpy mess that was only good now for composting or recycling.

Junk. It was all junk. Evie was surrounded by it.

She sighed and the mask whooshed out a wheeze. She stood up and cradled the Life magazine and the yellow bound Pilsbury cookbook she found earlier to her chest as she carefully picked her way out of what she was calling the paper room. It wasn’t really a room, just piles and piles of newspapers that walled in the other piles of magazines, cardboard boxes, and old paperbacks. Outside of the paper room was the doo-dads area: jars of assorted screws, washers, nuts, cupboard handles, doorknobs, and pipes of all length and bend and metal known to man. Past there was the big junk: what used to be a tractor but now was just a tractor hull, the inside was hollowed out for parts years ago. Next to that was an old claw foot bathtub minus a clawfoot, which sported a distinguishing grubby line across its middle where it had clearly been buried half in the ground. No doubt it had sheltered a Mary figurine as a makeshift grotto in someone’s yard.

Mary in a bathtub! Her gramma would say pointing out the car window. Why those Catholics have to keep their saints in a constant state of washing up yet never gettin’ wet in the rain I’ll never know.

Where Mary got to, Evie didn’t know. She had escaped this mess, where Evie had failed. She had fled before the death of the matriarch and subsequent side-stepping of the rest of the family until there was no one but Evie. Evie had moved into the family homestead because there was literally nowhere else for her to go. She had lost her brand new roommate to a New Year’s Eve marriage proposal, and when she not-so-surprisingly couldn’t find a replacement (who moved in the winter in Chicago anyway?) she lost the lease on her first-ever apartment.

Always make roommates sign the lease, her father had said. Her job wasn’t covering the bills, so when her mother offered up gramma’s old house for free and promised to hook up the internet to keep her employed, Evie figured it was a chance to save up some cash so she could buy her own place.

No one mentioned all the junk. Just needs a little paring down- they said - a little updating.

Paring down meant a house with every surface covered with things that partially worked and an attic full of things that didn't, coupled with a teetering barn that served as a landfill: a well organized landfill, but a landfill nonetheless of two generations of cast-offs. That didn’t mean that they didn’t still want a piece of it, though. Anything she could manage to sell she could have half and the rest would go into a complicated Plinko-percentage to her various aunts/uncles/cousins of gramma’s progeny. It meant a complicated formula in a spreadsheet that Evie was actually very proud of, but it didn’t matter anyway since it remained empty.

A little updating meant glass fuses and sinks that still had separate nozzles for hot and cold with a plug on a chain that left a rust line wherever it was put last, so the sink looked like its cheap gold necklace dyed its white chest orange. The drafts from the windows over the winter came in with a slap. You could see the sun shining through the door frame come spring. Half of what she’d paid in rent in Chicago went to heat. How had her cozy grandparent’s home bursting with people turned into this gas-guzzling empty old rambling set of rooms?

The car door slammed as Evie stepped out of the barn with her magazine and cookbook and she unhooked her mask, blinking in the sudden summer sunshine.

“Anything?” Her mom called from where she’d parked.

“Maybe?” Evie called holding up the books. “Hell if I know.” She breathed in the sweet, sun-blasted scent of the weedy two-tracked gravel path. It was full of Queens Anne's lace and goldenrod. She sneezed; the air seemed heavy with scent after the mask-filtered hour in the barn.

Her mom walked over and took the book and magazine and traded her a tissue from her pocket. It was a mom-tissue all balled up. Evie took it gratefully, making a mental note to add that to her barn-diving getup: welly boots, construction mask, tissues.

“Would ya look at that,” her mom smiled, thumbing through the Pilsbury book. “Look, the recipe for gramma’s heavy, tasteless muffins. Look, there’s an alternate for a jam center. Wonder why she never tried that?”

“Too expensive?” Evie shrugged.

“I dunno, she made her own from the strawberry patch. Would have made them edible at least. Oh well,” she closed the book and gave it a sniff with a face that said it was passable. “What are you thinking with these?”

“Library, maybe? I dunno, I think they’re too beat up to try to sell.”

“Is there anything in there worth actually selling?”

“I honestly have no idea. I called this guy to come out and take a look. He has some shop somewhere in Wisconsin I guess.”

“Wisconsin? Seems like a long way to come for an old magazine,” her mom frowned. Evie shrugged.

“Whatever it takes. Whatever they can take.”

“And the rest of it?”

“A year of recycling it bit by bit… then a dumpster, I guess.” Evie shrugged.

“Dumpsters cost money, honey.” Her mom squinted her way.

“It’s better than living in one forever.” Evie shrugged.

“You living here forever now?” her mom’s eyebrows shot up hopefully.

Evie opened her mouth to answer hell no but choked on it and looked back at the leaning barn and house up the hill. Maybe? Her heart tightened and her shoulders ached just looking at the work still to do. That list was longer than the barn was tall and more costly than at least five years of her unearned salary. Why would she stay here? No one lived out here. There was nothing to do except everything that there was to do to put it all to rights.

And yet...there was something.

“C’mon inside,” Evie said, grabbing back the magazine and book. She started up the hill to the house. Her house. For now.

**********************************************************************

Gary cracked open the redbull and could taste its sickening sweetness before he even put it to his lips. It was 5am; he had been on the road for a week and was over it. He wanted his own bed and to sleep past sunup and have hot damn coffee that wasn’t just browned-up-three-day-old-gas-station-piss-water. Redbull might be a millennial disgusting concoction but it was better than that and had the right effect.

One last barnstop and then he would be home, back in Madison with his haul of picked treasures from his usual Janesville-Rockford-Moline-Iowa City-Cedar Rapids-DuBuque trip. He’d run this circuitous route every year, stopping at all the small towns and any old place that looked worthy outside of his usual calls. Over the years, he’d built up quite a few relationships with collector farmers who still held on to their family’s original John Deeres, the model trains their fathers had received as children, and their grandmother’s Hummel collections. Every year, he was able to parse a little more out of them: the Forrester place finally gave up the wash tub basin he had looked at last year, and he got a few more Standard Oil signs from the Robees. Overall, this haul would net him a few grand.

This last one was a cold call, and even though it was a bit out of his way the woman sounded overwhelmed, so hopefully there would be something he could take off her hands for just enough cash that she’d part with it.

When he pulled up around 7am, he felt even more hopeful. The list of the barn itself was a good sign: that would have to come down so whatever was in it would have to come out. When she didn’t appear immediately, he called the phone number she’d left him and was greeted with a froggy voice that let him know he woke her up.

So, she’s not a farmer.

When she appeared a whole nine minutes later, she was even younger than she sounded, 20s at best. She could be his daughter. She sported bright striped boots to her knees and hair in a hasty ponytail. She bounded up to where he was leaning on the truck.

“Hi,” she croaked at him and cleared her throat and stuck out her hand. “I’m Evie.”

“Gary.” he replied and returned her firm handshake. “So what’s the story here, Evie?”

“All this was my gramma’s. She passed and no one wants to clean up the mess.”

“Mmm-hmmm… so before we open the doors, here, Evie, are you in a position to sell? Do you own this, or is this still in probate, or?...” he let it dangle, encompassing all manner of family squabbles.

“Oh yeah, I have papers and everything. No one wants the junk, just the money from it.” She tried to stifle a yawn. That heartened Gary. Lack of sentimentality was a bonus in this field. Sentimentality drove up prices.

“Let’s get to it then,” he grunted heading for the barn.

“You want some coffee first?” Evie’s puffy eyes looked hopefully back up at the house. “I put on a pot.”

Gary nodded gratefully. His redbull had worn off, and the thought of actual fresh hot coffee sounded just about right.

The house was a veritable treasure trove. It was like walking back in time. Just glancing in the front parlor showed a dusty china cabinet with drinkware and vintage mixers from the 50s that he knew would fly off his shelves. The standing globe in the corner would move quickly as well. There was a Zenith radio in the corner that was actually playing! Every surface had something of value on it.

The smell of coffee filled his nostrils; Evie was at his shoulder, holding out a chipped mug featuring Snoopy as the red baron on it.

“Here you go. That might be worth something itself.”

“It sure is.” Gary nodded and took a swig. He could feel the chest hairs growing; it was so strong.

“So, can you help me out and take some of this stuff off my hands so I can move around in here?”

“Evie,” Gary smiled, “we’re gonna be great friends.”