Watching the little boy and his dad, did Susan’s heart good. It was special that this father had let his son pick out is own birthday present, and a book. Susan thought about her own son and that it had been a long time since she had seen him.
She smiled again when she looked at the pile of ones on the counter. Taking them in hand, she began to go through them, turning the them all the same direction, with George facing up. When she saw the one old bill with red ink on the edge, she set it aside.
Putting the rest of the bills in the register drawer, she slid out another one from her pant’s pocket to replace the one she held out. After closing the drawer, she told the other cashier she was taking a break.
The next day was a Saturday, prime days for garage sales. Susan was using her break to read through several area papers, marking the sale ads that sounded most promising. The old bill she saved from the little boy was a sign, she just knew it. Tomorrow would be a successful picking day. She’d find her holy grail.
The papers were filled with ads, most featuring kids’ clothes and toys. Some highlighted furniture or electronics. She circled a few in yellow marker. These were for multi-family sales, or church fundraisers, and always had the best merchandise. She wrote down the addresses of the ones she wanted to browse, then listed them in the order she wanted to visit, maximizing effort, while minimizing drive times.
A few ads listed phone numbers, these she also wrote down, and would call later than night to ask for more details about what the sellers were offering. This was a good way to thin the herd. It wasn’t unusual to exaggerate the value of items, and Susan knew just what to ask to get to the truth.
Two ads were for church rummage sales, fundraisers for mission trips or to buy new hymnals. She liked going to church sales. Parishioners were very generous in their donations. Perhaps each precious item carried with it its own measure of penitence. The more valuable, or sentimental the more grace was bestowed on the giver.
Church sales were also a good source for handmade knick-knacks. Special home decor not found in traditional retail stores.
Susan also had a list of area flea markets and antique shops she would call on Friday nights. Vendors would come in on these days to replenish their booths, changing out items that weren’t selling with new trinkets. The market managers knew Susan by name and would update her on what was new and occasionally would call her to let her know if something came in that she might want.
Wrapping up the papers, Susan put them back in her employee locker and headed back onto the sales floor. Excited for her picking plans for the next morning.
Weeks of preparation had gone into the Summit Baptist Church rummage sale. Church elders spent hours setting up pick up schedules. Old Lazy-Boy recliners, formica topped dinettes with pseudo-leather matching chairs, analog televisions with rabbit-ear antenna, badly laminated china cabinets, and particle board bedroom sets, were on display in the fellowship hall, laid out by rooms.
The guild women all made their signature cookies, pies and cakes for the ancillary bake sale. Grannie square afghans, white cotton tatted doilies, plastic cross-stitch toilet paper roll covers and multi-colored woven pot holders competed for table space, along side eclectic sets of salt and pepper shakers, fiesta ware, miscellaneous pots and pans, pewter and tarnished silver serving pieces, and Libbey Looney Toon glasses.
Rev. Wright walked through the hall, overseeing the working, bestowing his beatific smile upon his flock. The blue-haired ladies secretly in love with him while also plotting ways to marry him off to their plain and available granddaughters. The men of his church all respected him for his tireless devotion to their ecclesial community, yet fostered no small measure of jealousy over the obvious adolescent crushes their wives had on him.
One church statesman, Bro. Stanton watched the doe-eyed glances the Reverend garnered and his own envy and lust deepened. He saw what power and prestige did to these women, and was contemptuous of the wasted of opportunities. Wright would never act on these overtures, no matter how blatant. Stanton wasn’t attracted to any of these women, but he knew how to exploit their vulnerability in ways that would have made even the most hardened sexual predator cringe.
He wanted to be at the sale the next morning, but work was keeping him away. He could always find at least one overly naive pretty young thing among the shoppers. One who wouldn’t suspect a church elder of being dangerous. Perhaps even let him deliver that dinette table she bought to her house. Maybe next time.
Susan was up bright and early, ready for her morning adventures. Her fanny packed stuffed with plastic grocery sacks in case garage sale vendors forgot their own, small denomination bills and plenty of coin change. She also had a cooler of iced water bottles if the day turned off warm.
She stopped at the closest sales knowing she probably wouldn’t find any thing worth buying, but they were a good way to get in the picking mood. It was better to hit the sales with more potential later in the morning, sellers were more likely to negotiate on prices when they thought their items weren’t moving fast enough.
The passenger seat of her car held a few small items Susan found at the rsecond sale she shopped at, and she was now headed to the big semi-annual rummage sales at the Baptist church at the corner of Rhodes and Arthur streets. The church had set up a make shift parking lot in an empty field beside the main sanctuary. It was still early, but Susan had a hard time finding a spot close to the street.
Checking her work list, Susan planned to only look for kitchen items, salt and pepper sets and maybe hot plate trivets. Before leaving her car she recounted her money, wondering if she would need to stop at the ATM before moving on to her next stop. She mentally went over her mapped route, trying to remember where the nearest bank machine was and if it would be too far off course.
There was something about that initial moment of walking into such a big event. There were smells and sounds that got the blood racing. Susan wasn’t sure which way to look first. As she made her way further into the hall, one of the church women handed her a flyer with a printed map with each of the numbered booths and list of items featured at each table.
The adrenaline rush she felt, was greater than any drug. Susan spent the rest of her morning at the church, her remaining list of garage sales and flea markets forgotten. She found several items she just couldn’t pass up, counting out bills as she made her way down the aisles. At the last table she picked up a set of blue birds, shaped in such as way that when they faced each other, they fit together perfectly. Her last dollar, rimmed in red lettering, went to pay for the pair.
Susan sat her bags of treasures on the passenger seat with the other bags from earlier that morning. Driving home she thought about how pretty the blue birds would look in her living room, nestled among the other salt and pepper shakers in her collection in her grandmother’s china cabinet.
Opening her front door, Susan had to navigate through her overflowing hallway, passed stacks of newspapers and magazines. Once in the doorway of the living room, she searched for a spot to unpack her morning purchases, eventually climbing over stuffed garbage bags filled to bursting with clothes. Some still carrying tags, unworn and forgotten once inside her hoarding infested house.
She made her way to the china cabinet, pulling boxes away from the doors to get it opened. Without taking the newest items out of the thin plastic bags, she shoved them into the only available space, hoping she could get the doors closed again.
Gingerly making her way out of the living room, pushing bags and boxes aside with her feet and knees, Susan heads toward what was once her kitchen, hoping to find something to eat among the debris.
Later that afternoon, after he finished at his job at the local meat processing plant, Stanton returned to the church. As treasurer, he wanted to be involved in counting the day’s profits. The church officers sat at one of the sale tables, each adding up the cash in one of six money boxes. For Stanton, it wasn’t a matter of making sure the money was counted correctly, it was the ready supply of ones that he wanted.
He could cash out two, three hundred dollars in single bills, and avoid suspicion asking for that many ones at any of the local banks. In his cash box, Stanton found an old bill, rimmed in red lettering. He held this one out, knowing Ruby would like it. she liked anything red. Maybe if he could tuck enough ones in her garter tonight, she’d finally agree to a lap dance, then who knows. If he could just get his hands on her, she wouldn’t be able to say no.
Pulling out his wallet, Stanton replaced all the ones in his cash box, with $100 bills. Saturday night at the White Stallion was going to be profitable for Stanton too.
