Life altering changes have a way of not only biting your ass, but tearing large chunks of flesh away in the process. Through a few smart investments and the sales of my very popular and very limited Presidents and Pantyhose engraved empty booze bottles, I have been fortunate enough to move into a new studio. Rent will be a little cheaper so I am looking forward to enjoying name-brand pudding cups! But, I'll have to wait to see. My wife has put her foot down again and insisted that I will have to go it alone when it comes to cash. She will no longer support my 'folly dream' of being an artist unless I can begin to pull down a serious paycheck. Thank Christ for the math equivalency exam Wayne State University forced me to take to graduate, because after an entire evening 'doing the math', I was able to calculate that I can make it alone on my own dime.
I think what pushed but budget up over and into the black was that I started digging in the trash for returnable pop bottles at the community college I work at as an adjunct professor. Epic coinage! Kids these days have absolutely concept of money judging how many bottles I scrounge up after a day of teaching. Although, my effort to shave some pennies from my budget has caused a few problems. I have been neglecting my wardrobe in an effort to save some money. On Tuesday the sole of my left shoe fell off again while walking to class and I don't have anymore silicone adhesive to fix it. Then the other day, college security tried to escort me from the campus. They saw me digging in the trash and judged by my spendthrift dress that I was probably a hobo. Good thing I had my I.D. card in my pocket. Fuckers never did apologize for manhandling me though.
So anyways, as you may have read a few weeks ago, my friend Kay died. She was one of the founding members of my plein air painting klan. Well, her son Wayne called me out the blue asking if I wanted to make some money cleaning out their mobile home. He said that I would get $200, could keep anything I found because he got a nice insurance check and was hauling ass out of Michigan and down to Daytona to live. I told Wayne that I would be happy to clean the place and we agreed to meet up at the trailer park on Friday morning.
Friday morning I arrived at mobile home park 'office' to meet Wayne. The office was really just another mobile home with a piece of plywood with the words 'OFFICE' spray painted on it. Wayne was about a half hour late when he drove up and I think he was a little drunk. He got out his car, handed me an envelope with ten crisp new twenty dollar bills and a worn plastic NASCAR keychain in the shape of a large number three. On the chain was a single key. Wayne explained that after I cleaned the trailer, I was to drop the key off at the office.
"The trailer is way in the back, #28. Look for the flower pots", Wayne said.
Wayne told me that he was he was "getting the fuck out of Dodge" and I wished him well down in Florida. He turned, walked back to his car and drove off. I slowly drove through the park looking for house numbers. Then I saw the flower pots. Kay must have loved flowers because there were about a hundred small plastic flower pots surrounding her mobile home. In each pot was a small bunch of bright yellow plastic daisies. The plastic daisies stood out from the dead muddy brown landscape like a fart in a library. The flowers brought a small smile to my face. They were the first items loaded in my van.
There was nothing else outside to load so I unlocked the front door and entered. Well, tried to enter. I soon realized two things, Kay was a little bit of a hoarder and $200 was not enough money to clean her trailer. But, I made a promise and I don't like to let people down. Besides, there looked there may be some cool stuff to keep hiding under the piles of clothes.
I backed my van up towards the front door and began walking out armfuls of stuff. Kay's trailer was near the park dumpster so as I walked out with an armful of stuff, I could swing by the dumpster first and unload the uninteresting crap. I had no interest in the many garbage bags of clothes that I found and threw them away first. Most of the furniture I ended up tossing, it all had quite a few stains and carried a particular odor that I found a little unsettling. My decision to keep items was determined by three factors; Is it cool, can I use it and could I sell it. Things like pots and pans I could sell. The microwave I could use or sell and I did find quite a few scrap books and old photo albums that looked cool. The Wii that Kay died while playing was missing and I never did find any NASCAR memorabilia. Wayne probably took those items to Florida.
My van and the dumpster began to fill up and It was pushing a little after noon. The trailer park was beginning to wake up. A couple people began to eye my movements from behind pulled drapes. One elderly man met me by the dumpster and asked "You throwing all this away?". I told him he was free to take anything that I toss. He took three garbage bags of Kay's clothes and scuttled away.
An overweight woman on an electric scooter drove up to the dumpster with what had to be her son walking behind her. I heard her order her son into the dumpster and, after some movement, he would hold up an article of clothing. With a bark and a point from a wooden cane, the woman would shout 'YES' or 'NO'. After about thirty minutes I heard the breathless kid exclaim from the dumpster "Momma, I think thats it. I don't see anything else that would fit" He climbed out, loaded their haul on his momma's lap and she drove off.
Kay's trailer emptied pretty quick and my van was almost full. There was probably a lot of stuff in my van that I was not going to keep, but I figured I could comb through it back at my studio. The entire morning, I was avoiding Kay's stained mattress and heavy oak headboard. The thought of bedbugs made me itch every time I contemplated lifting it out of the trailer. As I was standing in the center of the empty living room of Kay's trailer admiring my work, a man knocked on the aluminum door frame of the trailer.
"You really cleaned this place up nice". he said looking around.
He said he was the manager of the park.
"Don't throw that bed out. I gotta guy renting this place on Monday. He can have it".
I thanked him, handed him the plastic NASCAR keyring with the trailer key on it and shook his hand. The inside of my van now smelled like the inside of Kay's trailer and the thought of a hot shower seemed like a great idea. But the shower would have to wait.
Back at my studio the unloading began and lasted well past midnight. As I would unload, items were placed neatly on the floor of my studio. Once everything was unloaded and layed out, I began to slowly comb through every item and rack its value. While quite a bit went right in the dumpster behind my studio, most of the stuff I saved was pretty cool or could be sold at the flea market held on Wednesday mornings.
So, keep an eye out this Wednesday for me at the flea market. If you are in the market for set of collectable I Love Lucy plates or a near mint pair of Disney figurines then look for my booth. All money earned goes towards rent at my new studio.
Kay would have wanted it that way.
