10 December 2006

King-Emperor Coaster

Tom seemed a jolly enough fellow, from what I could see of his face, swaddled in the snorkel of a heavy parka. His accent betrayed him as a Brit, and the steam from his mouth betrayed him as cold.

The light was thin but intense, etching the shadows of the high-rise buildings on the parking lot below. The cold penetrated. It was winter now for sure, and the decision to put the top down on the convertible was more for the statement than comfort.

I had to turn the radio up loud to hear it, and I was comforted to hear that the Nuclear Regulatory Community is considering making it harder to purchase Polonium-210, the deadly radium variant that was used to kill Sasha Litvenenko.

I am in favor of that, I think, since there seems to be limited household applications for the stuff.

I parked the car in a lot with some ominous warning signs near the County Courthouse and adjacent to the County Jail.

The vegetable vendors looked disconsolate, since their produce must be near the freezing point and wouldn't last long. I walked on, until raven-like, my eye was attracted to things that glittered in the sun.

I pawed through a box of silver things. I looked at a pepper-grinder, engraved in tribute to a man who retired from the Spice Company in 1973. I saw something else that caught my eye. I help it up, and asked him if he would accept a significant mark-down in exchange for a silver coaster with an Indian one-rupee coin embedded in the middle. It was dated 1919 on the back, and there was a silver image of a jaunty man with a beard and a crown on the front.

He was looking up, apparently inspired, as though the war that ended the year before hadn't changed everything.

“I have cufflinks made from George the Fifth rupees,” I explained, earnestly. “The King-Emperor, Rex et Imperator. Got 'em in Delhi a few years ago when I realized that I had forgotten to bring them from Washington.”

Tom looked at me stoically and said that it was not a hallmarked piece, and he would accept my offer. I was excited. Now I had a coaster to go with my cufflinks. The possibilities were almost endless.

“Business is lousy here,” he said, putting my money in his pocket. “I don't know why I come to this thing.”

Maybe it is because this isn't part of the flea-market routine, I said. “This market only dropped down here because its home parking lot in Georgetown was being torn up in construction. There was more money over there. The Courthouse neighborhood in Arlington was filled with young professional people, and criminals, most of them behind the soaring walls of the Arlington County jail behind us.

And the attorneys, of course.

“Arlington is not used to the street life the way the are in the District.”

We introduced ourselves as I looked at the Victorian flatware piled on the table. I asked him if he lived here, now,  and he grimaced, and I apologized.

Much of his stock was piled haphazardly on two folding tables. There were more boxes behind the tables, unopened. There were no prices, so I was forced to ask each time my interest was vaguely piqued.

“If you put princes on these things,” I said, gesturing at the ivory-handled cake sets and bone china, “It would give the customers a place to start negotiating.”

“Ah, but then I wouldn't get to know everyone. Besides, I don't have the time. I don't know for sure what is in all the boxes.”

“Where does this stuff it come from? Portobello Road?” I was referring to the antique district in London, where the contents of the attic of an old Empire is offered for sale each weekend.

“No, no, this lot has never been anywhere. I am the remainder man. Our laws are different. I work with the solicitors. If there is an estate with no heirs, I go in and sweep out the lot. Then into a container and across the ocean to America.”

“So this is the first time this stuff has been seen outside of some house in the UK?”

“Right-o. It feeds my travel. I just shuttle back and forth. I think I should have shipped this lot further south, though.”

I found some flatware of a respectable pattern with an engraved “S” on the haft. There were strange forks and knives of differing lengths. What attracted me were the soupspoons, which were deep and earnest in their functionality.

I like soup. These were real slurpers, and it is the season for rich broth and well-seasoned vegetables.

“How much for the spoons?” I asked.

“Well, two dollars apiece for the silver-plate, that would make twelve. But it is a shame to break up a monogrammed set. Let's say fifty for everything with the same monogram. You are welcome to look.”

This became a treasure hunt, then, and I poured over the pile of knives and forks and serving spoons.

Tom helped me out. By the time we were done searching, there were five or six of everything, two sorts of knives, two varieties of forks, dinner spoons and the deep slurpers that had attracted me in the future.

I glowed with accomplishment as Tom wrapped them up in used heavy plastic bag that proclaimed it was from a shop called “The Shades of Richmond.” I blinked. It was the other Richmond, the original one in England, not the one down the road.

The bag was heavy with the plate, and I wondered who I could get to polish the tarnish off. Walking away, I realized all this was here because the servants were gone a long time ago.

Tom called out as I walked toward the jail, where my car was parked in the attorney lot. “Come back tomorrow,” he said. “You can help unpack the rest of the boxes! You never know what treasures might be waiting.”

I waved and walked on, wondering if I needed a place serving or two, straight from someone's pantry in the country, last touched before the Blitz.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra,com

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