Chapter 18: They Ain’t From Around Here
Tuesday it began. Two reporters showed up at The Rag and Bone Shop, one in the morning and one just after lunch, one from the Columbus Dispatch, one from the Akron Beacon Journal, both with cameras and tiny recorders. They wanted to talk about Ali Ebrahim and the helmet.
Clare told them both that Mrs. Ebrahim had legal claim to it, but had thrown it away, Clare had spoken with her, the woman did not want it, and Ali didn’t own it. No, they couldn’t take photos as it was locked in a bank vault and she was not going to take it out. They could use the photos from the parades. Both reporters suggested that Ali had a moral claim to it, as a sentimental reminder of his father, but without going into detail, Clare said that for some reason Mrs. Ebrahim did not want it anymore. And that was that. And Roxy Barbarino of Adventuress magazine in Akron would be getting exclusive stories in the future.
They spent some time trying to question her staff and other townspeople, but no one could tell them anything of interest.
Ed Bennett, who owned an antique shop in Akron, showed up as well. He occasionally came in to check out the Sears merchandise and buy something, though he dealt in finer art pieces and older antiques, but once in a while he wanted something only Sears could provide, or could have provided half a century ago, for himself or for a customer. He was still faintly resentful of his spill in a ditch with his Porsche in the middle of winter, as if it had been Clare’s fault, and envied her booming business, unprecedented in the world of antiques and collectibles.
Ed was competitive, which was OK, but he was supercilious even when he wanted what Clare had. It was business, after all. She’d never trusted him since they first met in college at a party where he came dressed in a girl’s gold sequined majorette outfit, complete with fringe, a baton, and gold boots with pom-poms. It was not a costume party. His story then was that he was gay, but actually a lesbian, therefore he wanted to sleep with girls. Since Clare had never detected any sense of humor in him, she wasn’t sure if he was just trying a goofy way to get girls in bed. Or if, in modern terms, he was subverting heteronormative gender paradigms or some such thing. Maybe it worked for him but she’d never heard of him being with either a girl or a boy. She supposed that would entail his paying a bit of attention to someone else for at least a couple of minutes. On the whole, she thought if he had ever had any intimate encounters, it would have been with someone who looked the most like himself.
He parked his Porsche in front of the store and breezed in.
“Hello, Clare! I’ve been reading about you and the helmet. How fascinating!”
“Oh, hello, Ed. Yeah, it’s fascinating all right.”
“Is the helmet of contention on view?”
“No, it’s locked up in a bank vault.”
“Too bad. I was hoping to get a glimpse. It should boost business, though.”
“Actually it is a bit busier today. You and so far two reporters. But there really are more customers today.”
“How I envy you.”
“I know,” Clare said kindly. “But take my word, you wouldn’t want to increase business this way. If I wanted to cause trouble for you, I’d give you the helmet.”
“Oh, would you?”
“No, I’d sell it at a very high price. But I’m not going to. So what can I do for you today?”
“Oh, I’ll just browse around.” Ed noticed the sign on the elevator. “What’s The Cellar?”
“I’m going to open the basement to sell my stuff left over from the flea market, but I’m also starting to buy things from the local people.”
Ed’s eyes glittered.
“So far they don’t have anything that you’d be interested in. Nothing of great value. Old bottles and clothes and ephemera and old farm equipment and so on. No Chinese porcelain or Colonial era furniture. More of a yard sale.”
“Too bad,” he said again. “So when do you think you’ll open it?”
“Not sure. When I got the idea I had the basement cleaned and painted in a week, and got some showcases right away. But I’ve had some distractions. No real hurry on it. I want to get more stock, locally, first. Feel free to look around,” she said, and turned to talk to one of her clerks. What she really needed to do was sit in the office for a while to look through the old Sears catalogues again and order more merchandise. She kept the catalogues locked in an old safe in the office. She didn’t want her customers or anyone else handling them, she wasn’t sure if they could be replaced, and she wasn’t quite sure if her aunt’s catalogues were the only ones that would allow her to order the old things.
“Oh Clare,” Ed said, “are you expecting an order today?”
“You mean is Jackson going to come in?”
“Unless someone else is delivering, yes.”
“He still brings all the orders. Yes, he should be in any time with his truck.”
“Well, I’ll just browse through the jewelry, but I could be in the market for more silver.”
The door opened and everyone looked up expectantly, but it was just someone delivering a letter that had to be signed for. Clare signed it and said, “I’ll be around. Talk to you later,” and went back to the office.
The letter was from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Failing to be assured of a solid legal case, Ali had decided to get CAIR to intervene for him regarding the helmet. Clare signed, groaned, and pounded her forehead (lightly) on her desk. Maybe I should be wearing a helmet, she thought. The letter went on about the cultural significance of the helmet, blah blah, its importance to the religious development and familial sentiment of a young man bereft of his father, blah blah blah, and the bad publicity that would ensue for Clare if she didn’t do what they wanted. Blech.
Ali’s mother knew something about the helmet’s cultural significance that she didn’t like. The boy’s religious development was iffy, from his mother’s, and Clare’s, point of view. And CAIR did not seem to realize that any publicity could only help her store. The only thing she had to worry about was a lawsuit, and a quick consultation on the phone Monday morning with Rachel Halperin, the lawyer who had successfully defended her when she was accused of murdering her aunt, convinced her that no lawsuit would be brought. Ali did not have a legal claim. She filed the letter, with no plans to answer it.
She spent a peaceful hour or two compiling catalogue orders until Jackson arrived with a truckload of clothes from the first half of the 20th century. Movie and TV producers, or their wardrobe departments, were buying them faster than she could keep them in stock.
“Hi, Jackson,” Clare said, after sending a couple of her staff out to unload the truck from the back alley. His delivery truck today appeared to Clare to be from the 1930s. At least, prewar, as if there had been only the one war dividing American lives into pre- and post-. She supposed in the 19th century, prewar would have been antebellum, before the Civil War. And in the 18th century, war meant the Revolution. She didn’t like to think about the next century’s defining war, though she suspected it had already begun.
She wondered, not for the first time, why none of Jackson’s old trucks had “Antique” license plates. They were all ordinary Illinois plates, but with different years on each one. This one was 1938.
“Hi. How are things going?” Jackson replied.
“Well, I’ve had a bit of trouble about that helmet. Did you see the story in the papers?”
“Yeah, I know about it. Everything OK?”
“It’s going to be OK. After everything happened that you read about in the newspapers, there was a bit of legal trouble. Or at least legal threats. But I think that will go away.”
“Let me know if I can help.” He looked at her seriously.
Clare was surprised. So far, although he had been the prime instrument — she might have said the prime mover — in changing her life, personally his approach to her had not been an approach: he was always driving away. Except when he showed up at Aunt Del’s f
uneral. So an offer of help was unaccountably — personal.
She looked at him and tried to think of how he could help, or at least, what she could ask of him, to keep him around.
“I’ll keep that in mind. I appreciate it.” Jackson drove in two or three times a week with deliveries so maybe she’d be able to think up something to ask of him before his next trip.
“I’d like to see the helmet.”
“I haven’t had it out since July 4th. I’m keeping it locked up. I don’t know how long I’ll have to do that, because of that kid. I have some good photos, though.”
“I saw a photo in the paper. Online too. But I have to hold a thing in my hands to get an idea about it.”
How about me, Clare thought, then shook her head to clear it.
“Well, I’ve tried to do some research online, and I believe it’s Persian, or what they call Indo-Persian. Not sure how old it is. One or two centuries.”
“The family might know.”
“I talked to the woman who threw it out, but we didn’t get that far.”
“You going to talk to her some more?”
“Possibly.”
Jackson nodded, and said no more. They exchanged paperwork and he was off again. He never volunteered anything about himself, never answered questions, and never asked Clare anything personal, not even at the funeral, beyond asking if she were all right and offering to help then too. But she’d had nothing to say to him then. She had her parents and Roxy staying with her at the house, and she could hardly ask him to stay.