Selling the American Dream...

The doors at my house needed replacing.  Too many were hung off kilter, slamming shut on their own accord or not closing completely, failing to act as a proper barrier to entry.  So after being shocked by the high prices at the home improvement supercenters, I took my brother's advice and joined him on a visit to a rural auction.

 

After traveling fifty miles, deep into the Midwestern country, leaving the comfort of the suburban curbed roads, stop lights and the company of compact cars, I found myself standing in frigid field that extended in every direction toward the horizon.  The only interruption in the scenery was the road on which we came, a barn and piles of construction material drawing crowds of red nosed contractors.  The ground was frozen solid and the sky a cold blue.  The fog of my breathe crystallized with each exhale, shattering the sunlight with a million microscopic prisms. 

 

I didn't dress for the tundra, the sharp winds cut through my weak jeans and poorly lined wool jacket to petrify my frame and freeze the tears it pulled from my eyes.  The contractors wore more appropriate apparel: black fleece face masks, insulated leather work boots and heavy arctic coveralls in prints of camouflage or tan. 

 

I wasn't the only one sparsely dressed.  There were several burly men that seemed quite comfortable in this bitter environment.  One man had a large fur lined leather jacket, unzipped to reveal his homemade knitted sweater.  He didn't wear a hat, nor gloves, but remained outside in the single-digit temperature for most of the day.  His hair was disheveled into a greasy blond Mohawk, his nose came to a red point and his suspicious eyes, sunken and weathered.  He looked Russian, but never spoke above a whisper to expose an accent to reinforce the assumption.

 

Another man of enormous proportions stood above me at a height of at least six foot eight.  He had black bushy eye brows, a wide nose and a thick shadow of a beard.  Wearing a flannel jacket over a sweater and denim overalls, he resembled a humbled Goliath - he rarely spoke and whenever he won a bid, he personally carried his prize silently to his truck.  He would lift lumber, weighing hundreds of pounds up to his chest, over most men's head, and carry it with ease.  I heard him speak and his accent was distinctively Slavic (heavy of the "sh" and "eck" with a trilled "r").

 

Although the characters that speckled the icy landscape were interesting and unique, those that were a part of the clamor inside the barn were equally entertaining.  The warmth of the barn attracted scores of people eager to escape the glacial Sunday morning.  They gathered around the auctioneer.  He sat on a makeshift wagon beside an auction recorder and a simian man of red hair, protruding jaw and strong brow.  A loud speaker was mounted on either side of the cart broadcasting the unintelligible blather that seldom resembled English.  Those on the wheeled platform were propelled by the auction participants, and from afar it seemed reminiscent of an ancient ritual spawning from the slaves of Egypt that hauled the mighty bricks of the pyramids to the shouts of the pharaoh's guards. 

 

The owner of the barn and the person that ran this auction was a burly man that carried his weight well.  He had a mischievous look on his face at all times.  He would never stop moving his legs or his mouth.  He would yell at the top of his voice for silence from the crowd, but it was solely his fault for disrupting the procession.  He tormented his employees - none earning more than minimum wage.  The young girl responsible for opening and closing the door of the barn was a frequent target of his abuse.  He would rush at her as though he were about to throw her to the ground, but he would stop inches from her face to curse at her for having the door open too long.  A boy no older than sixteen came in to escape the cold, his lips were blue and his cheeks were a frost bitten purple.  The owner threatened to withhold his earnings unless he stayed outside.  With tears frozen to his cheeks, he followed the horrid directive.

 

It appeared that the races of Middle-earth had found sanctuary in this large but cramped barn.  Hobbits, though shod and closer to five feet tall rather than three, bustled about with glazed expressions and smelling of ale.  They were directed by Dwarves and dark Elves.  After many hours in the blistering cold, the Russian entered the barn with a band of Orc's.  The short, putrid beings were filthy in both mind and body.  I overheard them exchanging lurid jokes, saw them picking at their orifices and wounds, and they would sneak smokes in the corners and relieve themselves on the walls.  The perimeter was occupied by wizards and men.  Wielding tape measures and clip boards, they would fight their way through the crowd to bid on items of appeal.  They followed a more precise agenda than the rest who fought for every item like it was the One Ring of Sauron.

 

The only woman to join the crowd was a bizarre figure.  Dressed in a pristine white skier's vest and fluffy snow boots, she stood almost six feet and always at the back of the crowd.  She gave the air that she was of too high a status than to join the cluster of people that surrounded each auctioned item.  Indeed she would never even approach the items to measure them or inspect them for damage.  This lack of knowledge didn't dissuade her from bidding exorbitant amounts over others in order to have the winning bid.  She would often bid against individuals that had no notion of the regular price of an item.  The others would regularly bid higher than what the item would go for at a home improvement store.  Nonetheless, this queen of the auction wouldn't allow an insolent peasant to win a bid over her.  The auctioneer noticed her spendthriftiness and exploited it.  Whenever a damaged item came up for bid the simian auctioneer, that served as a second pair of eyes for the one blathering into the microphone, would pick her out of the crowd, calling her by name and she would make a bid.  The Russian's Orc's would deliberately bid against her with no intention of winning the item.  She didn't realize that they were toying with her as she was trying to flaunt a status of upper class and wield the power of money.

 

She was accompanied by a jolly man, armed with a permanent grin and rosy cheeks he walked beside her nodding at every question she whispered in his ears.  He looked unaccustomed to his flannel shirt and blue jeans and regularly tugged at his waistline and scratched around his neck.  I overheard a Hobbit saying that the man was her husband and that they would come to the auction once a month and drop over twenty thousand dollars just to get a rush from masquerading as opulent developers.  Indeed neither of them had the tell tale signs of the developer- no weathered faces, their nails were immaculate and their hands absent of disfigurement, and neither scoff nor scratch defaced their Timberland boots.  The facade they projected won them no status amongst the proletariat, to their contrary, they were an secret joke to which all but them were privy.  This didn't prevent them from parading around, chip up, back straight, looking through people rather than at them, all the while thinking that they were above this wretched rabble.

 

I was lucky in my bidding.  I attended this auction for doors and won what I needed.  While suffering the elements outside, I competed against the Russian on 4 bundles of 25 doors.  He won the first three but let me have the last for 75¢ a door.  Inside I bought half a dozen door frames for $5.  I was satisfied with my prize, but my fiancée had mentioned to me that she wanted French doors in the attic bedroom, so I waited around until the end when the auction wagon came around to the doors.  The French doors were at the end of a long line of doors.  By the time the wagon reached the items I wanted, the Russian had abandoned the crowd, obviously irritated from competing with the auction queen.  The auction queen had also reached her limit after squandering a small fortune on so many damaged items.  The Dwarves and Elves were busy directing their Hobbits to load the items they already won.  Those that were left were the humans and wizards and they only had specific items they desired, luckily the French doors were not them.  A small crowd still circled the auction wagon.  They were mostly drunks that would only buy items for under $10.  I ended up winning the doors for that very price.

 

My brother and I loaded my winnings into the trailer of his truck.  The end of the auction was a chaotic period when everyone is busy packing lumber and the like into vehicles.  Developers barked orders at contractors, contractors barked orders at foreman, and the foreman magnified the abuse upon the slow witted workers rushing about with dollies and fork lifts.  The Russian and Goliath were the only two silent.  The Russian watched over his workers to ensure they didn't steal any of his winnings.  Goliath just continued to labor, carrying his large winnings one at a time to his enormous trailer, alone in the cold, humbly a solitary workforce chasing the American dream one step at a time.