Antique Store | Abandoned Ancestors
Woman finds old photo in small town antique store and wonders if she's related.
Woman: New Yorkie, tons of technology: Maybe two phones, palm. Wants to take a digital picture, then takes a dv instead. Thinks antique stores smell "bad." She ducked in there to hide from someone. Then she realizes she wants to get a frame for a friend who likes antiques and 'that sort of thing.'
Man: Modern Hippie. gives woman a cup of coffee. She think it tastes funny. Not like her "quad shot vente." Made in old percolator. Maybe it's organic, locally roasted. Eventually she wants more.
W: You have a lot of frames. They all have photos in them.
M: I like to keep them around. Give them names.
W: You do, huh?
M: Pretend they're all my grandparents.
W: Keeps them happy to have you around?
M: Loneliest thing in the world to be an abandoned ancestor.
W: Hmmm
M: Passes the time.
W: Any other exciting things you do to pass the time?
M: I read at the library...
W: Fascinating.
M: To the kids, twice a week.
W: How sweet. You like hanging around children?
M: Very much.
W: Abandoned ancestors by day, big brother by night.
M: I'm supposed to read stories, but most often I make up stories by looking at one of these photos.
W: You can make up a whole story on this? (Points to plain photo)
M: Ol' Jenny Belton? She's a good one. Came across the plains while pregnant and bore her son William on their new
homestead. The new baby got Pa working real hard on the temporary cabin, built just in time for the record cold winter of '71. Even in that lonely place, neighbors from far off came to help because of the infant William. That's him
over there at twelve.
W: They made them skinny back then. And he turned out to be?
M: He didn't. Bear ate him six months later.
W: (Looking at photo) Isn't it odd.
M: Huh?
W: I don't know.
M: Well, if you were going to say she looks familiar...
W: I never knew my grandparents. My ancestors abandoned me.
M: Died Young?
W: I was given up for adoption.
M: That whole box came out of an estate down Richmond way.
W: That's where I grew up.
He takes the pic out.
She buys the frame.
She leaves the photo behind.
© MMIII-VII Wm Leslie Howard