#29 - Raymond Robinson (Green Man)

It was Saturday morning. Judy left the house early with the classifieds section of the newspaper tucked beneath her arm. She had poured over the listings the night before and had vigorously circled the most promising garage sales, simultaneously plotting a driving route in her head. She also brought along a yellow thermos filled with weak coffee, and a pocketbook containing nearly fifty dollars in small denominations. Her plan was to target the garage sales early, while the best deals could be found, and to finish at the flea market later in the day, when the sellers were primed to unload their unsold goods, too exhausted to haggle.

This was Judy’s weekend routine, at least during the warmer months. She sometimes returned home empty handed. When she found something she liked, she would decide on a fair price (regardless of the amount set by the seller) and stubbornly refuse to pay even a few cents more. If a seller was unwilling to come down, she would walk away.

In years past, her children, Chris and Effie, had usually joined her. Now, as teens, they only wanted to sleep-in on weekends. Occasionally, she still popped her head into their rooms before leaving the house. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?” She would ask, speaking to a bedclothes-covered mound. If either of them acknowledged her at all, it was only with a mumbled, negative reply. She missed having them along, but had found that she enjoyed the time alone, as well.

At a one story brick home on Walnut Street, Judy purchased an antique-looking flower vase. The seller, a plump woman smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of Diet Coke, didn’t know how old it was. In the sunlight, Judy could see that the glaze covering the off-white paint was veined with age. The vase’s pink handle had been broken and reattached with glue.

“Do you remember when this handle broke off?” Judy said. She didn’t care, really, but wanted the woman to know that she had noticed the flaw.

The woman took a long drag on her cigarette, squinting thoughtfully at the vase. She blew the smoke out the corner of her mouth and said, “I’m not real sure, honey. A-while back.”

“It’s marked at a dollar fifty.” Judy said, turning the vase in her hands, pretending to be undecided about it. “Would you take a dollar?”

The woman’s chuckled. “How’s a dollar twenty-five?”

Judy clucked her disapproval and returned the vase to the table.

“You drive a hard bargain.” The woman said. “A dollar’s fine.”

At a very large home on Torchwood Road, Judy purchased a set of stoneware casserole dishes and cake pans. When she picked one of the pans up for a closer look, a teenage girl wearing cut-off shorts and a bikini top said, “My mom told me to say those are really good and we’re selling them for really cheap.”

“Oh yeah?” Judy said.

The girl looked to be about the same age as Effie. “I guess they’re a special kind. I don’t know.” She said.

Judy turned the pan over and saw that they were Pampered Chef. She returned it to the pile.

“If you have questions or whatever, my mom’s coming back out in a minute. She’s in the bathroom.” The girl said.

Picking up the whole stack, Judy said. “Three dollars each?”

“Yep.” 

“Sounds fair to me.” She said, balancing the dishes in one arm and reaching for her pocketbook.

By eleven o’clock, Judy still hadn’t spent even half of her money. She picked up a set of four White Castle coffee mugs for a quarter. She paid fifty cents for a plastic contraption that was supposed to perfectly boil eggs in the microwave. At one sale, she pulled a musty copy of The Red Pony out of a box of free books.

Judy arrived at the flea market earlier than she’d anticipated. The place was still bustling with sellers and customers. Years earlier – too far back for Judy to recall offhand – the large lot had belonged to a farm supply and feed store. When it closed its doors, no one purchased the property. Eventually, the owners sold to the city, and the city began collecting revenue by selling vendor licenses and lot fees. The idea grew into the flea market, which, on Saturdays during the summer, became the center of life in town.

After parking at the west end of the lot, Judy stopped and bought a bag of kettle corn from a vendor in a red tent. She opened it up and ate slowly as she strolled along the main walkway leading through a maze of temporary booths and tents. She synched her pace with the flow of foot traffic, giving herself time to look at what interested her; collectible knickknacks, kitchenware, handicrafts, antique tools, books, a towering stack of used flower pots, and at one booth, an assortment of old postcards with handwritten messages, many bearing postmark dates from long before Judy was even born.

“Those are fascinating, aren’t they?” The Seller said. He was an elderly man, stooped, with shoulders that looked like they might collapse into his torso. His hair was the color of a raincloud. Though he was clean shaven, curly threads sprouted wildly from his nose and ears.

“They are.” Judy said, smiling. “You’ve collected all these?”

The man picked up one of the postcards. The scene on the front was tropical; palm trees and hula dancers. 

“No, no.” He said. “I picked these up at an estate auction a few years back.” He flipped the postcard over and studied the back. He looked at Judy. “Bought ‘em in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania.” He said, as if Judy might have some connection with the place.

Judy shuffled through a stack of the postcards, flipping them over to read the messages they had carried across oceans and continents decades earlier. Some of the writing was difficult to read due to fading or poor penmanship. Those she was able to read clearly were fairly uniform in content. We’re doing well here - enjoying our time - hope everything is fine back home - we miss you - wish you were here – say ‘hello’ to so-and-so.

“I’m asking a quarter each.” The Seller said.

“They’re very interesting.” Judy said. She wasn’t considering buying any of them, but she continued looking.

The man turned and shuffled away. When he returned, he was carrying an old shoebox held together at the corners with silver duct tape. “If you like those, you might wanna look at these, too.” He placed the shoebox on the table, next to the postcards, and lifted the lid. It was filled with old black and white photographs.

“These came from the same auction. The guy was a collector, I suppose.” The man said. “Take a look.” He slid the box toward Judy.

She scooped up a handful of the photos and began leafing through them. There were a few portraits, but most were family photos; non-professional, poorly framed, intimate. Fathers with crew-cuts, mothers wearing housedresses, and children - so many beautiful children. It was strange, Judy thought, that they were old now; older than she was, even.

“Lots of memories in that shoebox.” The Seller said.

“That’s right.” Judy said, nodding her head. “Sort of lost memories, I guess.”

She returned the photos to the box and stared into it for a moment. “How much are you asking for these?” She asked. The question was out before she even realized she wanted the photos.

“Hm.” The man said, thinking.

“Five bucks?” Judy said. The offer felt inadequate once she had said it aloud.

The Seller reached into the box and moved the photos around a bit, examining them. “Well…” He said. “These might be hard to sell. You really want ‘em?”

“I think they’re interesting.” Judy said, flatly.

“If you want ‘em, they’re yours.” The man said.

After paying the man, she carried the shoebox to her car and placed it on the passenger seat. She lowered the car’s windows and sat in the driver’s seat, looking through the photos. At first, each photo seemed to have a story to tell. She studied the subjects’ faces, their posture, the clothing they were wearing. But as she dug deeper into the box, the images began to blur together, to lose their individual distinctiveness. The photos as a collection were far less interesting than any one particular photograph considered on its own.

She was nearing the end of the box. Picking up one last handful of photos, Judy paused when she saw the image at the top of the stack, held in place beneath her thumb. It was different than most of the others. It was taken outdoors, at night. There were three men in the photo, standing side by side. Not much could be seen in the background, only darkness, and just behind them, a few blades of tall grass, as if they were standing at the edge of an open field. The two men standing at each side of the photo were young and smiling. But the face of the man standing between them was obscured, as if he were wearing some blank mask. Initially, Judy thought that the photo had been damaged; perhaps a watermark had blotted out the face of the third man. Or, she thought, the man’s face may have been rubbed away, erased by an ex-lover or a betrayed friend.

The longer she looked at the image, however, the less likely either of these possibilities seemed. She touched the surface, just over the spot where the man’s face should be. It was smooth; no different than the rest of the photo. Could it have been a smudge on the camera lens? She wondered.

It was unsettling, whatever the case may be. Even if it was simply some fault of the camera, some trick of light; she didn’t like the photograph. She folded it in half, stepped out of her car, and walked to the red tent, where she had bought the kettle corn earlier. There, she tossed the folded photo into a large barrel serving as a garbage can, and returned to her car. As she pulled out of the flea market, she caught sight of the old man who had sold her the shoebox. He was walking toward the portable toilets at the edge of the parking lot. He looked in her direction at just the right moment, and Judy was able to wave to him as she drove away. 

*     *     *     *     * 

To learn more about Raymond Robinson (Green Man), read the original Wikipedia article HERE.