Writing / Andy Warhol's Sister / 1989 / Deep & Savage Way / Helen of Santa Zita / Moscow Film World / Guide

Retirement Mr. Champrey was this strange old man, whose front yard was an amalgamation of old appliances, parts for cars that hadn't been made for fifty years, and in the middle occupying center stage, a ten foot tall pink statue of a naked woman. To protect the neighborhood's decency, he had painted a red bikini on the woman. This was the sort of man who lived on my street, when I lived there. As soon as I heard about him, and passed by his house, I knew at some point our paths were going to cross. They just had to. For three months, I waited for our inevitable meeting. In the meantime, I got a job (a real shitty job but it paid the rent) at the local fryhouse, after I told the owner I had spent ten years making bacon and eggs in Alaska. To be truthful, the only experience I had making breakfast was for my girlfriend during the brief period we had been together. However, she had good taste, and she liked my cooking a whole lot more than she liked anything else about me as far as I can tell. Anyway, I considered that enough experience to work at a place named Pop's. No, I'm serious, that really was the name of the joint. What else happened during that season I spent waiting for paths to cross? Got a TV set, cable television, even looked into maybe getting a used car; or more accurately, I bought a newspaper, read the want ads and dreamed. Otherwise, not much. But Mr. Champrey was always somewhere in my mind. Then, one day, I saw an ad posted on the telephone pole (oh yeah, forgot to mention, I also got a phone (made my mom back in Tennessee happy) offering cash for old appliances no matter what the condition. It gave a name (Mr. Champrey, if you haven't guessed all ready) It happened that I had found a rusting toaster in my backyard, so this seemed like the opportunity to get better acquainted. I carefully placed the toaster in the bag and still got grainy red rust all over my fingers, which I instantly washed off, since I’ve heard that rust is poisonous. I walked down the street to his house. It was a sunny day with a light breeze. I realized it was almost noon on Friday, traditionally the time of day that Christ was crucified. This made me stop in the middle of the street, holding the paper bag and scratching myself. I decided that this omen, if it was an omen, didn't really have much to do with toasters, or Mr. Champrey, so I decided to forget about it. When I arrived at his house, there was someone on his porch with him. I noticed (I passed by the house nearly every day on the way to work downtown) several new additions to the bizarre zoo of kitchen accouterments on his lawn: a hulking refrigerator, once pure white but now blackened and charred, a pale blue dryer with no door and a heavyset iron stove. I felt sorry for them, and was glad Mr. Champrey had given them a home. Mr. Champrey took two crumpled bills from his pocket and gave them to the matronly woman. She came back down the stairs, smiling until she saw me squinting (the sun was monstrously large and bright that day) at her. She stopped, looked a little embarrassed, may even ashamed, and walked quickly away. I looked at what she had sold­an earnest and boring microwave, which looked competent, with only enough controls to do its job and nothing more. I shrugged and realized Mr. Champrey was waiting for me. "Good day­afternoon, I think," he said. I looked at my watch. Exactly noon. "Afternoon, it is. Glad to meet you. My name's Carry. John Carry." "Pleased. I'm Bob Champrey­I presume you saw my advertisement." Despite his syrupy local accent, he pronounced it the English way: uhd-ver-tiz-mint. "You're buying appliances?" "That's right. Any condition, any brand, any age." "Here." I took the rusted toaster out and placed it on the deck. A piece from the side broke loose and dribbled off the porch, into a mess of weeds. "My. He's certainly had a life." Mr. Champrey smiled genially, and started frisking himself, fishing in the various pockets of his pants and shirt. The clothing looked like fisherman's garb, but Bob Champrey didn't look like a fisherman in the least. "Can I ask you a question, Mr. Champrey?" "Fire away." "From what I see in your yard, you just buy things, no matter how worthless they are?" "That's right." "Can I ask why?" Because the reason's not immediately obvious to me." "Sure. Basically, people have too much cluttering up their lives­stuff they never intend to fix, or use, but just don't have the heart or time, or the will, to throw away. So I do them a favor by buying this stuff from them, and opening up a little space in their lives they wouldn't otherwise have­one less thing for them to worry about. It's just my small way of making the world a better place." I nodded at Mr. Champrey's explanation and it made me feel kind of good inside. It made real sense. "Well, thanks, Mr. Champrey. Anyway, there's my contribution to your menagerie. How much?" "Well... for you I know just the price." He started rummaging through his pockets again. He found what he was looking for in the back of his gray pants. He held a small burlap bag up to me. "Here you go­thirty nickels for your toaster." My gaze darkened when I heard the price. I looked down at the offering in his hand. "Blood money, Mr. Champrey?" "It's a good price. That toaster isn't worth anything to you. Thirty nickels." I tried to make a joke out of it, pointing to the toaster I had brought. "What are going to do? Crucify him?" "That's my business," he snapped. "Well." The whole business started to come at me from a different angle. "Can I have a few days to think about it?" "Sure." Mr. Champrey was suddenly genial again. "The offer always stands." I nodded and put the toaster back in the paper bag and walked away. As I did, I rubbed my hands back and forth, trying to get off the traces of rust that were still there. God, did I want to wash my hands! Two The toaster, which I had used as just an excuse to meet Mr. Champrey, now assumed a center role in my life. I put it on the kitchen table, sat and looked at it, wondering absurdly why I had referred to it as 'he' when I talked to Mr. Champrey. Had I done it only after hearing him do it first? I hated myself for not being decisive. The whole next day at work (it wasn't too busy, but it never was on Saturdays, not at Pop's) I considered my options. For the first time at that job, I drank at work­which is a bad sign for me. I got a headache, asked if I could go home early. Seeing as how I'd burnt just about every innocent egg and strip of bacon I'd laid my hands on that day, Pop (honest to God, that's what I, and everyone else, called him) agreed readily. I walked home and intentionally avoided Mr. Champrey's house. "This is a real bad habit," I announced to my home when I got back, directing this comment to myself, and also to the toaster, still losing pieces of itself, bleeding red bits on my table. My bad habit was getting involved in ridiculous dilemmas, situations which seemed to be made out of just nothing. "What do you mean to me?" I asked the toaster. Could a man be cursed for all eternity over an appliance? was the question facing me. That night, I could get no sleep. I lay for hours, in every position, watching the full moon riding through the sky in my window. I've heard that people can die from lack of sleep. It's a horrible death. After forty-eight or so hours deprived, they gradually go insane. Any death suggested to them will fill their mind simply by suggesting it to them, as they hallucinate their end. That's how I felt as the night collapsed into morning. As the sky lightened, the sound of the birds outside seemed supernaturally loud. I rose from my bed, went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, determined to drink myself to sleep, or death. Instead, I sat at the table and stared at my toaster still huddled there, bleeding. For hours I sat, and the question could a man be cursed... insanity. Mid-morning I stood up, determined to try and make it a normal day. I went and sat in front of the television set, turned it on to a football game. I watched the armies of players clash across the scrimmage line, and went into a daze. Not blessed sleep, but a dreadful paralysis which made it seem that there was nothing left of me except the awful sound of bodies crashing and men grunting. I knew the toaster was still on the kitchen table. I knew Mr. Champrey was waiting for me on the back porch of his house, surveying the appliances in his collection and knowing he had one more to add. At ten minutes 'til noon, I could stand it no more. I rose, and without looking, I put him (it, it, I insisted desperately to myself) in the same paper bag I had used the day before. At Mr. Champrey's house, he was waiting just as I knew he would be, sitting on the back porch, looking out over the lushly overgrown garden. It was filled with appliances, such a multitude of I had no idea so many had ever been made. I walked up to him, laid the bag at his feet. He smiled. "I'm glad you decided." He touched my hand with a gesture as certain and as subtle as a kiss. He gave me the bag of thirty nickels. I took it and said nothing. I walked away from his house. A sense of profound relief flooded my body. I knew I would live forever, and I didn't care.