Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines Page 2

  At ten o’clock sharp, Cynthia walked up to the microphone.

  “Okay,” she said. “Quiet please.”

  The crowd settled down and waited expectantly.

  Cynthia flipped through some papers on her clipboard, then settled on one and read it aloud.

  “In accordance with the town charter, this auction is held by the township of St. Germaine to recover unpaid assessments. The town is foreclosing on the back taxes that are owed. No preregistration for this auction is required, however, if you wish to bid on any property and you haven’t already registered with the clerk, you need to do so at this time. If you are from out of town, you will need to leave a certified check with the clerk in the amount of one thousand dollars. This will be returned to you in the case of an unsuccessful bid. If you’re from here, we know who you are and where you live.”

  Laughter from the crowd, and five people made their way up to the table and stood in line while Monica took their information.

  “Here are the terms of sale,” continued Cynthia. “Now pay attention, cause I’m not going to repeat myself. If you bid on one of these here houses, and you win, you are legally responsible for the bid. The town requires a ten percent down payment today and that payment has to be cash or certified check.”

  “We’ve heard all this before,” yelled a voice. “We know how it works.”

  “It’s freezing out here!” called another. “Get started already!”

  “Just to be clear,” said Cynthia, “so I don’t have to throw anyone in jail. If you bid fifty thousand dollars for the house and you win, you give us a certified check for five thousand dollars or five thousand in cash right after the auction. This morning. By noon. The balance is due in thirty days. You don’t pay the balance in thirty days, we keep your deposit and go again.”

  “What if I ain’t got five thousand dollars cash?” yelled Skeeter Donalson. “Is this auction just for you rich folks?”

  “Yes, Skeeter,” said Cynthia. “This auction is just for us rich folks, so you go on home now.”

  More laughs from the crowd. Skeeter folded his arms and made a face.

  “As you know,” continued Cynthia, now off script, “the company that owned these houses is bankrupt in North Carolina and the properties are being sold ‘as is.’ The city is going to make an opening bid for the amount owed in taxes, so don’t go getting all mad and think we’re driving the price up. We’re not.”

  “Let’s get to it,” came the same voice as before. Not Skeeter. Skeeter was sulking. “We’re freezing!”

  “Finally, St. Germaine Federal Bank is open this morning,” said Cynthia, “just in case any of y’all need to make a trip over there and get a certified check. Stacey Lindsey will be there until noon.”

  “How come we can’t go into the houses?” called Helen Pigeon. “We don’t know what shape they’re in.”

  “We don’t own the houses,” said Cynthia, “so we can’t let you in. The owners can’t be located, they’re probably in Brazil or somewhere. As soon as you buy it, or if no one wants it and the city buys it, we’ll cut the locks off.”

  General mumbling across the crowd, but most everyone was nodding.

  “We already got a peek inside,” Annette whispered to me confidentially. “Last week. Francis is looking to get another rental property.”

  Francis Passaglio was an orthodontist in Boone. He and his wife, Annette, were lifelong members of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Annette was from old St. Germaine money but had always worked mornings in Francis’ office as manager and bookkeeper. Now that the kids were grown and gone, she also kept busy as a local reporter for the St. Germaine Tattler. Francis was a good-looking fifty-year-old, fit and trim with salt and pepper hair and a smile that would make George Clooney blush. He was purported to have quite an eye for the ladies, although most of that was probably just grist for the St. Germaine rumor mill. One thing about Francis Passaglio — he was used to getting his way. This I knew from experience. He could be quite unpleasant.

  Cynthia quieted the crowd again. “Then let’s get going. The first house is on Oak Street. Lot number 317.”

  “Ten dollars!” yelled Skeeter.

  Cynthia put her hand over her eyes and shook her head.

  “The town bids twelve thousand, three hundred fifty-six dollars,” said Monica from her clerk’s table. “That’s the outstanding tax bill.”

  “What?!” yelled Skeeter, outrage in his voice. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Fifteen thousand,” called Jeff Pigeon. Jeff was a chiropractor and he and his wife, Helen, had several investment rental properties in St. Germaine. Helen taught second grade. They could be counted on to keep the bidding going, at least for a little while.

  “Sixteen,” countered Francis.

  “Twenty,” yelled Roger Beeson, manager of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store.

  The bidding went higher as people decided what a house near downtown St. Germaine was worth to them. I suspected that most all these bidders were after an investment. If they could get it cheap enough, they’d turn around and sell the house, or rent it out. Rental houses were currently at a premium.

  The tax assessment on the Oak Street house was $294,000. Tax assessments were always high in St. Germaine, though. Realistically, in today’s market, this one might sell for two fifty, or so. It was a mid-century vacation cottage, probably not recently updated, and not very big. When the bidding got to one hundred twenty, things started slowing down, and finally there were two. I didn’t recognize the woman who was bidding against Jeff Pigeon. Someone from out of town, but maybe close — Boone or one of our other surrounding townships. Jeff offered one final bid at one forty, then dropped out, and Francis Passaglio jumped back in with Annette whispering furiously in his ear. Back and forth for another five minutes, then Francis through his hands up in disgust, turned and walked away through the crowd. Annette followed, hissing at him all the way.

  The other woman bought the cottage for $158,000. A deal probably, although the inside was a mystery. She made her way up to Monica’s table and the crowd buzz started back with a vengeance.

  The second house, a larger, three bedroom Victorian on Cherry Bluff Lane, about four blocks off the square was bought for $154,000 by Jeff and Helen, obviously determined to score some property. I thought they’d overpaid. This house was in much worse shape than the one on Oak Street and would take quite a bit of money to fix up. They seemed to be satisfied though and didn’t even stay for the third offering.

  The third house was on Maple Street set on the back of the lot right next to Holy Grounds, the coffee shop. Holy Grounds was the third incarnation of the old two-story, American Foursquare house since I’d moved to St. Germaine. It was a design popular in the early 1900s consisting of four square rooms on each floor and a central hallway connecting the front and the rear of the building to take advantage of the mountain breezes in the summer. A long front porch stretched across the front and was perfect for rocking and enjoying a cup of coffee anytime of day. The house had belonged to Mrs. McCarty for as many years as anyone could remember, then bought by a couple from Virginia who opened a spa with adjoining coffee shop. Kylie and Bill Moffit bought it from them, closed the spa, but kept the coffee shop going.

  On the other side of the property for sale was a law office housed in a one story bungalow.

  The house that was for sale was smaller, but more charming than either, with a real Arts and Crafts look about it. The upside was, that the block was zoned for either commercial or residential use. The downside, if you were looking for a home, was that it was flanked by businesses on either side.

  “Ten dollars,” yelled Skeeter.

  “The city bids eight thousand forty dollars,” said Monica.

  “Dadburnit!” yelled Skeeter. “Eight thousand forty-one!”

  “This is the one?” Bud said, sidling up beside me. He already knew the answer. He was just nervous, nervous as any other twenty-two year old kid right out of college
getting ready to bid on his first house.

  “This is the one,” I said. We’d already talked about our strategy. The house was listed on the tax roles for $218,000. Eleven hundred square feet, two bedrooms, one bath.

  “Go on,” I urged, grinning.

  “One hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars,” Bud called out.

  “What?” screeched Skeeter. “Illegal!”

  “Quiet, Skeeter,” said Cynthia into the mic. “I have a bid of one hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars. Is there any advance?” She looked over the crowd. People were looking frantically at their papers. The previous two houses had taken thirty minutes each to sell, the bids going up incrementally with everyone taking their time and mulling over the previous bid. Now, all of a sudden, it was put up or shut up.

  * * *

  Bud McCollough was the eldest son of Ardine McCollough and the older brother of Pauli Girl and Moosey. I’d known them a long time and helped the family financially when I thought they needed it, not that Ardine would ever ask. Ardine had been a single mother for the better part of a decade now, her husband PeeDee choosing to make his home elsewhere. “Elsewhere,” according to some folks in town, being under a pile of rocks in some unnamed holler far up in the hills. PeeDee, by all accounts, had been an abusive husband and father and when Ardine had had enough, she’d had enough. That was that. There were those folks in the hills that didn’t ever bother calling the law to settle family disputes. Of course, PeeDee might just have easily relocated to the Florida panhandle to start over with a new family. Hard to say.

  The one thing he’d insisted on was naming his children after his third favorite thing, behind his truck and his hunting dog, that being beer. The name Bud was okay, Pauli Girl was a stretch, but Moosey (Moosehead Rheingold McCollough) got the worst of that deal. It didn’t really matter in Moosey’s case. By the time you knew Moosey, the name kinda fit him.

  Bud, though, had always been an odd duck, but as luck would have it, a wine savant. He had a Bachelor’s degree in business from Davidson and, although he hadn’t graduated with any kind of distinction, he was the youngest Master Sommelier in the country. Ask Bud about any wine you could think of and you’d be likely to get a quick review in winespeak: a saucy Cabernet that tastes like being slapped up side of the face with a wet trout that morphs into a mermaid; a young Merlot that has all the commercial appeal of gonorrhea with notes of dung, spare ribs, horse blanket, boiled cabbage, and cardboard; a Malbec almost Episcopalian in its predictability, cream cheese and mothballs, but as haunting as a cello solo by Yo-Yo Ma; hot dog water. And he was always right.

  Not only could Bud talk the talk, he had the nose, and the nose knows what the nose knows. He’d been studying wines since he’d been old enough to check books out of the library. Once he discovered interlibrary loan, there was no stopping him. He’d also been collecting wines since he was twelve, buying bottles on-line under several aliases, wine that he was sure would mature and grow in value. I also contributed to his cellar when Christmas and his birthday rolled around, knowing that he wasn’t drinking it, but stashing it for some greater purpose. I hadn’t seen the stash, but Bud told me he had close to five hundred bottles — all bought for less than twenty bucks apiece. Even at face value, it was close to six thousand dollars worth of wine. Bud informed me that the market price of his cellar was closer to fifty-thousand. An impressive start for a twenty-two year old vintner.

  An impressive start, but not the best thing. Not the piece de resistance.

  This was not the first auction Bud and I had attended together. Four years ago, Bud and I went in together on some wine that Bud spotted at a farm sale. That is to say, we began our partnership. At his behest, I paid ten thousand dollars for three cases — thirty-six bottles — of Chateau Petrus Pomerol, 1998. Two hundred seventy-five dollars per bottle. Ninety-two dollars per glass. The wine was cheap at that price. Meg and I had mistakenly finished three bottles before Bud pointed out (rather hysterically) that just one bottle of Chateau Petrus had recently sold for $3500 at auction. A year or two from now, when it reached a sufficient level of maturity, the price was likely to double. That money, close to a quarter million bucks, was what we were planning on using to open our wine shop.

  All we needed was a building. A building close to downtown, within easy walking distance, and at the right price.

  Okay, sure. I could buy any building we wanted, but that wasn’t the point. This was Bud’s deal. I was the silent partner.

  * * *

  “Is there any advance on one hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars?” Cynthia asked for the second time.

  * * *

  It’s a psychological game, you see. Bud and I had talked to an acquaintance of mine in New York, an expert in buying, selling, and negotiating the best deal. He was a psychologist and had written a book about the psychology of auctions. Bud and I were happy to take some advice.

  Number one: Ideally, you don’t want the item you want to appear first on the block. The object is to get people attending the auction into a comfort zone. So they think they know how the auction will proceed. This wasn’t a problem. I just asked Cynthia to auction the Maple Street property last. “Sure,” she said with a shrug. Unfair? Nah.

  Number two: Throw everyone a curve immediately. You don’t have to go with your drop-dead highest price, but a substantial bid will freeze out most of the competition. Most auctions start low and the bids grow incrementally. Everyone wants a deal and if you can save a hundred bucks, why not? Also, the lower and slower the bidding commences, the more people get in, and once in, folks start contemplating. Hmm, they think, a hundred and fifty is still a good price for this property. I can probably turn around and sell it for one-seventy tomorrow and make twenty thousand. Not a bad day’s work.

  Number three: Jump in hard, jump in fast. Unless someone really wants what you’re after, the chances are that they’re not going to drive the price up on you for fun. If you have steel in your voice, the tendency for most people is to back off.

  * * *

  “Third and final asking,” said Cynthia.

  “One hundred and thirty thousand!” yelped Skeeter, unable to contain himself.

  The crowd laughed.

  “Skeeter,” said Cynthia patiently, “do you have, or can you get, thirteen thousand dollars cash by noon today as your down payment?”

  “No, m’am,” Skeeter said, dejectedly, looking at his feet and kicking at a pile of snow where he was standing. He looked up, fire in his eye, “But neither can Bud! He’s poor as a church mouse!”

  “Bud,” said Cynthia, “do you have, or can you get, umm …” she paused, doing the math, “twelve thousand, nine hundred dollars cash by noon today as your down payment?”

  “Yes, m’am. I have it right here.”

  Bud lifted his briefcase into the air and the crowd erupted in chatter.

  “Sold, then!” proclaimed Cynthia. “Come on up here, Bud. That’s it, everyone. Thanks for coming out.”

  She turned and went back into the courthouse with Matthew Aaron, leaving Monica Jones sitting at her desk finishing the paperwork. Nancy stood beside her, guarding the cash.

  Chapter 3

  Don’t spend too much time over there with your typewriter,” Meg called from the kitchen. Everyone will be here in an hour or so. You’re the designated griller.”

  “Everything’s already to go,” I answered back, lifting the lid of the cigar box and fondling a Romeo y Julieta Cuban beauty.

  “Don’t you dare light that cigar. You and Pete smoke those outside. And find some decent music to put on, will you?”

  I sighed and put the cigar that was about to make its way to my lips back in the box. Meg had an uncanny way of sensing a cigar about to be lit.

  “What’s wrong with this music?” I called back.

  Meg came in from the kitchen, rested a hand clutching a butcher knife on her cocked hip and glared at me. “What’s wrong with it? Just listen to it! It makes my fillings
hurt.”

  “You don’t like Bartók?”

  “I don’t like that. Not when actual people are coming over for dinner. Pick something pleasant.”

  “Pleasant, you say.”

  “No,” Meg said, “I take that back. What I mean is, pick something that I might find to be pleasant dinner music.”

  “How about an Johannes Ockenghem compilation. Various motets for eight voices, circa 1440?”

  “No.”

  “Alpenhorn quartets from Gridenwald, Switzerland?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about Die Dreigroschenoper? The Three-Penny Opera. A modern classic. Mack the Knife? Pirate Jenny?”

  “Tempting,” said Meg, “but no. Just put on Pandora. Something fun.” She disappeared with her knife.

  Pandora Internet Radio was something new for Meg. We’d finally managed to get decent internet service where we lived thanks to satellites, geosynchronous orbits, dishes, wires, routers, and fuel injectors. These were things that I didn’t understand fully even though they’d been explained patiently and with great consternation by our “Internet Installation Associate.” I did know that our internet connection was now reasonably speedy. At least speedier than dial-up, our previous option.

  The reason that we were so far behind most third world countries concerning internet service, was that we lived on two hundred remote acres a good ten miles from anyone else. I didn’t mind much, since I came to town everyday and could check email and such. I also managed a cell phone and could text if push came to shove. Meg came to town every day as well, but she did more internet work than I did and so appreciated the recent advances in technology. A couple of years ago, she and Bev Greene had started a nonprofit financial counseling business for people who couldn’t pay — retirees who didn’t know where to go or what to do with their assets, young people starting out, even folks that hadn’t filed taxes for years. She and Bev had gotten some grants and, even though Meg and I had funded the project, the whole enterprise hadn’t cost much.