I watched the bidding listlessly, waiting for my things to
come up and sneaking out for smokes between lots. Craphound never once looked at
me or acknowledged my presence, and I became perversely obsessed with catching
his eye, so I coughed and shifted and walked past him several times, until the
auctioneer glared at me, and one of the attendants asked if I needed a throat
lozenge.
My lot came up. The bowling glasses went for five bucks to one of the Queen
Street junk dealers; the elephant-foot fetched $350 after a spirited bidding war
between an antique dealer and a collector -- the collector won; the dealer took
the top-hat for $100. The rest of it came up and sold, or didn't, and at end of
the lot, I'd made over $800, which was rent for the month plus beer for the
weekend plus gas for the truck.
Craphound bid on and bought more cowboy things -- a box of super-eight cowboy
movies, the boxes mouldy, the stock itself running to slime; a Navajo blanket; a
plastic donkey that dispensed cigarettes out of its ass; a big neon armadillo
sign.
One of the other nice things about that place over Sotheby's, there was none of
this waiting thirty days to get a cheque.
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