car. A thousand in his wallet, another thousand in the glove compartment, hundred-dollar bills tucked into the pages of books and the pockets of the clothes he’d packed.
This was his inheritance. He had decided, even before his mother’s death, that he would get rid of everything when it came time, and that is what he did. He sold the little yellow house in South Dakota, the plot of land, and all the furniture and possessions that he could get money for. Everything else—so many things—he had stuffed into garbage bags and left for the trash man. Gone were most of the photos of his family, letters, papers; gone were his mother’s shell collection and worthless knickknacks, his own high school yearbooks and childhood drawings that had been saved, ragged quilts made by his grandmother, his grandfather’s collection of Louis L’Amour paperback westerns; gone were piles of newspapers and junk mail and bank statements, canned pears and peas, ten years old at least, that had sat on shelves, never opened; gone were coffee cans full of pinto beans or nails or buttons, a whole closet full of unused cleaning supplies; gone were the horrible accumulations of the last years of his mother’s life, when Jonah and his mother both had lost the energy to discard. He found a plastic mug, forgotten on a shelf in the laundry room, with a layer of dead mold floating on the surface of a half-inch of unfinished coffee. Who knew how old it was? It might have been sitting on that shelf for a year or more. He found a twenty-year-old grocery receipt in a desk drawer, along with a huge collection of pencil nubs and pens whose ink had long dried up. Seven-year-old telephone books. Ancient, pre tampon menstrual belts. Keys and key chains. Melted Tupperware. Worthless jewelry.
The auctioneer, Mr. Knotts, shook his head sorrowfully as the two of them picked through the clutter. He cleared his throat when Jonah pitched a packet of photos into the trash can.
“You should go through those,” Mr. Knotts said softly, but Jonah ignored him.
“People can be rash when they are in mourning,” Mr. Knotts said.
“Yes,” Jonah said. He retrieved the pictures and set them back into a pile of things that he meant to keep, but he did this only for Mr. Knotts’s benefit—as if he owed the old man something.
Mr. Knotts was a solemn little man with a high-pitched Arkansas accent, and Jonah had originally planned to dislike him. Which was to say that Jonah had not liked the way the man kept calling him “son,” on the phone, and he had not liked the man’s looks when they’d met to discuss the “auction process,” as Knotts had called it—there had been something unpleasantly Christian about Knotts’s softly resonant voice, Jonah had thought, and he had grimly noted the various accessories—the cowboy shirt with its flowery pattern and pearly buttons, the string tie, the silver-tipped size-seven cowboy boots, the blondish toupee—all of which seemed to indicate a certain type of oily, Born Again smarminess.
But this wasn’t the case, exactly. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Mr. Knotts had said, but nothing else, no sentiment or piety beyond that. “I’m an honest businessman,” he had told Jonah, surveying the ramshackle yellow house, “but I’m still a businessman, so I can’t promise you much.” Then he offered Jonah his hand.
He had a hand that was misshapen in a way that wasn’t quite visible until Jonah shook it. Then Jonah realized that the pinkie finger was permanently stiffened, that the other fingers were oddly abbreviated and stubby, so that Jonah felt as if he were closing his hand over an ape’s paw or a flipper. Mr. Knotts did not meet Jonah’s eye with a serious, significant look; he did not say anything further. He simply let Jonah clasp his malformed hand, and something passed between them. Jonah had felt a rush of warmth for the man, a stranger.
Later Jonah thought it would have been good if Mr. Knotts had been
This was his inheritance. He had decided, even before his mother’s death, that he would get rid of everything when it came time, and that is what he did. He sold the little yellow house in South Dakota, the plot of land, and all the furniture and possessions that he could get money for. Everything else—so many things—he had stuffed into garbage bags and left for the trash man. Gone were most of the photos of his family, letters, papers; gone were his mother’s shell collection and worthless knickknacks, his own high school yearbooks and childhood drawings that had been saved, ragged quilts made by his grandmother, his grandfather’s collection of Louis L’Amour paperback westerns; gone were piles of newspapers and junk mail and bank statements, canned pears and peas, ten years old at least, that had sat on shelves, never opened; gone were coffee cans full of pinto beans or nails or buttons, a whole closet full of unused cleaning supplies; gone were the horrible accumulations of the last years of his mother’s life, when Jonah and his mother both had lost the energy to discard. He found a plastic mug, forgotten on a shelf in the laundry room, with a layer of dead mold floating on the surface of a half-inch of unfinished coffee. Who knew how old it was? It might have been sitting on that shelf for a year or more. He found a twenty-year-old grocery receipt in a desk drawer, along with a huge collection of pencil nubs and pens whose ink had long dried up. Seven-year-old telephone books. Ancient, pre tampon menstrual belts. Keys and key chains. Melted Tupperware. Worthless jewelry.
The auctioneer, Mr. Knotts, shook his head sorrowfully as the two of them picked through the clutter. He cleared his throat when Jonah pitched a packet of photos into the trash can.
“You should go through those,” Mr. Knotts said softly, but Jonah ignored him.
“People can be rash when they are in mourning,” Mr. Knotts said.
“Yes,” Jonah said. He retrieved the pictures and set them back into a pile of things that he meant to keep, but he did this only for Mr. Knotts’s benefit—as if he owed the old man something.
Mr. Knotts was a solemn little man with a high-pitched Arkansas accent, and Jonah had originally planned to dislike him. Which was to say that Jonah had not liked the way the man kept calling him “son,” on the phone, and he had not liked the man’s looks when they’d met to discuss the “auction process,” as Knotts had called it—there had been something unpleasantly Christian about Knotts’s softly resonant voice, Jonah had thought, and he had grimly noted the various accessories—the cowboy shirt with its flowery pattern and pearly buttons, the string tie, the silver-tipped size-seven cowboy boots, the blondish toupee—all of which seemed to indicate a certain type of oily, Born Again smarminess.
But this wasn’t the case, exactly. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Mr. Knotts had said, but nothing else, no sentiment or piety beyond that. “I’m an honest businessman,” he had told Jonah, surveying the ramshackle yellow house, “but I’m still a businessman, so I can’t promise you much.” Then he offered Jonah his hand.
He had a hand that was misshapen in a way that wasn’t quite visible until Jonah shook it. Then Jonah realized that the pinkie finger was permanently stiffened, that the other fingers were oddly abbreviated and stubby, so that Jonah felt as if he were closing his hand over an ape’s paw or a flipper. Mr. Knotts did not meet Jonah’s eye with a serious, significant look; he did not say anything further. He simply let Jonah clasp his malformed hand, and something passed between them. Jonah had felt a rush of warmth for the man, a stranger.
Later Jonah thought it would have been good if Mr. Knotts had been
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