A Killer Collection (3 page)

"Only if they're friends or
former apprentices. Most of these guys have learned all they know from C. C.,
so they come to show their support and to help wrap up the pieces after the
sale."

Molly was surprised. "Wow. C.
C. is older than I thought. For some reason, I pictured all of these guys as
middle-aged or younger."

"C. C. is one of the last
real traditional potters. He digs his own clay, makes his own glazes, and fires
everything in a kiln he built himself. In fact, except for the ancient mule
that he replaced with a tractor motor, he does everything just as the potters
did it in the early 1900s. He’s a piece of living history."

George-Bradley's bright white suit
caught Molly's eye again. Done flirting with the attractive women in the back
of the line, he moved toward the potters and began shaking their hands and
slapping them on the backs with overblown gusto. When he reached Sam, Molly
heard him say, "Sam Chance? What are you doing here?" He raised his
voice like a bully on the playground, hoping to seek the attention of the other
children. "Don't you have some
dinner plates
to make?" He
laughed as the other potters eyed him angrily. "This here is art pottery,
boy. The stuff that collectors are made of."

Molly was shocked. George-Bradley
had called a man at least fifteen years his senior "boy." Sam's face
was blocked by George-Bradley's expansive back, where sweat was beginning to
spread through the thin jacket, so Molly didn't see the potter’s reaction.
Several of the other potters simply walked away, but George-Bradley rapidly
cornered another, younger potter and began criticizing him on the weak color of
his red glazes.

Eileen Burle, a soft-spoken woman
in her seventies, saved the young man from further torment by asking for his
assistance. She sent him off to the house and continued walking among the crowd
handing out what looked like cookies from a wooden tray. Another, younger woman
in her late thirties poured out cups of coffee or sweet tea. Molly noticed that
she was pregnant, but her freckled face lacked any trace of an expectant glow
and her eyes stared fixedly at someone standing in line. Her gaze was so intent
that she filled a glass of tea until it flowed over the brim of the cup.
Blinking, she nervously cleaned up the mess and reloaded her drink tray in
order to serve the waiting throng, which had now grown to almost two hundred
people.

From her place near the front of
the line, Molly couldn't believe how many people had congregated behind her.
There were at least one hundred eager buyers wringing their hands and talking
loudly with bursts of nervous excitement as the rope-cutting moment drew near.

Her mother introduced her to C. C.
as he made his way over to where they stood.

"This your first openin'?
You're in for a treat. My wife told me to go by the lottery system, where folks
pick a number out of a hat, but this is too much fun to give up." He
smiled, snipping his scissors in the air.

"Can you tell me something
about that kiln, Mr. Burle?" Molly gestured toward the dome of bricks and
wood sticking out of the ground a few hundred yards behind the pottery tables.
It resembled an overturned ship whose rounded hull closely hugged the earth. At
one end was an arched opening in the bricks that looked like a miniature
railroad tunnel entrance.

"Call me C. C. Now, that kiln
is called a groundhog kiln, 'cause it sits kind of squat against the ground.
I've got to crawl on in there to load the pottery, then stoke it with wood,
then heat it up good and hot for a few days. In the last couple of hours, we
feed that fire like crazy and smoke comes pouring out the chimney there."
He pointed toward the end of the kiln. "That's called the 'blast off'
time. That's when you can look in at yer pots and they's as red as the devil,
just a-starin' back at ya through all that heat."

Molly watched the pride flush his
face as he looked over at his finished pots. He pointed at a gallon jug with a
greenish, earth-tone glaze.

"That glaze is called
'Seagrove slip' and it's been made in these parts for more than a hundred
years. My daddy made it that way and his daddy and his daddy did too. It's our
family recipe."

"I'd love to ask you more
questions after the sale, if that's OK." Molly told him about the pottery
articles she planned to write.

"Sure, I'll take you around
and show you all the tricks. You got yer eye on somethin' out there?" He
looked in the direction of the waiting pottery.

Molly nodded as he winked.
"Good," he said merrily. " 'Cause it's time to fetch it."

C. C. moved over to the thin piece
of rope, scissors in hand. The noise in the yard ceased like a stone falling
off the edge of a cliff. Just then, George-Bradley brazenly shoved his bulk
between the potter and the first person in line, the nervous man named Hillary
Keane. The man stared at George-Bradley, his mouth opening and closing like a
landed fish gasping for air. George-Bradley completely ignored Keane's
expression of silent outrage.

Smiling wickedly, George-Bradley
leaned over to Keane and elbowed him roughly in the side. "My dear little
man, what are you doing here? You know all the pieces you want are gonna be
snapped up by yours truly. Why don't you just give up now and save face? I am
the King of Kiln Openings!" Then, as if emphasizing Keane's hopelessness,
George-Bradley dropped his empty Styrofoam cup onto the ground in front of
Keane's feet and crushed it with an Italian leather loafer. He then stuffed two
of Eileen’s cookies into his mouth and chewed like a contented cow.

Rage drained Keane's face of all
color. "Bastard!" he yelled, inhaling a great swallow of breath in
order to release a stream of hatred at the rude collector beside him, but at
that moment, C. C. severed the rope.

"Wait! Wait for me!"
George-Bradley tried to bellow in protest, but his mouth was too crammed full
of cookies to be heard clearly.

The crowd lurched forward as one
body, shoving one another out of the way as each person moved toward a table.
Molly headed for the nearest piece, the face jug with the greenish glaze and
the white, crying eyes. As she reached out to grasp it, a thick, sweaty arm
pushed her away so roughly that she lost her balance and fell to the ground.
With a smarting elbow and stains on her shirt and pants, Molly quickly stood up
again and looked around to see George-Bradley shrug his wide shoulders in mock
apology.

"What a jerk," Molly
muttered as she watched him disappear into the writhing crowd. She gritted her
teeth and shoved herself forward, knocking into another man who was reaching toward
the same piece. She grabbed the green face jug and began to fight her way
toward the table where the snake pitcher still waited to be chosen.

Chaos reigned. Bodies collided and
bounced off one another in every direction. Arms and hands reached out, desperately
seeking to grab hold of the pottery, and angry curses were issued in sharp
staccato among shouts of delight and disappointment. These noises were
punctuated by gasps of pain as feet were stepped on, ribs were jabbed, or two
pieces of pottery bumped one another too hard, chipping the glaze or creating
cracks in the handle of a jug.

Molly darted through a small
opening in the squirming throng, and though she was neither quick nor agile,
she was determined to get her piece. She saw with relief that it had yet to be
claimed. Pottery was being whisked away from the tables like it was on fire,
and as she made her move to grasp the handle of the snake pitcher, she saw
George-Bradley out of the corner of her eye, wrestling a large jug with the
face of a devil out of a petite woman's arms.

"I had it first!" she
protested, but he was too strong for her, and she released the piece and moved
on to find another, her face a mask of anger.

The victorious scoundrel examined
his piece for a millisecond with a look of pure greed and satisfaction, then
returned to the fray. Disgusted, Molly looked around for her mother, spotting
her just as she seized a red rooster from the back table. Their eyes met for a
second, and both women lifted their pieces in the air, proclaiming their
success before the crowd blocked their view of one another again.

As Molly turned to make her way
back to the safety of the lawn, she saw George-Bradley's face beyond a trio of
buyers arguing over a double-handed vase. Eyes darting about frantically, he
searched for another treasure. Suddenly, he raised his head and howled in pain,
his eyes bulging even farther from their sockets. In another flash, Molly's
view was obscured, and then she saw George-Bradley stagger off toward the side
of the barn, out of sight.

Curious, Molly held her pottery
against her ample chest and followed. She poked her head around the corner of
the sheet metal wall and stopped in her tracks. George-Bradley was leaning
heavily against the side of the barn, his devil jug and another crying face jug
resting on the ground at his feet As she watched, he examined a tiny, red stain
on his peach shirt, his expression one of befuddlement.

Undoing the last two buttons, he
exposed a roll of pasty flesh and rubbed at his flaccid skin with moistened
fingertips. He repeated this motion several times, more and more slowly each
time. His downcast mouth frowned in confusion. And then, his eyes lifted and
stared off at something over Molly’s shoulder. A look of surprise crossed his
face, replaced by one of stunned realized.

Abruptly, a firm hand propelled
Molly away from the corner of the barn and into the clearing. It was Clara.

"You've got to protect your
pieces once you've got them, honey," Clara said, unaware of
George-Bradley's odd posture. The two red roosters were already tucked neatly
into one of the plastic bins, which Clara had strategically hidden behind the
trunk of a pine tree.

The tight knots of struggling
people had dispersed and only a few buyers remained around the tables, still
playing a verbal tug-of-war over a vase or jug.

"That was crazy!" Molly
said breathlessly as she collected her pottery. The bizarre image of
George-Bradley examining his belly was replaced by the memory of grabbing her
fabulous snake pitcher.

"Wonderful, isn't it?"
Clara beamed.

"Actually, yes. I have to
admit, that was like being on a roller coaster. Thirty seconds of pure
adrenaline and it's still pumping."

Molly looked around for
George-Bradley's bulky form, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Let's pay for our stuff and
get something to eat," Clara suggested.

As they moved into the checkout
line, Molly noticed that the tension permeating the air all morning had
vanished, now replaced by a vibrant camaraderie. This was illustrated by a
great deal of backslapping and cheek kissing among the fellow collectors.
Buyers congratulated one another as if they had just returned from a dangerous
mission in space, holding out their new pieces, admiring how each was made or
glancing sorrowfully as a desired piece went home with another owner.

Molly felt rather smug and very
affable herself. She chatted away with those in front of her in line and
complimented a woman behind her on the beautiful brown and beige swirl tea
pitcher she’d claimed. Molly held out her own snake pitcher and preened as it
received praise. It was as if the pitcher were a newborn child instead of her
first piece of pottery.

 Clara’s face was radiant with
happiness. "It's just like a good auction," she said. "You're
the worst of enemies while the things you want are for sale, but once it’s
over, you're all best friends again. It's pretty much the same group of people
at all of these openings, so you may as well call a truce at the end of the
day. They are your brother and sister collectors. They’re practically
family."

"And no one even looks at the
prices." Molly indicated the tag tied to her piece. "Is every
collector this insane?"

"Yes. It makes us a tight
group." Clara's eyes narrowed as she noticed a green and brown smudge on
her daughter's pants. "What happened to your clothes? You've got grass
stains."

Molly was just opening her mouth
to tell her mother about the appalling behavior of George-Bradley when a cry of
"Help!" from behind one of the pottery tables rose into the summer
air.

Molly craned her head to see that
the man whose name was on the tip of her tongue was lying facedown in the
grass, his body almost hidden by the other tables. He was completely still, his
face an immoveable white mask. A face jug with a snarling mouth and a pair of
devil’s horns was inches away from George-Bradley’s outstretched hand. It was
the very piece he had snatched away just moments before from the petite woman.

Clara drew in a sharp breath,
taking in the shocking scene. She grabbed Molly's arm in alarm and then, just
as suddenly, she relaxed her grip.

"Thank the Lord!" Clara
exhaled in relief, her eyes glued on the pottery jug where it rested in the
grass. "It didn't break."

~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps an ideal future lies ahead when the world will be
divided not by ideologies, but into those who make pots and those who buy them.

—ROSEMARY ZORZA, from
Pottery: Creating With
Clay

For a moment, no one moved. Then a man bent over
George-Bradley and checked for a pulse.

"It's weak," he said to no one in particular.
"Someone better call 9-1-1."

From where she stood, Molly
watched the man as he unbuttoned George-Bradley's sweat-stained shirt He asked
others to lend a hand moving the inert body into the shade until help arrived.
Two of the potters attempted to pick George-Bradley up, but reconsidered.
Instead, they carried over a large plywood board, which they balanced on the
seats of three chairs. Their lean-to prevented the sun from shining directly
onto the immobile form, but only made the paleness of his face seem more
noticeable. Ten minutes ago George-Bradley had been flushed with animation.