Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Monday, December 28, 2009

The Incident on Norwich Street

The day was sunless, raw and cold, uncommon for January. A late afternoon fog, dull-gray, crept slowly in from the East River, shrouding in mist the ramshackled row houses and small shops on this derelict section of Norwich Street. A man stopped in front of the storefront, hesitated nervously, shuffled, turned to withdraw, turned again and entered Seymour’s Pawn Shop.

A single light hanging from the ceiling burned dimly. An antique ceiling fan stirred the musty air, adding to the man’s gloom. Removing his damp wool cap, he strolled slowly to the glass counter containing a myriad array of pistols, knives, brass knuckles and other malicious weapons for human mayhem, items that had been pawned for quick, Saturday-night money. They had not been redeemed and remained as a witness to the harsh and usurious lending policies of the shop’s proprietor. They were now for sale.

“Do you have the money today?” Seymour’s voice was shrill, harsh like the outside wind chill, and he shuddered. “You know the deal we made, right?” The man knew. It had been a deal with the devil, but he’d had no choice. He faced foreclosure, and his options were limited. Seymour had been his last one. While he still occupied the house, Seymour held the mortgage deed…and worse, his hasty pledge of something far more precious.

The winter shrimp harvest had been abysmal. Money was in short supply for all fishermen. But then one man’s pain is another’s gain, and Seymour profited on the backs of misfortune with pay-day loans. “No sir, not all of it, and I was wondering if…” Seymour cut him off in mid sentence, “No excuses, today’s the day, that was our deal, and a deal is a deal. I’ve kept my end, now you keep yours.”

I know,” the man said, his eyes glazing while looking at the raw planked floor. “But…”

“No buts. I told you last week, pay up or else.”

Hearing the “or else” sent a cold shiver down the man’s spine. What could he do? He didn’t have the money, and he had no immediate hope for it. His choices were stark: either lose the house or honor the promise of having pledged his 18-year old daughter to be Seymour’s wife. Was the house worth that? He recoiled in horror at the thought.

He had never intended for this pledge to be called. But when a man’s blood boils, the soul lends his tongue prodigal vows. With foreclosure imminent, the consequences were grim. He pleaded, “Shrimping has never let me down, please give me a little…”, but he never finished the sentence. From Seymour’s thin lips came a cold sneer and a scornful interjection, “No sir, no more time…it’s the money or the girl if you want the mortgage back. No more excuses. Your choice.” The man’s heart plunged while the dark night descended upon the two men who stood, eyeball to eyeball, negotiating the Faustian bargain in the dimly-lit den of men’s misery. The man lost. Dejected, he sadly retreated into the deserted streets, Seymour’s last words ringing in his ears, “No delays, ya hear?”

She was 18, just turned, tall with long hair, golden like the vast marshes that lined the Southern coast. She was set to graduate in May and pursue horticulture. Her special love was roses, and Seymour had seen her often after school and on most Saturdays. With greedy eyes he would watch her as she strolled carefree along the cracked sidewalk in her floral print dresses, carrying with her the dreams of her future. Little did she know then how her future would unfold.

Next to Seymour’s Pawn Shop, nestled in a manicured rose garden, stood a tiny pastel-colored cottage that was both the home and the business of its owner. The sign read, Roses by Edward. The girl worked there, carefully tending the arbors and trellises and delivering colorful arrangements. What a wife she’d be, Seymour thought, manufacturing fantasies and licentious scenarios as he gazed lustily at her. Now in his late fifties, he knew that was unlikely. Yet as things sometimes work out, possibility overcame probability the day the man walked into the pawn shop. Seymour’s life changed forever that day. So did the life of the girl.

Later that evening the man called the family together, explaining the sorrowful outcome of the day’s bargain. There was a stunned silence as the consequence sunk in. “What in the world were you thinking, you fool, to make such an awful arrangement with that sleazy Seymour. What gave you the right to trade our daughter’s future for this house?” his wife lamented. “Never, dad, never,” his daughter screamed as she fled the room in tears.

“But I signed a pledge, gave my word,” he said. His distress showed in the craggy face of a seaman in the glow of the reflected light. “We still have a little time, maybe something…,” he said, trailing off more as a question than a statement. “I’ll try again tomorrow to persuade Seymour to back off,” he promised. He did, but Seymour’s retort was as terse as before, “We made a deal. Now I only want the girl, you can keep the house. Y’all set the date. She’s going to marry me.”

The man and his wife procrastinated, promising a date that never came. Day after day the girl continued to pass the pawn shop, working in the rose garden next door. Weeks went by and spring came, while Seymour stewed in his lechery for the girl. Her very walk past his shop taunted him, inflamed his ardor, and he vowed to marry her or else. In his carnal cravings for the girl, the mortgage laid forgotten, gathering dust and accrued interest among the others in his safe. He’d lost all interest in anything but having the girl as his wife.

But obsessions often flame out of control. Seymour’s did.

It had been a sultry day in late May. She and Edward worked late that evening in the cottage next door. Seymour also stayed late, but for another reason. His ledgers could wait. Bitter in his desire for the girl, he slipped out of the rear door of his shop into the darkness. He lit a large sliver of lighter knot, a portion of a pine stump ripe with turpentine and flung it beneath the cottage. In a matter of minutes the wooden cottage was engulfed in flames. The shadows made no sound as Seymour slinked silently into the obscurity of the night, avenged in the unrequited payment of the man’s pledge.

The fire was intense, turning the evening sky into orange. Little could be done to contain the blaze. The cottage burned into hot ashes, the embers mixing with the sandy loess below. The rose shrubs in the garden lost their blooms in the intensity of the heat and remained leafless. In the morning the heat had abated. An inspection was made as to the cause of the fire. The ashes were sorted and sifted, but there was no sign of human remains, nor could the cause of the incident be determined.

“Well, Sheriff,” the Coroner said, “looks like we have an inconclusive case here. No detectible body, or bodies, no way to determine the cause. Accident, you think?”

“Hard to say, Gene. Tell the boys to get Seymour down here, maybe he saw or heard something. He’s a sneaky sort anyway
.” Soon Seymour arrived. “Say, Seymour, what can you tell me about this here fire?” the Sheriff said. “Not much,” Seymour said. “All I saw was Edward and the girl in there when I closed shop and went home. You knew we were to be married, right?”

Yeah, I heard that. What did you have on her daddy, Seymour? No way would she have married you on her own”

Me and her daddy had a deal, Sheriff, that’s all, but it didn’t work out. That’s all I can say.” The Sheriff shook his head, turned and left. Seymour stood alone, staring into the ashen ruins of the place.

Weeks turned into months. Often Seymour could be seen standing in front of the charred ruins in the late afternoons, gazing at the rose bushes, the blackened trellises. At his feet the wind swirled the ashes into small, gray piles. Pity, he thought, such a waste. All the while no blooms ever came upon the arbors, and the lot became overgrown with weeds and strewn with garbage. The Sheriff had archived the incident to the “cold cases” department. Life returned to normal on Norwich Street. But not for Seymour.

Spurned in his desire for marriage, life became more intolerable for Seymour day by day. The man had come in one day and redeemed the mortgage, paying the exorbitant interest and retaining his home. The man seemed happy for some reason Seymour could not understand. Did the man have no remorse for his missing daughter? Did he know something he was not saying? The questions tormented Seymour night after night. Sleep eluded him as mental images of the girl, strolling in front of his shop, tortured him. All the while the scorched arbors remained without blooms, a mocking reminder of the crime he’d committed.

In the early morning hours of a late summer night, Seymour could no longer suffer the persecution by his dreams. With an axe in hand, he determined to destroy the remaining reminders of Roses by Edward…the bloomless plants. Enraged by passion, he entered the darkened and vacant lot of what was once Edward’s rose garden and cottage. The rank smell of charred ashes reeked in the humid air as Seymour carried out his catharsis.

The telephone rang early in the Sheriff’s office. “Sheriff, you better get over here to the burnt cottage on Norwich Street. Something strange is going on,” the voice said. With steam rising from their coffee mugs, the Sheriff and Coroner stood looking in mystified amazement at the lifeless, mangled body of Seymour. Still clutching the axe, his lacerated body lay upon the scorched ashes, entangled interminably among the vines and thorns of a Blaze of Glory climbing rose. Upon the blackened trellises brilliant red blooms exploded in a profuse display of beauty, their fallen petals mingling with the dried blood of the mutilated pawn broker.

“Sheriff, look at all those rose bushes…why, they haven’t bloomed in months. I walk this patrol every day.” the deputy said. “Strange, don’t you think, that they would all bloom overnight? Just look at them climbing roses. Have you ever seen so many flowers?” The Sheriff shook his head, shrugged, puzzled. Was this a crime scene? He wondered.

Yeah, Lester, real strange for sure. What do you make of it, Gene?” he asked the Coroner. “Hard to figure, Sheriff, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like the roses claimed a victim and got revenge. We may never know,” he said.”

“Maybe. Lester, dust off that cold case file and see if we can make something out of it. The newspaper will want a comment.”

San Francisco is beautiful beyond belief in late summer. Early morning mists and fogs waft slowly through the city, and it glistens like diamonds in the morning sunrises. Perched high above the Presidio, Pacific Heights is home to quant shops, artists, coffee houses and boutiques.

Today a young woman in a floral print dress unhurriedly strolls through an arbor and up the steps of a small, pastel-blue cottage, itself surrounded by High Society climber roses in full bloom. The sign on the door reads, Roses by Edward…


Bud Hearn
December 28, 2009

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