Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1739 - 1742

1739. Oh sure, any day he wants to he can open up a restoration catalogue and buy a cheap aftermarket reproduction but what is the good of that. The man wants to buy the real thing, especially one that has a little damage and those little black pitted marks that show that it has existed for thirty years.

1740. And when his friends ask him if he is going to have it chromed so that it will look like new he is going to reply, “Yes, just as soon as I pay for my Grandma’s face lift, which will make just as much sense. No, you see he wants the ornament to look just the way it did thirty years ago, when his father drove out of the driveway that morning never to return.

1741. And in the ornament the father returns to the son in the driveway, for a fleeting instant, without any face life, without any re-plating. And you want me instead to sell it to you so you can put it on your fireplace mantle with your other knick-knacks.

1742. God, what a terrible drubbing young Proctor Cronk was getting at the hands of the yardman. He was taking a mental beating of the type that only a junkyard owner can administer.

Richard Britell