to muss.

I found a box of nice old melamine dishes, in various shades of green -- four
square plates, bowls, salad-plates, and a serving tray. I threw them in the
duffel-bag I'd brought and kept browsing, ignoring Craphound as he charmed a
salty old Rotarian while fondling a box of leather-bound books.

I browsed a stack of old Ministry of Labour licenses -- barber, chiropodist,
bartender, watchmaker. They all had pretty seals and were framed in stark green
institutional metal. They all had different names, but all from one family, and
I made up a little story to entertain myself, about the proud mother saving her
sons' accreditations and framing hanging them in the spare room with their
diplomas. "Oh, George Junior's just opened his own barbershop, and little
Jimmy's still fixing watches. . ."

I bought them.

In a box of crappy plastic Little Ponies and Barbies and Care Bears, I found a
leather Indian headdress, a wooden bow-and-arrow set, and a fringed buckskin
vest. Craphound was still buttering up the leather books' owner. I bought them
quick, for five bucks.

"Those are beautiful," a voice said at my elbow. I turned around and smiled at
the snappy dresser who'd bought the uke at the Secret Boutique. He'd gone casual
for the weekend, in an expensive, L.L. Bean button-down way.

"Aren't they, though."

"You sell them on Queen Street? Your finds, I mean?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes at auction. How's the uke?"

"Oh, I got it all tuned up," he said, and smiled the same smile he'd given me
when he'd taken hold of it at Goodwill. "I can play 'Don't Fence Me In' on it."
He looked at his feet. "Silly, huh?"

"Not at all. You're into cowboy things, huh?" As I said it, I was overcome with
the knowledge that this was "Billy the Kid," the original owner of the cowboy
trunk. I don't know why I felt that way, but I did, with utter certainty.

"Just trying to re-live a piece of my childhood, I guess. I'm Scott," he said,
extending his hand.

_Scott?_ I thought wildly. _Maybe it's his middle name?_ "I'm Jerry."

The Upper Canada Brewery sale has many things going for it, including a beer
garden where you can sample their wares and get a good BBQ burger. We gently
gravitated to it, looking over the tables as we went.

"You're a pro, right?" he asked after we had plastic cups of beer.

"You could say that."

"I'm an amateur. A rank amateur. Any words of wisdom?"

I laughed and drank some beer, lit a cigarette. "There