The Pot Thief Who Studied Georgia O'Keeffe Read online

  I’ve settled into the bachelor life. A living space that doesn’t demand much upkeep, my own cooking, which I like, and a workshop for my potting. Women seem to like me more now, but I don’t think it’s because I’ve become less bookish, and I haven’t become taller either. Or sculpted. My only six-pack has Tecate written on it.

  The simple truth is I do better with the ladies now because they have fewer choices. Ask any single woman over thirty-five how often she meets a guy who’s unattached, easy to get along with and has no bad habits.

  Well, I drink a bit more than I should and I steal pots. But no one’s perfect.

  And now I have a nephew who’s like a son, and companionship with Susannah.

  All that’s missing is the S word. I have the occasional fling with a woman, but haven’t yet been flung as far as marriage. I thought about it with Dolly Aguirre, but that didn’t work out.

  As we headed back to Albuquerque, I was thinking about it with Sharice. I like her better than anyone I’ve dated before. Of course, at that point I was still wondering about that list of things she had to deal with one at a time, so maybe—

  “How much is my share?”

  I hadn’t thought about it.

  “What do you think is fair?” I asked her.

  “Ten percent?”

  “That’s pretty low.”

  “All I did is drive.”

  “No. You hatched the plan. And you took the same risk I did. If they discovered I didn’t leave the road just to pee, they would charge both of us with trespassing. Or maybe even espionage.”

  “That’s a stretch. Okay, here’s the wager. If Glad increases sales, I get twenty percent. If not, I settle for ten.”

  17

  Glad came in the next morning and handed me my key.

  “Keep it,” I said. “I have others, and you can let yourself in when I need you to be here.”

  “I’m happy to take a key each time I mind the shop, but I prefer to leave it on the counter and let the door lock behind me as I leave.”

  I understand that having a key to someone else’s place can be discomfiting, so I just nodded my assent.

  He then gave me something much better than a key—$800.

  “You’ve already paid the first month in advance,” I noted.

  “The money is not from me. I sold that small white bowl with the many black lines.”

  “If you’re going to mind the shop, you might as well learn the merchandise. We don’t call those bowls. They’re called ollas. And that line pattern is from the Acoma Pueblo.”

  His pink face reddened with enthusiasm. “Smashing. What are ollas used for?”

  “The glazed ones are used for stews, the unglazed ones for water. But most of the ones made these days aren’t used for anything. They’ve progressed—or perhaps regressed—from utensil to artwork. My friend Susannah said having you cover for me might increase sales, but I didn’t expect it to happen on your first day on duty.”

  “I was a bit jammy, wasn’t I?”

  “Jammy?”

  “You know—outrageously lucky. Here I was, on the job no more than ten minutes, and the first gent through the door makes a purchase.”

  I looked at the cash in my hand. It wouldn’t make a dent in Consuela’s medical bills, but it would keep the lights on.

  The young woman from Acoma who makes those ollas for me also makes ceramic thimbles and cute little coyotes and lizards, but I don’t stock them. I don’t deal in trinkets.

  “Did anyone other than the guy who bought the Acoma olla come in?”

  “There were a few people who looked about but didn’t seem inclined to buy. There were also two people who asked after you.”

  After I what? I was tempted to say, but I guessed he meant “asked about you.”

  “The first one was a red Indian named Martin.”

  I winced. “That phrase is considered offensive these days.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I shall strike it from my vocabulary,” he said earnestly.

  “And the second person who asked about me?”

  “It took a bit of doing to get him to give me his name. Carl Wilkes it is, a dodgy-looking fellow with deep-set eyes and a close-cropped gray beard. Said he hoped to receive a certain pot from you. When I told him you hadn’t yet returned, he said perhaps that was a good sign that your hunting trip was successful. You don’t strike me as a hunter, Hubie.”

  “Only for pots. Considering you’ll be minding the store, I may as well fill you in on a few things. Carl and I are both pot hunters. He used to sell the ones he dug up when he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. Now that he’s retired, he sometimes gets merchandise from me.”

  “He seemed quite anxious to get it in this case.”

  “Yes. He already has a buyer for it. Carl offered me thirty thousand, so the buyer must be willing to pay at least fifty.”

  “Fifty thousand quid for an old pot?”

  “A very old and very rare pot. I’m just as anxious to deliver it to Carl as he is to receive it. That’s why it’s so frustrating that I had my hands on it.”

  I told him about my trip south and the frustrating timing of the MP being there with Susannah when I returned with the pot. In his usual fashion, Glad hung on my every word and asked about every detail. He was an eager and rapid learner, and any reservations I might have had about having someone else involved in what had been a solo act for over twenty years began to dissipate.

  “Did you clean the windows?” I asked him.

  “I thought you were having me on.”

  “If that means joking, then you’re right. Can you mind the place again today? I have some errands to run.”

  He said he would and I left in the Bronco.

  Glad’s mention of Carl had me thinking about cancer survivors. Carl beat melanoma and went right back to doing what he’s always done. Sharice overcame breast cancer, but it changed her entire life. From aspiring dentist to dental hygienist. From Canada to the United States.

  There’s an organization in New Mexico that provides free fly-fishing lessons to survivors of breast cancer. The guys who teach the lessons say the women seem more like sisters than strangers. Evidently, the shared experience creates a bond.

  In one of the things on her list—explaining her post-cancer life—Sharice made it clear to me that she doesn’t want to bond. She wants to forget. Blot it forever from her memory. Which is probably a good thing. Given her lifestyle and wardrobe, I can’t imagine her in waders with a fly rod in one hand and a box of artificial insects in the other.

  When I returned that afternoon just before closing time, Glad seemed so jovial that I thought he’d sold another pot. After a few pleasantries, he asked, “Can you recommend someone who could get my store kitted out at a reasonable price?”

  “‘Kitted out’?”

  “Display cases, clothes racks, that sort of thing.”

  “Yeah, you already met him—Martin. He normally does ironwork, but he’s also an excellent carpenter. He helped me set up this place. And he also provides some of the merchandise. The colorful pot behind you on the second shelf was made by his uncle.”

  “Brilliant. I have another question. Do you mind if I use my shop as a kip and take spit baths until I get sorted?”

  How do you answer a question like that?

  18

  How did you answer it?” Susannah asked that evening.

  We were at our usual table, margaritas in hand, salsa in the metate, chips at the ready. I’d related my conversation with Glad and told her she was in for 20 percent of the Tompiro money. One sale didn’t prove she was right about his minding the store increasing my revenue, but the fact that he made a sale on the first day was a good excuse to give her what she deserved.

  If I could get anything to give.

  “
I told him I couldn’t answer that. Then he said, ‘Excellent,’ and gave me a conspiratorial smile. What do you suppose that means?”

  “Kip, sorted out, spit baths or the smile?”

  “All of the above.”

  “Kip is a nap or sometimes the place where you take it, like crashing on someone’s sofa. Sorted out means getting organized. So he was asking to sleep in the store you’re renting to him until he gets himself organized.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I watch a lot of British sitcoms.”

  “What about the smile?”

  “Easy. When you said you couldn’t answer his question, he took that to mean it wasn’t proper for him to live there, but you were willing to look the other way.”

  “He was right. It’s not a proper place to live. There’s a sink and toilet, but no shower or bath.”

  “That explains the spit bath part.” She laughed. “I remember during lambing season when we spent days and nights out in the fields. My mother told me to take spit baths. When I asked what that was, she said, ‘Take a wet cloth, start at your head and wash down as far as possible. Then start at your feet and wash up as far as possible. Then wait until everyone is out of sight and wash ‘possible.’”

  “Did you sleep on the ground around a campfire and eat beans and bacon for every meal?”

  “We did sleep on the ground, but our chuck wagon had a lot more than beans and bacon.”

  I was trying to decide if she was kidding about the chuck wagon when Martin Seepu joined us and waved for Angie.

  “I came to celebrate your sale of the Acoma olla,” he said to me. Then he said to Angie, “Bring me a Tecate and a bowl of guacamole, and put it on his tab.”

  “How did you know I sold that olla?”

  “It was gone when I dropped in for a powwow.”

  “Powwow is a Narragansett word.”

  “Yeah, but I like the sound of it. Like the beer too, but not as much as Tecate.”

  I thought I saw a hint of a smile.

  Susannah said, “I’m surprised a man would notice one little pot missing.”

  “Native American man,” he added. “We are more attuned to our surroundings.”

  “That’s because there is so little in your surroundings to be attuned to,” I said. The land the federal government allowed Martin’s tribe to retain is acreage no one wanted, mostly devoid of fertile soil.

  “You’re right. That is why our tribe invented the saying ‘Less is more.’”

  “Really?” asked Susannah.

  “Yes. It helps us feel good about you whites taking most of our land.”

  After Angie brought his Tecate and guacamole, Martin looked me over and said, “You took a long walk yesterday searching for pots, and you also worked with clay mortar.”

  I plopped down my margarita and turned to Susannah. “You told him, right?”

  Martin said, “She was with you during the adventure.”

  Now it was Susannah’s turn to plunk down her drink. “What are you—some kind of skin-walking Sherlock?”

  “Elementary, my dear paleface. Your skin is tinged pink from too much sun. I saw Carl Wilkes come out of your store, so I figure he has a buyer and wants you to get the pot.”

  “And my working with clay mortar?”

  “Your fingers are dyed from clay.”

  “That could be from my potting clay.”

  “Wrong color clay.”

  “I’m amazed,” said Susannah, “and impressed.”

  “Don’t get carried away,” I said. “He may know dirt, but he wouldn’t last a day in a food court.”

  “Neither would you,” she said, and we all laughed.

  I met Martin Seepu when an uncharacteristic impulse to be a do-gooder stirred me to volunteer for a program run by the university that matched college students with reservation adolescents in need of tutoring and maybe a little mentoring. Sort of Big Brothers meets Teach for America.

  Martin was a fourteen-year-old dropout. I quickly discovered he had dropped out from boredom rather than lack of academic ability. I was an undergraduate math major at the time, so I tutored him in math even though he wasn’t in school and had no intention of returning. When I warned him that number theory has no practical application, I had to explain to him what that meant. It was the only lesson he ever struggled with. Neither his tribe’s language nor their metaphysics contains a distinction between practical and theoretical. Knowledge is simply knowledge.

  When I got arbitrarily and unjustly kicked out of graduate school for taking pots that it was absolutely and totally legal to take at the time (not that it bothers me anymore), I decided to become a pottery merchant. Martin was a nineteen-year-old five-foot-six-inch stump of muscle by that time. He helped me turn my derelict building into a shop and residence. I asked him if he was interested in doing the same for Glad.

  “What does he need done?”

  “He said he wanted the place kitted out. Glad’s a nice guy, but he really needs to learn how to speak English.”

  “He is English,” said Susannah. “It’s his language. We’re the ones who don’t speak it properly.”

  I shook my head. “We booted them out two hundred years ago. If he’s going to live here, he needs to speak our language.”

  “That’s what we should have told the Pilgrims,” said Martin. “But we learned English instead and look where that got us.”

  “Kitted out means fixed up, fully equipped,” said Susannah.

  “Sure,” said Martin, “I can do that. How much is he paying?”

  “He said he wanted someone who would do it at a reasonable price.”

  “Sounds like another case of working for beads, but I’ll talk to him.”

  I saw Glad approaching our table from over Martin’s shoulder. Actually, he was approaching from the door—it was just my vision that was over Martin’s shoulder.

  “You can do it now,” I said to Martin, and to Glad, “Please join us. I’ll stand you a drink.”

  Martin said, “‘Stand you a drink’?”

  “It’s real English for ‘buy you one.’”

  Glad took a seat and said, “As Oscar Wilde said, ‘We are two nations divided by a common language.’”

  “I thought that was Churchill.”

  “I thought it was George Bernard Shaw,” Susannah said.

  Glad shook his head. “Definitely Wilde. Wrote something like it in The Canterville Ghost in 1887, but I don’t doubt that both Shaw and Churchill said something similar. A long list of people have paraphrased it.”

  “I’ll add to that list,” said Martin. “We are one people resisting a common language.”

  “I say we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Gladwyn Farthing, but people call me Glad.”

  “My English name is Martin.”

  They shook hands awkwardly.

  “English name. So you have another one in your native tongue?”

  Martin nodded and took a sip of Tecate.

  After an awkward moment of silence, Glad said, “Did I say something cheeky?”

  Before anyone could respond, Angie arrived to take Glad’s order.

  “I’ll have a pink gin,” he said.

  “I don’t think we have that brand.”

  “It’s not a brand—it’s a color,” he said.

  “All our gin is clear except for the Hendricks, which has a green tint because of the cucumbers.”

  “Sorry. I seem to have made a complete bollocks of my order. What I want is a few ounces of gin with a splash of bitters, no ice and by all means no cucumbers.”

  Angie smiled and said, “You’re actually going to drink that?”

  Susannah ordered a second margarita, Martin stopped with the one Tecate as he usually does, and we all laughed as we talked a
bout drink names and English phrases.

  The next day was Saturday, and one of my informal scouts had told me there might be some special Indian pottery on the tables at the big flea market at the State Fairgrounds. I pulled Glad aside as we were all leaving and told him I would probably require his shop minding three or four times a month. But for this month, the three days would be consecutive since I wanted to go to the flea market.

  19

  The second reason I didn’t want to mind the shop on Saturday was I had a date with Sharice.

  “Adam Lippes,” she said, anticipating my question as I stared at the silk blouse with cut-in shoulders.

  “Sounds English.”

  “American. He got his start with Oscar de la Renta.”

  “Finally a designer I’ve actually heard of. And the jeans?”

  “Another designer you’ve probably heard of—Levi Strauss.”

  She uncorked a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noir and slid it into an ice bucket, a phrase that hardly does justice to the shimmering Nambé cylinder on her table. Benz leapt onto the table and sniffed at the Gruet. Then he rubbed his nose with a paw. The bubbles probably tickled.

  “Tonight we’re having arctic char.”

  “Which is what—burned polar bear?”

  She giggled. “It’s fish. I’m going to sauté it in blood orange suprêmes and cognac.”

  “You sound so sexy speaking French.”

  “You’d say the same thing if I spoke Míkmaq.”

  “Or paddywhack, whatever that is.”

  “It’s a nuchal ligament in the neck of a sheep.”

  “Probably not as tasty as arctic char. And you know about this knuckle ligament how?”

  “Not knuckle—nuchal. We dissected sheep necks in dental school. Easier to get than human necks.”

  “Can we change the subject?”

  “Sure—kiss me.”

  I did. Enthusiastically. Images of sheep necks vanished.

  Suprêmes turned out to be sections of the orange with the membranes removed. I asked her if blood orange membranes taste bad.