Too Little, Too Late

Today, I sold my father’s watch.

If you’d asked me last week, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if my father was even alive, let alone that he owned a watch. I watched, detachedly, as the pawn broker rifled through the small cigar box of junk my father had left me. Aside from the watch, there were a few chains, a brooch that I hoped he hadn’t stolen, and two plain wedding bands that might have been gold, among a nest of worthless ephemera. Faded tickets to a Supertramp concert, a tiny book bound in folded interlocking gum wrappers he’d made while in prison(I’d received one just like it for my eighth birthday, along with a letter asking me to tell my mom he still loved her), three mostly used books of matches, a few faded receipts, and a molar made up the rest of the box’s contents. I’d thrown the tooth in the trash bin before walking into the shop. No reason to punish the pawn broker.

I wasn’t expecting much from the sale. All I knew was that I didn’t want any of this junk in my house. And, if it payed for a cup of coffee, that would have been, to date, more than my father had ever done for me. I’d asked him in a letter once, when I was in my early twenties, as he neared the end of a prison sentence and I neared the end of my first marriage, if he would try to stay clean this time so we could have a real relationship. He’d told me it was too late for that. For years it had been too soon, Alan had been too young to slow down, to stop having fun, and in the blink of an eye, it had become too late. I’d stopped writing him soon after that.

I had seen him one day, a few years after that. I’d just accidentally been at my mom’s house when he’d decided to try to weasel his way back into her heart. It had only been an awkward annoyance at the time, and I didn’t feel any great loss at not seeing him again after that. The man who had wreaked havoc on my young mother’s life, in the end, was nothing more to me than a distant acquaintance. It had been an uncomfortable, annoying surprise when the box was delivered with a letter explaining that, in his final hours, he’d asked that these, his only worldly possessions, be delivered to me after his burial.

The man behind the counter jotted notes, from time to time, in a small black notebook as he appraised the items. The watch was the last piece he pulled from the box. I hadn’t actually looked at it before I came into the shop, but now I noticed an inscription as the broker held it up to inspect the face.

To Alan, My Everything, Beth

At least in reading his name there, I could say with some certainty that the watch wasn’t stolen. I didn’t know who Beth was, but apparently she had loved him. I pitied her and doubted he’d held on to her love for very long. The broker took longer on this watch than he had on any other item he’d looked at. He turned it over and back a few times, then excused himself to check something on his computer in the back room.

Hmhph. Maybe it is stolen, after all.

When the broker appeared several minutes later and told me I could probably sell the watch for “just north of twenty thousand bucks,” my very first instinct was to make a dash for the door, that he was trying to stall me while he waited for the cops he’d no doubt called.

I heard myself tell the man, “um, no. There’s no way my dad had anything that was worth that kind of money. It’s definitely a fake.” Anything that was worth anything was snorted, shot up or destroyed in Alan’s hands.

“Ya know, judging from the other crap you’ve got here, I’d’a guessed the same thing.” He chuckled. “I don’t think it is a fake, though. Either way, I’ve got a guy that knows more about time pieces.” The broker tore a page from his worn little notebook before returning it to his shirt pocket. “Here’s his number. He’s expecting your call, if you really do wanna sell it. I can’t afford to buy it from you right now, but I’m pretty sure he could.”

I held the scrap of paper in my hand, not sure what to say. After a few seconds, my eyes flitted back over to the box.

“Ah. Ok, yeah,” he pulled out his notebook again, “I can do $180 for everything else, box included if you like.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s great.”

“You want an envelope or something for the concert tickets? They look like they’re about as old as you!”

“Nah. Chuck ‘em.”

Two hours later I walked out of the watchmaker’s shop with a check for just over twenty thousand dollars and a craving for coffee.