DANDELIONS: The Pottery Thief

After his bankruptcy John Schatz bought a pickup truck. But he lost even this.

He mounted the steps of a city bus, now his principal transportation. Seats were taken and he had to stand for some time. He held a steel pole. The bus swayed and lurched down avenues of ground slush. He eyed his fellow passengers, working people bundled up against the searingly cold day. It was difficult to tell men from women. Ages could only be guessed. No one spoke. All had phones out, scrolling. Schatz was sixty-two years old. The world was not his world. People lost the ability to wait.

He watched commuters step on and off the bus. Masks made things difficult. You could no longer tell if someone was happy or sad, although nearly everyone gave off vibrations of boredom or irritation. They shrank from each other. Or made way grudgingly, standing and sitting quickly, absorbed in their phones. As usual, Schatz stood out. He liked people.

He was especially happy this afternoon. He had that rarity, a business appointment. And rarer still, an appointment with Reba.

The bus deposited him at Broadway and Central. He walked down steel steps to a parking lot. The Wayne Arts Cooperative occupied a reclaimed auto parts warehouse, with exposed wood beams and ventilation conduits painted red. Having arrived early, he waited in the sun-filled, high-ceilinged atrium, sitting on a vinyl bench. He watched female artists come inside from the windy January cold, unspooling knit scarves and opening coats, like flowers warming in the sun. Their masks were a tragedy. At one minute to four he stood and walked up two flights of concrete steps, past an open studio where a woman played the flute, then down the wide concrete hall to a mounted, galvanized sign reading Suite 304, Rebel Pots.

The rolling, ceiling-mounted doors were open. A young woman he had never seen before stood untying a smock. Pretty, black eyes looked out from above a mask.

“Hello,” John said.

“Hi,” the girl said, uncertainly. She looked back into the shop.

“And you are…?”

“Just leaving,” Reba called. She emerged, wiping her hands on an ochre-stained towel. “She’s off at four.”

“How unfortunate,” John Schatz said.

“Not really.” She threw down the towel. “Li-Li, this is Mr. Schatz.”

“John,” he said. “No need to make me any older. Or more important.”

“Li-Li is new,” said Reba. “So don’t bother her.”

“Why would I do that?”

“By asking a lot of questions.”

“I only have one question.” He smiled under his mask, considering the girl. “Are you an artist?”

Reba answered for her. “Of course. Why do you think she’s here?”

“You’re right,” said Schatz. “I’m a little slow, Li-Li. But I know furniture. And décor.”

The light was fading in the high shop windows. After Li-Li zipped her down jacket and found her backpack Reba all but pushed her out the door. Schatz bade her a merry goodbye, handing her a card. Don’t forget, he repeated. Furniture and pottery go together. “We’re one big family, actually. If you ever want to know about our industry, I am an expert. You’ve heard of Lock and Key, haven’t you?”

The girl nodded.

“I’m the founder.”

“See you tomorrow, Li-Li,” Reba said. Once the girl was safely down the hall she turned to Schatz. “Oh, John. Aren’t you ever late?”

“Never.”

He took off his own coat, instantly shifting his attention to a table of newly-displayed pots. When he put on his dark-framed glasses he looked, to Reba, a bit like Anderson Cooper. If Anderson Cooper were older, or had a short beard, or made you vaguely impatient.

He walked along a row of larger pots, commenting. One vase, he said, had a “Byzantine, even Persian aspect”. Another employed an “oversized handle that perfectly balances the neck”. One of his least irritating facets was the precision of his observations.

“Oh, I like this,” he said, studying a large pale green pot, very pale green, almost white. It was thirty inches high with a flowing, irregular lip. Not quite touching, he ran a hand over the surface in his distinctive way, absorbing its qualities. He pointed. “The line beginning here,” he said. “Establishes symmetry.”

Reba came close. “It does?”

“Not right away. You have to wait for it.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“It’s not your job.”

“What is my job?”

“To be beautiful.”

She’d fallen for it again. What a salesman he was! “I thought,” she said. “The neck a little long.”

“Not all.” He gave the pot a quarter turn. “See how it pulls from the foot, the belly.” He paused. “It just occurred to me. When we talk of vases, we speak in terms of the human form.”

“We do?”

“Foot. Lip. Belly.” His eyes were warm and brown. “How entrancing.”

“Yes, John. Anyway…”

“I’ll take it.”

“You haven’t asked the price.”

“I don’t need to. Whatever you think.”

“You’re the one who knows the market.”

“Indeed. But I can’t price inspiration.”

Schatz had a way of turning any transaction into an ordeal. “Two-fifty,” she said.

“Make it five hundred, and I think you can get more.” He routinely sold her work for more than she asked. He took out a check book.

“Put that away,” Reba said. “Mail me a check when it sells.” She knew Schatz had no money. And since the bankruptcy his credit had fallen to nothing. He would never admit as much. He was simply incapable of defeat.

“If you insist.” He put the checks away. “It will save on bookkeeping.”

Schatz hung around another hour. The two of them at all times at all times sat or stood six feet apart. Covid required almost more than Schatz could endure. And who knew when it would end? When would they ever shake hands again? Or brush cheeks, once on each side, a gesture he picked up on his many trips to Europe? Perhaps these were gone forever, the rituals of touching, of placing a hand on shoulders, of taking arms as one made an intimate point or guided customers, both men and women, around displays.

He could talk décor endlessly, pottery, wall art, discussing trends. Finally Reba persuaded him to leave. It was late. Like St. Petersburg, Russia, night comes early to Minneapolis in January. He found his coat and took up the pot.

“Do you want me to find a box?” Reba asked.

“I’ll carry it down. I have a blanket in the Mercedes.”

He didn’t own watches. He owned TAG Heuers. He didn’t own cars. He owned Mercedes Benzes. Cradling the vase he left slowly, with many pauses and comments, a pitcher he liked over here, a plate over there, unwilling to part from her exquisite, intoxicating disdain.

The night was inky black. Schatz had missed the last Express. He walked a few blocks to Washington, but missed the next bus by a minute and had to wait another half hour. The pot grew cold in his hands. He wore a knit cap, striped, with ear flaps and a rather foolish tassel. Three or four working people filtered in, tough-looking young men carrying lunch coolers. The Plexiglas shelter had benches, but it was much too cold to sit.

With a whine the bus ground to a stop. They stepped aboard. Schatz sat with the pot in his lap. No one paid any attention.

It certainly was dark. The streetlights made umbrellas of light, leaving pale circles on the sidewalk. Twenty minutes later Schatz pulled the cord and got off the bus at Lowry Avenue, still six blocks from his room, but as close as he would get. Two men followed.

He passed a bar. The men behind lit cigarettes. Schatz thought they would enter the bar, but they continued behind him. It was a dark residential street of off-white, weather-beaten duplexes and fourplexes. Battered cars sat along the cub, or were parked in frozen yards.

“Hey, buddy,” one said.

He made a mistake. He knew it, then. He should have stayed on Lowry. Or entered the bar a block away. Anything but keep walking up the dark street.

“Hey, buddy. What are you carrying?” A better question would have been, Hey buddy. How did you get this old and this stupid?

Charm wouldn’t help him now. Schatz turned around.

“What you got?” The man pointed his cigarette.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Schatz stood calmly.

“It don’t look like nothing.”

“Oh, this?” He held the pot up. “This is just a piece of junk I found.”

“Ya hear that? He found it.” The two were a team. They moved, gestured and spoke as a team. The other man said, “You mean, you stole it.”

“Sure. I’m a thief.”

“He’s funny.”

“Real funny.”

They threw down cigarettes and walked toward him. “Maybe you got something we can steal.”

“Maybe not.” Schatz said, stepping back. It was a game where you could say anything. You could say you were going to Disneyworld. Or Berlin. Because it made no difference what anyone said.

“Just give us your wallet,” the man on the right said.

“And your phone,” the other said. They were young, broad-faced, with dark jackets and hoods.

“You are mistaken,” said Schatz. “Now consider this vase. See how the artist has shaped the line here? It rises from foot to…” He stopped, looking behind them. “Are those your friends?”

They both turned. Schatz threw the pot as hard as he could. It glanced off the man on the right and bounced off the other man’s chest, then cracked against the pavement. Schatz ran. He could hear one of the men behind running hard, the smack of his feet, not yelling. Yelling would have been okay.

Schatz had jogged three miles that morning. He ran every morning. He knew if he was not caught within a hundred yards he would easily outdistance any man who smoked, and this is what happened. He turned at the next corner, and saw his pursuer further back, still coming on but laboring. In another block Schatz’s footsteps were the only sound. He dropped into a fast trot, turning corners, zigzagging back. Ten minutes later he mounted the steps of his house.

It was not his house, of course. He would never own anything in such a shabby neighborhood. The screen banged behind. On the porch were two doors and he went through the left and climbed stairs. At the top were two more doors. He unlocked the second and walked into his room.

He didn’t call the police. He didn’t do anything. He sat in the dark in his jacket.

At midnight he descended the stairs and made his way back to Lowry Avenue. He did not see another person. On the pavement lay Reba’s vase, broken into three jagged pieces. After collecting the pieces he walked home. Once upstairs, he wrapped the broken vase in newspaper and masking tape. It made a sad bundle. He was hardly unhappy. Reba was an expert at repairing pottery. Soon, he would see her again.