devil wood

I grew up at Joe's Auction House on South Pine in a tiny little town, home of Continental Oil Company and the thickest collection of scientists and engineers and brilliant people west of the Mississippi. Joe's was Daddy's escape from the rigors of the lab. Every Wednesday night, he'd load up the three of us and and off we'd go. In my younger years, I'd often fall asleep by 8:00 or 9:00, dozing off on Daddy's lap while the ceiling fans turned overhead and the auctioneer's chant colored my dreams.

The auction house was full of old stuff, used stuff, ordinary household goods. But Daddy was after the antiques and there were plenty of them. It was 1962, the first year I went, and folks rolled their eyes and laughed at my dad as he bought Stickley sideboards for $10 and 1800s American bookcases for $15.

He was after clocks, but he couldn't resist the furniture ~ magnificent solid walnuts and exotic bird's eyes and rich mahoganies of every stripe ~ and so we hauled it home. Sideboards, dressers, beds, chaise longues, roll top desks and clocks and clocks and clocks. The stroke of midnight in the house on Elmwood loosed a cacophony of chimes as German, French, Belgian, American and Canadian tick-tock-ticks gave way to delicate ringing and deep bongs and rapid, quivering dinnnnngs.

I laugh when I tell my customers that I inherited this madness ~ this antiques obsession ~ from my papa, but I did. It is in my blood, this love of old wood, of all things previously owned by another. I can't polish up an antique bed without thinking of where it's been, what it's seen. I imagine these pieces holding fast during the bombing of two world wars, anchoring their families with the solid familiarity of home. I wish they could speak to me, and I sometimes whisper to them as I'm working to make them perfect. I stroke their smooth parts and carefully clean their carved accents. I love them and I let them know. It is a madness.

I am especially enchanted by European furniture, though the exotic American maples are divine and nothing beats a huge golden flake tiger oak. I adore French, but also the sleek and modern English furniture from the '30s and '40s. That style doesn't fit in my house, but pieces like this one still make my heart beat faster:


It is so striking, with that superb golden burled walnut exterior, and this one, this glorious thing, is constructed of almost 1" thick solid oak, with the doors delicately bending to give it that sexy, curvy appeal. It's the inside, though, that just kills me: I want to crawl right into it to live. It reminds me of the tiny little woman who lived in a tree ~ it's a house unto itself, this incredibly well fitted piece ~ and I imagine setting up a miniature home in that glass-fronted drawer.


I never mention to my customers anything that would give away who I really am, me in all of my wild-eyed radicalism and my frothing-at-the-mouth hatred of Rethugs and the Bush crime family. I don't chat about religion, though I thank the (many, many) who promise to pray for me. Who can't use a little prayer?

But I sometimes wonder whether I should say something about the demons that live in this old burled walnut. It makes sense, really. Burled walnut comes from a disease which afflicts the walnut tree, creating this crazy pattern of grain which becomes this most highly sought after of exotic woods. Disease, a bad thing. And as a result of the disease, there he is ~ Beelzebub himself, subtly trying to disguise himself in the doors of the armoire.


Do you see him there? There at the bottom of that door with his evil dark eyes, his quartet of horns? This one is subtle ~ a lesser demon, perhaps ~ less threatening than the darker burls. In the darker toned burled woods, his visage can be frightening, so much so that I hesitate to walk alone down armoire row in the warehouse at night. Devils. Devil wood.

Would you want this pointed out if you were buying a piece from me? I think it would be dreadful to be drifting off to sleep in the twilight, gazing about a well appointed bedroom only to realize that someone was watching, some thing, some creature, a being, alive and angry, glowering from the armoire door. Frightening.

I sell them anyway, always sending them off with a silent prayer that my customers have a little less imagination, are a bit less given to flights of fancy and fear. But I imagine how I would feel, stripping the exterior packaging of my dream armoire, only to find that an evil creature lurked within. I am conflicted. What would you do?