The Kentucky ghosts in this story are not bereaved spirits made of ectoplasm, and they do not moan. They are southern ghosts, which means they exist on the edge of living consciousness. They exert power, or at least, energy, at odd moments and they affect the living in sometimes useful ways. At other times they can cause a certain amount of misery.
The ghost of Charlie Weaver does not, strictly speaking, haunt; but Charlie is in attendance because of who he was. To Lucky he represented a gentlemanly Old Order that was giving way to a garish New Order. With the loss of Charlie, Lucky understood that history had stumbled and spat forth Wade. Lucky was the kind of man who thought about such things.
When he left the cemetery he headed toward Wade's place telling himself he had an errand. He knew that he mostly went because it was a rare, rare time when his store was closed. He could enjoy a break before reopening.
He drove left from Cave Hill and passed Charlie Weaver's auction rooms. The building stood dusty beneath summer sun. Windows needed washing. Charlie had been slipping these past few months. Although Charlie had departed quietly, his departure had been noticed; even if his ghostliness had not.
Sometimes newspapers get the facts fairly straight. The Courier Journal, rather more informal than The Times, did a front page memorial, second section. The Courier didn't say much about auctions. It just offered a courteous piece in behalf of a courteous man, plus a little bit of history of the kind that meant a lot to Lucky; and in those days, meant a lot to Louisville.
Charlie Weaver had grown when Louisville still ranked as an intimate performance on a small stage. Even back in the early century the city was somewhat raw and spraddle-legged, but Charlie, a gentleman, might not have known that.
He was a cultured Victorian. Had he been wealthy he would have funded missionary societies and museums. He would have done his bit to relieve respectable suffering, though he might have drawn the line at Aid to Fallen Women.
He was born in 1875 and lived a quiet 73 years. Charlie dressed well in suit and tie, although on sale days in winter he wore a houndstooth jacket. In spite of his auctioneering trade his face remained calm. He was a handsome man, not particularly tall, but somehow stately. He sported groomed gray hair, and gray eyes that occasionally seemed light blue. His manner shone deft, but kindly, with a flair for humorous understatement. He married at age 30, and was a man who missed wars; wisely escaping the Cuban adventure, too old for WWI and WWII. He begat and raised children. He was faithful to his faithful wife.
His auction house was geared to dignified days of yore, because his customers (the crowd) took seats in chairs arranged before the sales platform. Grips, including a colored gent named Lester, moved sale items into view; and Charlie's manner somehow imbued even mended crockery with respectability. "Think of the life of this dear old pot, mended now. Mended, perhaps by a gentle lady, or perhaps by some dear old pot . . . ." a chuckle, and, "Do I have an offer?"
Charlie sold whilst seated, and he sold quietly. His was an aristocrat's performance, lightly comic, not a little pious, yet kindly.
His quiet dignity was notable in The Land of the Auctioneer; that is, Kentucky: where tobacco auctioneers chant over burley, where farm boys praise the haunches of swine, where auto auctions are sleek as greased reptiles, and sales of general goods clamor and yelp. Also, flamboyant in Kentucky, many auctioneers carry the title of Colonel. Some actually are Kentucky Colonels. They gain a colonel-hood by contributing to governors who then issue certificates. Charlie, reserved, never went in that direction. How different Wade was, from Charlie.
* * *
As Lucky would soon discover, some ghosts of the time were not southern, but European. Those ghosts do haunt the tale, and they haunt our lives, causing thought, sorrow, and weeping. Those few of us who remain still remember them, and though we no longer weep, or at least not much, we think about them. Those ghosts changed all of us.
Lucky, for instance, had no way of knowing that during the seven weeks from the last day of July to mid-September, his world would flip-flop and land him in darkness. People kept dying. Excessively.
Next door to Wade's auction a neighbor-lady passed and no doubt went to heaven. Her degenerate sons, according to every Bible-thumper in town, then went where souls wish for asbestos underwear. Hers was a grim tragedy, but no one had a hint. When she passed the newspaper carried no traditional obit. It just reported her death at age 67. It did not say where she came from or if there was ever a smile from her, ever a frown, ever a stare. The paper did not mention that she had been quiet and mousy and thin. Her name, folks learned from the newspaper, was Mildred Samuels. She died, folks learned from the newspaper, of complications from extended illness. People who read the report assumed diabetes.
Thus, she remained a mystery. She had been reclusive and foreign in her small house with her two grown sons. Perhaps someone, somewhere in town, knew and remembered her. If so, no one on Bardstown road ever heard from them.
Had there been a complete obit, Lucky would surely have acted, because Lucky, like everyone thoughtful, had reason to absorb newspapers at a time when radio news was trash and television nonexistent. He really could have used that obit.
There was no obit because there was no one to compose it. Mrs. Samuels' sons were not handy with language. The tall son was known as Mr. David (or behind his back 'The Yid') at the local grocery. He spoke fractured and screwed-up English. He looked pale, carried scars from burns, and walked crooked because of a serious limp.
Her other son was small and frail. No one knew his name. He sometimes puttered about the backyard where a sagging garage shielded a scorched garden from the alley. He never went anywhere.
In excess of grief at his mother's death (folks assumed) Mr. David shot himself. In further excess (folks assumed) the younger son wasted away. Their stories will never be fully known, although Lucky would eventually uncover facts surrounding their deaths. Years later, Wade's kid, Jim, full grown, would glean some facts about their histories. It turned out that they were Polish Jews from Warsaw. The full last name was Samuelwicz.
Mildred (her Polish first name was Noemi) Samuelwicz and her husband Jakob (Jake) entered the United States legally in 1938, fleeing fears of Stalin. They worked, and with moderate success.
Mr. David escaped Poland in 1939, made his way to England, and flew a fighter plane until he was shot down and crashed on the English coast. The younger son, Isaac, miraculously survived Treblinka death camp. When they got to Louisville, only their mother was there to greet them. Jakob had died of age and overwork in 1943. The Samuels family had a problem. The two sons were illegal, having entered the U.S. through Mexico.
* * *
Some deaths caused other ghosts of the southern variety. A man named Jolly showed up butchered in an alley beside the Sapphire Top Spot. That proved extra hard for everybody on Jackson St., especially Lucky.
And a country boy from Corbin got himself righteously shot, and that proved hard for everybody on Jackson St., especially Lucky. Ghosts of Jolly and the country boy probably still flit through shadows along Jackson St.