I waved my card._Craphound

"That's thirty to you sir."

"Forty," Craphound said.

"Fifty," I said even before the auctioneer could point back to me. An old pro,

he settled back and let us do the work.

"One hundred," Craphound said.

"One fifty," I said.

The room was perfectly silent. I thought about my overextended MasterCard, and

wondered if Scott/Billy would give me a loan.

"Two hundred," Craphound said.

Fine, I thought. Pay two hundred for those. I can get a set on Queen Street for

thirty bucks.

The auctioneer turned to me. "The bidding stands at two. Will you say two-ten,

sir?"

I shook my head. The auctioneer paused a long moment, letting me sweat over the

decision to bow out.

"I have two -- do I have any other bids from the floor? Any other bids? Sold,

$200, to number 57." An attendant brought Craphound the glasses. He took them

and tucked them under his seat.

I was fuming when we left. Craphound was at my elbow. I wanted to punch him --

I'd never punched anyone in my life, but I wanted to punch him.

We entered the cool night air and I sucked in several lungfuls before lighting a

cigarette.

"Jerry," Craphound said.

I stopped, but didn't look at him. I watched the taxis pull in and out of the

garage next door instead.

"Jerry, my friend," Craphound said.

"_What_?" I said, loud enough to startle myself. Scott, beside me, jerked as

well.

"We're going. I wanted to say goodbye, and to give you some things that I won't

be taking with me."

"What?" I said again, Scott just a beat behind me.

"My people -- we're going. It has been decided. We've gotten what we came for."

Without another word, he set off towards his van. We followed along behind,

shell-shocked.

Craphound's exoskeleton executed another macro and slid the panel-door aside,

revealing the cowboy trunk.

"I wanted to give you this. I will keep the glasses."

"I don't understand," I said.

"You're all leaving?" Scott asked, with a note of urgency.

"It has been decided. We'll go over the next twenty-four hours."

"But _why_?" Scott said, sounding almost petulant.

"It's not something that I can easily explain. As you must know, the things we

gave you were trinkets to us -- almost worthless. We traded them for something

that was almost worthless to you -- a fair trade, you'll agree -- but it's time

to move on."

Craphound handed me the cowboy trunk. Holding it, I smelled the lubricant from

his exoskeleton and the smell of the attic it had been mummified in before

making its way into his hands. I felt like I almost understood.

"This is for me," I said slowly, and Craphound nodded encouragingly. "This is

for me, and you're keeping the glasses. And I'll look at this and feel. . ."

"You understand," Craphound said, looking somehow relieved.

And I _did_. I understood that an alien wearing a cowboy hat and sixguns and

giving them away was a poem and a story, and a thirtyish bachelor trying to

spend half a month's rent on four glasses so that he could remember his

Grandma's kitchen was a story and a poem, and that the disused fairground

outside Calgary was a story and a poem, too.

"You're craphounds!" I said. "All of you!"

Craphound smiled so I could see his gums and I put down the cowboy trunk and

clapped my hands.

Scott recovered from his shock by spending the night at his office, crunching

numbers talking on the phone, and generally getting while the getting was good.

He had an edge -- no one else knew that they were going.

He went pro later that week, opened a chi-chi boutique on Queen Street, and

hired me on as chief picker and factum factotum.

Scott was not Billy the Kid. Just another Bay Street shyster with a cowboy

jones. From the way they come down and spend, there must be a million of them.

Our draw in the window is a beautiful mannequin I found, straight out of the

Fifties, a little boy we call The Beaver. He dresses in chaps and a Sheriff's

badge and sixguns and a miniature Stetson and cowboy boots with worn spurs, and

rests one foot on a beautiful miniature steamer trunk whose leather is worked

with cowboy motifs.

He's not for sale at any price.

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<dc:title>Craphound</dc:title>

<dc:date>1998-3-1</dc:date>

<dc:description>A science-fiction short story by Cory Doctorow about

alien thrift-store enthusiasts, from the short story collection "A Place

So Foreign and Eight More," published by Four Walls Eight Windows press in

September, 2003 (ISBN: 1568582862)</dc:description>

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<dc:title>Cory Doctorow</dc:title>

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<dc:title>Cory Doctorow</dc:title>

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