When you are obsessed with flea market culture, sifting through the detritus of society looking for choice nuggets that somehow fell through the cracks, you end up seeing some pretty bizarre shit. Not "oh wow that is so cool" bizarre shit, but the kind of stuff that defies logic - like, "who donated this, whose decision was it to put it on the shelf for sale, and who in the world would buy it?" bizarre shit. Things like used underwear and used toiletries spring immediately to mind.
I've seen a jar of used toothbrushes - 5 cents each. Maybe the intention was that they be used for engine detailing? That must have been it. Right? I've seen stained panties/briefs next to half-empty boxes of tampons so old the wrappers have yellowed. Wigs are fairly common - the fake hair of dead women. But I've also seen false teeth. Less common.
Are there really people so hard up for a (dentally intended) toothbrush that they would resort to purchasing one SO used that the bristles have begun to fan out? Or so desperate for teeth that they'd buy a set second-hand? And are these stores really so hard up for merchandise that they couldn't afford to just throw this sort of stuff away?
But all of these things pale in comparison to the family photos I have seen during my years of flea market bottom feeding. Granted, they aren't literally disgusting in the same way that false teeth are, but they are, in their own way, more disturbing. I get it that, when grandma dies, you give her wig to the flea market so that it may continue to serve its intended purpose, albeit on someone else's head. But family photos are personal and the ones that end up for sale in a flea market come loaded with subtext.
Take the photo above, a recent acquisition of mine from a small church-sponsored thrift store just outside Eureka Springs, AR. I was originally attracted to the photo because of the outdated styles of those pictured. The date in the lower right-hand corner indicates the photo was taken in 1985. 28 years ago.
As I stood there with the photo in my hand, I started to run the math over in my head. I could ball-park the ages of the women at (clockwise from top left), 40, 14, 16, and 18. Which would mean that, today, they would be 68, 42, 44, and 46. Chances are good they are all still alive, out there somewhere in the world. So how did it come to be that their professional family portrait ended up a country flea market? Would any of the women want the picture if it were offered back to them today, or did some horrible event shake and then break the bonds of blood forever? Did it accidentally get dropped into a box of sheets marked "donate," or was it purposefully removed from its place on a wall and tossed into the garbage, only to be plucked from oblivion at the last moment and set on a new path that somehow ended with me? Is it the last physical evidence of these women's existence?
I'll never know.
But the questions kept coming, and I began to feel my own emotional connections forming with the women in the photo, and with the photo itself. I questioned whether I could actually bring the photo to the counter and purchase it, like the woman who had been eyeballing me since I walked in would question my motives as much as I was questioning them. But I decided that if they could sell it, I could buy it. And it wasn't nearly as awkward as I had feared. 50 cents later, it was mine.
I was going to scan it for later use as blog-fodder and then, since it seemed too unceremonious to simply throw it away, I was going to burn it after saying a few words. But after I scanned it something compelled me to hold onto it. It was no big deal to hang onto one photo, after all. One measly little piece of paper. After all, it really may be the last physical evidence that these women ever existed. So I took the photo and put it in a box with my own family photos, claiming them by extension as my own. And I shall bear the burden of their memory, and I shall be the keeper of their lost dreams. It is the least I can do.
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