Summary • Characters • Story • Home

The Click of Death
by Jim Hern

Jim – a middle-aged man living in the suburbs, works as a Mid-West regional delivery man for a snack vendor. He is well-kept, clean and an average looking guy. Delivers to quick-marts and grocery stores in just about every town for a 300 mile radius. He doesn’t make a lot of money but works hard to make end meet for his family. Collects just about anything and is a pack-rat. Randomly visits Garage-Sales and antique shops to find “cool” items. A bright man, caring and somewhat whimsical he loves to meet people on his deliveries and travels. He invites adventure into his life by searching out stories. He seems to buy collectibles to remind him of the places he’s been.

Scene:
Driving his delivery truck in some small-town, Jim sees a thrift shop and can’t resist the urge to stop and check out the “goods” within. He rummages through items and finds a few relics and treasures.
Scene:
In a dark, cluttered room, surrounded by gadgets, nick-nacs and small collectables, a man sits in front of his computer. Only the light from a small desk lamp and the computer monitor illuminates the keyboard and the immediate desk area in front of  him. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is playing on a small TV screen peeking through stacks of newspapers and magazines. The man is frantically filling out a spreadsheet of scheduled deliveries and trying to balance his check-book based on the entries.
“Did it sell on Ebay?” TV host (Jay Leno) asks his Friday-night studio audience. “No” The audience yells as a crowd. A potato shaped like Abe Lincoln is the item listed on Ebay. “Well let’s see if you are right” TV Host says, as he turns to his monitor behind him. A gigantic YES appears on the screen and in red letters, the price of $34.00. The crowd responds with laughter and TV Host  adds “There is a buyer for just about anything on Ebay!”
Although not fully paying attention to the TV, Jim shakes his head in disbelief over the item purchased.
“Hey, here’a a pair of socks claimed to be worn by Kevin Costner! They’re asking $12.00 for the starting bid.” TV Host announces. “Did it sell on Ebay?” He asks…
The phone rings. Jim looks at the caller I.D. and answers. It was his boyhood friend Bill who seems to always be there for Jim but has his own life as well. They try to get together when possible. Bill is a realtor from the same small town that Jim lives in and knows the area pretty well.
“Hey what’s up” Jim asks. “Just finishing-up some things for my route and getting ready to go to bed.” He adds as he is watching the TV.
 “I would love to go to the lake tomorrow, it sounds like fun,  but I have to run some weekend routes. I just had the transmission fixed on the truck and I’ve GOT TO  pick up this extra…” he stops abruptly. “SOLD for $125.00!” yells TV Host with excitement.
 “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jim yells. “No not you Bill!” he says “These idiots buy some pretty stupid crap on Ebay!”
As he is looking at the TV in amazement, Jim notices some old political buttons hanging on the wall behind the TV. Continuing his phone conversation about his lake trip the next day, he pulls one of the buttons off the wall and begins to look it over. Glancing back to the TV periodically, he holds the phone with his shoulder and turns to the computer. Pre-occupied with the Ebay story on TV, and now the computer, he randomly agrees and comments to his friend on the phone.
“What do you think a (Jimmy Carter) campaign button is worth?” Jim asks. “Great condition. No rust. No dents. Pretty good color.” He replies to the obvious question.
After a short pause, he responds “$20 bucks? Really? Well let’s just see about that.” Jim begins to look at the other buttons with a sudden excitement of value.
“Hey dude, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I think I’m gonna set up an Ebay account and see what happens with this button.”

Saturday. Returning from his extra weekend route, Jim enters the room, turns on the desk-lamp and the TV. He sits down at his computer and logs into his Ebay account only to see that no bids were received on his political button. Maybe a $10 starting bid was too much. He knows that most people wait for the last minute to bid on items they want, and since he has 7-days left on the auction, he is not too disappointed. He continues filling in his route schedule for Monday.

Monday. Still in his delivery uniform, Jim enters the room, turns on the desk-lamp and the TV. He sits down at his computer and logs into his Ebay account. Still no bites! “Maybe this is a waste of time.” He thinks to himself.
Just then, the TV has a breaking news story. “The beloved (Jimmy Carter) has died at the age of 91 in his home from complications due to a recent illness.” The report announces. “The country will observe a moment of silence on Tuesday…” the reporter continued.
Jim was very interested in this development because of his listing. He slowly turned to the computer monitor. He looked at his “bids” of zero and wondered to himself if this would affect the price. In amazement, he watches as a bid comes in. $11.00 was the bid. He grinned. Then he thought of how morbid this was that he is grinning because of the death of someone. The bid counter went up again! $12.00, and then $13.00! “C’mon, he was 91! He had to go sometime.” He said to himself to relieve the feelings of guilt.
The TV, in the background, is showing interviews with friends of the deceased and the claims of how he was a great man, he was a fantastic leader, it was unexpected and that he will be missed, played over and over.

Jim picks up the phone to call his friend and tell him about the button and how it has suddenly started getting hits. He thinks that he may get the $20 bucks after all. They revert to conversation about an unrelated matter and eventually turn-in for the evening.

Thursday. Jim enters the room, turns on the desk-lamp and the TV. He sits down at his computer and logs into his Ebay account. The bids on his political button have increased to $38.00 and he still had a full day left for this auction!
“OK, I paid 50-cents for this button at a garage-sale and here it is going for almost 40-bucks!” he says out loud as he begins to look around his room. Some baseball cards, old coke-bottles, a train an d even some toys from the 60’s were items on just one shelf of his cluttered room. “I’ll bet that there could be thousands of dollars sitting around me!” he exclaimed in a boastful, yet inquisitive manner.

Friday. After a long day,Jim was pleased to find the winning bid for $42.50 for his political button!
He began to list several different items. A lionel train car, a “collectable” basket, even a ticket-stub from a  past “World-Series” game. “What the heck?” he thinks aloud as he sets up the auctions. He starts to tally a list of items on a spreadsheet with a column of what he paid for it, what it might go for in the “worst case” scenario and what it could possibly go for based on other items that sold before on Ebay. “If I am doing my math right,” he thought “I could pay for the repairs on the truck with this stuff!” He grins, looks at his watch and shuts down everything for the night

Jim has a renewed sense for memorabilia and “junk” on his delivery routes. In the following days after his first “windfall” from ebay, he finds himself stopping at antique shops, sports collectible stores and even garage sales to pick up items for the newly discovered source of income. He found photos, baseball cards, toys and even a few articles of clothing that would probably catch a few bucks. “I think I’ve got an eye for this stuff” he said aloud as he picked up an old toy truck from a neighborhood garage-sale table. “Jimmy, is that you?” said an old man from across the yard. “Why you sure have grown!” the old man exclaimed. “Mr. Miller?” Jim replied. “You look great. How are you feeling these days?” The old man grinned, put up his fists and said “Still strong enough to tan your hide for hittin that baseball through my window a few years ago!”
“That was probably twenty-years ago Mr. Miller” Jim chuckled.
“I don’t forget much, I’m 72, not 172!” the old man said as he hopped a little jig. “And quick as a jack rabbit I am!”
“How much for the truck?” Jim asked.
“Oh, that was mine when I was just a lad,…I’ll let it go for five bucks.” The old man said.
“A bargain! I’ll take it.” Jim said excited about the score!
Shortly following some conversation about the sale items, and a few war stories, Jim headed back home with an armload of toys and some military memorabilia. “Transmission payment Here I Come!” he said as he put a little spring in his step heading down the block.

A few more listings finished their auctions and  the checks started coming in. It seemed as though this was too easy. Although some of the items did better than others, he was still selling them for more than he paid! The transmission bill was paid and he started to actually pay a couple of past-due credit card bills. As the weeks went by, it seemed as though the money he was making from his Ebay listings was catching up with his delivery route pay. He began to deliver a lot less snack material, but bring home more “junk” for ebay.

One afternoon, Jim received a call from Mrs. Miller down the street. She was distraught but managed to tell Jim of the sad passing of her husband a week earlier. She remembered Jim being at their garage sale and how he liked the toys and military items. She offered a box of the items to him just because she didn’t want them around anymore. “Here, you take them” she said holding back tears “He enjoyed telling you the stories and you were about the only person who ever listened to him.” She looked away and began to turn “I’ll miss him” she said quietly as she walked away.

Jim felt terrible that he was too wrapped up into all of the Ebay stuff that he missed Mr. Millers funeral, but now he has even more “top-notch” items that will bring some big bucks! “He would have wanted me to do this.” Jim told himself as he logged them on his, now extensive spreadsheet of Ebay items.

One item after another, Jim actually built enough savings to comfortably quit his job! He bought the truck outright and continued some of his same routes finding treasures and listening to stories from the sellers along the way.

Jim was showing his friend Bill, some of the items in his most recent listings. An old wedding dress, a door from an old remodeled house. “Everything has a price!” he quoted the late night TV host saying how people will buy just about anything!
“You mean to tell me these things actually sell on EbaY” Bill asked. “and this is how you paid for your truck?”
“Yep!” Jim answered with pride “and it paid for that Plasma TV, these shoes, and for the first time in my adult life, I can say I owe NO credit card company anything!”

Bill leaned over and looked at the list on his computer screen. Jim had items categorized by age, by shipping weight, even by geographic origin! “Some buyers ask the weirdest questions, so you gotta know this stuff.” Jim said to Bill from across the room.

“Dude, that’s sad.” Bill said with a somber tone.
“What?” Jim said while walking back to the computer.
“This was Tommy Walkers baby stroller right here right?” Bill said as he pointed to the screen.
“Yeah, his mom was selling all of the baby stuff, stroller, playpen and a couple of toys. She said he was too old for it and they weren’t planning on having any more kids, so I bought it, and turned around and made about 75 bucks on that junk!” Jim said with a boastful nature.
Bill turned to Jim “Tommy died last week in a car accident. His mom is still in the hospital.”
“Wow, I had no idea.” Jim said as he turned to the screen. “I feel bad for them”
“Kinda weird selling something of a dead persons isn’t it?”
“I sold that two weeks ago!” Jim said defensively “It’s not like I’m selling it today”
Bill kept peering down through the list. “It’s hard to believe that this stuff would have any value. A ball glove, some glasses, jeesh, you even have a wig on here for Gods’ sake!”
“I know. It seems weird, but look at these checks and tell me people won’t buy it!” Jim said as he pointed to his daily mail stack.
“Well, I gotta go, hey I’ve got some old albums. Do you think you could sell ‘em for me?” Bill asked as he headed out the door.
“Bring them over, I’ll get rid of them for you.” Jim said as he closed the door behind bill. “Call me tomorrow.” He said and shut the door.
Jim returned to his computer and began to look at the list. Pieces of peoples life are represented in each piece on his list. Memories. Some good, some bad, but money all the same.