The Sale

“Twiggy Ramirez, what is all of this?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to weave a path through the hazard that had once been our living room.
“Just doing a bit of cleaning, like you asked me to do” the bassist smiled up at me from his knees, where he was hovering over a pile of winter coats.
“Twiggs, it’s summer. I don’t think you need to worry about winter coats. I meant to round up the things we could get rid of now.”
“I’m getting rid of everything we don’t need. Once is enough to clean all of this up, thank you.”
“Well, it’s about time,” I grumbled, kicking at a pair of snow shoes that were blocking my path to the kitchen.
“Wanna help me?” Twiggy called as I took a bottle of water from the fridge.
I sighed. I didn’t want to help, but I knew that he’d suck me in one way or another, anyway, so I might as well admit defeat right now. “Fine.”
“Do we have boxes? Or paper bags?”
I nodded. “I’ll go get some boxes from the garage. Try not to spread this stuff out any more. I can hardly move in here.”
Twiggy continued pitching things out of the closet he was sorting through, completely oblivious to what I’d said.
By the time I came back with a stack of boxes, I couldn’t even find my friend beneath the piles of junk. “Twiggy! Where are you?”
“Here!” He popped up from beneath a giant plastic saucer sled.
“What are you doing?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s box some of this up.”
Together, we chose things that were alike in some way, and began packing them into boxes. It didn’t take long with two of us working, and when we’d cleaned up the mess, we had seven boxes full of old junk. And that was just from one room and two closets.
“We’re going to need to rent a moving van just to take this stuff out of here,” I teased him.
“What if we didn’t haul it away?”
I rolled my eyes. “We have to get rid of this stuff. We can’t just box it and put it in the garage. We’re never going to use it, and it’s just taking up space.”
“How did we get this much stuff, anyway? We’ve only lived here a year and a half. I don’t even remember half of these things.”
I looked around me. “I don’t, either.”
Twiggy grunted as he shoved the last box against the wall. “There’s another load in my room.”
“Great.” I went out to the garage for more boxes.
By the time we’d finished for the night, we had twenty boxes full, and we hadn’t even tackled the whole house yet.
“You know, I think we should have a yard sale,” Twiggy said, between bites of his dinner.
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably, but what’s wrong with having a yard sale?”
“No way am I going through all of that work. Besides, who would come to a yard sale in Hollywood Hills?”
“Lots of people. We could…”
I held up my hand to silence him. “No. Absolutely not. We’re donating all of this junk.”
“What if we made it a fundraiser?”
“For what?” He had an interesting mind. There was no telling what he’d come up with.
“I don’t know. Whatever you want.”
“I want to forget about it. Eat your dinner. I have a date in an hour.”
“At least think about it.”
“Fine.” As long as he would shut up about it for now, I really didn’t care what I agreed to.
Twiggy happily cleared the table and set to work on the dishes while I prepared for my date.
“Hey, Mar-i-lyn!”
I spun around. “What?”
“Why are you going out on a date after we already ate?”
“Don’t worry about it. You just watch some TV and then go to bed. I’ll be home late.”
Before Twiggy could start to pout as he often did when I left him home to go out, I grabbed my keys and was out the door.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I’d find when I came home shortly after two a.m. Twiggy, John, Ginger, and Pogo were all sitting in the living room with markers, stickers, a price gun, and heaps of junk all over the floor. It looked like a hurricane had hit, or a bomb had gone off.
“Hey! I found some help. What do you think?”
I looked at the boxes lining the walls. They were now labeled, and taped shut.
“We’re going to have a yard sale,” Twiggy told me firmly, putting a price tag on the sweater on his lap.
“There’s way more stuff here than when I left.”
“We cleaned the rest of the house,” John smiled.
“Great,” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to help. We’ll do it, the four of us.”
“You’d better not make a spectacle,” I warned him. “I don’t want the police out here again.”
Pogo snickered. The police often came by when he and Twiggy would ‘have an idea’.
“It’s totally fine,” Ginger promised.
At least with the quiet drummer involved, I could be sure that the house wouldn’t end up on fire. He was often the only one who had any sense, and for some reason, the others listened to him when they wouldn’t hear a word I had to say.
“We’re going to raise money for the animal shelter, the halfway house, underprivileged kids, and school music programs,” Twiggy told me excitedly.
“That’s certainly diverse,” I smiled.
“We all picked a charity,” John explained.
Well, that made sense.
“Want to choose a charity, too?” Twiggy asked.
“Not tonight. I’m going to bed. You keep it down.”
Pogo gave me a gleeful smile. I somehow suspected that I wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night.

The following Saturday, our front lawn looked like a shopping mall. I found it hard to believe that so much stuff had come out of one house. As I looked around, I realized that some of the things definitely hadn’t belonged to either me or Twiggy. The rest of the band must’ve chipped in, too.
“Isn’t this great?” Twiggy grinned.
I rolled my eyes. As I’d expected, I’d been roped into helping out. Only to set up, though. There was no way I was staying outside for this fiasco. Besides, the guys had recruited enough friends and neighbors to help out that they really wouldn’t miss me, anyway.
“Why is it so early?” Pogo grumbled.
“Because we set up fast. It only took an hour and a half,” Ginger explained.
Twiggy went inside, and brought out cups of coffee. The four of them had been up long before dawn to set this all up. Now, it was just after six thirty.
“What if no one comes?” I asked, only partially joking.
“They’ll come,” John said firmly.
Boy, was he right. By seven, there were hundreds of people on the front lawn. I had never seen anything like it. Somehow, they’d managed to get the word out to half of California. It looked like a zoo out there. I was thankful that I was inside, away from it all.
From time to time, I went to look out at the spectacle. Each time, I saw lines of people with their arms full of old junk, waiting to pay for their newfound treasures. Many had brought along cameras and were getting their picture taken with one of my band mates or our friends. It made me laugh, seeing how they were enjoying it all.
“Hey.”
I jumped, startled that Twiggy had come inside and I hadn’t heard him. I’d been working on lyrics to a new song for the past hour, and hadn’t been paying attention to the yard sale at all.
“Could you come out? Just for a minute?”
I looked up at him, frowning. “No.”
“Please? There’s a woman who will make a five thousand dollar donation if you’ll come and take a picture with her.”
“No. I told you, I don’t want any part in this. It’s great that you cleaned the house. It’s great that you’re giving the money to charity. But I don’t want to have to do anything more than I’ve already done.”
Twiggy sighed. “Fine. The orphans will understand.”
I groaned softly. He always knew how to get what he wanted. I stood up, giving him a dirty look. “Let’s go.”
He skipped outside, and I reluctantly followed. I posed for the picture, taking a quick look around. Most of our junk was long gone.
By eleven, I noticed that things were really dying down. There were only a few dozen items left, and a lot of the help had already gone home. I had to hand it to Twiggy- this whole yard sale thing had really been a success. For once, he’d actually had a good idea.
Shortly after noon, the yard was empty, and my band was sitting on the living room floor counting money.
“How’d you do?” I asked Pogo, who was adding it all up.
“What do you care?” Twiggy asked bitterly.
I sighed. “Don’t be a jerk.”
He flopped down on his back. “I’m soooo tired.”
“Wow, is that right?” Ginger asked, looking at Pogo’s addition.
“I’ve added it twice.”
“Awesome! We’re gonna save the school music programs!” John grinned.
I peeked over Pogo’s shoulder, my eyes widening at the number on the paper in front of him. No way could they have raised that much money in under five hours.
“You know what?” Pogo asked, nudging Twiggy’s hip, “I think we should clean out my house next weekend.”