I Visit a Pawn Shop

For most of my life, pawn shops have been a sort of fictional abstraction. They are, to my mind, the places where seedy criminals in police procedurals go to sell stolen watches and down-on-their-luck sad sacks shakily forfeit their wedding rings for a hit of heroin. Or, in earlier, G-rated memories, the places frequented by Andy Capp. Since I was about seven years old when last I read an Andy Capp comic, I didn't understand that he was both seedy and down-on-his-luck and that a comic strip about an alcoholic actually isn't a very funny thing at all.

I imagine in more recent years I've seen real pawn shops -- perhaps driving through a part of L.A. I only ever drove through to get to Dodger Stadium or the Disney Concert Hall. But I surely don't recall getting close enough to, say, look in the window. Even when my apartment at 92nd and Riverside in Manhattan was not considered prime real estate, I'm pretty certain there were no pawn shops nearby. (Off Track Betting, on the other hand, was a mere three-minute walk from my front door.)

But now I live in Asheville. And not only do I live half a mile from a pawn shop, I have, as of last Saturday, been in one.

Before you form your opinion of my neighborhood, I must explain that -- the presence of both a Wendy's and a McDonald's within a quarter mile of each other notwithstanding -- we are at least upscale enough that the store does not call itself a pawn shop. No indeed. It is a consignment store.

I am happily familiar with consignment stores. Consignment stores are where I sell the turtlenecks I received two Christmases ago. A consignment store played a large and cathartic role in my abandonment of a promising career as a law school professor, and I'm sure there are some happy professionals wearing my hip teacher clothes somewhere. Better them than me.

No, when we first arrived here, I was far less troubled by the consignment store with the collection of bicycles in front and the amps in the window than I was by the bleached strip malls up the block. And the aforementioned Wendy's. And the general clutter of nondescript buildings and the sorts of store signs one usually sees in deeply depressed economies that line the main thoroughfare by our house.

I arrived here, you see, straight off the pleasures of Second Street in the Belmont Shores neighborhood of Long Beach. Daily -- or close to it -- I meandered half a mile past well kept beach homes to a stretch of shops and restaurants and happy pedestrians smiling in the sea breeze. Second Street had its share of dusty old stores like Herman's Shoes and the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop. But, surrounded by Peet's Coffee and Banana Republic and Taco Surf, they were funky, not sad.

I failed to find similar charms on my first few walks up Merrimon Avenue last August. Narrow sidewalks dumped me and The Boy's stroller practically into the stream of traffic. My legs protested the hills and the heat. I felt alone and stupid strolling down a sidewalk plainly made, not for strolling, but to provide a small buffer zone between the parking lots fronting the stores and the traffic speeding its way past.

I cried for Second Street. I longed for some remote plausibility to the rumors of zoning plans designed to make Merrimon Avenue more pedestrian-friendly (wider sidewalks, parking lots relegated to the backs of the stores). I imagined myself five years from now enjoying my daily walks in Asheville so much that I no longer missed the smell of the ocean. And I despaired of walking anywhere in the present.

And yet. Slowly, my gluteus maximus adjusted to walking uphill. Hubby discovered some lovely side streets that led more pleasantly to Atlanta Bread Company and the Children's Trading Post. Urban Burrito soothed my ache for Wahoo's Fish Tacos and provided me with a good reason to venture into the bleached strip mall and discover it wasn't such a scary place after all.

These days I don't even notice the Wendy's. I know that jewel upon jewel lies nestled among those nondescript Merrimon buildings: Jus' Running with the owner who pooh-poohed my claim that running destroyed my knees because "you're so slight you shouldn't have any problems with your knees" and thus secured him a place in my heart forever; The Wine Guy, who turns out to be a gal, although she can't be expected to carry Two Buck Chuck; The Toy Box, where they let The Boy play with the wooden train set for as long as he likes without ever pushing me to buy anything (rest assured, however, that my Christmas expedition has paid for a year's worth of playing with the train set). I don't even mind knowing that I will never live a few blocks from a pedestrian thoroughfare lined with elms and charming storefronts.

I am, in short, ready for the neighborhood pawn shop.

It was Hubby's idea. Frankly, I was at the point where I didn't even see it as I walked by. It is located on the downward slope of the walk home, just before we veer left through the park. It has its own front walk, separated from the sidewalk by a set of stairs and a reason to walk up them -- a reason not provided for me by the fast-food restaurant next door. I don't have a burning desire to buy a used bike and I don't like fluorescent lights. Don't even get me started on what my mother would have said if I had told her, growing up, that I would like to visit a pawn shop. On my own, I was plainly on a path that would never take me to one.

But Hubby does have a burning desire to buy a used bike. Many used bikes. I am truly not certain how many used bikes Hubby has purchased because: a) he tends to pull them up on Craig's List to admire them far more often than he actually buys them; and b) when he does buy them he takes them apart and reassembles them into new Frankenstein-like vehicles of his own design.

So there we were, out for a stroll on a Saturday afternoon, approaching the pawn shop. And Hubby's eyes lit up.

I could have refused to accompany him, remained a perfectly content pawn shop virgin for the rest of my life. But it is the holiday season. Besides, he had control of the stroller with my baby boy inside. So I followed him through the not-so-menacing doors.

We were greeted warmly when we entered the store. I fooled myself into believing I might look like someone who is perfectly comfortable in a pawn shop.

Assuming an air of interest, I wandered among the keyboards and drum sets, looking them over as if deciding which one best suited my needs. Unfortunately, as I am not in fact accustomed to wandering among keyboards and drum sets, my shoulder glanced what sounded like a snare drum, and I felt all eyes turn to me.

Trying for all the world to look like it was no big deal, I steadied the drum and turned, just at the right angle to bang my knee against a guitar. It is not a given that I would have caught it, so I counted myself doing very well when I did.

Shuffling my way out of the music section and telling myself I wouldn't have to return until The Boy one day demands his own drum set, I looked around hopefully for gift ideas.

The remote control trucks were actually kind of neat. But until the mortgage catches up with us, I'm not ready to wrap battered used boxes with heartily handled toys for my beloved eleven-month-old. Hubby eyed the leather jackets longingly, but I just couldn't see him wearing a leather jacket someone else once wore. Or a leather jacket at all, but don't tell him I said that.

And the rest was the kind of stuff I might find shopping for empowering under different circumstances. Power tools and dehumidifiers and shovels -- the sorts of things I used to borrow from the men in my neighborhood in St. Louis, when I was a single female homeowner and proud to own my own power drill, damn it.

Now, however, I sit with my baby in the front yard as my husband hangs the Christmas lights and cleans the gutters and rakes the leaves. It's not that I no longer remember how to use a power drill. It's just that I'm more likely to use it building a crib. And it is, after all, so easy to let Hubby do the stuff I don't like to do.

Which means a few things. It means I am a 41-year-old mother who does laundry while her husband tackles the manly chores. It means there is nothing wrong with putting aside the power tools for a stroller and a high chair and a beautiful baby boy. And, best of all, it means I will never have to visit a pawn shop again.