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Teresa Jaynes
Artist
Executive Director, Philagrafika
It was trash day in Old City, and there, standing on its edge at the curb, was a flat file with the drawers out and leaning against the empty frame. My sweetie Eileen and her pal Diane spotted it on 2nd Street while visiting a friend. Diane’s van had a bunch of crap in it, so they couldn’t take it with them.
But Eileen called me at Philagrafika to give me the heads up. I was thrilled. Philagrafika needed another flat file; we were anticipating the 2006 portfolio in August and had no storage space for it. I called my friends Matty and Michelle to ask if they would help me pick it up after work.
At 4:30 I called Capital Lighting Emporium on 2nd Street with a strange request. I explained the whole situation to the woman who answered the phone, and asked if she would mind checking if the file was still there before we headed out. She set the phone down and I heard her footsteps fade away as she walked to her front door.
The file was still there with all its drawers accounted for, but she warned me that the trash truck would be due around 6:00. I thanked her and apologized for interrupting her work. No need, she said: it was the weird calls that made her day.
At 5:00, Matty, Michelle and I piled in the truck and headed out for Old City. While rushing there I missed a turn, and then got detoured far out of our way. When we finally made it back on track, and the catch was in sight, we let out a howl.
But standing alongside the drawers on the curb was a guy on his cell phone. In a panic I yelled, “Don’t let him take it!” and pushed Matty and Michelle out of the cab of the truck. While I backed up for loading, Matty nonchalantly began to move one of the drawers toward the open tailgate.
The guy interrupted his phone call. “Hang on—it looks like someone’s trying to get it. I gotta call you back,” he said, and asked Matty where he was going with the drawer. Matty introduced himself and explained he was taking it for this arts organization, Philagrafika. The guy on the phone, Aryon, calmly responded that he knew Philagrafika; in fact, he helped to design our website. He said that he too was taking it for a great arts organization, Space 1026.
“Space 1026 is great,” Matty said while still gathering the drawers up to load into the truck.
I got out of the truck to lend a bit of “we saw it first” authority to Matty’s campaign, and to help convince Aryon that the flat file was ours. We discussed the dumpster-diver law which, according to Matty, says that the spoils go to whoever spots them first. Aryon offered that he was the designated spotter, since he'd been standing there when we pulled up at 5:20 or so. Actually, I countered, Eileen was the original spotter when she called me at noon that day with the news; we’d just had to wait until after work for the pickup. This is thin ice to stand on if you ask me, but Aryon was completely gracious and deferred judgment to us.
Just as he started to help us position the drawers for easy loading, his friend from the phone call pulled up in a black pickup truck and rolled down the passenger’s side window. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see the driver’s frustrated gestures and Aryon’s apologetic shrug.
The pissed-off friend sat in his truck while Aryan helped us load the frame and drawers. In hindsight, we should have treated him and his driver to a drink, but they were long gone by the time we came up with the idea.
Earlier this year, Aryon started working in the same building as Philagrafika. The file now sits right by his desk.
Philagrafika
Teresa Jaynes, PEW Fellow
Space 1026
