As the years pass since the largest garage sale in New York history, I think back to my brush with Jackie O'. My memories are sweet and tranquil.... like floating inside the feeding frenzy of a band of killer whites.
It began those many years ago, in the first week of February when I decided that my life needed more glamour and less starch. I’d heard of the impending Jackie O’ auction and despite the fact that Jackie’s life was about as far removed from mine as Connecticut is to say, Zimbabwe, I called up Sothebys' Auction house and inquired about tickets to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis auction.
The vision of Jackie, young and beautiful with JFK by her side waving as they sped off to Camelot flashed in my head. Perhaps a small trinket, a fake set of pearls, or a china teacup might buy me a smidgen of class.
The irritated woman on the line went into what I later dubbed her Jackie O' monologue as soon as she answered the phone. " Buy a $55 soft cover or $90 hard cover catalogue. You will then be entered into a lottery for tickets to the preview of the estate or one of the auctions".
I guessed I wasn't the first to call.
"How many people will win?"
" I don't know.. maybe 10,000 to the auctions, 30,000 to the preview,( about a thousand people per hour).”
" Well that's a lot... It shouldn't be too hard then.."
" Uh... huh... well out of at least 100,000 catalogue buyers?!"
I pulled out my Visa and ordered the $55 paper back. I could hear the roulette wheel in my brain spinning, “Pick meeeee meeeee.” Suddenly my entire sense of self worth seemed to depend on going to that auction.
That night I took a good hard look at my ever growing chatchka collection and then at myself, the weekends flea marketing in Pennsylvania for stripped pine antiques, the collection of African ebony sculptures purchased from crack addicts in the East Village, the cupboard overflowing with miss matched bone china and Japanese tea sets. Yet somehow, it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted my piece of Jackie.
By early March the buzz on Jackie mania had escalated to the point that just having the catalogue bought you V.I.P. status in Soho.
“Let her in darlings…she’s got the Jackie shopping guide.”
I began to have flashes of"Willy Wanka's Chocolate Factory," especially the scene when Charlie finds the golden ticket in his candy bar and gets to go to the factory where Gene Wilder over feeds him.
Then like magic it happened. On March 5th I found two tickets to the preview, but not the auction in the mail. No auction tickets!! But, I rationalized to myself, the preview would at least allow me to peruse Jackie’s possessions and make absentee bids. That was something wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? The limited edition 584 page catalogue with absentee bidding form arrived a week later. It was as if hell was beckoning. I made a mental note to ask one of my neighbors to hide my credit cards from….me.
I plowed through the pictures in the catalogue; the JFK desk, tons of Jackie Jewelry and was blown away by the low price estimates...Some of Jackie's most deliciously tacky chatchkas were estimated in the hundreds, not thousands of dollars!
I became fixated on the lighter with the "J" on it, small and simple, black with gold trim and a single prominent J, surely this would be something to show the grandchildren that would spring forth from the artificially inseminated babies that I would have, once I found a brilliant, Jewish, perfectly healthy, drug free sperm donor who wanted to be a weekend daddy and had naturally curly hair.
That night I dreamt that I was smoking a cigar on South Beach. John John was lighting me up while Caroline nodded in approval. Of course, as in all my dreams, I was spectacularly thin.
On April 5, I came home to a grand surprise; nestled in the mail between the electricity bill and the letter from dad, were the auction tickets. I did what any career gal on the go would do; I stripped naked, held the tickets to my bar chest, bikini style and paraded around the apartment singing 70's disco. My obsession was in full swing.
A week later I realized that winning the tickets and getting a bidding paddle were two different things. Sotheby’s' purchasing department sent out a long probe that pierced my checking account, entered my savings, straddled my nearly exhausted credit limit and my $1.65 stock account and ultimately harpooned my very soul.
They probably thought that my Perry Street address had meant that I was a million dollar baby and were horrified to discover that they had blown two tickets on a thousand dollar girl.
The preview date finally arrived. On April 23rd I turned around the corner of 72nd and York and walked into a surreal white tented night mare of thousands of middle aged women in pastel suits with matching hand bags being herded into the museum style exhibition like upper-east-side cattle.
Shelley, my other half, was waiting for me on line.
" This is really scary.." She whispered.
"I feel like I'm in Stepford". I answered.
We were led past metal detectors, bag checks and security guards and into the main room for a glimpse at Jackie's old china, still lives of flowers, horse drawings, horse prints, horse paintings, ceramic horses and several living room and parlor furniture sets.
I realized that I was entering the biggest garage sale in history.
Jackie had seemed so private in her life; stoic and noble, one forgave her for her taste in tacky jewelry and hoarding of stuff. She was now, officially, being violated.
I wanted to scream," Leave her alone! Just leave her alone!" ...But came to my senses in time to avoid being partially blinded by an elderly woman in a blue sun hat stampeding past the Walt Whitman autograph to join her friends at what Shelley and I named the Las Vegas display; crystal chandelier over Nuclear arms piece treaty desk.....
I learned on the news that night that the JFK cigar humidor with inscription from Milton Berle went for a little over five hundred thousand to the owner of "Cigar Aficionado".
Clearly the catalogue estimates were about a kazillion percent lower than accurate. I began to doubt whether my absentee bids; $1,000 for painting of Jackie and friend on camel, $1,200 for her hand mirror, $275 for the bangle bracelet, $900 for painting of two lap dogs and $800 for the Jackie Onassis riding saddle would amount to much. I went to sleep feeling oddly guilty. The world was violating Jackie O and I was a part of it.
D'Day April 24, line up for the 6 P.M. Auction
I pulled on my best attempt at conformity; mauve suit, black silk semi-see-though shirt, 1940'sish men's shoes and blue sunglasses and met Shelley outside of Sotheby’s for the 6:00 pm auction.
All the buzz was on about the Aristotle Onassis diamond engagement present to Jackie valued at $500,000, expected to go for up to 2 million.
We walked into a maze of TV. film crews and overly made up female newscasters cooing," ...and what do you want to buy?"
Shel grabbed a seat somewhere above Siberia but far below the V.I.P. sector, while I picked up the bidding paddle (that I had gasp actually managed to coerce them into giving to me) and surveyed the swarms of surgically enhanced women adorned by gray suited older men.
There didn’t seem to be a single face in the room that hadn’t been pulled, nipped, tucked, tightened or sanded. I ran my fingers under my chin and felt the baby fat I’d never been able to get rid of, hmmmmmm.
The auctioneer, who looked like Richard Dreifuss on a bad day was actually named John Block.
I turned to Shelley," Talk about an auctioneer's name? That's up there with Mike Hammer and Betty Bought It!"
The first item out ,Jackie's Van Cleef and Arpels bracelet, opened at $15,000 and hit $30K before I could say " Holy shhhhhh!" Within two minutes it sold at 40K.
Clearly my five thousand dollar paddle wasn't going to buy me anything more than Jackie's dental floss so I began to focus on just being able to bid on the lighter.
When the image of my lighter came up the big screen I was ready; paddle arm loose, feet far apart, jamming to just get in one bid before it hit 10K. The bidding opened at 10K hit 30K inside of sixty seconds and closed at 75 thousand buckaroos!
No cigarette on earth was worth a 75 thousand dollar light.
Mr. Block used his moment in the sun to cut bad jokes like, " Are you waving at me or at a friend. It's expensive to wave at a friend!"
I prayed the Block thing wouldn't turn into Judge Ito part Two having just survived the O.J. Simpson Era.
A hideous Scarecrow brooch valued at $1,500 went for $90K and sent a third of the audience running out the door horrified. I wanted to run too but I my feet were stuck to the ground. It was like watching a traffic accident unfold; caught in the Kennedy hysteria, a thousand women were depleting their future plastic surgery budgets to buy a piece of something they could never really have; one moment in the life of Jackie O. They might be able to buy her shoes, but they’d never be able to walk in them.
By the time the 40.42 carat Onassis diamond came up to bat, a humming like thousands of bees began to buzz from the crowd. Block took off in a fury of bids from the rooms, the phones, Chicago, LA and the crowd followed it like fast tennis. It was pure pandemonium. Then like some sick anti-climax; the rock sold to an anonymous bidder over the phone for 2 million 350 thousand dollars.
To this day, I don’t know who bought the stone. It pains me greatly.
Dizzy from Christmas colored jewels and peroxide blondes, I
propped myself against a wall and sipped champagne stolen from the VIP circle.
Not quite two thousand disgusted people farmed out into the blaze of cameras where the overly made up female news casters cooed," ..and what did you buy?"
I fought a sudden overwhelming urge to lift my shirt to the newscaster and scream, “They’re reallll. They are totally real!”
Then, like all grand affairs, it was over as quickly as it began.
That night I dreamt I was on the beach at Cape Cod sipping a dry martini, wearing Jackie's Antelope head bangle bracelets ,Amethyst bead necklace and Faberge' diamond tiara. Jackie was standing before me young and beautiful like the Kennedy days. She smiled at me softly and sighed. We were both.... flawlessly thin......
