Chapter Text
"Okay, but listen: It goes like this--"
The words came essentially out of nowhere, halfway back to South Bristol from Bar Harbor -- Bah Hahbah, if one wanted to be technical and also happened to be delighted by the Maine accent -- and pulled Scotty out of the doze he'd been in, head against the window and arms tucked into his jacket, worn out after a long work week and then a long day hiking.
Cor didn't look away from the road as he drove, and he didn't even seem to realize he'd been talking to someone essentially asleep, "--they come here from away -- sometimes New York, but especially from Massachusetts -- and they look around at allllll the antiques stores, and they get caught up in the beauty of Maine and the idyllic notion of what it's like to deal antiques in Maine, so they decide to buy one. Or, hell, even open a whole new one, converting some Mainuh's perfectly good barn in the process."
The subtle, artful disdain in Corry's voice as he said 'Massachusetts' made this screed or lecture or whatever it was about a thousand times more interesting; before he was even all the way awake, Scotty was watching his best friend in absolutely rapt fascination, wondering where the hell this was gonna go and sort of pleased that he didn't actually have the first clue.
"So," Cor went on, at his metaphorical podium, "what happens is they don't bother to sit down and think about how saturated the market is. They put out incredibly kitschy signs about beach property, like crossed oars or something similarly generic, fake cracked paint on 'em, or they maybe get ahold of some dusty old painting that was made by one of the likewise endemic artist galleries in the region. And maybe sometimes they pony up their grandma's silverware or an old armoire, which is the real deal. But -- and pay attention, this is the important part -- most of their actual so-called antiques come from other antiques dealers."
Scotty wished he had something to prop his elbow on; resting his chin on his palm to watch this seemed instinctive. "How's that work, then?" he asked, because he could already see the fatal flaw in that business model.
"It doesn't." Corry nodded, solemnly, with so much gravity that Scotty half-expected his half of the skimmer to scrape the road. "What happens is, they realize they're unable to cope with our winters, our rugged independence, our manners, -- namely, that we have some -- and they sell off their stock so they can go back from whence they came. And the other antiques dealers, like the desperate vultures that they are, swoop in and buy up that stock. Or, rather, what they assume to be their good stock, not realizing that they are just the latest link in an unbroken chain of thwarted Massholes."
Massholes, Scotty thought, in wide-eyed wonder, before promptly laughing his head off.
Corry, bless him, let Scotty laugh until he was wiping the tears off of his face and his sides were aching. But then, once that laughter was tenuously under control -- very tenuously, because Massholes -- he continued, "And so, the very same so-called antiques float from store to store to store, like the Flying Dutchman, destined never to be bought by anyone aside yet another antiques dealer, destined never to stay in one place, and leaving in their wake the broken dreams of a cursed people."
Scotty knew that this was something of a deeper explanation about why there were unlikely to be moose in either the Wôbanakik Preserve or down ME-129, but somewhere between his interrupted dozing and the absolutely fantastic expansion on his vocabulary, he'd lost the thread and had no great urge to take it back up.
Instead, still giggling intermittently -- because Massholes -- he managed to ask, "What's that make me, then? 'Cause I'm not from Massachusetts, but I am 'from away'--"
Cor waved that off. "Oh, we've already claimed you. You just haven't figured it out yet."
That was enough to get Scotty eyeing him narrowly, though also good-naturedly. "That so?"
"Aye," Corry said, smiling. "See, the first time you're driving up here and a skimmer with a Massachusetts registration cuts you off despite there being wide open road, forcing you into fancy maneuvers just to avoid slamming into that beautiful eastern white pine, you'll find out just how much."
After a long moment of visualizing that scenario -- and his inevitable reaction to it, exercising his fantastic new vocabulary -- Scotty could really only echo in amused resignation, "Ayuh."