Bidding Farewell to One's Livelihood

By Mike Wise
Sunday, September 7, 2008

Autumn Rose Brooks was propped up next to a collapsible table, the one with items on it marked, "Lot 21." She continued siphoning formula from her bottle, failing to spill on her Redskinette cheerleader outfit in the auction house her grandmother owns.

At 7 months old, someone noted, Autumn was born after Sean Taylor died.

"It'd be nice for her to have something that his daughter had," said Autumn's mother, Kathryn Drake. "I'm going to maybe try and see if I can't get that car seat."

Hard by Marsh Road along Route 17, 90 minutes by car from the District in the Virginia town of Bealeton, they came to bid on Taylor's belongings from his Ashburn estate. Nine months after the all-pro safety was slain in his Miami home, the last physical vestiges of his Washington life went to the highest bidders, who pulled into a gravel parking lot here Friday night at the Brooks auction house.

"It's a little weird -- this wasn't his memorabilia; this was his personal stuff," said Jim Cook, the owner of Cook's Tank Cleaning, who came to bid on a Rigid Shop-Vac that Taylor owned.

From the dark-stained, mahogany bedroom suite in immaculate condition to Taylor's Husky wrench-and-socket kit, it all went. His eight fishing poles, four Christmas mugs, two bars of unopened Irish Spring soap, the red Toro lawnmower, even his Old Spice cologne.

Conversation pieces, too, like the glass-top table -- held up by tree roots concealing a crouching black panther -- and a German-made 9mm Sig Sauer handgun.

"Check out the laser scope on it," said Tom Brooks, handing over the firearm and demonstrating how the brilliant red dot could pinpoint someone clear across the auction room.

Two weeks ago a jammed-full, 38-foot trailer pulled up at Brooks auction house. The remaining belongings from Taylor's three-bedroom Ashburn townhouse were unpacked, one by one, and either stamped with little red grocery stickers that read "21" or had large "Lot 21" placards taped to them. The estate trustee had only one condition before the auction began: All proceeds, after commissions, would go to a fund for Taylor's infant daughter Jackie, whom Tom and Joyce Brooks were told was not named in his will.

What a lingering tragedy. Some of little Jackie's own belongings were essentially auctioned off to help ensure the child's financial security.

"Sad to see the baby cups sold," Kristi King said after the set went along with some kitchen items. She sat beside sons Kyle, 13, and Mason, 9, in the front row. "Those are things you want to keep."

The usual array of bargain-hunters greatly outnumbered curiosity-seekers and fans. In fact, about a third of the people in burgundy and gold T-shirts, jerseys and hats worked at the auction house, where they were instructed to wear the team's colors.

"Onto the spear gun," Ike Swart said, as the people who plopped into the metal folding chairs let out an "ooooh."

"I had one of them up in the Yukon, huntin' caribou," cracked Bo Cox, the other rat-a-tat-tat auctioneer with whom Swart shared the podium.

"CanIgetthirtyfive? Thirty-five now. CanIget40? Now 40. CanIget50? Fif-Now 60. CanIget70? SixtykinIget70? SixtykinIget70? Sixt-Sold!"

Each receipt confirmed the purchase came from Taylor's estate sale, apparently authenticating that it indeed came from No. 21's home.

Tom works for his wife, Joyce, who said Friday was one of the larger crowds in her 11 years of owning the facility. The couple used a velvet rope to cordon off space for expected media, but the only reporters who showed were one television station and three local newspapers, including a feature writer from the Culpeper Star-Exponent whose friend asked her to purchase something if she had the chance "because my sons cried when he died."

Small vestiges from Taylor's playing career could be found here and there. Taylor's pool table featured a rack of Cowboys/Redskins billiard balls, which sat in a display case across the room from matching burgundy and gold sofas.

Unless the "Miami Touchdown Club" nameplate that apparently fell off a trophy counts, there was no Taylor memorabilia to bid upon. It was just Taylor's stuff, and observing people sift through it as if they were at Target or Wal-Mart could at times be unsettling.

A man held up Taylor's red and black Nike mesh shirt and Rocawear faded jean shorts to see if they fit, envisioning himself in the same summer get-up Taylor might have worn to a cookout about this time a year ago. Then there was the not-so-subtle marketing of little Jackie's car seat and high chair. "You don't have to have a baby to own this."

It's probably true that buying a dead man's belongings has to have an impersonal nature to it, the rationale that someone might as well get some use out of those 30- and 40-pound dumbbells or a Shop-Vac.

But for some, it doesn't change the grief from last November. "I was tore up," Cook said, when he learned of Taylor's death. "I'm getting goose bumps talking about it now."

He was outbid for the Shop-Vac, but managed to finagle one of Taylor's bedroom dressers for $70. "It'll go down in the basement where I got my sports room," he said. "It's not going to look like it belongs, but I know where it came from."

At the end of "Citizen Kane," Orson Welles's 1941 classic film, a few minor characters gawk at the belongings of late millionaire Charles Foster Kane's estate. Snippy, judgmental, they try to distill who the man was by what he owned. But they fail to notice the simple object tucked away in a cardboard box, the thing that brought him the most happiness in life.

When people bidding for and auctioning off the last remnants of Taylor's Washington life were asked what items might have made him smile most, a few mentioned the panther table. But Jim Nichols could not think of a single material thing in the auction house.

"I'm sure it wasn't none of this stuff," Nichols said. He fussed with the American flag bandana covering his gray-matted hair as his wife, Sherry, nodded. "His daughter made him happiest," Jim added. "Probably his wife. Life."

It was past midnight Friday when Joyce cashed out. After everything was totaled, she said $7,375.50 was raised for little Jackie's fund. Their commission take for selling the items, she said, was somewhere between 30 and 50 percent. Much of Taylor's bedroom suite -- easily a $15,000 buy in a showroom -- was purchased for $2,100. His 9mm with the laser scope went to a gentleman who bid $1,500.

Autumn's mom never got to compete for the car seat. Kathryn Drake was too busy helping Tom and Joyce set up when Edward Don Johnson from nearby Stafford fetched the high chair, the car seat and the potty trainer for $35.

D.J., as the tattoo on his left forearm reads, rents space at a flea market on the Fredericksburg Fairgrounds, where he plans to resell for profit the things Sean Taylor bought for his daughter.

Pushing a protruding cigarette pack back in his T-shirt pocket, Johnson turned to a friend and said, proudly, "That high chair there belonged to that football player."