gee

I traveled quite a bit one year. I got to see quite alot of this big beautiful country. From California to Nevada to Arizona to Colorado and up and down the Midwest,  courtesy of 2 Italian nut jobs, Lucio and Carlo, that secured themselves a scam that wasn’t really illegal as much as immoral.

Lucio had a connection from Bangladesh who was importing cherry wood furniture, Persian rugs, tapestries and paintings from Pakistan and was trying to sell the stuff from a home depot kind of place. The problem was that the funiture was good quality but the rugs weren’t proper persians (although to the average man in street they looked like expensive works of art) the tapestries too and the paintings? well no one had heard of the artists. Most of the paintings had frames that were worth more than the actual prints.

So Lucio and Carlo somehow came up with a plan to buy the stuff from the Bangladeshi guy (for the life of me I can’t remember his name) and sell it at auctions. But the auctions were rigged.

They packed up a truck and set up auctions on the side of the road, outside malls, in school halls wherever they were allowed to and they’d set up a canopy, put some chairs out and start an auction.

Well it wasn’t as clear cut as that. It took them a while to work out a proper strategy. They failed a few times but then a chance meeting with a seasoned “Gee” called Luis set them on the right track ( Or wrong path, depending on which side of the railway tracks you are standing. )

A “Gee” is a guy that sits in the audience at an auction and bids on items to raise the price. “Gees” are employed by the auctioneers. The unsuspecting public don’t know who the “Gees” are as they look like serious buyers. The old lady in the big flower hat, the young couple in love looking as though they are purchasing stuff for their new house, The quiet man in the back with the yellow teeth and the cheap wristwatch, the middle aged couple in the front row. No one knows. The gees know each other but don’t talk or acknowledge each other during an auction. They are there to create an atmosphere and encourage other people to buy.

The barker knows who the gees are and if the barker does not get the price he wants on a certain item, he “sells” the item to one of the gees by pretending to see them bid and taking a bid from them.
Why are they called “Gees” ?

Because at most auctions the gees are experts, they chat to other people telling them that this Artist is known in Africa and that Persian is one of the better ones they have seen and not even the tapestries they saw in Moscow on their last trip to Russia can compare to the quality of the tapestries on sale at the auction. The gees also land up “buying” most of the items when the barker doesnt get the price he wants. Real buyers tend to think “Gee he must be rich” , “Gee they bought a lot” , “Gee he knows about persian rugs / Art / European Tapestries”

It’s all bullshit anyway but to the average Joe, its legit and they land up paying thousands of dollars for crap. Well not crap really but the prices are definitely hiked up.

Luis taught Carlo the tricks and I met Luis after dating his daughter. Luis needed a gee one weekend and asked me to stand in. Luis said I was natural and asked me if i wanted to do it full time. The money was good. I said yes. Thats how I met Carlo and Lucio.

Lucio scared me, well he scared most people. He was quiet and serious and could stare through you.
Carlo fancied himself as an auction barker guy and would often do the auctions himself. Hyped up on crystal meth, the man could make you dizzy with his fast talking, so much so that your head would spin and your check book would flop open.

He would grin this awful yellow and black toothed grin while taking your money.

Luis became their right hand man and showed them how to get it right using an itinerary and would often drive to locations ahead securing a spot to have an auction, pass out flyers, put posters up to advertise the upcoming auction.

The truck would then arrive at the location and the auction would start.

The summer months were the best for this as people were on holiday and holiday = money spending season.

I spent a summer travelling up and down the California coast with Luis and the auctions. Free food, free accomodation, free holiday and got paid for it.

We made a fat packet in the midwest, the Nebraska farmers were quite taken with “them dang furen carpits an’ other fancy thangs.”

It came to a rather abrupt end when Luis’ daughter caught me cheating on her and Luis wasn’t too impressed with me and decided to come after me.

I landed up doing 3 months for battery and aggrevated assault after I beat his head in with tyre iron.