BEN BECK

 



Few people took much note of Ben Beck, as older man who walked the North Lake Union area, always in a beige zip up jacket and jeans. Ben owned a small shipwright business. He had a gift for crafting the just right part for the aging fleet of pleasure craft on the lake and recognizing a good investment. He considered both art more than craft.


The area near the lake was full of small frame apartments and homes where the cities workers lived. He concentrated on buying the apartments over time acquiring 15 of them closely located in a 5 block area. The city grew rapidly and new tech business wanted all of the area. They only saw steal and glass buildings where the apartments stood.


Ben saw different things, places where a working man or artist could still live in the city, if the rent was reasonable. He kept it that way. Beck lived in Apartment 1 of the original property he bought, called the Brownwood. The building sat on the corner of Blue Street, the lighting wonderful for a painter or crafter. He carefully chose tenants for this property, artists who he felt always never got credit for helping an area grow, who often were the first to get pushed out when it did. 


When he retired, Ben began to write about the things he saw and experienced. Well enough that the local paper occasionally included his thoughts in their opinion page.


Beck as far as anyone knew had never married. Although he had dinner each week with a woman at the local 5 Points cafe. The woman was slight of build, and had the disheveled look of a reporter. They shared a meal, drink and talk. Ben’s family and children though were the property he owned and the tenants there in.


He grew to appreciate others who knew the area. His articles sometimes featured the people or artists he met, but more often dealt with the real problems of the area, homelessness, drugs, gentrification. He had helped the artists establish a co-op gallery in a building next to the Brownwood. 


Beck’s sudden death unleashed a tide of hungry corporate dogs wanting his property. He had arranged an orderly sale, an auction. Maybe hoping someone with the same vision as him would step forward. The auction day though found only suits, developers and lawyers in the front rows. Some with phones linked to corporate investors.


As the auction got underway. Each of Ben’s properties came under the gavel one by one. As they came to the Brownwood. A thin dark haired woman stood up from the back of the auction room. “I have another more recent version of the will. It reads just as yours except for the Brownwood Apartments and adjoining building on Blue Street.” The room went quiet. She went on, “Mr. Beck has bequeathed the apartment building to its current residents with only one stipulation.” 


The woman raised her eyes from the will, saying clearly, “Mr. Becks stipulates that art must continued to be crafted there.”




Oregon Taylor Fields

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