Extreme Vinyl Café

by Stuart McLean

  Dave didn’t blink. Without thinking, not for a moment, Dave said, “You’d be fine. You could take lessons. Or not. You don’t have to dance.” It came out fast, in an awkward rush.

  They stared at each other as what they had both said sank in.

  Smith was the one who changed the subject. “It is his birthday next weekend,” said Smith, nodding at Charlie’s stone.

  “He would have been eighty-eight,” said Dave.

  “Eighty-seven,” said Smith.

  Smith held up the weed whacker. “I thought your mother would want to come by. I thought I would drop by first and clean it up a bit, clip the grass, you know. Whatever.” He looked selfconscious. He held out the weed whacker. “Maybe you’d like to do it. It’s not that bad, really.”

  An hour later, on his way back through town, Dave stopped in at the library. He wanted to use the computers. He wanted to send an email to Morley.

  Interesting day. I went out to the cemetery and Smith showed up. The guy I was telling you about. I think he asked me for permission to marry my mother. I think I told him it was okay. I didn’t mean to. I am not even sure if that’s what happened. To tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue how I feel.

  Though I can tell you I miss Dad.

  I think all I want is for Dad to tell me he is okay with this.

  Of course that’s what everyone here wants me to tell them.

  I guess it is. I’ll be home tomorrow night. I booked a flight this morning.

  His fingers were flying across the keys now.

  I just wanted to let you know it has been strange here, and I miss you, and I live you.

  That was a typo. He’d meant to write love. He’d meant to write, I love you.

  I am lucky you are in my life. And I don’t think I say that enough.

  He leaned back and sighed and stared at the screen, his hands behind his head. Then he lurched forward abruptly and pressed Send without reading another word. He was afraid if he did, he might change it.

  Dear Stuart,

  Recently, I find myself constantly worrying about being laid off from my job. Over the years, I’ve followed your career with both interest and amazement. You seem to have hung on to your jobs for a surprisingly long time, especially considering, well, considering your lack of what are traditionally considered “skills.” Can you share with me the secret of your longevity?

  Truly,

  Sarah

  Dear Sarah,

  I suppose the secret of my current career success is that I am self-employed—and my boss is pretty clueless about what is going on. Some people I know, however, have found that having strong and resourceful allies at their place of work seems to help. You might find the attached story of some interest.

  WALLY

  For as long as anyone can remember, and for reasons no one can recall, William Jarvis has been known as Wally to the teachers, the parents and the children at Sam’s school—the only person from the galaxy of adults addressed by his first name in the cosmos of kids.

  Wally the janitor, Wally the caretaker, world-famous Wally; overalled, wool-capped and, more often than not, unshaven Wally. Wally, who is best known, and most loved, for the lunch hour every April when he climbs up onto the school roof. With every kid from kindergarten to grade eight gathered below him, all of them howling with delight, Wally balances, like a knight on a castle turret, on the very edge of the school roof, and tosses down, one after the other, an entire year of roofed tennis balls.

  The first spring Wally did this, there was a never-ending supply of balls up there, and Wally leaned back before each throw, hurling balls with abandon while the kids chanted and cheered. Nearly every kid got a ball that spring. But that was because no one had been up on the roof for years.

  The past few years, the supply has been so scarce that Wally has actually gone out and bought balls to augment what he finds up there. To give them roof-like authenticity, Wally and his wife age the new balls the week before the big event. They soak them in a mixture of mud and cold tea.

  On ball day, as it is called, Wally always keeps a couple of balls in his pockets, and when he climbs down from the roof, he slips them to little kids who would be trampled if they joined the schoolyard stampede.

  Wally is from New Brunswick. His father was a fisherman, and his father’s father before that. Wally was going to be a fisherman too; he used to set traps with his grandfather when he was a boy. But the fishery collapsed. And Wally ended up cleaning windows in the city, dangling over the edge of office towers in a body harness. He didn’t mind it. It wasn’t any different from being hauled up a mast to unfoul a halyard. And he still got to work with water. And on windy days you got bounced around up there, just like being out in the bay.

  But it was lonely work.

  Sometimes Wally would tap on a window, and pull a face, or wave. And the office workers would smile and hold up their mugs of coffee. And every day you could count on someone waving at you and inviting you in. But Wally couldn’t go in, of course. All Wally could do was wave back and winch himself out of sight.

  But that is how he met his wife.

  She was one of the women who worked in one of those offices. She thought Wally looked so sweet working away, and all the other women said she should do something about that, and one day she did. She held up one of her homemade banana muffins and William grinned and pointed down at the street, and darned if at the end of the day she wasn’t waiting at the bottom of his rope with a muffin. They got married six months later.

  So it wasn’t totally lonely. Wally stuck at window washing for twelve years. He didn’t mind the job. But he didn’t love it. He loved his job at the school.

  Not everyone in the world is cut out to be a school janitor. A lot of people would be worn down by the spilled paint, the vomit and the gum-stuck floors.

  Not Wally. Wally loved it.

  Every day was different. There was always some happy kid bringing him a birthday cupcake wrapped in wax paper. Or some kid with troubles. Wally had a special feel for the kids with troubles. He is the only one in the school who Mark Portnoy, schoolyard bully and classroom nuisance, will listen to.

  One year, on the last afternoon of school, a Friday afternoon in June, the June Mark was in grade four, Wally found Mark’s art folder in the garbage. An entire year’s worth of art. Wally saved it—until school was back in September.

  “You should’ve taken this home to your mother,” said Wally.

  Mark Portnoy snorted. “What?” said Mark. “So she could throw it out? I saved her the trouble.”

  Wally began to flip through the portfolio page by page. Mark stayed and watched. He said, “This is stupid.” But he didn’t leave. Wally set aside three pictures.

  Wally said, “I’m putting these up in my office.”

  Mark said, “That’s your problem.”

  It was the first time anyone had put anything Mark did up on a wall.

  The next year, on the last day of school, Mark Portnoy brought his art file to Wally.

  He said, “I don’t need this junk.”

  Wally went through it again, choosing three more pictures while Mark stood and watched.

  Wally just might be the perfect school janitor. And then one day, he vanished. One day the kids came to school and Wally was gone. There was an old man in his place. No one knew his name, or where he had come from. But they knew one thing: He was a disaster. They knew that right from the first morning.

  Everyone sat in class that morning watching him in horror. There he was, his first day, down on his hands and knees in the middle of the schoolyard, poking at the schoolyard drain. There was a pickaxe and a snake on the ground beside him.

  The schoolyard drain had been blocked for years. Wally had never gone near it. Wally understood the blessings of a blocked drain. Wally understood the pleasures of puddles; the slipperiness of ice.

  At recess everyone tore outside. The grade sevens organized the grade ones to stand on the drain so the new
janitor couldn’t get at it. There was a standoff that lasted a good five minutes before the new janitor picked up his stuff and went inside. As soon as he was gone, a group of girls began to scoop up the salt he had dumped on the ice around the drain, while the grade-six boys organized kids to bring water.

  It was Sam’s best friend, Murphy, who got on the case. It was Murphy who went to the office and asked about Wally outright, Murphy who brought the news back to the other boys.

  “Wally was made redundant,” said Murphy.

  There were four boys standing in the boys’ bathroom listening to Murphy’s report. Peter Moore was the first to speak. Peter said, “That’s gross.”

  Gregory said, “Is it fatal?”

  “It doesn’t sound good,” said Murphy. “Mr. Lovell said the union is grieving.”

  “It is fatal,” said Gregory.

  Murphy tried to talk to the principal, Mrs. Cassidy, after school. Mrs. Cassidy was late for a parent meeting. Mrs. Cassidy didn’t even stop moving. “He is not with us anymore,” she said, adding over her shoulder, “It’s been pretty brutal. There’s been some serious slashing.”

  Mr. Miller, the vice-principal, confirmed it. “He has been cut.”

  Murphy carried the news back to the boys’ room.

  “It’s worse than we thought,” said Murphy.

  “What are we going to do?” said Sam.

  “I don’t know,” said Murphy. “I’ve got to think about it.”

  Then, that very night, on his way home from dinner at his grandparents’, Murphy, alone in the back of his parents’ car and almost asleep, opened his eyes as they passed the school. Murphy opened his eyes and saw him.

  “It was him,” said Murphy.

  They were back in the boys’ washroom. Murphy, Sam, Peter, Geoff and Gregory.

  Murphy said, “He was hunched over and moving really slowly.”

  “You saw him?” said Gregory.

  “His shadow,” said Murphy. “I saw his shadow. It was huge against the wall, and he was all bent over.”

  “Why would he be all bent over?” said Peter.

  Geoff punched him. Geoff said, “Because he has been cut up and made redundant, stupid.”

  “I knew that,” said Peter.

  And then Peter, who was getting afraid, said, “Where do you think they keep him during the day?”

  Geoff said, “In the supply cupboard. With all the other redundant people.

  “That’s why they keep it locked,” said Geoff. “They let them out at night, and they roam the halls.”

  Everyone was nodding. Except Murphy. Murphy was shaking his head.

  Murphy said, “The boiler room.”

  Peter looked horrified. Peter said, “All those weird noises….”

  Geoff said, “The clanging and the moans.”

  Murphy nodded. Murphy said, “It’s the redundant people.”

  Sam got a note from Murphy in the middle of math class. Which wouldn’t be noteworthy, except Murphy isn’t in Sam’s math class.

  Meet me in the locker room after school.

  When Sam arrived, Murphy was staring at the rusted door that led into the sub-basement. And from there, to the boiler room.

  Murphy said, “We have to get in there.”

  Sam, who had heard about the boiler room but had never actually seen it, said, “I was afraid of that.”

  The two of them were standing in front of the locked door, when it opened suddenly, and the new janitor walked out.

  He looked at the boys and frowned. “You don’t want to go in there, boys. Boys could get hurt in there.”

  Sam wanted to run. Murphy stood his ground. He was staring at the janitor.

  The janitor reached selfconsciously behind him and checked he had locked the door.

  “Told you,” said Murphy, when he was out of earshot.

  “Poor Wally,” said Sam. “We have to do something.”

  “We will,” said Murphy.

  Murphy, who could arrange to get a note to a friend in a math class when he was nowhere near the classroom, is not a boy who favours doorbells. When Murphy comes to call, he comes on the wind: a handful of dirt chucked at a window, the hoot of an owl, or, as he came that night, a flashlight beaming from a garage roof.

  Sam was already in bed when the flashlight played across his bedroom ceiling.

  He went to his window and peered into the night. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew.

  He flicked his bedroom lights, on and off, off and on. And then he slipped into a pair of sweatpants and out of his room. On his way past his parents’ bedroom, he stopped to listen to his father’s rhythmic breathing.

  Murphy was in his backyard, sitting at the picnic table.

  Sam slipped out the back door. “What’s going on?”

  “I went and checked,” said Murphy. “It is him. I saw him.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Sam.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Murphy. “We are going to free him.”

  Murphy pulled his hand out of his pocket. His fist was clenched. Slowly Murphy uncurled his fingers. He was holding a key.

  Sam shut his eyes and rocked back and forth.

  “The boiler room?” said Sam.

  It was part question. But mostly it was a statement. Sam already knew the answer.

  Five minutes later Sam snuck into his bedroom and five minutes after that he was lying in bed. He lay there for about ten minutes, too keyed up to sleep. After ten minutes he got up and rummaged around in his bureau. He found what he was looking for in the back of the bottom drawer: his old Spider-Man pyjamas. He hadn’t worn them for years. He put them on and stood in front of the mirror. The pants came only halfway down his legs. His arms were way too long for the sleeves. But he liked the way they looked.

  He got onto his desk the way he used to and leapt onto his bed. He lay there in the darkness.

  “I have radioactive blood,” he said.

  When the school board cut back on its custodial staff, Wally was too far down the seniority list to hold on to his day shift at Sam’s school. The board offered him a day position across town, but Wally opted to take the night shift at the school he loved. It seemed like a good choice at the time, but a month into the job, Wally was regretting it. The night shift was lonely. Lonelier, even, than window washing. The school felt unnatural at night—as hollow as an empty amusement park. And on the odd night when there were people inside the building, they were never kids. The people were nothing but an irritant. A week ago there was a staff meeting that dragged on and on, and Wally had to stay an hour later than usual. Tonight a neighbourhood committee was meeting to discuss speed limits, and traffic flow, and whether or not the street lights were turning on at the right time of night.

  Wally knew that he would have to interrupt them several times before they would clear out, and that whatever he did, there would be stragglers preventing him from locking up and getting home on time.

  Sam and Murphy didn’t know anything about any of that. All Sam and Murphy knew was that Wally was in trouble. And that they had to do something.

  According to the plan, they were to meet in the schoolyard. At the top of the slide. When everyone was asleep.

  Sam lay in bed staring at the clock, willing it to move, praying it wouldn’t, until, all of a sudden, it was time. He got up and dressed and carefully arranged a pile of laundry under his blankets the way Murphy had told him, trying to make it appear as if he was tucked in bed, asleep. Then he snuck downstairs and slid out the back door.

  He stayed off the sidewalks. He cut across front yards. He climbed over back fences. He kept to the shadows.

  He was wearing a backpack. He had packed a flashlight, a penknife, two peanut butter sandwiches, a piece of rope, a Baggie of dog biscuits in case there were dogs, and a book to identify animal spoor.

  It was the middle of the night when he got to the schoolyard. At least ten o’clock. Maybe even 10:15. And when he got there, he couldn’t believe his e
yes. There were cars in the parking lot. And there were lights on in the school.

  Someone must have squealed on them.

  Murphy was already there, waiting.

  Murphy said, “I have been here for an hour.”

  Sam pointed at the lights and the cars. “The people.…” said Sam.

  But Murphy was already under way. Murphy was half crouched and zigzagging his way across the schoolyard like a commando. Sam ran after him, trying to catch up. Sam didn’t want to be alone.

  The side door of the school was mysteriously open.

  “Come on,” said Murphy in the darkness. Sam could hear Murphy, but he couldn’t see him.

  They came out into a hall at the back of the staff room. There were people talking.

  “Shhh,” said Murphy. “It’s them.”

  “Who?” said Sam.

  “The people who make you redundant.”

  Sam crept forward and peeked around the open door. He had never seen any of these people in his life.

  There was a man saying something.

  “It happened again last night,” said the man, “somebody is going to get killed one of these days.”

  Murphy looked at Sam.

  “See,” said Murphy. “It’s them.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Sam.

  It was Murphy, who had done morning announcements three times already that year, who got them into the vice-principal’s office and onto the school public address system. It was Murphy, who sat at the vice-principal’s desk and flicked on the PA. It was Murphy who then leaned into the microphone, lowered his voice and did his best Darth Vader impression: “It is time for you to go. Leave now while you still can.”

  Then he sat back.

  Neither he nor Sam heard the ripple of laughter in the staff room—where the neighbourhood traffic committee had been arguing about speed bumps for the past two and a half hours.

  Murphy and Sam were out of earshot. Murphy made his announcement, leaned back and shrugged at Sam. Then he moved toward the microphone once more for good measure:

  “You are free to go … if you go now.”

  Murphy flicked off the PA, and he and Sam ran out of the office and down the hall, ducking into Miss Perriton’s kindergarten class. They flew to the window. When they saw the cars pulling out of the parking lot, they high-fived each other.