Extreme Vinyl Café

by Stuart McLean

  Two hours later, he was still stumbling through the mall, past the inappropriately violent toys, past the brightly coloured baby things, overwhelmed by the sea of plastic.

  And that was when he stopped for coffee. At the very counter he was stopped at now. He had been standing there, right where he was right now, trying to do what all kids dread their parents doing—trying to come up with a present that wasn’t on his son’s Christmas list. And it was while he was standing there, only because he was standing there, that he spotted the pet store.

  “Perfect,” he muttered. So perfect he walked in without taking his coffee with him. So perfect he forgot his coffee on the counter.

  He was thinking of something simple as he walked through the door. Thinking goldfish or maybe a turtle. And then he wound around one of the aisles and almost bumped right into Rat Man.

  Rat Man, who was pudgy and maybe thirty years old, one of those guys whose belly popped out between the bottom buttons of his shirt, struck Dave as a tad too old for the enthusiasm he seemed to feel about the animals he was displaying, which happened to be … rats.

  He was holding three of them. One on his shoulder and two in his hands.

  Dave froze, his heartbeat accelerating. Dave happens to be terrified of rats. Phobic almost. He had suffered this for years—ever since the long-ago morning he woke up on Vincent Furnier’s couch with a rat perched on his chest. This is God’s truth, and goes way, way back; back before Vince changed his name and got famous. Dave woke up on his back with the rat sitting on his chest, nibbling a piece of pizza that Dave had been nibbling himself when he had dozed off.

  How was he to know the rat was Vince’s pet?

  All he knew was that he woke up and he was staring into those beady little eyes. And that now, just the thought of rats terrified him. Sometimes he lies in bed at night listening for them, especially if he is in a strange bed, like a hotel or something.

  When he got married, Morley had to get used to it. Then she got sick of it. The furnace would bump on and Dave would jerk awake. “Did you hear that?” he’d ask, shaking her.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie,” she’d say, rolling over, “it’s only a rat.”

  Morley was right—the rat thing was out of control. That little seed of fear, planted on Vince’s couch so many years ago, had overtaken him. It was long ago, but Dave stood in that pet store as frightened as if it was yesterday.

  There were three little boys between Dave and the Rat Man, all of them staring up at him, or more to the point, at his rats: at the rat perched on his shoulder, the rat under his arm and the rat he was holding in his hands.

  “Male rats,” he was explaining, “are called bucks. Females are called does. The babies are called kittens or pups. A group of rats is referred to as a pack. Or a mischief. I like mischief better. These little guys really love mischief. Come here, Elvis.” And with that, he scooped the rat off his shoulder and handed it to one of the kids.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. They are very intelligent creatures. Highly intelligent. And highly psychological. In many ways, very similar to us, except cleaner and more playful.”

  Although Dave didn’t want any part of this, he was mesmerized. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t stop staring. He stared at the Rat Man. And then at the boys. Each one was holding a rat now. The Rat Man looked at Dave and smiled. He reached out and took a rat away from one of the kids and shoved it toward Dave.

  “Interested?” he said.

  Dave recoiled in horror.

  “Not for me,” said Dave. “My son. I was thinking, a turtle.”

  “You can’t get a turtle,” said the Rat Man, who was now walking toward Dave. “You got to go for something with fur. And a guinea pig is going to bite you soon as look at you.”

  “What about a hamster?” said Dave, pathetically.

  “Hamsters,” said the man, “keep you up all night.

  “But rats,” said the man, pushing the rat toward Dave, “rats are smart, loyal, affectionate and friendly.”

  None of this sounded like good news to Dave. Not one little bit. He tried to back away.

  “Look at these boys,” said Rat Man. “Make your boy happy. Believe me.”

  And maybe, thought Dave, ten minutes later, after he had calmed down a little, help me master my phobia?

  Before he knew it, Dave was walking out of the pet store with a five-pound bag of cedar shavings and a small cardboard box.

  The gift-wrap lady was an older woman, wearing a red reindeer cardigan and snowman earrings.

  “It’s for my son,” said Dave, holding out the box.

  The lady smiled as she took it from him. Then the box squeaked, vibrated and leapt in the air.

  “Good lord,” said the lady, “what is this?”

  “It’s okay,” said Dave, trying to reassure her. “It’s just a rat.”

  It took Dave a few minutes and twenty dollars to convince the lady to wrap the rodent. When he got to his car, he checked to make sure the air holes in the gift wrap were still open. Then he placed the wrapped rat on the backseat.

  The chewing started a few minutes later.

  Dave adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could see into the back. The box was moving around on the back seat like a windup toy. There was a small pink nose popping out of the paper. The rat was chewing its way to freedom.

  Dave stepped on the gas. He had to get home quickly. He covered a block and glanced back in the mirror. He could see a nose and whiskers.

  A block later there was an entire rat face.

  And then there was no rat at all. All that Dave could see was a great empty hole in the box. A hole in the box and a rustling from under his seat. The rat was loose.

  Traffic was slowing up ahead. The brake lights on the car in front of him flashed. Dave was so preoccupied he almost missed them. Without thinking, he stepped down on his brake.

  Nothing happened.

  Well, that’s not entirely true. He stepped on the brake and there was a loud squeak. And then Dave felt something rip into his ankle. He looked down. He saw the rat’s tail disappearing under his seat.

  He pulled over on the side of the road and spent the next ten minutes scrambling around his car—back and forth from front to back, grasping and lunging like he was playing a game of squash. Eventually he got it.

  As he felt the wriggling creature in his hand, Dave struggled to make himself hold on and think pleasant, non-phobic thoughts. He thought about how surprisingly soft and warm the rat felt. He thought of the Rat Man, who had no fear. He thought of Sam and how much he would like a rat for Christmas. He did not think about pizza or about Vincent Furnier’s couch.

  Dave was sitting in the front seat, holding the rat. The rat was quivering. Dave was panting. The box was finished.

  If he was going to drive home, he had to put the rat somewhere. Dave looked at the glove compartment. It would be a squeeze. Too tight.

  He couldn’t drive home with a rat squished into a space designed for a pair of gloves. Whatever he felt about rats, presumably, they had feelings too. What if it was a claustrophobic rat?

  Dave settled on the only other available place: the trunk. There was plenty of room in the trunk. He got out of the car, keys in one hand, rat in the other. He placed the rat beside a box of old records and closed the trunk. He wasn’t that far from home. What else could he do?

  He pulled away from the curb, but he was anxious. What if the rat was getting bounced around? What if the crate of records slid over and crushed it? Halfway home, he stopped and pulled over. He wanted to check if the rat was okay.

  When he opened the trunk, he couldn’t see a rat anywhere. And what are you supposed to do about that?

  Dave shut the trunk quickly. He felt a wave of dread. It was a visceral response. You lose an umbrella or a wallet, and you feel stupid. You lose a living thing, any living thing, and it works on you differently. It merges with all the living things you hold yourself responsible for. He had lost sight of
a rat in his trunk—it might as well have been his child in the supermarket. He could feel a franticness rising in him.

  He was on a residential street, not far from his own neighbourhood. He was parked by the curb in the dark spot between two street lights.

  Now, there are, in the trunk of any car the size of Dave’s, even under the best of conditions, a lot of dark spots, a lot of nooks and a lot of crannies. Not to mention rags and cans and half-full boxes of records. Lots of places where a rat could disappear. Probably the rat was hiding. But maybe it was stuck. Maybe his Christmas gift was in distress, wedged somewhere in a crevice of his trunk, maybe even expiring. Or maybe it had escaped.

  He looked down the street anxiously. There was a man at the end of the block walking a dog. But there weren’t any rats in sight.

  He stood by the trunk and stared at the mess of his life. Why were these things always happening to him? Why wasn’t his trunk better organized? Okay, get a grip, he thought. A systematic search. Work from one side to the other.

  And it was while Dave was leaning in on the curb side of his trunk, shifting boxes around, that it occurred to him that the rat could just as easily be on the other side of the trunk, and could just as easily, while Dave was looking here on this side, make a break from over there, on that side.

  Without pausing to think about what he was doing, acting rather than thinking, Dave climbed into his trunk and reached up and pulled the hood down behind him. No rat was getting out of his trunk unless he let him out.

  That’s what he was thinking when he heard the unmistakable click of the trunk locking shut. His next thought was, I probably shouldn’t have pulled that quite so firmly.

  He reached up in the sudden darkness and pushed against the roof with his hand. Nothing.

  “Okay,” he said. “Deep breath.”

  He was going to be okay. He wasn’t going to die. He was just locked in the trunk of his car. Lots of people get locked in their trunks. As long as he didn’t panic, everything would be just fine.

  Two minutes later Dave was thrashing about and yelling and pounding on the roof of the trunk—lurching around in the darkness like a load of laundry on Extra Spin.

  It was Christmas Eve. The street was almost empty. An eight-year-old boy and his mother were walking on the opposite side of the road.

  “I think,” said the boy, pointing at Dave’s car, “I think that there is a body in that trunk. I think the body is talking.”

  The mother reached for her son’s hand.

  “That’s it, young man,” she said. “No more TV for you.” And they disappeared down the sidewalk.

  Inside the dark trunk Dave had stopped his pounding. Inside the trunk Dave was trying to get a grip.

  Think. Think. Think. His cellphone. He had his cellphone with him. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He squirmed around so he was lying on his back. It was frighteningly dark. He was horribly cramped. But he had his phone.

  He worked it out of his pocket and flipped it open. The trunk was bathed in a dim grey light. That was better. He could deal with this.

  And then—God help him! There was something staring at him. He was trapped in the trunk, and all he could see was a pair of eyes glaring at him. They were just like those pizza eyes. And they were getting closer.

  In his panic he had thrown the phone. Where was his phone? Okay, he had the phone. Who was he going to phone? He certainly wasn’t going to phone Morley. The police. He’d call the police.

  The call didn’t go as smoothly as you might expect. You try explaining to a police dispatcher that you have locked yourself in the trunk of your car because you have climbed in there looking for a rat.

  It would have made things a lot easier if Dave knew what street he was on. He didn’t. Well, he wasn’t sure. He knew the general vicinity.

  The police sent a car. The police officer turned on his siren and drove around the neighbourhood.

  “I hear it,” said Dave sheepishly. “It sounds like you’re a street over.”

  “Marco,” said the cop.

  “Polo,” said Dave glumly.

  Of course there is nothing like a siren to attract a crowd. Or the sight of a police officer prying open a trunk with a crowbar.

  “Are you okay, sir?” the office said when he finally popped it open.

  Dave, who was lying more or less in the fetal position, nodded earnestly. “I’m just looking for my ra— guinea pig.”

  He was trying to sound nonchalant. As if this was something he did every day.

  The officer put out a hand to help Dave from the trunk. Dave didn’t move.

  Dave said, “Well, I haven’t found him yet!”

  When he finally struggled out, he was clutching the rat like a child’s toy. He smiled ruefully at the gathered crowd. “My guinea pig,” he said, holding up the rat.

  There was a smattering of applause. But Dave overheard a young woman near the police car say something to her friends.

  “Isn’t that Stephanie’s dad?”

  The crowd drifted away. Dave stood by his car as the policeman filed his report. The rat was still quivering. Dave brought it up to his face and blew on its head. The rat nuzzled Dave’s neck. The guy in the pet store was right. It was sort of cute.

  He certainly couldn’t put it back in the trunk. And the cop wouldn’t let Dave drive home with a loose rat in his car.

  “Well?” said Dave.

  The cop gave Dave and the rat a ride home. But he made them sit in the back, behind the barrier.

  As they pulled in to the driveway, Dave could see Sam peering at them through the living-room window. Dave leaned forward in his seat and tapped the barrier lightly.

  “Hey,” he said to the police officer. “Can you do me one more favour?”

  The next morning Sam was so excited about Dave’s present that Morley could barely get him to open any other gifts. His father had bought him a rat. And not just any rat. As Sam told everyone, his dad had given him an official, licensed, certified police rat. It was delivered in a squad car, by a real police officer. With a badge. It was the perfect gift.

  And that’s what Dave got Kenny for his birthday this year— a rat like Sam’s. This time he bought a cage. He gave it to Kenny at lunch. “It’s an official police rat,” he said.

  Kenny said, “What do I want with a rat? I run a restaurant.”

  Dave smiled. “I’ll tell you,” said Dave, sitting down at the counter. “Get me a couple of bowls of that rice pudding. It’s a long story.”

  Dear Stuart,

  As francophone Canadians, we really appreciate it when you feature French-Canadian history, music and culture on The Vinyl Cafe, but we do have one question. Not to be too blunt about it, where exactly did you learn to speak French?

  Sincerely,

  Michel and Lise

  Dear Michel and Lise,

  Thanks for your letter. I learned to speak French much the way my young friend Sam did. Except sadly there was no girl.

  A TRIP TO QUEBEC

  They left on a Monday morning, at 7:30. The annual grade-eight trip to Quebec City. Seven-thirty in the morning and the entire neighbourhood was revved up. All the mothers and fathers. You would have thought they were leaving for war. Jenny Moore, Peter’s mother, hovering by the bus with her eyes full of tears and her hands full of Kleenex.

  And Jenny wasn’t the only one crying—just the most obvious. Jenny was Ping-Ponging from one teacher to another: Would they remember Peter was allergic to eggs? Was there a bathroom on the bus? She had given him sixty dollars. Yes, she knew it was supposed to be forty, but the extra twenty just in case.

  Peter was already on board. Peter had clambered onto the bus the moment it arrived.

  Murphy was second. And when Murphy found out about the extra twenty dollars, he reappeared out the front door and used the information to pry an additional twenty dollars from his father.

  All the parents gathered around the kids. All the kids, with their fancy packsacks, ignoring
them. There were brothers and sisters, a nanny or two and Mark Portnoy, on the edge of it all, looking lost. The only kid who came by himself. The only kid carrying his stuff in a plastic bag.

  Before you knew it, it was time to go. The kids pushed onto the bus and headed for the back, bouncing around the seats and colliding in the aisles. Parent volunteers settled into the seats at the front. And Mr. Reynolds, with his clipboard, stuck his head out the front door, looking up and down the street uncertainly. Sure enough, there they were. Dave and Sam running down the street, backpacks slapping their thighs, Arthur barking as he tried to keep up.

  “Sorry,” puffed Dave when they got there, “the alarm didn’t go off.”

  Dave had actually volunteered to be one of the parent supervisors. Mr. Reynolds had demurred.

  “Oh,” lied Mr. Reynolds when Dave had called, “that’s very kind. But we already have a full complement.”

  “Put me down as a backup,” said Dave.

  Over my dead body, thought Mr. Reynolds.

  After months of anticipation, and weeks of planning, they were finally ready. Outside, the parents lined up on either side of the bus and waved at kids they couldn’t see through the tinted windows. Inside, the kids couldn’t have cared less. When the bus finally pulled away, the two groups of parents found themselves waving at each other. Everyone cracked up, waved even harder and then walked down the street in twos and threes.

  Everyone except for Peter’s mom. She sprinted to the next corner so she could catch the bus as it turned at the end of the block. Poor Jenny Moore waving all by herself, at no one at all. The only person who saw her was twenty-two-year-old Pierre Massicotte, a second-year social science major at Université Laval. Pierre was sitting in the jump seat in the stairwell to the driver’s right. And Pierre was too preoccupied to pay Jenny Moore any mind. Pierre was going over and over the speech he had been preparing all week.

  It began like this:

  We are going on a fantastic trip. And I want you to leave everything you know behind you. I want you to pretend we are in a boat, not a bus. And I want you to pretend that we have just left France. And just like the French people in the seventeenth century who climbed into their boats, we don’t know where we are going or what is going to happen to us.