Home from the Vinyl Cafe

by Stuart McLean

  “What?” said Dave.

  “Cat scratches,” said Jim. “They get infected easily.”

  “She didn’t have to do that,” Dave told Morley as she wiped his face with hydrogen peroxide. “She had to go out of her way to go over my head. It was deliberate. It was malicious.”

  It started to rain. They never got to the cottage.

  Last summer Dave said, “I’ll get Kenny to look after her. We’ll leave her here, and Kenny can come over and feed her. It’s just two weeks. Kenny can do that.”

  Dave knew Kenny would be delighted to have a key to his house. To a television set with cable.

  Dave was prepared to leave Galway in the house by herself, but not Arthur. Jim Scoffield had offered to look after the dog.

  Usually, Arthur was anxious when he sensed he was being left behind, and Dave felt like a traitor when he led him over to Jim’s house. But when they got there, Arthur seemed … relieved. Almost delighted. When Dave took him off the leash, he bounded around Jim’s house. When Jim leaned over to pat him, Arthur licked his face with enthusiasm.

  “That’s odd,” said Dave.

  They left on a glorious Monday morning in August. They drove north, stopping for hamburgers after two hours on the road. Stephanie walked into the restaurant after they had found a table and sat at the counter by herself.

  They made supper in a provincial park on the shores of Georgian Bay.

  “This is what Canada is all about,” said Morley. “This is the heart of our country.”

  “It’s too windy,” said Stephanie. “It’s just trees.”

  They drove aboard the ferry to Manitoulin Island in the morning. “First on, first off,” said Dave.

  Halfway across the lake, the sky abruptly darkened, and the ferry started to roll in the chop. Dave said, “I don’t feel so good. I’m going to the car to get a sweater.” Down below, he had to pick his way along the length of the ship to where he had parked at the front of the line of cars. First on. First off. The rumble of the ship’s engine and the greasy smell of motor oil didn’t make Dave feel better. He was standing alone among the parked cars, like a wonky scarecrow, wondering what he should do if his stomach got worse, when he opened the trunk. He was preoccupied and totally unprepared for what happened next.

  He squinted into the dark trunk and leaned forward, feeling for his sweater. In the darkness, his hand brushed against something soft and wool-like on top of the picnic basket. He tried to pick it up, and then, with a shock of adrenaline rushing through his body, he let it go—knowing this thing he had touched wasn’t a sweater-thing but something that could breathe, it was a breathing-thing. At this point, Dave lost conscious awareness of what was happening. The adrenaline hit some primal gland, and he became Cro-Magnon Dave. Knowing only that the thing-that-wasn’t-a-sweater, the breathing-thing, was big enough to be a life-threatening sort of thing. Not cougar, but maybe wolverine. Cro-Magnon Dave made a grunting prehistoric sound that twentieth-century Dave had never heard before but immediately understood to mean get-me-out-of-here.

  When you reach into any dark place, a place you can’t see into, even an innocuous place like under-a-sofa, when you reach under-a-sofa expecting to come up with something like a newspaper and hit, instead, something soft, like the family guinea pig, or worse, something you can penetrate, like a piece of rotting fruit, even these innocuous objects can kick the get-me-out-of-here gland into action.

  So it is, when you reach into your trunk in the darkness of a ferry expecting to grab a sweater, and wrap your hand instead around something that can breathe, you do exactly what Dave did—you jump back and smack your head on the roof of the trunk. A split second later, when the breathing-thing—which some part of Dave’s brain noticed bore an amazing resemblance to Galway—when this living creature explodes out of your trunk, you instinctively grab it by the tail as it sails by you, and you swing it in the air.

  Galway landed on the roof of the car. Dave stood there, the blood pounding in his ears. Heard an announcement over the speakers instructing passengers to return to their vehicles. Saw his wife and children coming toward him.

  “Now, Lord,” he said. “Take me now, Lord.”

  The family seemed more concerned, were more concerned, about Galway than they were about Dave.

  “Is she okay, Daddy?” said Stephanie.

  “What happened?” said Sam.

  “How did she get here?” said Morley.

  As the ferry docked, the kids ran to the cafeteria. They came back with a tuna-salad sandwich and a pile of coffee creamers.

  “She hasn’t eaten all day,” said Sam.

  Galway spent the next half hour in the backseat, between the kids, lapping up the tuna sandwich and innumerable creamers. By the time they reached Sault Ste. Marie, she had settled comfortably in what became her favorite car place—curled under Dave’s seat, where she could reach out whenever she felt like it and take swipes at Dave’s ankles.

  “Tough,” said Morley.

  She didn’t say “Sorry.” She didn’t say “We could stop and get a cage.” Just “Tough.”

  There were some nice times: an afternoon at Science North in Sudbury, the morning the truck driver took their picture beside the giant goose at Wawa.

  “I was once stuck here for two days,” said Dave. “Trying to hitchhike to Vancouver.”

  But it wasn’t the vacation Dave had imagined. He had envisioned himself in the early evening, drinking a beer in a lawn chair beside the pool of some seedy motel, watching the kids swim. He had imagined baskets of fried chicken, strange television shows, roadside theme parks.

  Mostly, it was a dark and sorry week.

  He had not considered flat tires, “No Vacancy” signs, lost sunglasses, and a worn-out alternator. He left the headlights on one afternoon in a mall parking lot outside Schreiber, Ontario. They had to phone for a jump.

  Mostly, it was thumping west along the Trans-Canada Highway to the constant buzz from Stephanie’s Walkman. Mostly, it was Morley and Dave barely talking, Sam and Stephanie talking only when they needed to point out where their side of the seat began or ended. Every night Dave locked himself into the motel bathroom and dabbed at his shredded ankles with hydrogen peroxide. There was no air-conditioning in their car, and each day it seemed to get hotter.

  On a Sunday when they woke up sticky and got stickier as the day progressed, Galway started to behave oddly. She moved out from under Dave’s seat and began pacing around the car.

  “I think Galway is sick,” said Sam.

  “She looks weird, Daddy,” said Stephanie. “There’s white stuff around her mouth.”

  Galway wasn’t sick. She had just been heated up hotter than a cat should be heated. Dave said, “We’ll get off the highway. There must be a back road.”

  The temperature in the car was unbearable. They couldn’t open the windows for fear Galway would jump out. Dave was thinking, We’ll stop for ice cream at the first place we see.

  And then, suddenly, they were in a traffic jam.

  On a Sunday? thought Dave. In Atikokan?

  “I need a drink,” said Stephanie. “I don’t feel so good.”

  Dave said, “Hold on,” and turned abruptly onto a side street. He had no idea where he was going. He just knew that he had to keep the car moving until they got somewhere. Anywhere. He didn’t want to be stuck in traffic. He drove halfway down the block and, to his horror, saw there was a barrier at the end of the street. He could feel the car closing in on him.

  “I don’t believe this,” he said.

  He stopped short, throwing the kids against the front seat and Galway into his ankles.

  “Cool,” said Sam.

  “Dave,” said Morley, “take it easy.”

  But Dave was way beyond easy. He put the car in reverse and began backing up the street faster than he should have. Swinging from side to side.

  “There’s an alley,” he said. “I saw an alley.”

  He turned into the alley and t
oo late saw that a block away, where the alley rejoined the street, there was a crowd of people standing with their backs to him, blocking his way. He honked. When nothing happened, he honked again. He kept driving down the alley. Honking. No one moved until he was close, and then a man, holding two children by their hands, turned and looked. Only then did the crowd part, parents tugging children out of the way.

  Then they were out of the alley and turning onto the main street. Dave hesitated and turned right because everything seemed to be moving right. He thought, At last.

  And Morley said, “Dave?” It was a question.

  Dave noticed the sidewalks were lined with people—not just across his alley but all up and down the street—on both sides.

  Stephanie said, “Why is everybody waving?”

  And Morley said, “Because this is a parade. We are in a parade.”

  Dave started to feel sick himself.

  “This is pathetic,” said Stephanie as she slipped out of sight on the seat. Before Dave could think what to do, there was an explosion, like a cannon or a rocket.

  Loud and close. And another …

  It was a bass drum. Dave looked in the rearview mirror and saw that there was a band right behind them. He watched as the man in the bearskin hat leading the band, about ten feet behind their car, hurled a silver baton high into the air. When he caught it, the band began playing. Dave didn’t know marching bands sounded so loud when you were that close to them, and then he couldn’t see them anymore because the mirror was suddenly filled with the image of Galway hurtling from the backseat toward Dave’s head, like a jet plane. Dave ducked. The car lurched momentarily toward the sidewalk. Dave slammed on the brakes. But he had to start up again quickly, jerkily, or the marching band was going to march right over them.

  So they drove on, Galway ping-ponging around the car, over all of them. Front seat. Backseat. Ricocheting off the windows. Flecks of foam flying from her mouth. She settled abruptly in Sam’s lap.

  Sam said, “Cool.” He held the foaming cat up to the window, waving her paw at the crowd.

  A clown appeared at the side of the car, jogging along beside them, knocking on Morley’s window, waving. Morley looked straight ahead.

  Sam said, “This is really cool.”

  Dave smiled weakly at the clown and waved at a little girl who was pointing at him. He was looking for a street he could turn onto.

  But there were no streets to turn onto.

  “Well,” he said, leaning in to the driver’s door, trying to be comfortable with this, “it could be worse.”

  Which was when Galway vomited.

  Into Morley’s lap.

  They turned around that night.

  They were sitting in the parking lot of a doughnut shop somewhere between Atikokan and Fort Frances. It was eight-thirty at night, and they couldn’t find a motel.

  Morley said, “Dave, do you want to go home?”

  “Is this Saskatchewan?” asked Sam. “It looks just like Scarborough.”

  They got home three days later.

  As they drove under the warm orange glow of the lights that hung over the expressway, Morley felt as though she were being wrapped in a blanket. She turned to Dave. “If you had to,” she said, “how would you categorize this holiday?”

  Dave looked at his wife. She was smiling.

  He felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Catastrophe,” he said.

  “I thought for a while,” she said, “that you were …”

  “Catatonic?” said Dave.

  She laughed. “It’s good to be home. It wasn’t a complete …”

  “Cataclysm?” said Dave. “Next year,” he said, “no car. We’ll fly to the …”

  “Catskills,” said Morley.

  “And eat the flesh of large, dumb, slow-moving animals,” said Dave. “Meat that will block our arteries and make us fat.”

  “What?” said Morley.

  “Elephants,” said Sam.

  “Cattle,” said Stephanie.

  It was good to be home.

  There was a pile of mail on the dining room table.

  “I’m going over to Jim’s,” said Dave. “To get Arthur. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  It was Morley who found the note from Kenny on the kitchen counter.

  Didn’t see the cat for the first day or two, so I put the food on the porch and she started eating it. She finally came in after a couple of days. I didn’t let her out again. I think she missed you. She’s been scratching the furniture a bit.

  Dave walked into the living room with Arthur the same moment Galway came pounding down the stairs with a huge orange tabby on her tail. Galway, a step ahead of the tabby, leaped onto a bookcase and spun around to face the intruder. There was an instant of perfect silence. Dave standing at the doorway with Arthur at his side, Morley on her way from the kitchen with Kenny’s note in her hand, Stephanie reaching for the mail, Sam about to turn on the television. All of them frozen for a moment, their eyes on this monstrous cat they had never seen before.

  Arthur was the first to react.

  He growled, and as everyone turned to look at him, the growl changed to a bark. He jumped into action, his feet windmilling on the hardwood floor; barking, growling, he chased the orange cat once around the dining room and then out the front door.

  It happened so fast no one had a chance to say anything.

  Before anyone moved, Arthur was back, wagging his tail.

  Galway jumped down from the bookcase, and Arthur wagged up to her and licked her face.

  “That’s so cute,” said Stephanie, turning back to the mail.

  “They’re happy to see each other,” said Morley.

  It was only Dave who noticed Galway’s ears flattening ever so slowly; Dave who recognized the look of despair descending on Arthur as he tucked his tail between his legs and loped toward the kitchen, his dark woeful eyes glancing back over his shoulder at Galway as he went.

  Autumn

  The Pig

  The guinea pig was losing hair. Not shedding it; losing it. Morley said, “You better take her to the vet.” Dave said to his wife, “I know.”

  The neighborhood vet said she didn’t do pigs. She told Dave he’d have to take her to a clinic that specialized in small animals. Dave wasn’t sure how to move a sick pig across the city. He settled on the bus and a wooden fruit basket filled with wood chips. The pig didn’t seem to mind the excursion. Neither did Dave.

  The pig was Dave’s job. He cleaned her cage, he fed her, and since she was sick, he accepted that it was up to him to make her better. The pig was his son’s pet, but when he bought her, Dave knew that caring for her would eventually fall to him. He didn’t enjoy cleaning the cage two nights a week; often he resented it, but he never expected it to be any other way. The pig, after all, was his idea. Why shouldn’t he look after her? Once it occurred to him that he did a better job caring for the guinea pig than he did for anyone else in his life—not that he cared for the pig more than his wife or kids; just that looking after her was clearer. He could see when her cage was dirty, and when it was, he knew what to do about it.

  When he got to the vet, a young receptionist asked him questions and typed his answers into her computer. When she asked for the pig’s name, Dave said, “Doesn’t have a name.”

  Not liking the look that crossed her face, he added, “We call her, the Pig … sometimes just Guinea.” Dave, who had always felt naming animals was a questionable practice, thought naming a rodent was foolish, and he hadn’t encouraged the idea. But standing in front of the receptionist, he felt shabby about owning an unnamed pig. As if that told her all she needed to know about him and his family and the way they cared for animals. As if it were suddenly obvious why the pig was sick.

  Dave is foggy about the rest of the visit. But he can remember snatches of it. He remembers the receptionist ushering him into another room. He and the pig. He remembers being left alone until another young woman walked in. In his memory, she is w
earing a white lab coat. She looks much too young to be a doctor. When she plucks the pig out of its basket and holds her up confidently, he thinks, Must be just out of school.

  The young woman is asking him questions. She is poking the pig, petting her. She is taking her away. Dave waits in the front room with the receptionist.

  When the young vet, whose name is Dr. Percy, calls Dave back into the examining room, she tells him that she suspects the pig has a tumor. Suspects. She can’t be sure. Not without tests.

  “We don’t see a lot of guinea pigs,” she adds.

  Then she hands Dave a yellow piece of paper that he still has in his wallet. He has been showing it to everyone who lingers by the cash register at his store. At the top of the page it says:

  ESTIMATE

  GUINEA PIG—UNNAMED

  What seized Dave’s attention the moment Dr. Percy handed the estimate to him, and why he has been showing it around, is the figure at the bottom of the page.

  ESTIMATE TOTAL: $563.30

  The ESTIMATE is carefully itemized:

  Guinea pig examination and assessment

  $37.00

  4 days hospitalization exotic level 2 @ $21.50/day

  $86.00

  Vitamin C injection

  $12.00

  Fluids, Reglan injection additional @ $6.00 each

  $12.00

  Exotic anesthesia induction fee

  $30.00

  20 mins. Isoflurane anesthesia @ $120/hr

  $40.00

  15 mins. Surgery minor category @ $200/hr

  $49.95

  Radiograph split plate

  $62.00

  CBC—done with profile

  $25.00

  Clinical chemistry 1 profile

  $47.50

  Cortisol (3 tests)

  $75.00

  Miscellaneous charges if needed (medication

  at home, etc.)

  $50.00

  7% GST to be added to final bill. Estimated to be

  $36.85

  The figure that galled Dave was the $21.50 a day for hospitalization. How could it cost $21.50 a day to feed and lodge a guinea pig? He himself had stayed in motels for under $21.50 a night. How much could a guinea pig eat, especially after surgery?