Home from the Vinyl Cafe

by Stuart McLean

Dave was hardly ever home alone.

  He made a pot of coffee and settled down with the paper. He wondered if Morley would get some of the chocolate-covered strawberries he loved. He wondered if she would get some crusty bread and smoked cold cuts. He felt deliciously guilty. He felt free.

  This was a good idea, he thought.

  He wondered if they had any wine. Maybe for lunch he would open the bottle of Bordeaux they had bought at the duty-free shop two years ago.

  The telephone rang.

  Dave stared at the phone, but he didn’t make a move to answer it.

  He knew people who could do this. He had friends who could let their phone ring. He couldn’t.

  He sat at the table and stared at the phone as if hypnotized. It rang two, three, four times.

  When it stopped, the house felt immensely quiet.

  Dave felt wonderful.

  He didn’t check the answering machine.

  He didn’t care who had called.

  No one was going to bother him today.

  He got up and walked across the kitchen, moving slowly and deliberately. He poured himself another cup of coffee. He read a movie review.

  It was like skipping school.

  The phone began to ring again.

  Should have taken it off the hook, thought Dave.

  Then he thought, Maybe it’s Morley. Maybe she wanted to consult him about the videos. Maybe he could ask her to get some of the black-olive paste.

  Maybe if he didn’t answer, she would be worried. Or angry.

  In a sudden panic, he jumped for the phone. He scooped it up on the fourth ring. He was out of breath when he said, “Hello?”

  It wasn’t Morley. It was Morley’s mother.

  “I phoned a few minutes ago,” said Helen. “Then I tried the store. They told me you were sick. Are you okay?”

  Dave reached into his pocket, pulled out his wad of wet Kleenex, and stuffed it back in his mouth. “Just a bit of a fever,” he mumbled.

  “You sound horrible,” said Helen. “You sound like your mouth is full of Kleenex.”

  Dave said, “I’m okay.”

  Helen said, “I wanted to see if Morley would have lunch with me.”

  “Morley’s sick, too,” said Dave. He said it without thinking. The words just flew out of his mouth. He was trying to save the day. He was trying to head Helen off at the pass.

  “Can I talk to her?” asked Helen.

  “Too sick,” said Dave. “She’s too sick to come to the phone. She’s upstairs. Asleep. I don’t think I should wake her.”

  Dave felt like he had stepped on a treadmill. Some part of him knew he should pull the brake and get off. He should tell Helen the truth. Should say, “Helen, we’re not really sick. We’re taking the day off. We’re going to spend it together. Alone.” Instead, he said, “She has fever and these little red dots.” Then, for good measure, he added, “She threw up last night.”

  Helen said, “She has a rash. Maybe I should come over.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  Dave could feel perspiration gathering on his forehead. His breathing was shallow. His hands were cold and damp. He was beginning to feel … sick.

  Dave said, “It’s okay. We’ll be fine.”

  Helen said, “I’ll bring some soup for you two and fix dinner for the kids. It’s no trouble. Don’t worry. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  Morley came home half an hour later, carrying two large brown paper bags and two videos.

  “I got Wild Orchid and 9 ½ Weeks,” she said.

  Dave picked up 9 ½ Weeks. “It’s the original, uncut, uncensored version,” said Morley. “We’re going to see it the way it was meant to be seen.”

  Dave flipped the box over. “What’s it about?” he asked.

  “It’s the one with Kim Basinger,” said Morley. “The one where Mickey Rourke feeds her the giant chili pepper.” Morley reached into one of the bags and pulled out a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. Then she walked across the kitchen and put her arms around her husband’s neck. “It’s a steamy story of a love affair that breaks every taboo.”

  Dave swallowed.

  Morley laughed. “I got some of that olive paste you like. And some French bread,” she said.

  Dave said, “There’s something I better tell you.”

  Morley said, “Just a second.” She reached into the other bag and pulled out a handful of magazines. She was grinning. “This is going to be great,” she said.

  Dave said, “Helen phoned. She’s coming over.”

  Morley said, “You can’t be serious.”

  Dave said, “I told her I was sick. Then I told her you were sick.” He pressed his hands against his forehead. His head was beginning to throb. “I didn’t know if I should tell her I was faking—we were faking. I felt like an idiot.”

  Morley said, “That’s because you are an idiot.”

  Dave and Morley spent the next half hour tidying up. Then Morley went upstairs and put on her old flannel nightie, which hung off her shoulders like a sack. When Helen arrived, they were both lying in bed, stiff as corpses. They weren’t speaking to each other. The two brown paper bags from the food store were under the bed on Morley’s side.

  Helen said, “You look awful. Have you eaten? I’ll make soup.” She went down to the kitchen.

  Dave turned to Morley and said, “I’m sorry. Come on. This isn’t my fault. She’s your mother.”

  Morley looked at him and said, “I don’t believe this.” Then she reached under the bed and pulled out a chocolate strawberry and ate it as if she were alone.

  Dave’s headache was getting worse. “Could I have one of those?” he asked.

  “I’m not stopping you,” said Morley.

  But she wasn’t offering them around, either.

  Dave crawled over his wife and took two strawberries out of the bag. He was standing by the bed in a T-shirt and a pair of boxers when Helen came back in the room.

  “Everything okay?” she said.

  Dave rammed the second strawberry into his mouth.

  “Dave?” she said.

  He covered his mouth with his hand. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he said, and ran for the bathroom.

  “He doesn’t look well,” said Helen to Morley.

  By the time Dave was back in bed, Helen was in the kitchen again, and the oily smell of chicken soup was drifting upstairs.

  Morley said, “This is a nightmare. I hate chicken soup. I had to eat chicken soup when I was a kid. That’s what she always fed us whenever we were sick. Just the smell of chicken soup makes me ill. Do something. Get her out of here.”

  Dave said, “How do I get her out of here? She’s trying to help.”

  “You invited her,” said Morley. “You uninvite her.”

  Helen brought the bowls of soup up on a tray.

  Dave’s head was pounding. His mouth was dry.

  He didn’t want a scene. He didn’t want Morley to thunder out of bed and tell Helen he had lied. He would feel too stupid. It had gone too far. Please, God, he thought. Please let us carry the soup part off.

  He smiled weakly at Morley. “Look,” he said. “Dry toast. Dry toast is just what I wanted.”

  Morley made Dave eat her bowl of soup.

  “Can’t I flush it down the toilet?” he asked. “It tastes funny. I think it’s off.” He was starting to feel queasier with every spoonful he swallowed.

  “Eat it,” said Morley. “All of it.” Then she got out of bed and started to get dressed.

  Downstairs, Helen was sitting in front of the television.

  Morley walked into the room carrying two paper bags. She put them down and said, “The soup was great. I feel much better. I think it was one of those eight-hour things. I’m going to go for a walk. Can you stay for a while? What I’d really like to do is go to a movie. I haven’t been to a matinee for years. Would that be wicked?”

  Helen frowned. “Do you really feel better?”

 
Morley said, “I’m fine. Could you stay with Dave? He’s not looking so good. I think he needs more soup.”

  Helen brightened. She was watching a documentary on the grizzly bear. She saw Morley frowning at the screen and said, “There’s nothing else on.”

  Morley picked up the two videos she had rented and looked at them ruefully. She put them back down and gathered up the two brown paper bags.

  “What’s that, dear?” asked Helen.

  “Oh, just some dry cleaning,” said Morley. “I’ll drop it off on my way to the theater.”

  When Helen came into the bedroom, Dave was lying under the covers, staring at the ceiling. Helen was holding a bowl of soup in one hand and a video in the other. She said, “Morley thought you might like company,” and then, lifting the video, she added, “I found this downstairs.”

  Dave’s stomach began to churn. He felt as if he were strapped into the passenger seat of a car that was about to be involved in an accident. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening.

  Helen flicked on the television and bent down and stared at the video player. She slipped the movie into the machine and pressed the play button.

  She straightened up and kicked off her shoes and sat down on Morley’s side of the bed, arranging the pillows so she could lean against the headboard.

  “It’s called 9 ½ Weeks,” she said. “Have you heard of it?”

  Dave shook his head numbly.

  “Me, neither,” said Helen. “I hope it’s not full of violence.”

  Dave was too ill to reply.

  “This is fun,” said Helen. “I don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie in the middle of the day. I should do this more often. Eat your soup.”

  Winter,

  Again

  On the Roof

  Betty Schellenberger and Morley were drinking coffee.

  Morley said, “They’ve done studies. Even in families where men and women do equal amounts of housework, it’s the women who organize it.”

  Betty nodded, her hands cradling the mug of coffee in front of her on the kitchen table.

  “It’s the women,” said Morley, “who plan and assign. It’s the women who drive the train.”

  Dave was washing the lunch dishes. It made him feel bad, listening to them talk. It felt personal, as if they were criticizing him. No one, he thought grimly, assigned me these dishes. He considered stopping. I wouldn’t want to overstep my boundaries, he thought. Since Morley had gone back to work in the fall, Dave had been trying to shoulder his share of the chores. But Morley was right. There was no denying it. She was management. He was labor.

  It was Saturday afternoon. The sky was gray and heavy. The wind was rippling the puddles on the driveway. It looked like it could snow.

  The weather suited Dave’s mood. When he finished the dishes, he said, “I’m going to take Arthur out.”

  He put on an old blue sweater and a canvas jacket, stuffed a toque and a pair of gloves in his pocket, and headed outside with the dog. He thought of loading Arthur into the car and driving to a park, or maybe taking him down to the lake. He stood on the front walk—Arthur looking up at him expectantly—then, instead of getting in the car, he headed north through the neighborhood.

  There was hardly anyone else out. There were some kids walking through the park, but no one on the playground. The abandoned swings hung on their yellow metal frame like a row of mourners.

  Up ahead was a woman walking toward Dave on the same side of the street.

  “Hello,” said Dave as they passed. The woman walked by with her jaw firmly clenched, her eyes straight ahead. As if he and Arthur didn’t exist.

  There are lots of things that can give you the blues. The weather can give you the blues. Sometimes it is so gray out, it makes you feel blue inside. Your friends can give you the blues. In fact, your best friends are often better at making you feel blue than your worst enemies. Sometimes, however, it’s just an overheard conversation, a stranger on the street, empty swings.

  Dave had not intended to be gone long. But he kept walking. After forty-five minutes, he was on a street he had never been on before, gazing into the window of a store he had never seen: Thrift Villa—“where smart shoppers save.”

  He went in only to warm up, but he ended up buying two drinking glasses—sixty-nine cents each. One was a Dave Keon hockey glass with a picture of Keon on one side and a referee on the other demonstrating the signal for a holding penalty. HOLDING, it said in black letters under the referee. The lady at the cash register told him it was a peanut-butter jar from the sixties. She couldn’t remember the brand name.

  “I’m pretty sure it was a rodent,” she said as she rolled the glasses in newspaper. “Like a beaver. Or a squirrel.”

  When Dave was halfway home, it started to snow. He pulled his toque out of his pocket and put it on, tugging it down over his ears. It was four-thirty and getting dark. He had been gone two hours. The weather was whispering warnings: Just wanted to remind you, said the snow, that you’ll be walking home from work in the dark from now on. Just wanted to let you know, said the wind, that it will probably be raining.

  He was cheered by the texture of the light from the houses he passed. It reminded him of winter nights when he was a boy, of afternoon-long games of hockey. Maybe, he thought, I should take everyone to Cape Breton for Christmas. He hadn’t been home at Christmas for too many years.

  He thought of the disaster that befell him when he tried to cook the turkey the year before. They could do worse than spend the holidays with his mother. She would be happy to see them. The kids could cut a tree on the McCauleys’ farm.

  That was what started him thinking about Christmas decorations. He had been late with them last year, so late that he’d ended up more or less throwing their lights over the front hedge. He had promised himself he would do better this year.

  Well, it was this year now. He would get the lights up before anyone had to ask. He would beat Morley to the punch. He would be labor and management. He was feeling better when he got home.

  On Tuesday, Dave came home early, determined to climb onto his roof and hang the Christmas lights. He wanted to be done before dark. But first, he had to go to Jim Scoffield’s house to borrow a ladder, and they had to have a beer. Then they had to find the ladder. Dave had to replace all the burned-out bulbs. Suddenly, it was dusk.

  It was dark by the time Dave stepped gingerly onto the roof and half-walked, half-crawled across the shingles to the chimney.

  It was colder than he’d expected. He grabbed hold of the television antenna and carefully straightened up. He could see all over the neighborhood. He wondered why he got up there only at the worst times of the year. I should come up here more often, he thought. He sat down with his back to the chimney and began to untangle the lights that he had already untangled before he climbed the ladder.

  It took him about half an hour to attach the lights to the antenna. When he was finished, he plugged them in, and his roof was bathed in light—yellows, reds, greens, and blues. They didn’t look half bad, and miracle of miracles, no bulbs had burned out since he had checked them half an hour ago. Dave shuffled back to the ladder to get a better look.

  The antenna reminded him of the clothesline in his yard when he was a child. They had the kind made from one center pole, the kind that looks like an umbrella with the fabric removed. Dave remembered the winter mornings when his mother would push him into a snowsuit and out the back door like a blimp, remembered the swishing of all that nylon material between his legs. How he inevitably needed to pee once he was stuck outside.

  He looked out over the rooftops, and suddenly, as sure as if she were standing beside him, Dave could hear his sweet mother’s voice fill his head. She was warning him about something. She was saying, Dave, don’t lick the clothesline.

  Sometimes you do things just because someone tells you not to. Sometimes you do things because you have never done them before and you w
ant to see what will happen if you do. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why you do some things at all.

  Dave had never put his tongue against a television antenna on a cold night in November, although he had a pretty fair idea what would happen if he did. But the moment his mother’s voice came into his head, he could feel himself drawn to the antenna.

  As he slowly crab-walked back across the roof toward the chimney to which the antenna was attached, Dave was thinking to himself, This won’t happen. I won’t do this. Why would I do this? I’m not stupid. I’m just trying to scare myself. Yet he felt as if he were outside of his body. It didn’t seem to be him moving across the roof. It seemed to be someone else. And there didn’t seem to be much he could do to stop himself.

  Part of Dave was saying, I don’t want to put my tongue on that television antenna, but another part of him, the part that seemed to be in control—the part his tongue seemed to be listening to—was saying, Just do it, Dave. You don’t have to listen to your mother anymore. You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want.

  He was surprised by how unequivocally his tongue grabbed on to the metal. It was not at all uncertain about what it was expected to do. Dave himself was uncertain that he had even touched the metal. He thought there was still some space between him and the pole, and then all at once he was bonded to it. At first he was intrigued by the way his tongue stuck. Almost proud of it. It hurt a bit, but it was not an excruciating pain—more the pain of melted candle wax than molten lead.

  Then it hurt a bit more, and Dave thought, Okay, that’s enough, and he tried to pull his tongue off the antenna. It didn’t come. He leaned forward because it hurt when he tried to pull, and then more of his tongue was stuck to the antenna, and he felt a wave of panic rush through him.

  His mother’s voice filled his head again. She said, I told you not to do that.

  And Dave said, “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  Except it sounded different … more like “MMMMUUU-UGGGHHHH.” When he said it, his top lip brushed against the antenna, and then his top lip was stuck as well as his tongue, and he knew he was in serious trouble.

  Dave stopped moving. He was very still. Then he tried to lean back a little, but it hurt, and his tongue didn’t want to let go.