Home from the Vinyl Cafe

by Stuart McLean

  He got the vacuum cleaner and carried it into Sam’s bedroom and turned it on and left the room, shutting Sam’s door behind him. Five minutes later, when they opened his door, Sam was out cold.

  By the time he was fourteen months, they could put him to sleep by waving the hair dryer over him a couple of times.

  Bernie Schellenberger was standing on the stairs at the Andersons’ party, his screaming daughter in his arms, listening intently to Dave’s story.

  “Get your coat,” said Dave again. “You’ll see.” Then he said, “I’m going to bring Sam.”

  He was thinking, after all those years Sam should see what he put his father through.

  When Dave went down the back staircase into the Andersons’ basement, the television was on, but none of the kids were watching it. The videos Polly Anderson had rented to keep them amused were still piled on top of the TV. The TV was flickering like a yawning eye at a bunch of empty chairs. The twenty kids were at the other end of the room, pressed around the upright piano. Sam, to Dave’s astonishment, had his arms draped around the shoulder of a girl Dave had never seen before. Dave couldn’t see who was at the keyboard, but he recognized the tune. It was “The North Atlantic Squadron”:

  Away, away, with fife and drum

  Here we come, full of rum,

  Looking for women to …

  Someone noticed Dave, and the piano stopped abruptly.

  Sam said, “Hi, Dad.”

  He jumped toward his father and caught his foot on the edge of the piano stool and came down hard on middle C with his face leading. All the kids applauded, and Sam bowed, blood dripping from his nose. He said, “Our family motto is ‘There are sewers aplenty yet to dig.’” Then he wiped his nose, smearing blood across his face and shirt.

  Dave said, “I’d like you to come with me in the car. Where is your other shoe?”

  Sam looked around. “Beats me,” he said.

  Dave held out his hand. “Forget it,” he said. He picked up his son and carried him out to the car.

  It took only twenty minutes before the Schellenberger baby was snoozing comfortably.

  Bernie couldn’t believe it. “Geez. I’m going to have to buy a car,” he said.

  “Try a vacuum first,” said Dave.

  Bernie said, “We have central vac.”

  “Then move her crib to the basement,” said Dave.

  From the back of the car, Sam said, “It’s the physics of baseball that has always fascinated me.”

  Dave looked at his boy in the rearview mirror.

  Sam waved absently at his father, then pressed his face to the window and started to sing something that sounded like opera.

  Carmen? thought Dave.

  Then something awful occurred to him.

  Dave slammed on the brakes and squealed to the side of the road. He twisted around in his seat and stared at Sam. “What have you been drinking?” he asked.

  “Eggnog,” said Sam.

  “From which bowl?”

  “From the bowl in the basement, of course,” Sam replied.

  Uh-oh, thought Dave.

  Bernie Schellenberger said, “Dave?”

  Dave looked at Bernie, then he looked at Sam, then he looked at Bernie again. Bernie was pointing. Dave peered into the darkness and spotted three police officers standing on the edge of the road half a block away.

  They were manning a roadside check for drunk drivers, and Dave had just fishtailed to a stop in front of them. The cops all had their hands on their hips. The streetlight shining from behind them made them look ominous. The only thing Dave could do was put his car into gear and creep toward them.

  Sam pulled himself forward so his head was beside his father’s. “This,” he said, “is an area of jurisprudence that has always interested me.”

  Dave pulled up beside the police and rolled down his window. He smiled.

  Two of the cops took a step back from the car. The third was shining his flashlight in Dave’s face. He didn’t try to engage in small talk. He said, “Could I please see your license?” He peered at the license and then looked at Dave and said, “Where are your glasses?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he handed Dave a little machine and said, “Blow.”

  Dave is not sure who was more surprised to find there was no alcohol in his bloodstream. Dave had, after all, drunk six cups of eggnog.

  Dave and the cop were both squinting at the machine when Sam joined the conversation from the back. “Can I blow, too?” he asked.

  Dave said, “Maybe that’s not a good idea.”

  But the cop, who was friendlier now, said, “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  Dave said, “Oh, well.”

  Sam blew into the little machine.

  The cop pointed at it and said, “See, son, if you had been drinking, the arrow would be …” His voice trailed off. He squinted at his machine and took a step backward. He looked at Dave, who shrugged and smiled. He opened the back door of Dave’s car and looked closely at Sam, with the streaks of dried blood across his face, and said, “Is that blood, son?”

  Sam said, “Our family motto is ‘There are sewers aplenty yet to dig.’”

  The cop frowned and said, “Son, I want you to get out of the car.”

  Sam slid over to the far side of the backseat and said, “Come and get me, copper.”

  Then he threw up.

  Dave folded his head into his arms and rested it on the steering wheel.

  The Schellenberger baby started to cry.

  So did Dave.

  Bernie Schellenberger called a taxi from the police station.

  By the time Dave had explained everything and gotten back to the party, the Andersons’ house was dark and locked up. Sam was asleep in the backseat. He didn’t stir when they got him home, and Dave carried him upstairs.

  Just like the old days, thought Dave.

  Morley was waiting in the living room. The whole house was dark except for the colored lights glowing on the Christmas tree.

  “I love it like this,” she said. She was sitting with her legs up on the sofa, an empty cognac glass beside her.

  Dave sat at the other end of the couch so their feet met in the middle. They compared stories.

  “It took five minutes for the police to get Sam out of the car,” said Dave. “They wouldn’t let me help. When they got him out, he had blood all over him, and he didn’t have a winter coat, and he was missing a shoe, and he was drunk.”

  Morley told Dave what he had missed at the Andersons’. “It was like homecoming at a frat house,” she said. “Pia Cherbenofsky got herself into the Christmas tree, and no one saw her until Ted Anderson began to light the candles for the carol sing. Pia was hidden in the branches halfway up the tree, and she started blowing the candles out as fast as Ted could light them.

  “At one point,” said Morley, “there were ten adults trying to coax her down with candy.”

  Then she told him about the McCormick baby.

  “He was missing for half an hour,” she said. “He finally turned up asleep in a laundry hamper with the youngest Anderson boy squatting beside him.”

  Bobby Anderson had wrapped himself in an large green terry-cloth towel.

  “I’m the three wise men,” burped Bobby. “That’s the baby Jesus.”

  Sam was never able to tell Dave the name of the girl he had his arms around in the basement. No one seemed to know who she was.

  “She was in a red dress,” said Dave.

  “When I left,” said Morley, “there was a girl in a red dress standing at the top of the spiral staircase, singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’”

  Dave got up and poured himself another drink. “What did Polly say?” he asked.

  “Last I saw of Polly Anderson,” said Morley, “she was in the hallway protecting her bonsai collection.”

  Morley stood up and hunched over. “She looked like a football player ready to make a tackle. She was screaming: ‘Stand back. Stand back. Don�
�t come a step closer.’”

  “Who was attacking the bonsai?” asked Dave.

  “Her eldest son,” said Morley. “He was trying to shoot the origami birds out of the trees with a Nerf gun.”

  The only child who wasn’t sick, singing, or passed out was their daughter, Stephanie.

  “I told her I was proud of her,” said Morley.

  The truth of that dawned on Dave later, when they were upstairs and Dave was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He walked into the bedroom, holding his toothbrush at his side.

  “Stephanie was the only kid drinking from the adult bowl,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Morley. “Oh.”

  “Merry Christmas,” said Dave.

  The Jockstrap

  Of all the gifts that Morley received last Christmas, nothing showed more thoughfulness and understanding, nothing made her laugh out loud with quite the same surprise and secret pleasure, nothing changed her life, like the present Dave and Sam gave her together.

  From your boys, read the card.

  “What’s this?” Morley asked, holding up the box, shaking it.

  “Don’t tell her,” said Dave.

  “Guess,” said Sam.

  “I don’t know what this could be,” said Morley.

  “Open it,” said Sam.

  And so she did.

  She wouldn’t have guessed what it was in a thousand years.

  Morley hadn’t known such a thing existed.

  A battery-operated heated seat cushion.

  “For watching your hockey games,” she said to Sam. “It’s perfect.”

  And it was perfect.

  Morley hated watching Sam play hockey. Hated it.

  Well, that’s not exactly true. What she hated was the arena. Or, more to the point, the arena benches. Slabs of concrete so cold a woman could freeze to death. Or worse.

  “I love this,” she said. “Who has batteries?”

  She sat on it during supper.

  “I do love this,” she said. “You have to try this. This is wonderful.”

  She took it to bed and put it down by her feet. “I love my cushion,” she said.

  She took it to work. “This is my new friend,” she said. “Everyone should have one of these.”

  Over the next few weeks, Morley found many uses for her cushion. Hugging it while she watched the news on television. Propping it beside her while she read. Sitting on it in the car until the heater warmed the seats. The cushion became a thing. It followed her around the house like a child’s favorite toy, lying on the stairs, on the couch, on a chair in the kitchen. It felt good having it around, reassuring and comfortable. Warm.

  “Sort of like a husband,” she told her friend Ruth. “Only quieter.”

  Nice, but not what you would call life-changing. It wasn’t until hockey began again in January that the cushion changed Morley’s life.

  Halfway through the first game, she turned to Dave and smiled. “Did I mention how much I love my cushion?”

  It was the cushion that turned her into a hockey fan.

  “Not a real fan,” she explained earnestly. But she was at the arena every Saturday. The game was still a mystery, but it wasn’t still mysterious. Or cold. Morley didn’t miss another game all year.

  A big change from last year, when it wasn’t just the game that Morley had found overwhelming—it was everything. Even the equipment had threatened to defeat her. She had started off ambitiously enough, assembling the paraphernalia for her son’s first year of hockey with confidence.

  On the Wednesday night before his first game, she laid it out on the kitchen table. The blue pants looked too large for her son. One of the thigh pads was missing, but she thought she could cut one out of cardboard. She looked at her list and ticked off “pants.” The skates, she figured, would hold up another year. She ticked off “skates.” Then she ticked off “elbow pads.” She had bought them from the lady across the street. The shin guards came from a church sale. The kids had worn them on their shoulders for two years now for dress-up. Sally said she thought she had a helmet that would fit Sam and had promised to bring it to the rink. Morley ticked off “shin guards” and put a question mark beside “helmet.” She stuffed everything into two plastic bags, propped them by the door, and went upstairs.

  This is a father’s job, she thought as they drove to the rink the next morning. Brian had phoned in sick, and Dave had gone to open the store. Sam was alone in the backseat holding his stick. They weren’t talking. They’d had a fight after breakfast because Sam wanted to get dressed at home. The only thing he had said in the last thirty minutes was that they were going to be late. The second time he said it, Morley told him to get in the car. Now she was regretting yelling. Why did they have to fight before his first game of hockey? Was that what he would remember?

  In the dressing room, Sam slumped on the bench, and Morley stared at the two bags. For the first time in her life, she had no idea how to dress her son. She didn’t know where to begin. The man beside her was lacing his boy into a set of shoulder pads. She didn’t have shoulder pads. The list had said they were optional.

  “We don’t have those,” Sam said accusingly.

  “We don’t have to,” Morley said. “You don’t have to have them.”

  She started with the pants.

  Then she was stumped.

  “Do the shin pads,” said the man beside her. “Then put the socks over.”

  Sam was the last kid on the ice.

  On Thursday after school, Sam said he needed a jockstrap.

  “What for?” said Morley. She was frying sausages for dinner and reading a gardening magazine.

  “Everyone has one. I have to.”

  “Who has one?” she said.

  “Paul. He wore it to school. It’s a penis protector.”

  Morley phoned Paul’s mother after supper.

  Friday morning Morley drove to Wal-Mart. When she got there, she sat in the parking lot. She wasn’t sure what to ask for. She knew “penis protector” couldn’t be right, but she wasn’t sure about “jockstrap.” She didn’t know if it was a word you could use in a Wal-Mart. It might be a little-boy word. Like “fart.” She certainly wasn’t about to say “penis” to a man she didn’t know.

  She drove home and phoned Dave.

  “Sam needs a jockstrap for hockey,” she said. “That’s your job.”

  “Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.

  Saturday, Morley took Stephanie to get her hair cut. Dave took Sam to hockey.

  “How was the jock?” Morley asked at supper.

  “It didn’t fit,” said Sam, pointing at his father as if he were a witness in a murder trial. “He didn’t get the holder.”

  Morley opened her son’s equipment bag on Wednesday night and fished out the jockstrap. It looked just like the masks painters wear on their faces when they’re sanding dry wall. It was a size medium.

  She phoned Paul’s mother again.

  “That’s just the cup,” Maggie explained. “There’s a holder it slips into. Like a garter belt.”

  How could Dave watch all the hockey he watched and not get the holder? The way he hollered during hockey games, you would think he had at least a rudimentary knowledge of the equipment. Morley felt resentment well up in her as she thought of the Saturday nights she had struggled to get the kids into bed while Dave sank onto the couch in front of a hockey game. If he hadn’t learned anything, what was the point?

  Morley went back to Wal-Mart on Thursday night. As she passed through the automatic doors, she realized she still didn’t know what the holder was called. She had looked over the equipment list again before she left home. “Jockstrap” definitely wasn’t on it. She had a tick beside everything on the list except “shoulder pads.” She had double-checked. Shoulder pads were optional.

  There were four aisles of hockey equipment. She spotted the holder on her second pass. They came in three sizes: medium, large, and extra large. All things considered, Morley was s
urprised to see how small the extra-large one was. The package came with a cup identical to the one Dave had bought plus the elastic belt he had neglected. Morley was holding a medium in her hand when she saw the salesman coming. This was what she’d been hoping to avoid.

  “For your husband?” he asked.

  “My son,” said Morley.

  “How old is he?”

  Thank God, thought Morley. She had thought he was going to ask how big it was.

  “He’s seven,” she said.

  “This is too big,” said the young man, taking the package from her. “You’ll need extra-extra small … We’re out. Try maybe Sears.”

  She was smiling when she got back to the car. ATHLETIC SUPPORT, it had said in big white letters on the red package.It was on her list after all. She had ticked it off. Morley thought she was the athletic support.

  She got the jock at the Sports Authority. “An extra-extra-small athletic support for a seven-year-old boy. He is playing hockey,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s his second year.” She wasn’t sure why she added the lie.

  Sam put it on as soon as she got home. He put it on over his pants. Then, before she could stop him, he ran across the street to show Allen. Why not? thought Morley. She watched them from the window, Sam standing proudly on the front lawn. He looks like a ballet dancer, she thought. Then Allen kicking Sam between the legs. Her son laughing. “Again!” he shouted. He wore the jockstrap to bed that night. And to school the next day, under his jeans. Morley was going to say no, and then she thought, Why not? For a week she kept finding it all over the house—on the stairs, on the couch in the TV room, slung over his chair in the kitchen. She felt no compulsion to put it away. She was as pleased with it as he was.