Extreme Vinyl Café (6 page)

“Mom’s going to kill us,” said Dave when they surfaced.

“I know,” said Charlie, splashing toward the riverbank. “Isn’t it grand?”

Charlie always had believed in his son. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Charlie had believed Dave could do anything.

D
ave came to, standing by the stone gates of the Big Narrows Union Cemetery.

The Union Cemetery is in a little square clearing where the Gillespie Road ends in a T-junction with the road to the Macaulays’ place. If you are in a car, you have to turn left or right at the stop sign, but if you are walking, like Dave was, you can keep going and walk straight into the graveyard. Which is what Dave did.

He walked into the graveyard and along the gravel path about halfway to the back, and then he left the path and cut across the grass.

He didn’t go to his father’s grave first. First he went to the far corner of the graveyard, where the hill dips away and the trees are old and big. To where the graves are shaded, and there are pine needles instead of grass.

There was, unbelievably, still a mound of snow by the fence. This was the corner where the old graves were. As Dave wandered among them, his fingers brushed absentmindedly against the stones.

Many of the inscriptions, worn by winter wind and rain, were too faded to read anymore. Some of the stones barely poked out of the earth, as if the ground was rising up to swallow them.

For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.

He walked across to a newer section and found his father’s stone and stood in front of it, wearing the black sweater his dad used to wear when he worked in the yard.

Hey
, he said silently.
How are you doing?

Then he said,
Mom has a boyfriend. I mean. I think she has a boyfriend
.

Yeah, she has a boyfriend. And I don’t know what I am supposed to think about that
.

I was wondering what you were thinking. I am assuming you already know
.

Dave looked over at the old trees.

I keep thinking of you up here by yourself. I keep thinking of you all alone. I don’t want you to be lonely. And I wanted to know that you were, you know, I don’t know. Are you okay? Are you okay with this?

Maybe
, he said,
if you had looked after yourself, we wouldn’t be in this mess
.

Then he said,
Sorry. I love you
.

He was still standing there, feeling sorry, when a green pickup pulled onto the gravel by the gates. When he looked over, Dave saw Smith Gardner step out of the cab
and walk through the gates. He was carrying a weed whacker.

When Smith saw Dave he stopped abruptly. Dave was by the grave, Smith by the gates. Dave looked awkward. Smith looked … nervous?

“Hey,” said Dave. “It’s okay.”
Did Smith think he was going to injure him here?

Smith walked over.

“I didn’t expect to run into you,” said Smith.

“I didn’t expect to come,” said Dave.

Smith looked down at the stone. “Is this Charlie?” he asked.

Dave nodded.

“I’ve never been here,” said Smith. “I mean I’ve been here plenty. Too often these days. But never to see him.”

He held up the weed whacker and motioned at the grave.

“Doesn’t seem to need it.”

The two of them stood there for a moment and then Smith said, “I never met him.”

“He was a good guy,” said Dave. “He liked music.”

“I know,” said Smith. “So does your mom. They used to sing.”

Dave smiled. “She told you?”

“Oh,” said Smith. “She’s told me all about him. All about him.

“I don’t know anything about music myself. I got the lowest score in music in all of Port Hawkesbury when I was a youngster. The opera? I don’t know even a little bit about that. I haven’t the foggiest how to talk to her about it.” He shook his head. “So I just listen and nod.”

He was wringing his hands. Then he cleared his throat and
said the most stunning thing. He said, “I thought of asking her to marry me, but I’m terrified she would make me dance with her at the wedding.”

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 self-conscious. He held out the weed whacker. “Maybe you’d like to do it. It’s not that bad, really.”

A
n 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.

F
or 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.

W
ally 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.

N
ot 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.

W
ally 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.

I
t 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.

M
urphy 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.”

T
hen, 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.