Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - After Dark - Halloween & Fireworks

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

“Let me state the case for Hallowe’en” The nights are getting longer, the air is getting colder, so this week on the pod, two stories about the season and about finding light in the darkness. In Halloween, Steph learns to trust her instincts (while Dave learns that a painted watermelon will never be a satisfactory replacement for a pumpkin); and in Fireworks, Sam and Dave are mesmerized by a truck load of contraband. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We have two Dave and Morley stories for you today. Two stories about this season, about autumn, about Halloween, about the time of year when the nights get colder and darker, and about resisting the urge to give in to that. About continuing to find bright lights in the darkness and, I don't know, sparkle. We're going to start with this story. A story we recorded in my hometown of Burlington, Ontario. This is Halloween.

Well, of all the holidays that mark the slow pendulum swing of a year, of all the smoky days of atonement and thanksgiving, of confession and continuity, of all the summonses that sound in the hearts of the sinners and the saints, of the faithful and the faithless, and the saints of the faithful and the faithless. None of them, not Christmas nor Ramadan, Yom Kippur nor Easter, resonate more in the souls of the innocent, which is to say in the souls of children,

than the summons that is sounded at the end of every summer on All Saints' Eve, All Hallows Eve. Let me state the case for Halloween. It has been since I was a boy, was before that, and is still today a glorious day to be a child, maybe the best of days. In its secular certainty, in its wicked and windy way, it might be one of the best days we'll ever know. Long unencumbered by the weight of religion, it beckons both the believer and the non-believer into the church of gluttony. Into the scriptures of trick or treat, into the holy land of sugar.

Like all holy quests, however, it's not an easy road. On Halloween, a child is required to leave safe things behind her, to trade the comfort of day for the chaos of night. To enter a world where candles flicker, leaves blow, hobgoblins scurry, and children must be brave. A world where memory rules and memories are made. Ask Dave, for instance. If you were to take Dave and put him in a witness box and make him swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God,

and duly sworn, you were to ask him which of all the holidays he recalls from his boyhood, there would be no question, no question at all, it would be nolo contendere, Halloween. And of all the Halloweens, of all the pumpkins in all of his life, the one he remembers best is his first Halloween ever. He's remembering it at the dining room table. His daughter Stephanie's come home for the weekend with her boyfriend Tommy. Saturday night, dinner is over, but no one has left the table, and he's well into it. Kindergarten, Big Narrows Elementary.

In the town of Big Narrows, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It could have been yesterday. The school hallway transformed into a magical and bewitching place. Black construction paper witches with stuck-on autumn leaves. The most fantastic art he has ever seen. The exquisite and almost unbearable month-long build-up, and then the night itself, the school's Halloween party, the delicate terror of going to school after dark. Everyone's handed a bottle of pop at the door, which they dumped into a big soup pot to make a witch's brew.

Cool, said Sam. Oh, it was very cool, said Dave. We were taken to the lunchroom, where they sat on the floor, the entire citizenry, and they watched the teachers, who were on the stage behind the backlit white sheet, all of them dressed as surgeons. And what were they doing? Pulling a string of

sausages out of the principal's belly. After that, they were led one by one to the basement, into the terrifying haunted house that the grade sevens had built down there, down the janitor stairs, through the boiler room, along the narrow passage behind the furnace, past the flaking concrete foundation, all the spider's webs, and finally into the janitor's lunchroom where they were blindfolded. Sightless, they stuck their hands into the pot of teacher's brains, the bowl of stomach guts, and the jar of eyeballs. After that, they were led to the janitor's desk where, lit by a single candle, they stood in front of the fossilized cat that Stephen Kerrigan's father had found in the grocery store wall when they expanded the butcher shop.

That's the Halloween I remember, said Dave. Hands down. Of all his yesterdays and todays, that trip to the basement stands out more than any Easter dinner, Thanksgiving supper, or Christmas morning, so help him God. But there have been others. Morley would tell you about the disasters tell one said Sam well for instance the year your father waited until the last minute to get a pumpkin and when he finally went out every place he went to was sold out Sam turned to Tommy and said he came home with a watermelon. And he spray painted the watermelon orange, said Marley. Then he sat at the kitchen table and carved it. Disaster averted. Well, that wasn't even close

to a disaster, said Dave. That wasn't even desperation. That was quick thinking. That's what that was. If it's disaster you want, said Dave, let me tell you about the Halloween I was 10. Well, that would be the October when 10-year-old Dave happened upon the stash of candy his parents had bought weeks in advance of Halloween. Beginning of that October, Dave's parents, wing. Beginning of that October, Dave's parents, Charlie and Margaret, were swept up in an uncharacteristic spasm of organization. Who knows how these things happen? Recognizing the dangers of what they'd done, Margaret hid the candy in the woodshed cabinet. She was hiding it from her husband as much as from her son, but it was her son who found it. The crime started out innocently with just one miniature Hershey bar.

And can you blame him for that? And it was followed by just one more. And then, God help him, who among us would throw the first stone? One more after that. By the weekend, he'd eaten everything. Everything, said Tommy. Every last piece, said Dave. He ate it all, said Sam, looking at Tommy.

Too afraid to say anything, Dave left the empty paper bag for his mother to find, which she did on Halloween night. And when she did, she summoned Dave into the kitchen, the courthouse of domestic discipline, where he was summarily tried, convicted, and sentenced. His punishment? He was sent out with a pillowcase to collect candy around the neighborhood and told to bring it home immediately so Margaret had something to hand out. You'll want to talk disaster, said Dave.

But that wasn't the half of it. For that Halloween, the Halloween Dave was 10. The Halloween he ate his parents' stash and had to hand over all his candy in retribution. That Halloween was the Halloween Dave's sister Annie came home and dumped her bag of loot theatrically onto the living room floor, a full pillowcase, chocolate bars and chips, licorice and popcorn. His little sister, Annie, who was what? Was she six? Was she seven? Well, I'll tell you what she was, said Dave. She

was standing in the living room, ankle deep in candy. And then she was sitting down in the middle of it, organizing it into piles. And when she had finished that, she went upstairs and she got a pad of graph paper. And she counted out how much she had in each pile. And as she counted, she shaded in the boxes on her graph. At the end of the night, she had an exact count of everything. She rationed it out, said Dave. So it lasted 365 days. As the months wore on, Annie's treasure trove became increasingly stale. But that was a minor annoyance, easily outweighed by her pride and the intense

sense of satisfaction she got eating her daily ration under her brother's nose. Don't even think of stealing any, she said, waving her clipboard at him. I know exactly what I have here. She did share some of it. Before she had lugged her treasure upstairs that Halloween night to hide it in her room, she had done one last thing. She had meticulously removed all the items she considered undesirable. The apples, the boxes of raisins, those disgusting molasses kisses, and she had put them into a separate bag which, in a magnanimous gesture of

faux generosity, she allowed Dave to pick from. She salted the bag with just enough real candy to keep him coming back, and she made him pick in front of their parents, demonstrating to the entire family that she understood what it meant to share. Demonstrating to the entire family that she understood what it meant to share. You want to talk about a disaster, said Dave. That was a disaster. What about you, Mom, said Sam. Where do I begin, said Morley.

Strangely, the world of dress-up has bedeviled Morley all her life. I say strangely because she does, after all, work in theater. You might think she'd be good at this. I'm not, said Morley. I'm horrible at costumes. And she's right. She is horrible. Nevertheless, when Stephanie was old enough to go out, Morley decided it was her motherly duty to make her daughter's costumes. Steph would begin talking about them in April. I want to be a unicorn Pegasus. I want to be a ballerina hippopotamus. I want to be a ballerina hippopotamus. I want to be 101 Dalmatians.

The costume was always a moving target. In the spring, it changed by the week. In the fall, by the day. In October, it could change by the hour. The art of hitting a bullseye had less to do with aim than with knowing when to pull the trigger. The year Steph was five, 101 Dalmatians seemed to be, well, if not close to the center, at least close to the target. Morley waited until the Monday before Halloween, however, before she committed. That afternoon, she went to a sewing store on her lunch break and sorted through piles of patterns and fabric. It took three days, but when she was done, she was sure

she had made an awesome Dalmatian costume. It was awesome, said Morley. Maybe. but on Halloween night when they got to the first house and the neighbor who will remain nameless opened her front door she stared at Stephanie who was standing there and all her Dalmatian splendor and she blurted wow what a great cow costume What a great cow costume. Stephanie burst into tears and cried the rest of the night, talking about disasters. But these are the moments you remember. Tell the next year, said Sam.

Well, it wasn't the next year, said Morley. It was the year after the next year. The year I was Batman, said Stephanie to Tommy. And I was Robin, said Sam. It was the last time Morley made their costumes. That's for sure, said Morley. And sure enough, the very same neighbor is peering at them again. Let's see, said the neighbor, standing on her stoop, smiling.

Batman and Robin, mouthed Morley, desperately at her neighbor over her children's heads. Batman, mouthed Morley, pointing at Stephanie. Robin, she mouthed, resting her hand on Sam's shoulder. Let's see, said the neighbor, nodding triumphantly. You, she said, smiling at Stephanie, you are a rat. And you, she said, turning to Sam, you must be the exterminator. Sam's friend Murphy made their costumes the following year. No, he didn't, said Sam. I thought he did, said Dave. Dave was confused. He was thinking of the famous double costume grift. Murphy didn't make the costumes, but the sting was Murphy's idea. It was brilliant, said Sam. Sting was Murphy's idea.

It was brilliant, said Sam. Here's how it worked. They each went out early, Murphy and Sam, I mean, and they each worked the houses around their own homes, solo. After an hour, they went back home, emptied their bags, met in the schoolyard, switched costumes, and went back and made another pass. It was double dipping, no doubt about it. More like reloading, said Sam.

It was awesome. Stephanie developed her own traditions over the years, most of them defensive. On Halloween night, for instance, after she'd returned from her rounds, Stephanie would sit cross-legged in the middle of her pile, in the middle of the living room, and she would unwrap each item she had collected, lick it, and then re-wrap it. It was a strategy designed to keep her brother away from her stuff.

It took several hours, but when she was done, no one wanted to go near her stash, let alone eat it. Last year at this time, Dave confessed that it was him and not Sam who had been pilfering her candy over the years. It was for your own good, he said. But of all the Octobers, of all those years, there is one that stands out above the others. Tell that one, said Sam, looking at his sister. The first Halloween Stephanie went out alone. Tell it, said Sam. I went as a crayon, said Stephanie. The year before, said Sam, she went as a pea. A green pea, said Dave. She wore a green cloth body, rounded out with wire, green tights, a green leafy headdress, and green face paint. Mommy, said Stephanie when she saw her costume for the first time, it's perfect.

Well, that's because Morley didn't make it. Instead of making it herself, Morley had enlisted the help of a seamstress at the theater where she worked. And though it might have been great, it wasn't perfect. There's not a lot of turning room on a front porch when you're wearing a large wire-trimmed green body. Stephanie spent that Halloween, the year she was a green pea, wiping out little pink princesses and fairies with every turn. She left a trail of scattered candy and whimpering kids behind her. The next year, the first year she went out by herself, the year she's telling them about, all she wanted was to be tall and thin.

She made her own costume that year out of poster boards. I'm a crayon, she said when she came downstairs. But she had miscalculated. She was such a tall crayon, she couldn't fit under porch roofs. She had to crawl up to at least half of the houses she visited. And if that wasn't bad enough, more than one father asked her if she was a stovepipe. It was the first Halloween I went by myself, said Stephanie. You went with Becky, said Sam. Without a parent, said Stephanie. They'd been out for about an hour when they started hearing the rumors about the cupcake house, a brick house with a big wraparound porch in the next neighborhood where they were giving away cupcakes with buttercream icing topped with crushed Smarties.

Then they heard there was money baked into the batter. Then someone said, you've got a can of pop with every cupcake. We have to find it, said Stephanie. We aren't supposed to leave the neighborhood, said Becky. They hadn't actually seen anyone with a cupcake, but other kids had, or said they had. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone had heard something. Where exactly they had to go wasn't exactly clear. They set off nevertheless. They crossed the street at the traffic light near the shoe store and into the next neighborhood

where the houses were bigger and further apart and the streets were darker and the children seemed older. They walked for a block and and then another. And Becky said, I don't like this. I have a feeling something bad is going to happen. But they kept walking for a half hour more until it was getting late. Until a man walked out of the darkness toward them holding a small boy to his chest.

The boy was screaming and squirming and kicking his feet. I think he's kidnapping him, said Becky. We should get out of here. And then a front door opened and across the street another man leaned over the pumpkin on his stoop and removed the lid and blew out the candle inside it. He stepped back into his house and the porch light snapped off and the blue smoke from the candle curled into the darkness. Becky said, I think we should go back now. Stephanie said, Stephanie said, we're not going back. Stephanie kept walking. Truth be told, she would have gone back,

but she wasn't exactly sure where they were anymore. She wasn't sure how to go back. And that's when she saw it, the big house with the wraparound porch. This is it, said Stephanie. It doesn't have a pumpkin, said Becky, or anything. But the porch light was on, and Stephanie was already heading up the walk. Becky was standing beside her on the porch when the old woman answered the

door. The woman was wearing an apron. She was thin and stooped. She had a bowl of hard candies on a chair by the door. She held out the bowl and said, Help yourself. As Stephanie chose a candy, the old woman said, Take more. And old woman said, take more.

And then she said, would you like to come in for a moment? Becky gasped. Would you like a hot chocolate? Becky stepped back. But Stephanie said, yes. And she dropped to all fours. She was already crawling through the door. Becky wasn't about to stay on the porch by herself, so Becky went in too.

The lady took them into the kitchen, and she sat them down. She poured milk into a saucepan. She said that she wanted to get to know the children in the neighborhood. She said she had decided that tonight was the best night of the year to do it. But you're the first ones who've come in, she said. The lady's name was Mrs. Gibson. They stayed maybe 15 minutes and then they left. That is so crazy, said Sam. I wouldn't have gone in not for a million bucks. I had a feeling, said Stephanie. I could tell. This happened the Halloween Stephanie was 12. In the years

since, Stephanie has seen Mrs. Gibson from time to time, once in Dorothy Woodsworth's bookstore, once in the library, and a couple of times on the street. When they see each other, they always say hello. Stephanie and Becky never got their cupcake, but Stephanie has always felt they did something good that night, something worthwhile by going in. It's the Halloween she remembers she always will a dark night leaves swirling in the street the moon rising behind the bare limbs of the trees she crossed the street at the shoe store

and stepped into a world of mystery and wonder and she was never the same when she came home something had shifted stepped into a world of mystery and wonder, and she was never the same. When she came home, something had shifted. On a night made for children, she left her childhood behind. So here we are in another October. Let us carve pumpkins. Let us carve pumpkins.

Let us light candles. Let us cue the boys and cue the girls. Soon the night of nights will be upon us. When it comes, let us cue the ghosts and cue the goblins. For when it does come, it is time for high adventure. Applause That was the story we call Halloween. We recorded that story in 2011 at the Burlington Performing Arts Center. There are so many great details in that story.

And the backstory? Stuart interviewed dozens of people for that story. For weeks, he asked everyone about their memories of Halloween. He asked family and friends and neighbors, and then he went on our Vinyl Cafe Facebook page and asked for Halloween memories. So many of the details in that story came from real life experiences. That surgery scene with the sausages came from podcast producer Louise Curtis from a spellbinding Halloween party at Mark Cross Primary School in Sussex, England, where she grew up. She's pretty sure that the

one being eviscerated was their headmistress, Miss Hammond, and it was remarkably convincing. Good, clean fun. Anyway, I'm sure there are more great Halloween stories out there, and if you want to share yours, head over to our Facebook page. I'll get a post going about this topic because I know there are lots of stories out there waiting to be shared. But as much as I love those details, like Dave spray painting the watermelon to make it look like a pumpkin and Murphy's plan for the double costumes, my favorite part of that story is the ending when Stephanie goes into that house. And what I love about that is she trusts that woman. Kids are often taught not to trust strangers, especially people who present differently, who live outside the boundaries. It's not that I think danger doesn't exist. I do. It's just that if we are only fearful and we never talk to strangers,

we can really miss out on a lot. And what I love about Stephanie in that story is that she trusts her intuition. She's developed and been given space or permission to develop her intuition. It's hard to do that. It's hard as a kid, and it's even harder as a parent. How do we teach our kids who to trust and who not to trust? How do we encourage them to see the best in everyone while also making sure that they trust their spidey sense? Stephanie trusts her spidey sense in that moment, in that darkest of moments, on that spookiest of eaves. And I love that Stuart shows us that in that story. That instead of a story about being scared,

it's a story about the opposite. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story about Dave. So stay with me. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Fireworks.

They were bumping along the 104, heading west, in Willie's one-ton. Willie behind the wheel, Dave riding shotgun, Dave's son Sam sitting on a milk crate between them. They crossed the causeway in the late afternoon, and they were already past New Glasgow, which meant they were making good time. Willie said we could stop in Sackville, take the kid to Mel's for dinner. Dave said, or to the inn, we could take him to the Marshall and show him a little class. Dave winked at Sam. Willie was wearing a black deaf leopard t-shirt ripped jeans not exactly a paragon of class Willie said foods better at Mel's Sam said is it really

called Sackville they were supposed to fly Dave and Sam were they'd flown down to help Margaret and Smith with fall chores, putting the windows up and the garden frames away. They had tickets to fly home. But Dave ran into Willie and Kerrigan's, and Willie said, I'm driving if you want. It was early autumn. The loamy smell of leaves in the chilly air.

Leaving Tuesday, said Willie. Me meant they could stay two days longer. Also meant Sam would miss a couple of days of school. I'm okay with that, said Sam. So there they were. Sam on the milk crate, his eyes glued to the road, sliding into his father every time Willie took a corner too fast, which was most of the corners. The cab of the truck already filling up with empty takeout cups, used paper napkins, spare change, and Willie's maps. It was, in other words, perfect. Or as perfect as any 22-hour road trip can be, working out just as Dave had hoped. As they rolled past the spiderweb towers of the old CBC shortwave service,

Dave said, we could go the long way, you know, through Maine. Not crossing the border, said Willie. Might be fun, said Dave. Stop and see Big Al and Banger. Can't cross the border, said Willie. Might be fun, said Dave. Stop and see Big Al and Banger. Can't cross the border, said Willie. Willie jerking his head toward the back of the truck. Can't risk it. Willie used to haul cable in the old days. A grunter, salt of the earth. But he wasn't a big man, and as the road cases got bigger and heavier and he got older, the work got too hard. Don't get me wrong. Willie could still scramble up into the rafters of any arena just like a monkey.

Just everything got too heavy. He learned the light board from Freaky Bottoms. Got into pyro a couple of years later, early on in the pyro game. I have stuff back there, said Willie, meaning in the back of the truck. Dave glanced at his son. Sam was lost in a headphone fog. He frowned at Willie. Willie laughed, shook his head, oh, not that kind of stuff. What Willie had back there were boxes of pyro left over from the tour he'd just finished. Well, not exactly the tour. It's complicated, said Willie.

They'd been up and down the eastern seaboard, the Carolinas, Virginia, Kentucky. We stopped in this little town, said Willie, back in the hills. There was a hardware store. You wouldn't believe this place. Screen door with a little bell, a wood stove with a little bucket for chew. Guy lived over the store, just him and his dog. And he showed Willie around. Willie loves that sort of thing. And there were boxes of stuff, boxes of it, from the 40s and 50s. What kind of stuff, said Dave? Pyro, said Willie. Never seen anything like it. From a carnival or something. Big stuff. Show stuff. The problem was it was sort of past its due date. But only by a decade or two, said Willie. too, said Willie. Then he said, I could lose my license. He didn't seem too worried about it.

One hand resting on top of the steering wheel, the other riding the air currents out the window. But I'm not risking the border again. They stopped in Sackville. Willie pulled into the gas station by the highway. Willie said, I'm going to gas up before dinner. Then they drove into town and ate at Mel's. Chicken sandwiches on sliced white. Real chicken. Real fries. Real shakes. This is good, said Sam. This is good, said Sam. Back on the highway, back on the road, Dave undid his sneakers and put his socked feet up on the dash. He glanced at Sam. Sam was fiddling with the radio.

Sam said, I'm trying to find some good music. Dave looked over at Willie, who had been humming along to the radio. Willie shrugged and smiled. Willie was cool. Dave pressed his face against the side window of the truck and gazed out into the dusk. He hadn't thought of firecrackers for years. They were a huge deal in Big Narrows when Dave was a kid. Not the fancy ones, not Roman candles and things like that. The little red ones.

The ones that looked like dynamite. You light the fuse and they explode and nothing else. No stars, no sparkles, just a flash and a good old utilitarian boy-like bang. You got them at McDonnell's, Macdonnell's general store. They came every autumn. They were like apples. You dreamed of them all summer and they came in the fall. So when fall came, boys watched over Macdonnells the same way they watched over the quarry pond for signs of ice. Are they here yet, Mr. McDonnell? When are they coming, Mr. McDonnell? They came all the way from China, from the port city of Macau, and they came by boat in a New York city, or so Mr. McDonnell said.

Slow boat from China, boys. We have to be patient. No one, or no boy anyway, ever suspected that Mr. McDonnell might have stock left over from the previous season in his basement, or would have understood, had they figured it out, what a favor he was doing for them by making them wait. There is abundance in scarcity. And the day the firecrackers finally appeared, there was an abundance of joy. The thought of it made Dave smile. The day they finally appeared was as good as Christmas morning.

Each package, they only cost a nickel or maybe a dime, was about the size of a deck of cards, all crisp, waxy, and red. Red inside and out. Each cracker was not only dynamite red itself, the package came wrapped in red paper, firecracker paper. There was nothing like it anywhere. Crispy, like tissue paper gone stale. The instructions printed at the bottom of the label in English were identical on each pack. Lay on ground, light fuse, and move away.

Yeah, sure. The little ones, lady fingers they called them, were maybe half an inch long, and boys like Johnny Flowers actually held them in their hands when they went off. Dave had seen this with his own eyes, but had never had the guts to try it himself. Cherry bombs were the biggest, two inches long,

two feet loud, guaranteed to blow the head off a Barbie doll if you taped enough of them to a The best, like so much in life, were the ones in the middle, the one-inchers, the inch-and-a-halves. They came in packs of 12 or sometimes 16s, and the wicks were made of gray paper and were woven together. So they came in strings, designed for the Chinese practice of letting off the whole string at once for a celebratory round of pop, pop, pop, pop, pops. No boy in the narrows would do that. For boys who counted their money by the penny, that would have been the most monstrous frivolity, a waste of explosive proportions. Mostly the firecrackers were set off at night. For what could be better, if you are between the ages of 8 and 16, the prime firecracker demographic, what could be better than to be out after dark with a smoldering string and a pocket full of black powder?

Dave said, what was that string called? Sam shifted on his milk crate and said, what? Dave said, I was just thinking. We used to use string to light firecrackers. I can't remember what we called it. Sam said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Punk, said Dave. We called it punk, and I'm talking about firecrackers. They were like a storm in a tube. They were both thunder and lightning. And the boys lit them and threw them as if they were born for stormy nights.

Billy had this idea you could take a bunch of packs and break the sticks open and collect the powder and pack it into a pipe and make a rocket and launch a hamster into space. He had the hamster. and he built the capsule. He took his grandfather's old mailbox and covered it in tinfoil. They spent a weekend training the hamster, getting it ready for the rigors of re-entry by sealing him in the capsule and lowering it off the bridge. ready for the rigors of re-entry by sealing him in the capsule and lowering it off the bridge. But Billy could never convince enough kids to pool enough powder to pack the six-inch copper pipe that he had stolen from his father's woodshed. So that never went any further than talk.

Of course, firecrackers were dropped down chimneys by older boys, but mostly they were just lit and chucked in the air. Mostly it was just a Friday night in October, three boys in sneakers and windbreakers. There were accidents of course. Kids were burned every year, but no one was burned seriously. No one lost an eye or any of those things you read about. And when October came, even eight-year-olds were allowed out at night, unsupervised, with a pack of matches, a piece of string, and their pockets full of mischief. That was the way it was back then. Everyone did it, and everyone knew what they were up to. How could you not? Nearly every night in October, the town was punctuated by the rat-a-tat-tat of boys. Dad? Sam was poking

him. Dad? Willie said, do you want to stop? What? Do you want to stop? Dave glanced at Sam. Do you want to stop? Dave glanced at Sam. His son had given up on the radio. He was headphoned and glowing. It made Dave sad to think that Sam wouldn't have firecracker memories. Closest Sam had ever come to the explosives racket was the summer afternoon David found him sitting on the sidewalk with a small hammer and a roll of caps,

sitting there banging out little sparks. Someone had brought the caps from the States, maybe even Willie. Dad, said Sam again, do you want to stop? Dave looked over at Willie. Dad, said Sam again, do you want to stop? Dave looked over at Willie. Willie was grinning. They were somewhere past Moncton, away still to Fredericton. There's a stretch of highway there where there's not a lot going on. There's a little town with a service center and a little further on, a ship wagon and a farm stand and a motel. And then about five minutes further on the right-hand side, if you're heading for Fredericton, there's an old quarry.

Remember, said Willie. When Dave spotted the quarry road, he said, there. And Willie pulled in. They drove to the end of the road and they got out. Sam said, what's going on? Willie said, it's showtime, son. Sam helped Willie and his father unload the truck. Seven boxes in all.

Each one with a hand-painted label that looked like a circus poster. Dave put his hand on Sam's shoulder and said, You sit over there. And Sam sat down on the lip of the quarry. Willie, on his knees, opening boxes and pulling stuff out, said, This stuff is amazing. It's amazing. Dave said, Be careful. And Willie smiled his gap-toothed smile and said,

As always, bro. And then he stood and called to Sam, You ready, son? And Sam shrugged and Willie bent over and he lit the first one. For a moment, there was nothing. Dave said nothing and he took a step towards it. Willie grabbed him by the shoulder, pulled him back. Willie said, patience, brother, patience. And neither of them moved. And suddenly there was a whiz and a silver flare and then an explosion of indigo. And the entire sky, or all of the sky they could see from the quarry floor, was full of indigo diamonds. And Willie said, oh yeah.

And he lit another and then another The explosions ricocheted off the quarry walls And flashed and flowered on the rocks Turning everything blue and red and yellow But just for an instant, for a flash Beautiful, said Willie again. It's beautiful. Stars and flowers and diamonds. The sky telescoping in and out. After 20 minutes or so, Dave noticed the flicker of headlights along the quarry left. A car had pulled off the highway and was bouncing down the gravel road.

Five minutes later, he saw another, and then another. Before long, there were maybe 15 or 20 lining the shoulder of the quarry, and Dave could make out the silhouettes of people standing there, watching. Willie said, golden orbs of Pluto's fire. And golden orbs flew up into the night. And in the light of the orbs, Dave saw upturned faces and pointing fingers. A dad with a child hoisted on his shoulders. A young couple, their arms around each other, their heads together but tilted back. He saw them in the flash and then he didn't. Willie said, waterfall of the fire cauldron.

Willie said, waterfall of the fire cauldron. And Dave stopped watching the sky and began watching the people instead. Some sitting, some leaning on their cars. And then he said to Willie, your show. And he climbed back up the hill and he found Sam and sat on the ground beside him. This is awesome, said Sam. This is the best night of my life. And Dave put his arm on Sam's shoulders.

And there was a whoosh and a flare. And Dave saw his son's face, this time in the golden glow. And he thought, this is how he would like to remember his son. When Sam grew up and left home and he wanted to remember him he wanted to remember him just like this. Sitting there on the edge of the quarry in the middle of the night his head back, his eyes wide open

and a smile on his face. The darkness around him but also the whiz-bang joy of explosion and the smell of the smoke, the oohs and the ahs. And now, from the people all around, the applause. That was the story we call fireworks. We recorded that story at the Vancouver East Cultural Center. Everybody just calls it the cultch. In Vancouver, British Columbia, back in 2012.

We've got to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. So stay with me. That's it for today. We'll be back here next week with two more Davin Morley stories, including this one. A few hours later, they were standing in front of a blown-up, larger-than-life photograph of a flattened snake. Blown up, larger than life, photograph of a flattened snake. In a gallery full of close-up, poster-sized portraits of dead animals that had been run over by cars. That's next week on the podcast. You can hear the whole story next week. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network.

Our recording engineer is sweet treat Greg DeCloot. Theme music is by my friend Dani Michelle. The show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Melton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.