Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Gone to the Dogs - Le Morte D’Arthur

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

“He was a great dog.”Today on the podcast, two stories about dogs – one of my favourite subjects! The first is about Dave’s two dogs: Scout and, of course, Arthur. The second is a listener story about a remarkably faithful friend.  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. Today, the entire show is about one of Stuart's favorite things to write about. Dogs. He wrote so many stories about dogs. There's the epic adventure of Dave's boyhood dog, Scout, in the story Annie's Turn. There's Mary Turlington's pampered pedigree pooch, Tissue. And there's the story about Dorothy's faithful, fragrant friend, Stanley. And then, of course, there's the one about Dave starting a dog walking business. But today, we're going to start with this one. This is one of my favorites. This is Stuart McLean with Le Morte d'Arthur. It was a summer time between time.

It was dusk. Everything was faded. It was as if the world had been stonewashed. Dave was driving through the countryside around the long corners over the low hills. Corn's up nice, he said. No one said anything. No one had said anything for half an hour. No one was Stephanie sitting in the front seat beside Dave, but staring out the side window away from him,

and Sam sitting in the back. Dave shrugged and fumbled with the button on his armrest, and his window slid down, and he stuck his left arm out the window and let it ride on the air current. A convertible passed them going in the opposite direction. Dave said, the problem with convertibles is there's only 15 minutes a year when you'd want to have the roof down. Rest of the time, it's either too hot or too cold. Still, not a word. I think this, said Dave, not giving up. This moment right now is this year's 15 minutes. Still, silence.

Right now, said Dave. Finally, Sam said, when I get a car, it's going to be a convertible, and I'm always going to have the roof down. Dave said, yeah, what kind of convertible are you going to get? Sam said, I don't know, and it got quiet again. Five minutes quiet. Ten. Dave started to sing quietly. Twilight time. Then Stephanie said, I can't stop thinking about Arthur. Me too, said Dave. Me too.

Dave's dog, Arthur, was sick. They weren't sure how sick. Is he going to die, said Sam. We don't know, said Dave. We just don't know. If we don't know, said Stephanie, why did you come and get me? Good question, thought Dave. I just thought you should see him, he said.

So he is going to die, said Stephanie. We don't know that, said Dave. But he was going to die. If not now, soon. They all knew that. That's why all the quiet. He was old. And now he was old and sick.

They rolled along quietly until a little later when Dave said something under his breath. What said Sam? Dave said oh I was just thinking about my old dog. Sam said how did he die? Dave said I wasn't there I was away. How did he die? Dave said, I wasn't there. I was away. Scout, a mutt, black and white coat, strong legs, built for running, probably had some border collie in him, the loyalty and the focus, but not the brains. Definitely not the brains. Scout was one dumb dog. He was one dumb dog, said Dave. This was back when. Back when Dave was a boy and living in big narrows.

Back when people built their own homes. You'd start with a basement and live in the basement until you could afford to go higher. Scout, born in some basement, always stayed close to the ground. Scout hated water, which drove Dave's dad, Charlie, a duck hunter, to distraction. Dogs should know how to swim, he'd say every year as duck season approached. One spring he decided to do something about that. They drove to town and Charlie threw Scout off the government pier. He sank like a stone. He didn't even try. He went straight down until he reached a point of stasis about three

feet below the surface and he hovered there looking up at them, sorrowfully. Oh no, said Charlie, down on his knees, peering into the water, calling the dog. Scout's mouth appeared to be opening and closing. Looked like he was barking underwater. Oh no, said Charlie again. Dave and his sister Annie were both there standing right beside their dad pointing and crying and there was nothing for Charlie to do but stand up, yank off his jacket and jump in. This was Mother's Day weekend, Broad Door Lake in May. Not even the teenagers were thinking of swimming. When Charlie hit the water, he gasped. He almost sank himself. When he told the story later, that's the part he'd start with. It was close, I'll tell you. And that's just when he hit the water. He knew it was going to be cold

or below the surface, but he couldn't let the dog drown, not with the kids standing there bawling their eyes out, not with witnesses. So Charlie sucked in a lung full of air, ducked under, grabbed Scout by the tail, and swum him over to the beach. So he saved him, said Sam. The sun was pretty much gone now. Night was settling on the car.

The darkness that was obscuring the world was working them together. This was the way David hoped it would be. The three of them driving along, talking as they went. Scout was a small town dog. There was plenty for him to do there. He had a full life. Mostly he hung around with the other dogs and barked. Mostly they did that back at Kerrigan's grocery store.

On a good day, the butcher would slip someone a bone and then there'd be a good fight to see who got it. Sometimes one of them would slip into the store and grab meat right off the counter, not Scout. But there were dogs in town who would do that. There were dogs who believed in invisibility. They figured if they were fast enough, even if they were seen, no one would recognize them. Did I ever tell you about the day he went to church, said Dave. Stephanie rolled her eyes. Dave wasn't fussed by that. He knew he had told her before. He knew what he was doing. You have to tell stories over and over. It's the creation of myth, the only road to immortality. Tell it, said Sam.

Of all the things he did, said Dave, this was probably the best. By the best, he meant the worst. It was summer, said Dave. We were driving our mother crazy. Sam said, who? Dave said, me and Annie. Your aunt Annie, said Dave. And then he said, so my mother decided that on Sundays, everyone was going to go to church except her. So she could stay home and have time alone. So Sunday mornings, they'd all set off. Charlie took his truck, but Dave and Annie walked. They followed the railway tracks into town where they'd pool their money and buy a pop or a box of chips, then head out of town over the bridge and up the hill to the church. We'd head out around nine for the 11 o'clock service, said Dave. The Sunday he was telling them about, the famous Sunday,

they got to town and there was Scout in front of the Maple Leaf Cafe. He had his nose in a French fry box. Scout, covered in ketchup. The moment he spotted Dave and Annie, Scout decided he was going to go with them wherever it was they were going. Probably because church was in the same general direction as the trout pond. And you never knew there could be fish heads involved. Dave and Annie knew letting Scout follow them to church was not a good idea.

So we stood there, said Dave, and told Scout to go home. And did he go, said Sam? Of course not, said Dave. He followed them, said Stephanie. But not on the road, said Dave. In the woods, paralleling the road. He'd been hanging around bad company. He figured we couldn't see him. When we got to the bridge, said Dave, we stopped and called him. Come here, boy, come on. Come on, Scout. And then what, said Sam.

Then we threw stuff at him, said Dave. Sand and stones. They made it up the church hill just in time. The church bell ringing and no scout in sight. Though I did have a bad feeling, said Dave. Charlie was already there. They slipped into the pew beside him. Now, Charlie went to church for the same reason they did.

Because Margaret told him to. And he made no bones about it. He had cut articles out of the Reader's Digest and slipped them into the hymnal and read for most of the service. He'd look up occasionally and mutter unhelpful things like, Father O'Neill is climbing new heights on Mount Monotony today. Anyway, said Dave, the three of us were sitting right near the front when they heard this murmur from the back of the church, and Annie, who was on the aisle, turned around and said, Don't look now. It was Scout, said Sam. That's right, said Dave, but I couldn't see him. Scout,

who had finally arrived at church, had decided he would sneak up to the front to join Dave and Annie, so he had slid under the back pew and was now worming his way forward row by row. Invisibly. Or so he believed. Sadly, on his way through the woods, Scout had managed to pick up a stick. The stick was attached to his undercarriage and dragging along behind him. Along with some other stuff, some coral-colored muck, stuff he had rolled in and was matted in his fur

and something horrible and foul-smelling. It was hot in church that July afternoon. A heavy sense of torpor had settled on the congregation, and Father O'Neill, who was about to begin his homily, could sense he was losing everyone. He'd been watching Valentine Cavanaugh. Valentine had been fighting off sleep for a good ten minutes, his head drifting towards his chest,

and then snapping back as if he'd been shot. But now he'd given in. Valentine's head was hanging lifelessly from his neck and he was snoring softly. Father O'Neill was just coming to the part where the Israelites were punished for speaking out against God and Moses, and in a desperate attempt to wake Valentine from his siesta and get the attention of everyone else, Father O'Neill slammed his hand down on the pulpit and bellowed, The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many died. And that is when Scout popped up under Valentine's pew. And he nuzzled old Valentine's hand with his ketchup-covered snout.

And Valentine, who had been dreaming about biting serpents, blinked one eye open. And there was Scout grinning up at him. He had no doubt that Scout was a serpent. When Scout licked his hand, Valentine lurched out of his seat and screamed, Jesus save me! And Scout dove under the next pew and came up like an apparition between Lily and McAllister's outstretched legs.

She saw him and promptly fainted. It was the widow McCoy who stood up and called out, there are serpents among us! And Father O'Neill leaned forward to see the serpents for himself and he knocked the pulpit over. As it went down, he got a glimpse of Scout and said, dear God, serpents. And that was more or less the end of the service. Scout came right up to us, said Dave. His tail was wagging and he looked at us as if to say, Isn't church great?

But how did he die, said Sam. Oh, said Dave. And now it was his turn to be silent. I was away, he said finally. He was hit by a car. And he was killed, said Sam. No, said Dave, he made it home. He died a couple of days later.

I've always felt bad that I didn't go home and, you know, see him. Why didn't you, said Stephanie. Well, I was working and, you know, I figured if he made it home, he was going to be all right. And then he said, no one said I should. Go home, I mean. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into a general store in the middle of nowhere. They parked beside a phone booth under the yellow glow of a street lamp. They went in and got popsicles and a bag of chips. When they got back on

the highway, they were quiet again. But it was a different kind of quiet. Together sort of quiet, not in a part one. Sam said, tell the one about Arthur and the potatoes. He used to sit on potatoes, said Dave. Like he was trying to hatch them, said Sam. If we wanted to cook potatoes, we had to pull them out from under him, said Dave. Stephanie said, that is so gross. And sleeping on the vent, said Sam.

In our bedroom, said Dave, Mom and I froze one whole winter. Because he was sucking up all the heat. And you couldn't figure it out, said Dave. Mom and I froze one whole winter because he was sucking up all the heat. And you couldn't figure it out, said Sam. We bought the furnace guy in, said Dave. Twice, said Sam. Cost over a hundred dollars. And it was me who figured it out. That's right, said Dave. And the ice cream, said Sam. He was crazy for ice cream, said Dave. Is, said Stephanie. He is crazy for ice cream. It was after 10 when they got to town. They drove by the vets, but the vet was closed. So they went home, and when they got there, Morley was in the kitchen. They went home, and when they got there, Morley was in the kitchen.

When she saw Stephanie, she smiled, but only for a second. She smiled, and Stephanie smiled, and then one of them started to cry, and pretty soon they were all crying. The vet called, said Morley. He didn't make it. He went to sleep and didn't wake up. And they stood there, the four of them in the kitchen, Arthur's empty basket by the back door. We do this thing.

We open our hearts to the world around us. And the more we do that, the more we allow ourselves to love, the more we're bound to find ourselves one day like Dave and Morley and Stephanie and Sam, standing in the kitchen of our life, surrounded by the ones we love and feeling empty. feeling empty, empty and alone and sad and lost for words because one of our loved ones who should be there is missing. A mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a wife, a husband, or a dog or a cat. It doesn't really matter. After a while, each death feels like all the deaths. And you stand there like everyone else

has stood there before you, while the big wind of sadness blows around and through you. He was a great dog, said Dave. Yes, said Morley, he was a great dog. When he was a puppy, Arthur was allowed to sleep on Dave and Morley's bed. When he got bigger, they tried to move him onto the floor and found they had a battle on their hands. No dog in the world was more determined or skilled at insinuating himself on a bed than Arthur. They bought him a basket and put it in the hall just outside the bedroom door. And Arthur would make a big deal

of climbing into his basket every night, circling it neurotically, sighing and grunting as he tried to get his blanket into a pleasing hump. But as soon as Dave and Morley were breathing rhythmically, Arthur's head would rise like a periscope. And he would slide over the edge of his basket and work his way into the bedroom, keeping low to the ground as if he were hunting. He'd stop a foot short of the bed and cock an ear. If he didn't like the way one of them was breathing, he would bring his face close to theirs and listen, sometimes for five or ten

minutes, staring at them like a priest taking confession, his wet nose only inches away from their faces. One night Dave woke up when Arthur was in the middle of a reconnaissance. And when he opened his eyes, all he could see were two huge eyeballs glaring back at him. Dave had no idea these were Arthur's eyeballs he was looking into. Then Arthur exhaled. And Dave was enveloped by the sour smell of his dog's breath. It was like the breath of death, and he jerked upright. He woke Morley with his gasp.

Arthur bounded back to his basket. When Morley opened her eyes, Dave was pointing at the bedroom door. A serpent, he said. Arthur was in his basket, snoring. Pretending to snore. If, however, when he crept into their bedroom, Arthur was satisfied that Dave and Morley were sound asleep, he would lift one paw slowly onto the bed, and he'd place it there without moving another muscle. If neither of them stirred, the other paw would go off just as slow. And then, rising like a mummy rising from a swamp,

Arthur would pull his body onto the bed and settle near their feet with a sigh, taking at first as little space as possible, but slowly unfolding, expanding as the night wore on, as if he were being inflated. He liked to work his body between theirs on his way towards the pillow. He stole my heart, said Dave,

over and over again. I'm going to miss them. The walks, just having them around, you know. Me too, said Morley. I'm so glad we had him with us. Have, said Sam. Have him with us. And Sam got up from the kitchen table

and he walked over to the cupboard, and he got a potato. And without a word, he walked over and dropped it into Arthur's basket. He's still here, he said. He always will be. That was Le Morte d'Arthur. We recorded that story at Manitoulin Secondary School in Chigang, Ontario, on beautiful Manitoulin Island back in 2010. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story, so stick around. Welcome back. Time for our second story now.

This is a true story that was submitted to the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange. If you listened to the Vinyl Cafe on the radio back in the day, then you'll remember we had a segment where you wrote the stories. It was called the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange, and it was one of the most popular segments on the show. We used to ask you, the audience, to send us your stories, and then Stuart would read them on the radio show. There were only two rules.

The stories had to be true, and they had to be short. After that, it was up to you. In the 15 years that the Story Exchange aired on the Vinyl Cafe, we received over 10,000 stories from people in Canada, the United States, and around the world. We read every single story, and Stuart read some of his favorites on the radio. We received so many story exchanges about dogs. So today, we're going to play Stuart reading one of our favorite doggy story exchanges. This is a story sent by listener Harley Hay of Red Deer, Alberta. Dear Stuart, writes Harley, every once in a while I like to dig out my old class pictures.

I have a laugh at hairdos, shake my head at how things have changed since, and grow quiet the way you do when those long-ago images of elementary school take you back into the swirling, misty moments of the past. Grade 3. South School. I walked to South School every day, across the old wooden footbridge, over the trickling Waskasu Creek. Often, I would walk with Glenn. Glenn lived in a broken down house, more of a shack really, just down the street from me. If the timing was right, we'd join in on our way to school, kicking rocks down the sidewalk in the fall, throwing the odd snowball in the winter, and floating little matchstick boats down the gutter rivulets in the spring. We never said much to each other. Glenn wasn't much for words. He'd been held back a grade

or two in school, and he was much taller and bigger than the rest of the grade threes. He always seemed to me to be a bit embarrassed, maybe, scrunching in the little desk in Mrs. Lawhed's class. But everyone liked Glenn, and everyone liked his dog, Blackie. Blackie was a big old black lab, as quiet and gentle as Glenn himself. Outside of school, the two were never apart. Often, Blackie would walk Glenn and me to school and then make his way back home by himself, and often Blackie would be there all by himself at the end of the school day, waiting to walk us home again. Time spent with Blackie was Glenn's favorite time. Mine too. Blackie wasn't supposed to be at the school though Glenn's mom had been told that dogs weren't allowed in the school grounds

And Blackie didn't have a license or even a collar for that matter There had been a couple of incidents with dogs biting kids at the school But we all knew that Blackie would never bother anybody One spring day, the recess bell rang and I looked out the classroom window and saw Blackie sitting in the schoolyard. He was sitting in the shade by the baseball diamond. He had heard the bell too and that big old tail had started to wag because he knew Glenn would soon be there. When the bell rang, we all ran out of the classroom to the yard. Glenn made a beeline straight for Blackie with me right behind him.

We were both instantly rewarded with a woof and a lick. But Glenn was worried. He told Blackie to go home, that he wasn't supposed to be there, that he would get in trouble. Glenn never raised his voice. He just told Blackie very serious-like, and Blackie knew he was in trouble. But Blackie wasn't going anywhere. By this time, most of our grade three class had gravitated over to see Blackie, everyone kneeling down for a hug, hoping for a lick. The most popular girl in grade three, Penny Bond,

was on the receiving end of a mighty slurp when we heard the sound of wheels on gravel. The van pulled up right beside us. It was the dog catcher. I have to take the dog, said the dog catcher as he got out of the van. He was carrying a pole with a loop of rope on it. It looked like a noose to me. Nobody moved.

Blackie woofed. Glenn kneeled beside Blackie, hugging him. He's my dog, said Glenn. It's okay, he's my dog. He's Blackie. The dog catcher took a step towards us, slowly swinging his pole. I don't see a license on this animal. He doesn't even have a collar.

I have to take him to the pound, kid. If he's your dog, you can claim him, pay the fee, and take him home. Glenn was trying really hard not to cry in front of all of his friends. He didn't want to say that his mom didn't have the money to get Blackie out of the pound. He didn't want to say that if you take Blackie now, nobody will come and get him from the pound. He didn't want to say it, but we all knew what happened to dogs that nobody claimed from the pound. The dog catcher wasn't listening. He took another step toward Blackie,

and Glenn started to cry, and suddenly, somehow, we all stood in front of Glenn and Blackie. We stood in between them, between Blackie and the dog catcher, and then Penny Bond grabbed my hand and I grabbed someone else's hand and we all linked hands together, forming a circle, a huge circle of grade three kids, arms outstretched, building a human fence around our friend and his dog. It was one of those moments, one of those moments where you just know you'll always remember it, even when you're old.

Especially when you're old. So we stood there, Glennon Blackie in the middle of our circle, the dog catcher outside, not exactly sure what to do next. Nobody said a word. We would have stood there forever if it wasn't for Mrs. Lougheed. Somehow she appeared out the back door of the school and called the dog catcher, and they stood over by his ugly orange dog catcher van, and although we couldn't hear what they were saying, we could see that they were having more than just your everyday normal boring adult type conversation. We hung on to our circle even harder now. And then something amazing happened.

The dog catcher got into his van and drove off. He didn't say anything to us at all. He didn't even look over at us. He just drove away. When all the cheering and hugging and crying died down, Mrs. Lougheed got us all settled back down in the classroom. Blackie sprawled in the corner at the back of the room, snoozing away contentedly for the rest of the afternoon. I had never seen Glenn so happy. Blackie never came on the school grounds again. He would wait for Glenn on the

boulevard across the street in the shade. Blackie was smart that way. Glenn and his dog and his mom moved away that summer, and I never saw them again. But every now and then I take out my old cardboard box of memories and pull out my grade three class picture. If you look closely, there with all the silly smiles and goofy hairdos of the proud and shiny eight-year-olds, there's an old black dog curled up at the feet of the biggest kid in the class. That was Stuart McLean reading a story written by Vinyl Cafe listener Harley Hay. That was from the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley

stories, including this one. The problem over Sam's piano lessons began with his Christmas report card. His music teacher, Mrs. Crouch, wrote, Sam has an unselfconscious sense of rhythm. It appears to come from inside him. What does that mean, said Dave. He was sitting at the kitchen reading the report. It appears to come from inside him. "'Where else could it come from? "'Is Mrs. Crouch the one with a New Age pendant?' "'I think she means it's a gift,' said Morley. "'She was pouring melted chocolate into Santa Claus molds.

"'In February, at parent-teacher night, "'Mrs. Crouch sought them out. "'Do you know he has perfect pitch?' she said. "'The other day,' said Mrs. Crouch, in choir, he started to sing the descant quietly to himself. I just happened to catch it as I walked by. Most of the grade sixes can't do that. Morley nodded earnestly. But by the time they got home, her joy had been sideswiped by a spasm of guilt. Sam was eight years old, and they hadn't done a thing to encourage this musical talent. What if Sam did have a gift?

Morley felt like she'd been asleep at the switch, and she had done absolutely nothing for Sam. That night, Morley dreamed she was at a symphony concert, and in the middle of her dream, the conductor abruptly snapped his baton, too, and he hurled it on the stage, and the hall fell deadly quiet, and the conductor swiveled around, and he pointed at Morley. Someone, he boomed, has to leave the stage. Morley noticed for the first time that the musicians were playing vegetables, and then she saw her son, Sam, stand up in the middle of the leaf section. He was waving a huge eggplant over his head.

How do you expect me to play the eggplant, he said, when I've only ever been given potatoes? And then he pushed his way through the cucumbers with his head hanging down and left the stage. his head hanging down, and left the stage. And the orchestra started to play again, and Morley noticed the entire root section was having dental work done as they played. When she woke up, Morley said, I'm going to get Sam a potato, I mean a piano teacher. He started lessons at the beginning of March with the only piano teacher in the neighborhood who had space to take him. His name was Ray Spinella,

and he only had one arm. That's next week on the podcast. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is hot diggity dog Greg DeClewt. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeClewt, and me, Jess Melton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.