Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Meet the Neighbours! - Kenny Wong's Practical Jokes & Dorothy

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

“Big Bucks Polka. Bring your records Monday morning to Dave’s Polka Palace (formerly the Vinyl Cafe)”Welcome to the neighbourhood! Jess introduces two laugh-out-loud funny Dave and Morley stories about shops near Dave’s Vinyl Cafe record store: Woodsworth’s Books and Wong’s Scottish Meat Pies. We meet the eccentric book lover Dorothy Woodsworth; and learn how the Wongs subtly dealt with a difficult, racist customer. 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 Café. Welcome. We have two stories about Dave's neighborhood in today's episode. First, a story about Dave's pal Dorothy who runs Woodsworth Books, the bookstore just down the street from the Vinyl Cafe. And then later, Kenny Wong makes an appearance. Kenny, you probably remember, is the owner of Wong's Scottish Meat Pies. But first, a story we recorded in Calgary, Alberta in 2000. Yowzes! That's a long time ago. This is Baby Stewart with a story we call Dorothy.

So Dorothy was talking to Dave about business. I should have bought a donut store when they were cheap, she said. You could have bought a donut store, said Dave. We all could have bought donut stores, said Dorothy, if we'd bought them when they were cheap. You wouldn't have been happy running a donut store, said Dave. Well, I'm not happy running a bookstore, said Dorothy. It was a Friday night at 9.30. Woodsworth's, Dorothy's bookstore, had been closed since 6. For the last two hours, Dorothy had been sitting by the cash register in Dave's record store, sipping scotch,

listening to Gene Ammons and complaining. If you'd owned a donut store, you'd be dead, said Dave. You would have spent the last 12 years eating donuts, your arteries would have plugged up. You would have had a heart attack and you'd be dead. Dorothy said that with what she could get for her house and the store, she could probably buy a nice little spot down around Niagara on the lake. Dave said, yeah, she could open a gift shop and spend her Friday nights wrapping gingham around jam jars. Dorothy said the way that she felt she'd be happy to wrap the gingham around herself and work in the fudge store. This had been building since the fall,

a series of little things. The afternoon, the man came in and harangued her because she was charging for the Bible. It's God's word, he said, not yours. Then there were the sales reps. They were driving her crazy. I'm just tired of it, said Dorothy. I'm tired of books. Who would have thought it? So tired, thought Dorothy the next morning that she'd had books in her store that she actually hated. A year ago, she had, against her better instincts, ordered 10 copies of a book called Teach Your Baby Math. Revolutionary discovery that it's easier to teach numbers to an infant than a seven-year-old. Sales rep had convinced her that this book was going to be a bestseller. Said they were going to promote it heavily and that it would fly off the shelves. It was a year, and there were nine still in the nest, her nest. It was a fair sign of how bad things were that those nine books were still around.

She could have easily returned them, but she kept them right up front, holding on to them the way you might hold on to a sour marriage. Who'd want to teach a baby math, she hissed one afternoon as she passed the table where the books were piled. She thought she was alone in the store. Hadn't noticed that Tom Brady from the library had stepped in. Not me, he said, from behind a shelf. That night, Dorothy decided if things didn't get better, she'd get out while the getting was good. Dave said, think about it. He didn't want Dorothy to close her bookstore, and not just because he couldn't imagine the block

without her. If anyone was made for the book business, it was Dorothy. No one loved books like Dorothy. It showed everywhere in her store. Ever since she opened it, Woodsworth has been a beacon for book lovers, a lighthouse of literature, a platonic example of the perfect bookstore. People who had never even thought of buying a book had found themselves drawn into the store and then been astounded to find themselves leaving with a book tucked under their arm. Many of them returned and some of them went on to buy things like bookshelves, bookmarks, and other book accoutrements. Dorothy's store has all the attributes of a good barber shop or one of those cafes where you stop for coffee in a summertime. shop or one of those cafes where you stop for coffee in a summertime. You could walk through the door in a bad mood, but it was impossible to stay cranky once you were inside. Woodsworth's

had become a home away from home for a whole bunch of people, the perfect place to kill half an hour at lunch or on your way home for supper. Dorothy promised herself a decision about her future by April the 1st. On the last Friday in March, she realized she had four days left. On Saturday morning, she went to work looking for a sign. She got three. The first in the form of 74-year-old Gil Hartley, a retired Presbyterian dairy farmer, came into the store at 11 o'clock. Dorothy had never seen him before. From away, he said. Here visiting my grandkids.

My wife died last year of cancer. I'm sorry, said Dorothy. Me too, said Gil. He's wearing jeans rolled up at the cuffs, black shoes, dark green work shirt, and a plaid wool jacket. His hands were large and rough. He had big ears. I'd like something for my granddaughter's 11th birthday, he said, adding quickly, it's tomorrow. Dorothy nodded. Gil said, I left my glasses at home. Maybe you could choose something, something nice, a book-like.

choose something. Something nice, a book like. You learn a lot of things in a bookstore over 12 years. One of them is how to sell a book with grace to someone who cannot read. Dorothy went to the back of the store and took down a paperback copy of Anne of Green Gables. Six dollars and 95 cents, she said to Gil Hartley. I know she'll like it. Gil held the book self-consciously the way he might have held a baby. I read it when I was 12, said Dorothy. I liked it a lot. She'll like it. I'm sure of it. Gil's wallet was attached to his pants with a long silver chain. He counted out the money, a five, a toonie, and a handful of change 74 years old buying his first book I know she'll like it, Dorothy said for the second time putting the book in a bag

what else, she wondered, could you buy for $7 that could change someone's life it was the first sale of the day when Gil left she paid some bills and she felt good doing it after lunch a woman came in carrying a potted plant cyclamane she wanted to thank Dorothy for referring her to Dr. Cooper at the university Leslie Cooper runs a woman's therapy group

Dorothy had given this woman one of Leslie Cooper's pamphlets when she had bought a book called The Courage to Heal she changed my life said the woman I just wanted to say thank you. Dorothy used to feel uncomfortable selling self-help books. She'd bagged them the way she imagined druggists must have bagged private things when she was a child. With dignity but privacy. But she had lost her instinctive distrust of the genre. People did learn things from books. She watched the woman leave the store and looked at the plant and smiled.

The catalog was what pushed her over the edge. It arrived in the mail from California. It was from a company she'd never heard of. It was a weird catalog, and she was about to throw it out when she noticed the how-to section at the end. Three books caught her eye. How to beat honesty tests. How to disguise yourself.

How to create false IDs. She ordered all three. No matter what happened over the next 12 months, waiting to see who would buy them would make getting up in the morning interesting. She'd put them in the front of the store where no one could miss them. She looked around at the room full of books, the posters, the table displays, the counter full of book gadgets. It was cluttered, but it was her clutter. It was her place.

And she went to the back of the store and picked out another copy of Anne of Green Gables and she carried it back to the cash and she sat down again and began to read. Thank you. That was Stuart McLean with the story we call Dorothy. We recorded that story in Calgary, Alberta, more than 20 years ago. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with another story. This one's about Dave's best friend, Kenny. Stick around. Welcome back.

Okay, so two stories. Here's the second. It was also recorded in Calgary. And that seems kind of bizarre, but we did spend a lot of time in Calgary over the years. I don't know why or how it happened, but Calgary was full of Vinyl Cafe fans. We would always do two or sometimes even three Christmas concerts every year at the Southern Jubilee Auditorium. Beautiful place. Anyway, I was thinking about Calgary the other day as I was driving because it's snowy here where I live.

I live in Chelsea, Quebec, and it's one of those places where, you know, it starts snowing in like November and keeps snowing until May or something, which I'm sure sounds horrible to many of you listening, but I love it because I'm one of those crazy people who celebrates the first snowfall. Anyway, I was out driving the other day and I thought about this one time when Stuart and I were driving in Calgary. We were there to do shows at the Jubilee, but we're also doing book signings at bookstores. We did this all the time on tour. Stuart loved autographing as many books as he could. He knew how much it meant to people. And I guess because of that, it meant a lot to him too. But it also meant we had some crazy days on the road. I don't know why I'm telling you this, I guess partly because that's what I try to do on this podcast is give you an insight as to what our life was like on the road. So let me back up a bit. Here's how it worked. Our show would usually start at, I don't know,

7.30, 8 o'clock, something like that. We'd do the show from, say, 7.30 till 10, and then we'd pack up and load out and get in the bus. We'd be in the bus by maybe 11.30 or midnight, and we'd drive for a while. Sometimes we'd drive overnight. We had these bunk beds on the bus and we would sleep overnight, but not always. Often, most often, what we would do is get into the bus and drive for two, three, four hours, something like that. And we'd arrive in the next town at the next hotel in the middle of the night. And first thing in the morning, I'd get up and I'd take a taxi to the car rental place. I'd stop by a coffee shop on the way back and get a decaf coffee for Stuart and like 2.5 liters of ultracaffeinated coffee for myself. And we'd hit the ground running.

I'd pick him up and we'd hit as many bookstores as we could. We'd start at 10 in the morning and we'd end whenever we had to, whenever soundcheck started. So usually around 4 p.m. And I guess I'm telling you this because Stuart worked really, really hard. He'd be on stage from 7 p.m. till 10 p.m. and he'd be signing books most days. And if he were here, he would never tell you this because he was super modest and never talked about himself. But he's not. I'm here and I'm really proud of him. His dedication to his work and the attention that he paid to the people who liked his work was inspiring, and it still inspires me today. Anyway, his dedication also meant I'd be driving a car in a crazy snowstorm with very little sleep. So there I was in a car.

He'd be in the passenger seat, and we'd be chugging from bookstore to bookstore. It didn't matter what the weather, didn't matter what else was going on. We were out there with papermate pens in hand and autograph stickers in hand. And this particular day that I'm telling you about, this snowy day in Calgary, we were going from one place to another. I don't remember where. But I do remember what it looked like. It was sort of a six-lane road, or I think it was a six-lane road. I couldn't tell because the day in question, the snow just wouldn't stop. You know,

we'd go into one bookstore, we'd sign for 45 minutes or an hour, we'd come out, there'd be another two inches of snow. And by midday, there had to be six or seven inches on the ground and the plows just couldn't keep up. There was no one out on the road. We were really the only people, which actually made me happy because I remember having to pull out into this snowy road thinking, I don't know where the lanes are. I don't know which way to go. And I might spend completely out of control, but at least I'm not going to hit anyone because no one is crazy enough to be driving in this except for us. So here we go in the car about to pull out. I'm feeling safe because like there's no one to hit. And I put my flicker on and I pull out into the road to turn left. And about halfway across the road, I hit a speed bump. That's weird, I think. But there's no time to think because I'm

in the middle of the road. So I just have to keep going. I just have to keep my speed up and get over this thing and make it through the snow. And that's when I realized I've gone up and over the median in the middle of the road. I hadn't seen it. I just like all I could see was snow. I just cleared this thing the way a horse clears a jump at the Royal Winter Fair. I look over at Stuart and I see his face is halfway between terror and laughter. And I immediately realized that I will be hearing about this for the next decade. car made it up and over the median with no problem. And we live to tell the tale, even if our coffee didn't. And I was right. For the next 10 years, every time I was driving on a street with a median, Stuart would say, hey, kiddo, watch out for that speed bump. But he didn't need to, because that is not a mistake you make twice. I think of it every time I see a median, or more to the point, every time I

don't see a median, every time I'm driving on a snowy road and think, hmm, there might be a median hiding under that blanket of white. It's one of my favorite memories from the days that we spent in Calgary. Is there anyone listening from Calgary? I feel like there must be. Like, there just were so many Vinyl Cafe fans in Calgary. If you are listening to this podcast in Calgary, let me know, will you? You can find us, where can you find us? On Facebook, Instagram, or just go to our website, vinylcafe.com and write us a message. You can find us there. Okay. You've been extremely patient. Thank you. Here, finally, is that second story I told you about like 45 minutes ago. This is a story we recorded in, yeah, Calgary.

This is Kenny Wong's Practical Jokes. Kenny Wong jumped out of bed early on the last Saturday in March. He got up, dressed, and bolted out the back door without stopping for coffee or anything. He was a full three hours ahead of his normal Saturday routine. Kenny jumped out of bed and jumped into the car and he drove to a nearby mall and he bought the Saturday paper at a convenience store. And then he strode across the mall's parking lot to a donut shop, whistling. He bought a coffee, sat down and spread the paper in front of him. He flipped to the want

ads to objects for sale. He was looking for the ad that he had carefully dictated over the telephone on Wednesday morning, and there it was. When he spotted it, Kenny beamed and slapped the table so hard that his coffee jiggled and overflowed the cardboard cup, drenching the sports section. Kenny's so excited he didn't even notice. Big bucks polka, read the ad. Kenny slapped the table again. He looked as if he was going to burst. Record collector will pay top dollars for Walter Osternack and any or all polka albums. One day only, bring your records Monday morning to Dave's Polka Palace, formerly the Vinyl Cafe. No calls, no early birds, get top cash on the spot.

Kenny closed his eyes and grinned. Imagine some guy in Lederhosen jostling for position out in front of Dave's store on Monday. Monday, April the 1st. Kenny wasn't sure he could wait. He folded the want ad section and stood up, leaving his half-full coffee and the rest of the paper behind him. He reached into his pocket and he dropped a toonie beside the paper. First time he had ever left a tip in a donut shop. Ever. On the way to the car, Kenny started thinking about last year. Last year, on April Fool's Day, Kenny called the police from a phone booth

and told them anonymously that he had just been passed for the second time in a week a phony $20 bill at a local record store. Just before the cops arrived, Dave received a call from a voice that he recognized but couldn't place, reminding him it was April Fool's Day. Your friend Kenny Wong has hired a couple of university students and dressed them up as cops, said the voice. They're going to accuse you of passing phony money. You might want to give them a rough time.

They're going to accuse you of passing phony money. You might want to give them a rough time. When the two detectives wandered into Dave's store and started asking questions, Dave breezily admitted to passing phony 20s. I print them at home, he said offhandedly. I'm surprised it took you so long to turn up. He carried on like this for a good ten minutes. When the puzzled cops suggested he come with them to the station, Dave laughed in their face,

told them it was time for them to go back to school. You aren't just dealing with an amateur, he said. The cops called for backup. It took four of them to bundle Dave into the back of a squad car. Aren't you guys going a little far with this, he asked as they cuffed him. It took a good part of that night to straighten things out. Last year was good, but this year was going to be better. Now, it wasn't a one-way street.

Kenny Wong runs a little restaurant down the block from Dave's second-hand record store, Wong's Scottish Meat Pies. If you asked either of them, neither Kenny nor Dave could tell you when this April Fool's business began. One April, Dave got into the cafe in the middle of the night and replaced the gravy powder Kenny uses for poutine and hot turkey sandwiches with chocolate pudding mix. No one in the kitchen noticed anything until the cook splattered some of the chocolate gravy on the rim of a plate, wiped it with his thumb, and then absentmindedly brought his thumb to his mouth. But that wasn't until late in the afternoon. As soon as he could, Kenny rewound his cash register tape and found, to his horror, they had already sold seven hot chocolate

turkey sandwiches. That wasn't the disturbing part. The disturbing part was no one had complained. There was the year Dave got a mechanic friend to rewire Kenny's Volvo so the horn blew every time Kenny put his foot on the brake. In his wildest dreams, Dave hadn't imagined Kenny would edge up behind a policeman at the very first red light he struck. After three blasts from Kenny's horn, the cop burst out of his car, smoke steaming out of his ears. Now to someone like Dave, who came of age on a tour bus with some of the wildest groups in rock and roll, this is all pretty tame stuff, but it brings back memories of his misspent youth, and for that alone, it's worth the minor inconvenience of a night in jail.

For Kenny, the annual pranks are an echo of a different kind, a reflection from a flame lit when he was a boy growing up right here in Alberta. Kenny grew up in the town of Burnt Creek. His father, Henry Wong, was the majority shareholder in the Half Moon Cafe. Half Moon is no more. Someone bought it out in the 70s

and ripped out the old Formica booths and tore out the counter with its 12 high stools. It's now called the Bamboo Terrace, and it has an oversized menu with colored photos, but it's in the same building just across the bridge next door to where the old hotel used to be, where the tracks used to cross Railroad Street. A moon-faced man who liked to smile, Kenny's father built a reputation for honesty in Burnt Creek. In the 50s, CPR linemen who would leave for work before 7 and wouldn't make it back until after dark

would leave their paychecks with Kenny's father to cash or to deposit in the credit union. It was the same service that Kenny's grandfather used to perform for local ranchers, who often had to leave town before they got their checks from the cattle sales. Kenny and his brothers grew up in the Half Moon. Their mother would march them into the restaurant every night, and they would eat supper together at a table in the kitchen.

All the Wong kids had jobs in the cafe from before they started school. Kenny's first job was cutting the butter pats with a metal butter slicer that was kept on a table in the pantry, where the old man Chew, skinny as a broom, used to peel potatoes and carrots and drop them into a bucket of water. The September that Kenny was six, the September he went to kindergarten, he was given the added responsibility of filling the miniature ceramic coffee creamer. Kenny would come into the restaurant at 7.30 after his bowl of Sunny Boy cereal, and he'd sit at the counter with all around top jugs arranged in front of him. He'd earnestly fill each one right to the top and then slide off his stool and carry the creamers one by one

and line them up beside the jello and slices of pie on the glass shelf behind the Celadon green milkshake machine. In 1949, the year Kenny turned five years old, the Wongs were the only Chinese family in Burnt Creek. His first week at school, a group of girls from grade two surrounded him at recess and chanted, Chinese, Japanese, look at your dirty knees. Henry, trusted by the linemen and the ranchers with their paychecks, was never accepted by the businessmen of Burnt Creek. He wasn't asked to join the Elks or the Rotary until 1976. He was never invited to the Businessmen's Association meetings, and when the Chinese were finally given the right to vote in Canada in 1947, not one of the candidates asked him for a donation or asked to put a sign in his cafe window.

The only person who got under his skin, however, was Eddie Cowlix. Eddie ran Cowlix Menswear, where sharp men shop, and Eddie came to the Half Moon for lunch every Friday. Eddie would sit in the same booth right in the middle of the restaurant and order chicky-flied lice, which he always did loud enough so everyone in the place was sure to hear him. When he got his meal, Eddie would eat a few mouthfuls and then put his fork down and say, which he always did loud enough so everyone in the place was sure to hear him. When he got his meal, Eddie would eat a few mouthfuls and then put his fork down and say,

This sure is good chicky. Every week he'd do the same thing. He'd say, This sure is good chicky. And then he'd call Henry, who was usually up in the front somewhere, maybe serving coffee or cashing someone out. Hey, Henry, he'd call. I haven't seen my cat for a few days. You haven't seen the cat, have you?

And he'd look around the half moon at everyone, and he'd laugh out loud. It bothered Henry Wong that he couldn't speak good Canadian English, and he felt humiliated when Eddie Cowlix made fun of the way he talked. Eddie Cowlix, standing by the cash with talked. Eddie Cowlix, standing by the cash with a toothpick in his mouth, saying, I'd come for lunch every day, Henry, but if I ate that much rice, I'm afraid my eyes would go slanty. One Friday night when he was 12, Kenny asked his father why he didn't refuse to serve Eddie Cowlix. You should tell him

he's not welcome. Henry Wong was sitting at the dining room table when his son said that. He was counting the days till. He didn't stop counting. He said, I don't want to offend the other customers. When he said it, he looked up and he saw his son's shoulders sag and he saw the disappointment in his face. It was snowing that night. Henry went back to the half moon to close. When he came home, everyone was already in bed. He shook his son awake. He told him to get dressed. They drove back to the cafe in silence. It was late. They were the only car on the main street, their tire tracks rolling silently behind them in the snowy darkness. Henry parked in the alley, and they went in the back door through the kitchen and into the dark cafe.

The only light was the yellow and red glow from the big jukebox at the front. Henry pointed at the booth where Eddie Cowellix always sat. Kenny sat down. He watched his father walk to the front where the cigarettes were kept in a scratched glass case. He watched him reach up to a high shelf. Henry Wong brought a carved wooden box the size of a pound of butter to the booth where his son was sitting, to Eddie Cowlick's booth. And then he walked into the pantry,

and he came back with a candle and a stick of sandalwood incense. He sat down on the bench opposite his son. He opened the wooden box, and he unwrapped a piece of bright yellow silk. Kenny leant forward and saw three old round coins with square holes in the center, lying on the silk. His heart was beating fast. He knew what was happening.

His father was going to consult the sage. Henry Wong had never thrown the I Ching with his son before. Kenny knew without his father saying anything, they were going to ask the sage about Eddie Cowlix. They sat quietly for five minutes, and then Henry wrote something in the small black book using the Chinese hieroglyphics that Kenny never learned. When he had finished, Henry picked up the three coins and held them in the palm of his hand

so the orange flicker of the candle lit them, the smoke from the incense curling around. Six times he dropped the coins, each time examining their faces and marking what he saw in his book. When he finished, he looked across the table and spoke to his son for the first time since he had woken him. Juan, he said, wind over water. What does it mean, asked Kenny. Kenny's father got up and got a teapot and two bowls. He poured them each a bowl of tea.

The sage says there is a harshness present. He leant down and blew across the top of his tea, He leant down and blew across the top of his tea, little black waves lapping at the edge of the bowl. The sage says if you hold a hatred against someone, you become bound to that person. To free yourself from the binding, you must be forgiving. We must forgive Mr. Cowlix. Kenny looked disappointed. I don't think the sage has ever been to Burnt Creek, he said. Henry Wong looked at his boy with wonder. He brought the bowl of tea to his lips and slurped at it. If we are going to do something, Wing Kin, we must be like the summer wind over the water.

We must be so gentle that Mr. Cowlix does not even know the breath of the wind on his face. And then Kenny's father stood up and walked into the kitchen, and he came back with a cardboard box. It was full of little glass jars, jars of paints and colored inks. He took out a small pointed paintbrush. Watch carefully, Wing Kin, he said. There was a painting hanging on the cafe wall at the end of the booth. The booth where Eddie Cowlick sat.

The booth where they were sitting. Where his father had just thrown the coins of the I Ching. It was a painting of a lake in a forest. Kenny had never looked at the painting carefully. His father reached up and took the painting off the wall. He pointed to the far end of the lake. There was a figure standing on a rock. The figure was very small, smaller than Kenny's fingernail.

He had never noticed it before. Kenny leaned forward and squinted in the candlelight. He had never looked at the painting so carefully. It was the figure of a young woman, a girl maybe. Kenny leaned forward and squinted in the candlelight. He had never looked at the painting so carefully. It was the figure of a young woman, a girl maybe. She wasn't wearing any clothes. She was bending at the waist, her feet in the water, her breasts in the sun. He looks at the girl, said Henry, gesturing with his paintbrush.

Kenny watched his father unscrew a glass jar of blue paint. He watched him set the black lid upside down on top of the table. He watched him dip his brush in the dark ink, and then he watched him paint a bathing suit on the girl who was wearing no clothes and standing by the lake. Now, said Henry, putting the painting back on the wall it's time to go home the next Friday Henry saw Eddie Cowlix frowning at the painting of the girl he waited two weeks after two weeks had passed he added fluffy white clouds into the blue sky and a shadow over the girl in the bathing suit by the lake.

Two weeks after that, he painted a sweater on the girl. Slowly, over a period of weeks, the gentle wind blew more clouds over the lake in the painting, and the white clouds turned to gray, and the leaves started to rustle on the trees, and then ever so slowly, the leaves began to change colors on the trees, and then ever so slowly the leaves began to change colors as the season of the painting turned gradually, imperceptibly, from summer to autumn. Henry brought out his box of inks and paints on Thursday nights when everyone had left for the day, even the old man Chew who peeled potatoes and carrots in the pantry. And then every Thursday when he had finished with a painting,

Henry Wong removed the bench from the booth where Eddie Cowlick sat and replaced it with a bench which he kept at the back of the kitchen, a bench that Henry carefully cut a quarter of an inch off So the seat was moving slowly toward the floor. So every Friday when he arrived for lunch, Eddie Cowlix would slip lower and lower, and the top of the table moved up his chest like tea being poured into a bowl. After six months, it was so high that Eddie Cowellix looked like a little child when he sat in his booth. He was becoming uncomfortable in this restaurant he used to lord over. We are making him a little man, said Henry to his son one afternoon.

Soon he will blow away. Each Friday, having shortened the bench, Kenny increased by a spoonful or two the amount of food he put on Eddie Cowlix's plate. Just a spoonful or two. But as the weeks went by, the spoonfuls added up, and Eddie had to struggle to finish the plate of fried rice that he used to eat with such gusto.

One Friday, when Kenny set his plate in front of him, Eddie pointed at it and he said, is the rice going bad or something? You giving it away? How I make living giving food away, said Henry dismissively, his arms crossed. The girl in the painting was now standing beside a frozen lake in the winter. standing beside a frozen lake in the winter. Eddie turned to look at the painting and then back at Henry. He looked pained. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

He shook his head and shifted uncomfortably, the table halfway up his chest. As the weeks went by, Eddie became more and more fidgety. He couldn't get comfortable. He sat in the booth, shifting his weight back and forth. Two Fridays in a row, he splattered soy sauce down the front of his shirt, and then he knocked over his water. And finally, one Friday, he was only able to eat half the food on his plate.

And the next Friday, he didn't show up. And that was the last of them. You see, Wing Ken, said Henry, he has become so small that the sage blew him away. Kenny moved to the city in 1972. When he arrived, he was carrying his father's instructions to look up Rob McGregor, one of the CPR linemen whose paycheck Henry used to deposit in the credit union. McGregor had lost his job with the railroad years before, and Henry had helped

him out with a small loan. McGregor, with the help of the loan and an old family recipe for meat pies, had pulled himself through by opening a small café. He was ready to retire when Kenny showed up, and as a gesture of gratitude to Henry Wong offered to sell his cafe to Kenny. In those days it was still called McGregor's Scottish Meat Pies. When Kenny took over he didn't change a thing for five years and then one day it occurred to him that he had earned the right to have his own name on his business, and with McGregor's approval, he painted out his name and added Wong's. He was still selling mostly meat pies in those days, but he slowly added a few Chinese dishes, mostly to please a regular customer who had received bad

news about his cholesterol and had seen what Kenny cooked for himself and asked if he couldn't try some. Gradually and without any conscious planning, Kenny added more Chinese dishes, things he remembered his father serving in the half moon, beef and green pepper, barbecue pork, fried rock cod, ginger and chicken.

Five years ago, he put up a sign in the front window, and it's still there. It says, sorry, we're out of meat pies. But he never changed the sign. Wong Scottish meat pies. Kenny was born in 1944, the year of the monkey. He likes to monkey around. No one asks for meat pies anymore anyway. When he retired and sold the half moon, Kenny's father used to come to the city to visit his son every fall. He liked to sit at one of the round tables

at the back and sip tea and smoke and read the paper, the way the old man Tong, the most infamous gambler in Alberta, used to sit in the back of the half moon in the 40s and 50s. One day when Henry was visiting, Dave came in for lunch and sat down with him, and Kenny was hovering around, and then he sat down, and his father said something in Chinese, and Kenny pointed at a painting on the wall, a painting of a young girl holding a pair of skis beside a frozen lake. My father asked if you knew the story of the painting, he said. Dave looked at Kenny and then at Henry,

who was grinning and nodding his head, and that's when they told him about Eddie Cowlix and how they had blown him out of the half moon. And they all laughed. And then Kenny told him about the time he had put Kool-Aid crystals in the shower head before his mother had her Mahjong club over. And how he'd once put Kool-Aid crystals in his brother's bed and he had woken up as striped as a zebra. It was one of those lunches that went on and on all afternoon. Dave told them about the night they had filled the bathtub in some roadside motel with blue clothes dye and lowered the bass player from Question Mark and the Mysterians into the tub while he slept. And how the bass player had carefully poured rubbing alcohol into the

grout of the tiles in the bathroom where Dave was staying two nights later and had hidden in the cupboard until Dave was sitting on the toilet and then opened the door and lit the grout on fire. They told these stories and laughed until they nearly choked, and it was the next year on April Fool's that Dave got into Wong's Meat Pies at night for the first time, and this was back in the days before Dave or Kenny had kids, before Kenny had renovated even, and there was still indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor, and Dave soaked the carpet with water and scattered cress seed all around.

This was on a Saturday night, so the seeds had all weekend to germinate. So by Monday when Kenny opened up, the floor was a carpet of sprouted cress, and there was a sheep tied to the front booth. Dave had borrowed the sheep from someone I can't remember who, a friend of Dorothy's, I think, who has a farm. And that was the start of it. So a few weeks ago on April 1st, when Dave arrived at the Vinyl Cafe and saw the professionally painted banner hanging over his storefront

declaring in bold red letters, Dave's Polka Palace, he laughed, but he wasn't surprised. He stopped before he crossed the street and took in the tableau, the new sign, and the ten people waiting. They had been there long enough that they had begun going through each other's records and the trading had begun. When Dave finally crossed and unlocked the store, they were so caught up with one another they didn't even notice him.

One soft, doughy-eyed man in a cardigan seemed to be the center of attention, buying everything he could get his hands on. Dave was as polite as he could be and bought a little of what came, some simply because the people seemed so pleased just to have a place to bring polka records. But there was surprisingly little to buy, thanks to the man in the sweater.

And that night on Monday, April 1st, on the way home, Dave stopped in at Kenny's for a coffee. Heard you had a big day, said Kenny. Yeah, said Dave, I just wanted to say thanks. Dave put down his coffee and reached into his pocket. It pains me to do this, he said, but I thought it only fair. And he handed Kenny an envelope. Kenny took the envelope and opened it.

It contained two crisp $50 bills. and he handed Kenny an envelope. Kenny took the envelope and opened it. It contained two crisp $50 bills. What's this for, he asked. That ad said, Dave, that was very funny, but it actually brought in a couple of very valuable records. I just had the biggest day I've ever had. I thought you deserved a finder's fee. Kenny Wong frowned.

The newspaper ad had cost him $40. He had paid $400 for the banner. He started to say, exactly how much did you make? But he stopped himself and he looked at Dave carefully. Wait a minute, he said. He was about to say, you're just yanking my chain, aren't you? Instead, he looked at his friend and he said, you aren't going to tell me. You'll never tell me. Now what, said Dave, smiling innocently, do you mean by that? Thank you. That was the story we call Kenny Wong's Practical Jokes. People often write in and ask about that one. They want to know which is the story where someone changes a painting. Well, that's the one.

It's one of my favorites. I hope you liked it too. We've got to take a short break, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. Stick around. Well, that's it for today. We'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley stories, including this one, a story about the time Dave and his friends enter a fishing derby. And that is how Carl, Carl Loebier, and Bert, Dave's neighbor, Bert Turlington,

and Kenny Wong and Dave came to find themselves a few weeks ago, shoehorned into room 24 of the Red Squirrel Motel and Cabins. One of those places where the wafer is soap. The one wafer comes wrapped in pale green paper with a little picture of a squirrel gnawing on a pine cone. It was the last room and the only place where the room left. Everything else was booked solid. We were lucky to get it, said Carl. Two double beds, four grown men. That's next week. You can hear the whole story next week on the podcast. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network.

Theme music is by Danny Michelle. The show was recorded by Greg DeCloot and produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.