Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Myths and Magic – The Mermaid and Other Mysteries & Hello, Monster

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

“It was one of those moments that make you wonder if your life is cursed.”In this week’s episode, two stories of a mystical flavour, with mysterious encounters for both Stephanie and Dave. 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 of my favorite Dave and Morley stories today. Two stories that are a little bit different, where Stuart plays with the themes of mystery and magic, with the difference between truth and fiction, and where he asks us, the audience, to decide where one ends and the other begins. Surely, that's the sweet spot where storytelling lies. This is Stuart McLean with The Mermaid and Other Mysteries. Sam is spending the weekend with his sister. They're sitting at the kitchen table in her second floor apartment. They've just finished dinner.

Pasta and a reddish sauce. Salad and dessert. They've been sitting there talking about their parents since dinner was over. About Dave and Morley. About their father's record store and why he is still doing it, about the theater where their mother works. They've talked about Arthur, their old dog. And now they're talking about their grandfather,

Dave's father Charlie from Cape Breton, who Sam has never met. I remember his smell, says Stephanie. He smelled like plaid. Sam says, that's not helpful. It's hard for her to remember more. She was so young when he died. The memories she has are moments without context, like photographs in an album.

There's one where she is sitting on his shoulders, ducking so she won't hit her head on a tree branch. But those could have easily have been her father's shoulders she was sitting on. There's another about a boat, a lobster boat probably, she says. At least you met him, says Sam, reaching for another helping of dessert. At least he knew you. They don't do this often, these two. Reminisce. It's not that they're too young for it. Everyone likes to reminisce, young and old. What is it to reminisce but to share stories that you star in? Sam says, do you remember when I broke my arm?

That summer, says Stephanie. That summer that Dave and Morley left the two of them in Cape Breton with their grandmother. Stephanie was 11, which means Sam was what, four? Grandpa Charlie had, of course, already passed. Dave wanted to take Morley to some festival in New York State, so they all drove down to Big Narrows together. They stayed a few days together with Margaret, and then Morley and Dave took off, leaving Sam and Steph with Margaret. It was the first time their parents had laughed at them. They even morally thought it'd be good for Margaret and for them, quite frankly, they needed some time

too. It was a bad break, said Sam, meaning his arm. And just like that, this little after-dinner communion, which has been rolling along so happily, is in danger of derailing. The broken arm, which Sam has just remembered, comes, you see, with certain complications. with certain complications. You want some tea, says Steph, getting up from the table and walking over to the stove?

What she's doing right now, she's playing for time. She is trying to decide if she is going to tell her brother the truth about the broken arm. Stephie has a history of this, of truth-telling. Over the years, she has delivered numerous truths to her brother, many of which would have been better left withheld. If she was here to defend herself, Steffi would argue that she was only being honest. Others might argue she was also being mean.

The spring he was only five, for instance. Sam believed with his heart and soul that the beans his mother had planted in the garden were going to grow into a giant beanstalk. Don't be stupid, said Stephanie. This is after watching a week of careful watering. They are wax beans, she said. They're the ones we have for dinner, the ones you hate. True? Certainly it was true. But another truth was that Stephanie was bored of her brother's cute credulity, or more to the point, perhaps, jealous of the attention it was earning him. When Sam earnestly told her that their father could remove the tip of his thumb

and then reattach it, it's from a wound he had in the war. Stephanie said, give your head a shake to begin with he was never in a war then she removed the tip of her thumb see she said wiggling her fingers in his face it's a trick there were others of course some of them of significance. All of this truthfulness delivered with such moral righteousness meant Sam had navigated the world of his childhood with a certain tentativeness. There's a difference between coming upon the truth of things in your own time and having truth thrust upon you by others,

especially if by others we mean your sometimes impatient and often insensitive older sister. It's the difference between living in a world you can trust and one where reality as you know it can at any moment be pulled from underfoot. This reached its apotheosis the spring that Sam was eight, a Friday night in June. Stephanie was babysitting. She invited some friends over. One of them brought a copy of The Exorcist. They made Sam watch it with them. When little Regan projectile vomited onto the

priests, Sam threw up too. It was essentially the end of his childhood. Which brings us back to the broken arm. There is Sam, sitting at his sister's kitchen table, reminiscing. I fell off the swing, he says. And there is Stephanie, standing by her stove, mulling which way she should go with this. Let me tell you the truth of it. He did fall off the swing, and it was in Cape Breton at their grandma's house that summer. Their parents left them. That much is true. The swing's still there if you want to see it.

It's been there forever in the old maple tree. The ropes that hold it go way up and out of sight so you can really get that swing going if you want. Stephanie was pushing Sam. And okay, in the passive-aggressive way of older siblings, she was pushing way too hard. So when he fell, the trajectory of the swing launched him surprisingly far, his little arms and legs windmilling as he sailed over the yard. When he landed, he landed on his funny bone. First time in his life, the electric jolt that ran down his arm stunned him. He lay in the dirt for a second as the swing spun silently above him, not moving. He didn't dare move because even though he was only four, he knew what had happened. He had just broken his arm. He lay there soundlessly without. And then he began to scream.

A bit of showboating, perhaps. Stephanie would certainly say that. Their grandmother ran out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Sam, she said, sweetheart, whatever's the matter? Stephanie answered for him. Nothing's the matter said Stephanie he's okay my arm is broken said Sam I broke my arm standing there by her stove in her apartment all these

years later Stephanie can remember that moment perfectly. Her grandmother bending over and scooping her brother up. And she can remember following them inside her grandmother's house, morosely. Now, it was quickly apparent that telling Sam he was going to be all right was only making matters worse. He was dangerously close to falling into outright hysteria when Margaret changed tact. She picked up his arm, wiggled it a bit and said, Oh my goodness, no wonder you're crying. Your arm is broken. He stopped crying on the spot. Stephanie recalled that moment as if it was yesterday.

Her brother turning to her across their grandmother's kitchen. See? Then looking back at Margaret, he said, do I need a cast? Without a second's pause, Margaret said, oh, yes. And that's when Stephanie started to cry because, well, because she had just broken her brother's arm, hadn't she? And they were going to have to go to the hospital and the truth would inevitably come out about her pushing too hard and she'd be sent to reform school. Do we have to take him to hospital, she said. Margaret, who was operating at a very evolved level of childcare,

turned and winked at her granddaughter and said, I think we can handle this ourselves. It was all very confusing. Stephanie sat there watching as Margaret got out an old, half-empty bag of plaster from the shed, and she watched her wrap Sam's arm in gauze and set the gauze with the plaster. I broke my arm, said Sam to his sister. The bone snapped.

Right through, said Margaret, who had begun to clean up. She fashioned a sling out of a pillowcase. How long will I need the cast, said Sam. Oh, it's a very bad break, said Margaret. That cast's going to have to stay on overnight. Then she made popcorn. And they sat by the stove and they ate popcorn. We went to the hospital to get the cast, said Sam, interrupting Stephanie's reverie.

No, Stephanie is thinking, as she stands by her stove all these years later, we didn't go to the hospital. She picks up her kettle and carries it to the counter. Now, you might wonder what harm there could be with her saying something right now. Sam, after all, clearly didn't break his arm. They cut the cast off the next morning. The whole exercise was rather sweet. But consider this. The tapestry of our lives is made up of little bits of faded cloth, each worn piece stitched to another on the frame of memory. Is it so horrible that in the mirror of his mind,

Sam believes he fell off the swing and broke his arm and they put on a cast and it healed overnight. One day the contradictions of that might occur to him. But for now, for now, he soared through the air in an awful acrobatic falling. And when he landed, he snapped his arm and got a cast like so many of his friends. It may be a curation of memory, but it was, after all, a magic two weeks living there with their grandmother in that rambling old house without their parents for the first time in their lives. It was a time that should be mythologized. It is no coincidence, I would put

forward, that that was the one and same summer that Stephanie had her own encounter with myth. For that was the summer, the summer Morley and Dave left them with Margaret, the summer that Sam broke his arm, that Stephanie saw the mermaid. Let me tell you about it. Margaret's friend Mildred used to watch Sam in the afternoons while he napped. And while Mildred babysat Sam, Margaret would take Stephanie off on her own. To town. To the post office.

To Kerrigan's for groceries or to the Maple Leaf Cafe for ice cream. Margaret was still driving Charlie's truck that summer, and sometimes on the way home from town, they would park at Rock Beach, the way Charlie used to. Margaret would sit on the big flat rock at the back of the cove where Charlie used to sit. Stephanie would sit beside her, to sit. Stephanie would sit beside her and they would stare out at the lonely gray ocean. One afternoon, Margaret started to cry as she sat there. When Stephanie asked her why, instead of answering, Margaret said, did your father ever tell you that if you shed seven tears into the ocean, a fairy will come out of the water?

Staffy had never seen a grown-up cry before. She'd been staring at her grandmother with concern. The tears were virtually running down her grandmother's cheeks. But now she finally summoned the courage to speak. Can we try, she said, to get a ferry? Margaret shrugged. No harm in that, said Margaret. So they took off their shoes and sat them down on flat rock

and they picked their way over the stones to the edge of the water. Stephanie walked right in, but Margaret knew how cold that ocean water was. Margaret stopped at the edge. Stephanie tugged on her arm. Come on, said Stephanie, trying to be as encouraging as You cry and I'll count. The moment Margaret put her feet in the salty, cold ocean, she stopped crying. It was just too cold to cry. Instead of crying, she started to laugh. She was laughing at the foolishness of it. Standing in the ocean trying to summon fairies.

Grandma, said Stephanie, why aren't you crying? Is something wrong? That was the day Margaret began telling Stephanie the old stories. They'd sit in the kitchen in the evening when Sam had been put to bed. The kettle would be hissing on the stove. Margaret's knitting would be in her lap. And she told the stories that her mother had told her when she was a girl. Stories about all the sea spirits. The little blue men who lived in the shallows looking for boats to sink, the

Selkies who looked like seals when you saw them in the gray rolling ocean, but who could come onto the beach, shed their skin, and take human form. If you ever marry a Selkie, said Margaret one night with great seriousness, you've got to burn the skin. Why, Grandma? Because if all you do is hide his skin, that Selkie will find it. And when he finds it, he'll leave you and return to the ocean and never come back. I'd never marry a Selkie, said Stephanie.

Margaret shrugged. Anyway, said Stephanie, how would I know? A woman always knows, said Stephanie, how would I know? Woman always knows, said Margaret. Probably by the smell, said Stephanie. Probably they smell like seaweed. Margaret told her about leprechauns. A leprechaun, said Margaret,

and she's leaning forward with great seriousness when she tells her, is not a little person the way they say in the books. A leprechaun appears to us in the form of an old man. She said it twice, just like an old man, she said. And then she said, if you ever catch a leprechaun, he has to grant you three wishes. And once he's done that, you have to let him go. Steffi said, was grandpa a leprechaun? God spare me, said Margaret. I never thought of that. But it's well possible.

Steffi said, did you ever ask him for three wishes? I never had to, said Margaret. He was always granting me my wishes before I could ask. Maybe that's why he died, said Stephanie. Maybe he ran out of wishes. Margaret said, maybe he did. One afternoon, Margaret took Stephanie to Ellen Burnett's house So Ellen could read her cup Ellen has a gift for the cup

Better than anyone in town On the way back from Ellen's they went for a walk on Logan's Beach They took their shoes off and left them by the wooden sidewalk where the seagrass ends and the sand begins. The tide was out, the beach was wide and flat, and the fog was rolling in. It wasn't an afternoon for a walk, but they walked all the way to where the sand ends at the rock point. It was just after they started back that Stephanie looked over her shoulder and saw the girl on the rocks at the point's end. Just as she looked, the girl slid into the water, her hair a flash of green, and in Stephanie's mind's eye, below her waist,

she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles a flippered tail. Grandma, she said, tugging on Margaret's hand. It was foggy. It was hard to see the point from where they had stopped. Probably it was a seal. Possibly it was someone swimming a girl from town maybe maybe a girl from town who had told a boy to meet her on the beach and he didn't come

Grandma! said Stephanie did you see it? that night as they were going to bed, she said, Grandma, do you believe all those stories you told me? Margaret leaned down and squeezed Steph's hand. She said, don't you? And these are the moments that Stephanie is remembering as she stands by the stove in her kitchen waiting for the water to boil.

Her little brother, still sitting at her table, is lost in his own dreams of that long ago summer. Did we go to the hospital to get the cast, he says suddenly. And she makes up her mind. She turns and she says, no, Sam, we didn't go to the hospital. The kettle begins to whistle. And she turns off the stove and carries it to the table, and she pours the boiling water into the teapot, the steam rising in her kitchen for a moment like Cape Breton fog. We didn't go to the hospital, she says. The doctor came in the kitchen.

I was so young, says Sam. It's hazy. I think I remember we made popcorn. I remember that, says Stephanie. We ate it at the table. And she sat down and smiled at her younger brother. She is remembering the rotten smell of seaweed, the raucous call of the seabirds, the gray roiling sea that rolls on and on, the little blue men who wait in the shallows to make mischief with boats, the seals that can shed their skin and turn into people, and how fairies come out of the water if you shed seven tears.

And she is remembering, too, the way the waves run up at your feet and suck the sand away so you feel as if you are sinking, and the way tea leaves lie in the bottom of teacups. She filled her brother's mug, and she smiled. Here's to Grandma, she said. That was The Mermaid and Other Mysteries. We recorded that story at the UConn Arts Center in Whitehorse, UConn Territory, back in 2015. And I'm just remembering right now, as I say that, that the night we recorded that story, we loaded out of the theater at night, walked to our rental car, and I looked up,

and the Aurora Borealis was above us, the northern lights. They were so incredible. I'd seen them many times before, but I had never seen them in the Yukon. Talk about mystery and magic. 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 Hello Monster. It's one of those moments that make you wonder if your life is cursed. One of those moments when you start to believe that the universe is not, in fact, a random place, but an intelligent one, and that the universal intelligence is a malevolent intelligence, or is, at least, when it comes to you. Dave was standing on the sidewalk just down the street from his friend Kenny Wong's cafe. In fact, he'd been in Kenny's for the last hour or so, and now he was standing on the corner, contemplating what he was going to do next. His wife, Morley, and his son, Sam, were away for the weekend, so there was no rush to get

home. He had three glorious days of solitude ahead of him. Wondered if he should go over to the Lobeers and check on their cat. The Lobeers were away too. He had their keys. He was feeding the cat for the weekend. Now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure where he had put their keys. Whether he had them with him that is or whether he had left them at home. And that is why he dug them out of his pocket and that is how he came to be holding the Loebier's keys as he stood there on the corner down the street from Kenny's Cafe. Why he dropped them? Who knows? These sort of things happen. That's the part about the world being cursed, or Dave's world anyway. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and he was standing

there considering whether he should feed the cat now or later when the keys slipped out of his hand and fell towards the ground in that slow motion-y sort of way that disasters favor. They hit the sidewalk and bounced into the gutter. Now later Dave would say you could line up a thousand people and have them drop one thousand sets of keys and nothing more would have happened and he's probably right probably if you dropped one thousand other sets of keys not one other set would bounce into the gutter like his and if they did would have on top of the sewer grate. His didn't. His landed on the sewer, balanced there for a moment like a golf ball balancing on the lip of a golf hole.

And then they slowly, unbelievably, and maybe even deliberately disappeared. Vanished. Dave stared at where they had been in disbelief. even deliberately, disappeared, vanished. Dave stared at where they had been in disbelief, at where they had been and weren't anymore. Seriously, he said. He got down on his hands and his knees and he peered into the sewer.

Nothing but darkness down there. He pulled at the sewer grate. It didn't budge. If he hadn't been so close to his record store, that probably would have been the end of this. Would have tried to pull the sewer grate free, and he would have failed, and that would have been that. Unfortunately, he was able to walk back to his store in no time flat.

Unfortunately, in no time flat, he was back at the sewer with a flashlight and a crowbar. Unfortunately, five minutes after he had dropped the low beer's key down the sewer, he had, with the help of the crowbar, jimmied the sewer cover off and was climbing down the cold steel rung set into the vertical concrete wall. Ten minutes after he had dropped the keys, Dave was standing at the bottom of the sewer, holding them triumphantly in his hand. He will never know for certain what happened next. He knows this much for sure. He was standing down there with the keys in his hand, feeling triumphant when there was a cold and ominous steel clang above him,

like a prison door slamming shut, and the dim sewer was suddenly dimmer. His best guess is that a city truck came along and a city worker spotted the grate he had removed and left lying in the gutter. Whatever transpired up there didn't really matter. What mattered was that he was now trapped at the bottom of the sewer with a lowbeer's keys, a flashlight, and nothing else. He scurried back up the ladder and pressed his face to the grate. Hey, he called. I'm down here. And then a car rolled over the grate and stopped, dead.

And a door opened and someone got out of the car. And then the door closed, and whomever it was walked away. A few seconds later, the car's horn beeped to confirm that the doors were locked. You've got to be kidding, said Dave. It was awkward holding onto the ladder at the top the way he was. He climbed back down to the bottom, and he was standing there now, his hand on the bottom rung of the ladder. Now, I should be clear here. This was a storm sewer he was standing in, not, you know, a sewer sewer.

He wasn't up to his knees in effluent or anything. This is where the rainwater went. He was standing at the bottom of the ladder, looking along a concrete pipe, maybe five feet around. He played his flashlight down the tunnel. About 50 yards away, there was a faint pool of light, another sewer grate, another ladder to freedom. He bowed his head and splashed off towards the light. In the next hour or so, Dave easily covered a mile. More. Easily climbed a dozen or two ladders.

He lost count. For the next hour or so, he lurched along the sewer and shoved his shoulder against a dozen or two grates. But something that required a crowbar from above wasn't about to give to a shoulder from below. He kept going. He had stumbled into an underground world that he knew existed but had never considered. If it hadn't been such an astonishing world, he might existed but had never considered. If it hadn't been such an astonishing world, he might have been afraid. From time to time, other pipes joined his like little tributaries.

His flashlight bounced against the walls and along the little stream at his feet. He came across a section where the walls were fashioned of red, water-stained brick. And soon after that, he stepped into an underground brick room with a vaulted 20-foot ceiling. It was like stumbling upon the ruins of an abandoned church. Looked around the brick room in wonder. Could have been in the sewers of London.

in wonder. Could have been in the sewers of London. And that, strangely, is the moment he had his first whiff of fear. In the beautiful underground brick room. Not coming into it. Coming into it, he was swept away by its unexpected beauty. The fear came on his way out. There were three pipes leaving the far end of the underground brick room. As he stared at them wondering which he should take, he glanced back the way he had come. He played his flashlight against the far wall and saw for the first time

that there were three pipes at the other end too. He had no idea which one he had emerged from. He realized for the first time he had no idea where he was. That he couldn't get back to where he had come from. He was lost. That's when he felt fear. Suddenly the sewer seemed ominously darker the ceiling heavier the walls closer suddenly everything seemed to be pressing in on him suddenly his breath was coming Shallow and fast. Nothing had changed, of course.

He wasn't empirically lost. It's more like he had stepped into some parallel universe. He was in the underground. Connected to, yet apart from, the world he knew. Like he was a ghost. He splashed along, but with more urgency now, with a gnawing, fluttery stomach.

It was an hour later that he met the boy. By then he had been down there maybe three hours, wandering along the pipes both narrow and wide and through the unexpected rooms, going from ladder to ladder, climbing from grate to grate, calling out at first of the city that didn't even seem to have pedestrians. So the boy caught him completely by surprise. He climbed up yet another ladder, pressed his face against yet another grate, and called out as he had called out before. Hello? Hello? Like all the other times, there was no reply, no acknowledgement of his existence.

Hello? Is anyone there? He was halfway back down the ladder when a tiny voice said I'm here Dave halfway down the ladder not quite believing he had heard that wondering if he had imagined that scrambled back to the top rung what he said what did you say

I said I'm here. Dave pressed his face against the grate and let go of the ladder with one hand so he could lean out and twist around. No matter which way he twisted, all he could see was sky. Before he could say anything else, the boy, he sounded like a boy, spoke. The boy said, are you a monster? Are you a monster who's come to get me? Dave laughed. No, he said, I'm not a monster.

I'm trapped in the sewer. Where are we? Boy said, at my place. We're at my place. If you're not a monster, what are you doing in the sewer? Good question, said Dave. I know, said the boy. There was a longish pause while they both considered this. After a moment, Dave said, are you still there? And the boy said, maybe.

Dave said, you don't have to be afraid. There aren't actually monsters, you know. And the boy said, well, that's what my mother says. My mother says there are no monsters under my bed and no monsters in my cupboard and no monsters behind the shower curtain. Is your mother home, said Dave. I can't tell you that, said the boy. My cousin says the monsters live in the sewers.

If you're not a monster, are you a wild thing? Are you a wild thing who has come to take me away in a boat? Is it going to be a rumpus? No, said Dave, I'm not a wild thing. That's too bad. Dave said, I need your help. I'm trapped down here. I got trapped by accident.

Can you go tell your mother there's someone in the sewer? No. Why not? Because I'd get in trouble for talking to a stranger. Dave said, I'm not a monster, and I'm not a wild thing. I'm not a stranger. I'm the guy in the sewer. Go get your mother.

You won't get in trouble. You don't know my mother. Dave pushed up against the gray. It didn't budge. If he leaned way out to the left, he could see the boy's shoes and his legs up to his knees. The boy was wearing sneakers and jeans. The jeans were rolled at the bottom. He was sitting on the sidewalk with his feet in the gutter.

Have you seen Vanessa, said the boy. What, said Dave. And the boy explained that Vanessa was his goldfish. The boy explained that one morning last week, he had found Vanessa lying at the bottom of her bowl on her side. The boy said that while he was at school, his mother had taken Vanessa to the vet, and the vet had to keep her in a special tank. But she was happy and had lots of friends.

She just couldn't come home. Ever. Why would I see her, said Dave. Because my cousin said Vanessa didn't go to the vet. My cousin said he saw my mother flush Vanessa down the toilet. Where do goldfish go when they die? Sometimes in a special tanks at the vet, said Dave. Sometimes down the toilet. That's what I thought, said the boy. Are you dead? Not yet, said Dave.

Maybe they talked for 15 minutes. Maybe it was an hour. It's hard to tell. Dave had lost his feeling of time. They talked for a while anyway. And then the boy said, I have to go now. What, said Dave? Wait a minute. And the boy said, I can't, it's suppertime. And he stood up and Dave said, wait. There was no answer. The boy had gone. Dave shoved his face right up against the sewer. Hey, he shouted, I have your goldfish.

A night in a sewer is not a happy thing. A night in a sewer is dark and damp. And you are alone. And as the night goes on, you start hearing things, scurrying things. Occasionally, but not often, a car goes by above you, and you see the flash of the headlights, but mostly it's dark. Eventually you fall asleep, but you keep waking up. And when you do, you have no idea if you've been asleep for a long time or a short time. Or maybe you haven't been asleep at all. All you know for sure is that it is dark.

Dark so you can't see your hand when you hold it right in front of your face. And you're hungry. Probably as hungry as the low beers can. Yeah. There's guilt, too. But mostly there's fear. And as the night deepens, desperation.

Hello? Monster? Dave had fallen asleep again. He was sitting at the bottom of the ladder. His head was on his chest. Monster, are you there? It was still pitch dark. Dave scrambled up the ladder. He could see stars and the glow from a distant street lamp,

but he couldn't see anything else. I bought you something to eat. The boy was pushing something through the sewer grate. Dave reached out to take it. But before he did, the boy let go and jerked his hand back. It was early Saturday morning. Dave had been in the sewer 14 hours. I have to go swimming, said the boy. And then ever so carefully,

ever so slowly and carefully, his little hand came through the sewer grate again. He was holding something. It was a tiny yellow tow truck. Dave reached out, and like the last time, the boy jerked his hand back. This time, it didn't fall. You can play with that until I come back. fall. You can play with that until I come back. Dave put the truck in his pocket and his fingers through the top of the grate. That was very brave, said Dave. Yes, said the boy. I know.

And then the boy reached out and ever so tentatively touched Dave's finger, jerking his hand back again when he did. You still scared, said Dave. Yeah, said the boy. Kind of. Then he said, I have to go now. Wait, said Dave. Do you want me to be a monster?

That's what I'm not sure about, said the boy. I can't decide that one. And he ran away. And now Dave was standing at the bottom of the ladder. He was starving and tired. He was damp and dirty. He was itchy. He needed a shave.

Presumably, if he set off and followed the flow of the water in the sewer it would lead him somewhere or not possibly if he started wandering around he'd just wander around in circles possibly no one would hear him at all he thought about heading off he decided to stay he was waiting when the boy came back. I'm not a monster, you know. That's what you say, said the boy. He came back an hour later with a rope.

I've decided to pull the lid off, said the boy. He fed one end of the rope through the grate. Dave tied it to the rungs, just like the boy told him to. The boy tied the other end to his bicycle. Then he knelt down on the grate and said, I have something you should know. I have monster spray here. If you try anything, I'll use it. He was holding a plastic spray bottle up to the grate. The label was hand-lettered. It said, the boy got on his bike the rope tightened now said the boy and dave threw his shoulder against the grate it didn't budge said the boy nope said dave but it was a nice try Where'd you get the rope? From my mother. What did you tell her you were doing with it? Rescuing a monster from the sewer.

An hour passed. And then another. Dave heard them before he saw them. He heard their voices echoing along the pipe. Then a moment or two later, he saw their lights, their flashlights, bouncing along the walls. Two of them. An inspection team. Looky, looky, said the older guy when they saw Dave.

I dropped my keys, said Dave. I got lost. The younger one said, you can come with us. Dave said, will you wait a minute? And he climbed up the ladder. And he pressed his face against the grate. And he called out one last time. Hello, he called.

Are you there? I have to go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The boy brought his mother after supper. We have to be careful, said the boy brought his mother after supper. We have to be careful, said the boy. You hold the spray. And what do I do with it, asked the mother. If he tries anything funny, spray him.

The boy knelt down. Get ready, he said. And then he called out. Monster, he said. Monster? Monster, are you there? There was no answer. The boy turned around and looked at his mother.

She was holding the spray in front of her. She was ready. It's okay, said the boy. He's gone. The boy laid down on his belly and peered into the sewer. The mother looked at her watch. Sweetie, said the mother, you know monsters only exist in stories, don't you? There aren't any monsters under the bed and there aren't any monsters in the sewers. But the boy wasn't listening.

The boy was peering into the sewer and now he was reaching into it, his skinny arm reaching down. Look, he said. The mother knelt down beside him, and then she laid down, and they peered into the sewer together. His yellow dump truck was balanced on the top rung of the ladder. He left me my truck, said the boy. I can't reach it. You get it. And the mother reached in and pulled it out for him and held it up and frowned.

How did that get there, she said. I told you, said the boy, the monster. And he put the truck in his pocket, and they walked back to the house, holding hands. The boy, whose name is Max, and his mother, who twice looked over her shoulder and back at the sewer before they went inside. That was Hello Monster. We recorded that story in 2011 at the Piggery Theatre in North Hatley, Quebec.

Such a beautiful spot. Alright, that's it for today. But we'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley stories. And I suspect many of you won't have heard these stories before. Here's a sneak peek. Someone had the idea they'd tear down the old schoolhouse and build a community hall in its place. In those days, if you had an idea like that, you could just go ahead and do it. I think they got a little money from the town said Dave.

They used it to hire an architect from Glace Bay but I don't think they followed his plans. Mostly they just did it themselves. They were miners and fishermen and farmers and they knew how to do things with their hands. There was no question of fixing up the old schoolhouse. The schoolhouse was done in. First thing they had to do was demolish the school. The whole town gathered to watch that. They had four tractors with chains attached to each of the four walls. The moment they started pulling, the roof smacked down. They had four tractors with chains attached to each of the four walls.

The moment they started pulling, the roof smacked down. Big cloud of dust and suddenly there was an empty lot where the school had been. It was every school kid's dream. All the kids thought it was fantastic. Everyone who had gone to school watched with tears in their eyes. The kids cheering and the old folks crying. Isn't that the way of the world? Then they set to building the new hall. Sam said, did you help? Of course, said Dave. Everyone pitched in. The kids had come home from school and the parents

had come home from work and they'd gather at the hall, start in the late afternoon and work until 10 at night, five nights a week, then all day Saturday. People would bring supper and they'd sit around the picnic table out back and eat together. Mostly, the kids did things like cleanup, sweeping nails and dead bits of wood and burning them out back. I hammered in the sub floor, said Dave. His little sister Annie hammered in the window frame at the back of the kitchen, the one to the right of the sink. If you examined it, you could see the dents around each nail, like they had blindfolded her before they gave her the hammer. 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 the myth, the man, the magical Greg DeCloot. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeCloot, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.