Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - New Beginnings – Spring in the Narrows & Opera

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

“We stumble upon the great loves of our lives in the oddest ways”On this week’s episode of Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe, two funny stories about Dave’s mother, Margaret and the new beginnings, loves and friendships she finds in later life. In Opera, she takes a long-awaited trip to New York City. In Spring in the Narrows, Dave heads back to his hometown of Big Narrows, Nova Scotia and finds Margaret has a new spring in her step. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We have two Dave and Marley stories for you today. Stories about spring and new beginnings. Let's start with this one. A story we recorded in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. This is Opera. Dave's mother, Margaret, had a difficult summer. Couldn't get warm. Everyone kept complaining about the heat and Margaret thought, are they nuts? It's freezing here. At the beginning

of July, her daughter Annie, Dave's sister Annie, drove up from Halifax. Annie found Margaret in her garden. Margaret was wearing a sweater and a toque. Annie was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Margaret stared at her daughter and said, aren't you cold? On Sunday, as Annie was getting ready to leave, Margaret said, matter-of-factly, will you come up for my birthday? It's going to be my last. It was 82 degrees when I left, said Annie to Dave on the phone. She was wearing a scarf and gloves. They all went for her birthday. Dave and Morley gave her a garden diary bound in leather.

Every year you can keep track, said Dave, flipping through it for her. There's a place for everything. When things come up, the first frost. Don't be silly, huffed Margaret. Just how many years do you think I've got left? It was Annie who brought her mother the tickets to the opera, to the Lincoln Center in New York City, to a Saturday afternoon at the Met. Margaret said, I can't possibly go to New York. Why not, said Annie. I have nothing to wear, said Margaret, buttoning the top of her cardigan. We stumble on the great loves of our lives in the oddest ways.

Opera came to Margaret when she was a little girl. It arrived in the form of Doogie McDougal, of the Inganish McDougals, not the North Shore McDougals. Like his daddy and his daddy before him, Doogie McDougal was born and raised to the sea. Four years to sea and he would have been gone 40 more, except Doogie tore his shoulder to shreds in Boston, unloading pallets of raw sugar. His arm twisted in the cargo net and him yanked 15 feet in the air, screaming like a seagull. Doogie ended up in a New York hospital for a month and a half. A week before he was released, Angus McDonnell showed up, sent to the hospital by Seamus McGiven,

stood at the end of the bed smoking and said, a man could get a job to the theater if he wanted. Doogie said, I don't know squat about theater. Angus took a drag of his smoke and said, now tell me what's the difference between hauling ropes to change a scene and tying off a pallet? Ropes, rope. Doogie shrugged, and two months later,

he was drinking at McSorley's and working at the Met. This was before unions, before theater schools. Half the backstage crew were crippled-up blue-nosers. Like Donnie said, rope's rope. This was at the Old Met, the one on 39th and Broadway, before they tore it down and moved into the Lincoln Center, back when Dr. Wilson was the only person in Irish Bay who owned a radio. Saturday afternoons, maybe 50 people would cram into his living room

and Dr. Wilson would turn his radio up and they'd listen to their Doogie McDougal at work. Saturday afternoon at the Met, this was in the early 30s, before the war, Margaret, 11 years old, would go with her mother and they would dress up and sit on Dr. Wilson's couch, leaning against each other, applauding with everyone else every

time Milton Cross described a scene change. They could hear the audience in New York applauding, too, and in her mind's eye, Margaret could see Doogie McDougal of Irish Bay, Cape Breton, standing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, taking his vows. Doogie McDougal standing in front of the famous gold curtain, star of the opera in New York City. Sure enough, it was Doogie McDougal who opened the door, but it wasn't Doogie who kept Margaret coming back. From the beginning, she was swept away by the passion of the music. Opera is a world moved by storms, and living by the ocean, Margaret understood the eloquence of stormy weather.

She was born into a world battered by the elements beyond anyone's control, so she felt at home in a universe of villains and spurned lovers. And living in a small town, opera was a world that made her feel worldly. By the time she was 14, Margaret had persuaded her father to buy a radio of their own. And every Saturday, Margaret would sit in the parlor listening to her opera.

You'd think a parent could ask for nothing more. But Margaret's mother and father soon learned opera was leading their daughter astray. First time Margaret was moved to liquor, she was 16, home alone, listening to Tosca, the passions of Italy, the call of red wine stirring in her soul. There was no wine in the house, of course, or anywhere in town, except for the church. But that didn't stop Margaret. Margaret took one of her father's beers and mixed it with grape juice. Passed out on the sofa when her parents came home. Drunk with love.

Sixteen, head over heels in love. All she needed was a man. As she got older, after she'd found that man, she still loved opera and all the opera stars, especially Maria Callas. Callas who lived on the edge. Callas who lived dangerously. Callas who left her husband for that rat, Aristotle Onassis. Callas met Onassis at the film festival in Venice. He came to London soon after and held a party for her at the Dorchester Hotel. He decorated the room with thousands of roses and invited Churchill and Gary Cooper and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Soon after the party, Maria Callas sold her apartment in Milan and moved to Paris, moved so that she could be on Onassis' route between London and Monte Carlo.

It was pure love. And in the face of such love, Onassis dumped Callis for that Jackie Kennedy. Callis died of a broken heart, her ashes sprinkled over the Mediterranean where Onassis sailed his damn yacht. Callis didn't just sing opera, she lived one. As a young woman, Margaret longed to live as recklessly as Callis. And then she met Charlie, and she loved him to death. And she decided the most reckless thing she could do was marry him. They married, and Margaret tried to love her Charlie as recklessly as she could.

He loved music, too. She taught him about opera, and he taught her her how to sing and they sang together driving the car and they sang together doing the dishes. But now Charlie was gone and Margaret felt just like Maria Callas, alone. A lonely old widow who couldn't get warm except Margaret was living in a house in Big Narrows instead of an apartment in Paris.

Annie phoned her mother and said, I can't come to New York with you. The orchestra is going to Japan. They've changed the dates. Annie plays in Symphony Nova Scotia. Is there someone else you could ask, asked Annie. Margaret cast around town. Bernadette and Winnie both said they'd be delighted to go to New York with Margaret. But they both said the same thing about the Met. Do we have to go to the opera, they asked. Margaret phoned Annie in Halifax. When's your flight, asked Annie.

Monday, said Margaret, admitting to tell her daughter that she was going alone. Omitting to mention that flying had seemed like such an indulgence that she had bought a round-trip bus ticket. The Narrows to Sydney, Sydney to Halifax, Halifax to Montreal, Montreal to New York, 38 hours straight. It was while a bus was pulling out of Schenectady that Margaret began talking to Charlie. They'd always planned to go to New York City. It was going to be their big trip, their opera hodge. They were going to visit all the stations of the cross.

And then Charlie died. And here she was, going alone. She arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City at 7.30 in the morning. Margaret, who had barely closed her eyes for two nights, had finally fallen into a deep sleep not an hour before. When the driver shook her awake, she had no idea where she was. She humped her suitcase out on a 42nd Street in a daze. She was hungry and overwhelmingly tired. She stared at the river of yellow taxi cabs at the early morning crush of the city. Instead of the rush of excitement she had been expecting, Margaret felt fear.

The buildings were so tall, so packed together that she could barely see the sky. Suddenly, New York didn't seem like such a good idea. Charlie, she said, her hand at her throat, looking all around. A man on rollerblades with spiked hair and tattoos and pins everywhere. blades with spiked hair and tattoos and pins everywhere. Pins in his nose and in his ears and in his lips and through his cheek. This pin man who was, oh my God, he was wearing a skirt. This pin man in a skirt cut by her on his roller blades and Margaret felt the flap of his skirt on her legs and she thought to herself, no one had mentioned pin men in skirts who brushed by you on their rollerblades when you were standing on the sidewalk minding your business. And they hadn't mentioned the noise either. Margaret had never read about the honking horns and she backed up

and leant against the bus terminal and she felt dizzy. The wall felt grimy, dirty. And for five minutes she leant against it until a man carrying a black leather briefcase walked by her, stopped, turned around, and handed her a dollar bill. She was too stunned to give it back. Her legs were shaking. She went back into the bus station and sat on a bench. Margaret felt utterly exhausted, utterly defeated, utterly depressed. She was utterly alone. Her feet throbbed. This wasn't the way she'd imagined it at all. She must have been out of her mind to leave home. What had she been thinking? Wish you were here, Charlie, she said. She dug out her guidebook. The Chelsea Hotel, where Mark Twain and Tennessee Williams had both stayed, and as Dave liked to point out, where Sid Vicious had killed his girlfriend Nancy,

the Chelsea Hotel was at the other end of town. So she waved at a taxi cab. And she climbed into the back seat and she squinted at the driver through the thick plastic security panel. And he said something to her that she didn't understand. And Margaret realized that he was asking her where she wanted to go. It's a long story, she began. My husband died 12 years ago, and she tried to explain about Charlie and the opera, but the driver kept interrupting. He wouldn't let her finish.

All Margaret's fatigue and fear and disappointment merged together right there into one big ball of frustration, and she leaned right up into the plastic window separating them, and she yelled at the driver, the Chelsea Hotel, damn it! Driver nodded and peeled off so abruptly that Margaret was slammed into the back of the seat. Oh my goodness, Charlie, she said, reaching for the door handle, which is when she noticed that her driver, who was snaking in and out of the traffic like a madman, looked nothing like the picture of the man in a taxi license posted in the back with her. And Margaret thought that this man, who had clearly murdered the real driver,

was taking her somewhere. Somewhere that wasn't the Chelsea Hotel. Probably somewhere like a waterfront warehouse where he'd rifle her bag and take her things home to his wife and then dispose of her. She would have jumped out of the cab, but he was driving too fast to jump out. So she reached into her purse and she took out a knitting needle.

And she knocked on the glass. Chelsea Hotel, she yelled again, waving the needle at the man. The driver looked horrified. His wife kept telling him that he'd get someone like this one day. He sped up. And when he pulled up in front of the Chelsea, they both jumped out of the cab, and they both started to yell for help. When things were cleared up, Margaret checked into the Chelsea in a haze. So exhausted, she didn't notice anything about the historic hotel. She went to her room and she fell asleep, waking up at suppertime, sweaty and disoriented.

For the second time that day, she had no clue where on earth she was. The man at the front desk told her she should eat dinner at the Venus Coffee Shop around the corner on 8th. Ten booths, twelve seats at the counter. Margaret had the roast turkey dinner with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. It was the first time she felt comfortable since she had left home. As she left, she nodded at the woman eating alone at the booth beside her. The woman, short-haired and rotund, was wearing a gray sweatshirt that said, World's Greatest Grandmother. She had ordered the turkey dinner too. It was Wednesday night. According to her notebook, Margaret was supposed

to go for a walk through Greenwich Village on Wednesday night, but Margaret didn't feel comfortable walking alone. Instead, she sat in a small hotel lobby under a papier-mâché sculpture of a fat lady on a swing, and she watched the people coming and going. Just as she was about to go to bed, the lady from the coffee shop walked in the front door carrying a large purse and a handful of shopping bags. She must be staying at the Chelsea too, thought Margaret, watching her as she went by, wondering where she had been all along. The next morning, the lady was sitting in the same booth at the Venus when Margaret arrived for breakfast. She had on a new sweatshirt. This one read, Ohio, so much to discover.

The woman had a map of the city spread out on her table, and she was consulting a guidebook as she ate. On her way back to the hotel, Margaret saw a woman selling some sort of tropical fruit on the corner. back to the hotel, Margaret saw a woman selling some sort of tropical fruit on the corner. The woman, who looked to be about 50, was sitting on a milk crate with cartons of these strange fruits stacked around her. She had a frighteningly huge knife. With a few deft strokes, the woman peeled the beautiful red fruit, revealing its golden yellow flesh. Then she stuck it on a stick like a popsicle, and right before Margaret's eyes she cut into the flesh five, ten times, twirling the fruit around and around on its stick. When she finished it looked like a flower. For a moment Margaret forgot where she was.

For a moment that turned into longer than a moment, a moment that first became five and then ten and then fifteen minutes. Margaret stood on 8th Avenue staring in awe at this fruit artist. Stood there until the woman made eye contact and smiled and pointed at her fruit on a stick and Margaret had to have it. Wanted more than anything in the world to walk down the street eating this beautiful, juicy thing, whatever it was. Two dollars, said the woman. I'm from Canada, said Margaret. Mexico, said the woman, pointing at her chest. Margaret wanted to ask what the fruit was, but she was too shy. She smiled at the woman who had sold it to her, and she walked away feeling adventurous. When she bit into it, juice ran down her cheek.

It was unlike anything Margaret had ever tried. It tasted not quite peach, but almost firmer than a peach. Part peach, part grape, part tropical island. It was delicious. When she got to her hotel, she still had half her fruit left, and she decided to walk around the block while she finished it. I can do that, Charlie, she said quietly. When she came back to the fruit lady, she bought another. What is this, she asked. Mangoes, said the lady.

Margaret walked around the block in New York City all by herself, eating the second mango of her life. I love mangoes, Charlie, she said. On her third pass, all smiles and juice stained, the woman handed her another one and wouldn't let her pay. Margaret was stuffed, but she didn't want to refuse. She didn't know what to do with it. There was a man sitting on the sidewalk collecting spare change by the hotel. On an impulse, Margaret held the mango out to him. Would you like this, asked Margaret. I'm full. What is it, asked the man. It's a mango, said Margaret.

Thank you, said the man, reaching out to take it. I've always wanted to try a mango. So this is New York, thought Margaret as she walked away. She was vibrating. She took a deep breath and walked right by her hotel. She crossed 7th Avenue and then 6th and then 5th. She had no idea where she was going. She kept looking behind her, making sure the landscape hadn't changed, making sure the city wasn't rolling up behind her, making sure there was a way back. And then she stopped checking.

The city that had seemed so grimy only hours ago suddenly seemed to be welcoming her. The noise that had felt so overwhelming felt overwhelmingly full of life. The people seemed friendly, not frightening. The next morning, Margaret got up and bought a mango and headed off in a different direction. By opera morning, she had been all over, the east side, the west side, and all around the town. She was waiting for the elevator to take her up to her room when the doors opened and the woman whom she'd been seeing at the Venus Cafeteria stepped off. And in one of the greatest acts of courage of her life, Margaret

said, excuse me, I was wondering, I have two tickets for the opera this afternoon, and I was wondering if you'd like to go with me. I'm sure you have other plans, and I know you may not like opera. No one seems to. My name is Margaret. I'm from Cape Breton. I'm Rose. I'm from Ohio, said the woman. I'm Rose. I'm from Ohio, said the woman. What about lunch? We don't want to eat before the opera, said Margaret. People who know about these things don't eat.

If you eat, you get sleepy. We'll have a snack during intermission. Oh, said Rose, looking around anxiously. They took the number nine local to the 66th Street Station. Even in the early afternoon, the Lincoln Center was magnificent. The fountain, the two huge Chagall paintings in the window, so much grander than Margaret had imagined. And when they got to their seats, there was the great gold curtain, just like the one she had imagined Doogie McDougal bowing in front of. As they settled into their seats, Margaret turned to Rose and said, I was just thinking about

Leonard Warren. In the spring of 1960, Leonard Warren, who was playing Don Carlo and Verdi's La Forza del Destino, finished singing an aria and was just about to launch into the rousing cabaletta which begins to die as a momentous thing when he pitched face forward onto the floor and died on stage. Did they stop the performance, asked Rose? On the spot, said Margaret. Did they give everyone their money back, asked Rose? I don't know, said Margaret. My husband pitched forward to the floor, said Rose, but he wasn't performing in an opera. He was wiping the dog's feet. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Rose said, it would have been much more tasteful, don't you think, if you'd been on stage? And they both cracked up. They had strawberries and champagne between acts. When it was over, Rose turned to Margaret and said, that was wonderful. Yes, said Margaret, it was. Margaret hadn't felt so excited, so happy, so complete in years.

They went to the Algonquin Hotel for supper. The next morning at 10 a.m. there was a knock on Margaret's door. It was Rose. She was wearing jeans and a Cleveland Indians T-shirt. She was holding a baseball hat in her hands. I was wondering, she said, I have two tickets for the Yankee games this afternoon. Ralph and I were supposed to go,

and I wondered if you'd like to come instead. They sat in the sun on the first baseline, and Margaret ate peanuts and a hot dog, and after the third inning, Rose went out and bought her a Yankees hat. And who would think at 83 years old, so many new things could be happening to her. Who would have guessed that 83 years old, Margaret would be up on her feet when Jason Giambi put one right out of the park. That was a good one, said Margaret. And it was good. But what was better, what was the most wonderful thing,

was that next autumn, she and Rose had already agreed to meet in New York City to see Turandot and another baseball game. And once you had tickets, you had to use them. At 83, Margaret had just made a new friend, a war bride who lived in Dayton. During the seventh inning stretch, as they stood up together, Margaret turned to Rose, little beads of perspiration on her forehead, said, it's hot in the sun. It hasn't been hot like this all summer at home. It's lovely. Thank you very much. That was the story we call Opera. We recorded that story at the Arts and Culture Center in St. John's, Newfoundland, and Labrador in 2003. That was, I think if I have this right, one of the very first shows I worked on. I didn't even go to that show. It was maybe a month or two after I started working on the Vinyl Cafe. 2003 was the year I started working because the show was growing and Stuart and the founding producer, the amazing David Amer, needed help just very part time doing things like answering emails and opening listener mail and doing research.

I like to joke that I owe that very first job on the Vinyl Cafe and by extension my entire career to one single overflowing email inbox. I just could not handle it. Basically, email was invented. David and Stuart quickly became overwhelmed. Enter Jess, stage left. That's how it went. I started part-time. I think it was two days a week, but it might have been three. I was 23 years old. And when Stuart first offered me the job, I had him as a teacher at Ryerson. He was a prof of mine. And by the way, if he were here, yeah, I got to tell you this. If he were here, he would jump in right now to remind me that I was his second choice. He actually offered the job to someone else first, and they said no. Anyway, I was the second choice. I was the runner up. And when he and David Amer offered me the job to someone else first and they said no. Anyway, I was the second choice. I was

the runner up. And when he and David Amer offered me the job, I wasn't sure I even wanted it because I already had three jobs. I worked all the way through school. I worked overnights at the SCORE, a sports television station. And I was interning on the National on CBC at the time. And I also bartended, which was probably the most fun of all those jobs, at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club two nights a week. So I had a full dance card. But something, I don't know, I mean, something about the show really intrigued me. It was kind of, it was so different. It was this weird little tiny team with just David and Stuart. And I liked that. I liked that it was a small team. I liked the way they worked together. I liked that their work did not seem like work at all. It was kind of like we would just gather

in Stuart's apartment, the three of us, and we'd just start tossing around ideas. And very soon, I realized that a lot of those ideas, this is what happens when you're the junior person, a lot of these crazy ideas would like, you know, David or Stuart would toss them up into the air and remarkably they would land in my lap and it would be my job to run off chasing them. That story, the one you just heard, opera, it came from, I think Stuart wanted to write about Dave's mother, Margaret.

He knew that and he wondered about the opera. And that worked for me because I used to sing opera as a child. I grew up singing in a children's choir that toured, funny when you think about it, which toured around Canada and Europe and stuff. And I sang in the children's chorus at Opera Hamilton for many years. It was just kind of this group of kids, like we were kind of on standby, just in case, you know, group of kids, like we were kind of on standby, just in case, you know, that season's opera required a child, we were ready to go. So I knew a lot, not a ton, but I knew a little bit about opera. And I'd been to the Met in New York. And so I started tossing around ideas as well and

offered to do some research. And at the end of that very first week, I handed Stuart and David a binder full of research about opera, about the Met. And so much of it ended up in that story you just heard. And it was pretty cool for a 23-year-old to be able to feel like your ideas meant something to somebody. It felt really good. And both Stuart and David were really good at making me feel included. I kept working at those other three jobs for a while, a year or so. But when I think back on it now, it was so clear that really I knew within weeks or even days that the Vinyl Cafe was, I don't know, home. I'd found exactly what I was supposed to be doing and who I was supposed to be doing it with. And it was so great. with and it was so great. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back with another story about Dave. So stick around. Welcome back. I told you we had two stories for you today. Here's the second. This is a story we recorded in Toronto, Ontario.

This is Smith and Dave. So a few springs ago, when Dave's mother Margaret was going through a bad spot, feeling old and overwhelmed, Dave flew home for a weekend to give her a hand with the things that need a hand when the seasons are changing. He went on a Thursday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. And while he was there, Dave took down the storm windows and put up the screens. He turned the garden and he slept in the room he slept in when he was a boy. When he left that Sunday, he kept thinking that this was something he should have been doing for years. Since that spring, Dave has made the flight home twice a year,

once every May to lay things out, and then again in October to pack them away. It makes him feel useful, connected to things gone by and to the swing of the seasons. He knows his mother looks forward to his visits. He likes that too. So Dave was, to say the least, surprised a few Thursdays ago when he stepped out of his rented car and onto his mother's gravel driveway in the little town of Big Narrows on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, to see that she had hired a man, and the two of them were working away at the windows without him. The man, his white hair wispy and whipping in the wind, was up the old wood ladder with a bucket hooked on the top rung. He was washing the windows of his sister's old bedroom. His mother, with a rag and

bucket of her own, was working on a pile of storms propped against the front porch. David, she said as he stepped out of the car, her rag dangling by her side. It's David, she said to the man on the ladder, stomping towards him in her wellingtons, big wet splotches on her olive-colored pants. It felt good to be out of the rented car, the wind on his face. He hugged her. How was your flight, she asked. They walked away from the car together, instinctively heading towards the garden, which Dave was surprised to see had already been turned. He pointed at the cold frame at the little tomato seedlings pumping away. You've been busy, he said. Smith's been helping, said Margaret. Smith called Margaret. It's David. He came down the ladder effortlessly, almost carelessly, like he had been living on ladders all his life. It was hard to tell how old he was,

but he was older up close than he was coming down the ladder. That's for sure. He was wearing a beige canvas jacket with a gray fisherman's sweater under it. The jacket was frayed at the cuffs and had clips instead of buttons. Dave was shaking his hand, trying to remember where he had heard his name before, and coveting the jacket all at once. Nice of you to help out, said Dave. Then he remembered this wasn't a hired hand. This was the retired fire chief. This was the guy who had sealed up his mother's laundry chute. Get your stuff out of the car, said Margaret. Supper's nearly ready. I have a chicken going. Dave took his suitcase upstairs and threw it onto his bed and walked to the window.

With the trees still not in bud, he could see all the way down to the storefronts on Railroad Street, the steeple on the United Church at one end, and the tallest building in town, the clock tower on the United Church at one end, and the tallest building in town, the clock tower on the town hall at the other. He leaned into the window and sighed, his breath fogging the glass. Everything was still the same. The view from the window was the same view he had had when he was a boy. There was no other place in the world where time had stopped like it had here. It was like a whisper in his ear, the siren song of his boyhood calling him down

the kaleidoscope of memory, back to the bustle of his schoolyard where boys traded and flipped hockey cards like carnival barkers. Yo-yos and chestnuts, stems and strings, frogs in the creek, tadpoles in a jar, red-winged blackbirds and squirrels, his old red bike. When he went downstairs, Smith Gardner was washing his hands in the kitchen sink. Dave saw him glance at the empty towel rack beside the fridge, and Dave, still on the stairs, made a move to fetch a towel. But before he took even a step, Smith reached for the second drawer to the right of the stove, pulled out a fresh towel, and shook it open. This was clearly not the first time

that Smith Gardner had washed his hands at that sink Dave glanced at the kitchen table it was set for three I invited Smith to stay, said Margaret Margaret sat down in the chair where she always sat the chair close to the stove for the last few years Dave had been sitting in his father's old spot, to Margaret's right. That chair had a place set in front of it, but so did the chair

where Dave had sat when he was a boy. Dave saw Smith glance at the table, and it occurred to him he didn't want to sit in his boyhood seat if Smith Gardner was in his dad's place. He didn't actually run across the kitchen. He lurched. He lurched across the kitchen, beat Smith to the table, sat down in his father's place, and then looked at Smith and half stood up again and said, I'm not in your seat, am I? Smith said, I don't have a seat. But Dave didn't miss the glance that passed between his mother and this man. Dinner, as always, was plentiful. There was chicken and mashed potatoes and a bowl of peas canned and a bowl of squash fresh and a plate of bread and butter and a cabbage salad. And as they passed things around, Smith said, my son and I were

trying to work out if he had played hockey against you. Against me, said Dave. He played for Port Hawkesbury, said Smith. Midget. Dave said, I don't think we had a town team. He looked at his mother. You weren't on it, she said. What about baseball, said Smith, reaching for the butter. Didn't the Narrows win the Provincial Cup a couple of times back then? Dave shrugged. Not when I was on the team.

There was an awkward silence. As if it was obvious that was no coincidence. Margaret raised her eyebrows. Margaret said to Smith, tell David about your house. He built it himself, she said. Oh, said Dave. He was remembering his disastrous attempt to rewire an outlet in his kitchen. Maybe a whole house was easier. Dave is not by nature a morning person. He wakes up slowly and

almost always later than he would like. The long flight east, the shift in time zones, the bed of his boyhood, all of these things worked on him that night. He meant to be up at seven. It was 8 30 when the slap of the ladder on his bedroom window jerked him away. When he opened his eyes, there was Smith Gardner peering at him. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up stupidly. Smith was struggling with the outside storm window. Morning, called Smith cheerily. Dave felt humiliated. He had planned to be up long before this.

He staggered to the window. The window was stuck. Let me help, said Dave. He gave the window a mighty thump. Smith's eyes bulged as the window flew towards him unexpectedly. And then propelled by the sudden loosened window, the ladder tipped back ever so slightly. Smith, who was clutching the ladder,

hovered there for a moment like the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoon. And then in an exquisite slow motion, he tipped back and vanished, clutching the storm window as he went. Dave galloped downstairs and flew out the back door. The ladder was on the ground. Smith called Dave.

Smith was dangling above him, one hand clutching the eaves trough, the other still holding the unstuck storm. His legs were windmilling wildly. Dave managed to get the ladder up and back in place. Smith managed to get his feet onto it. When he got down, he nonchalantly handed Dave the window and said, Thanks for the help.

That night, Dave set the bedside alarm for 7.30. He woke the next morning at 7.15 to a percussive thump, thump, thump. He squinted at the clock and groaned. Then he swung his feet over the bed and staggered to the window. Smith Gardner was using a nail gun to erect a fence around the garden. We want to keep the deer out this summer, said Margaret when Dave struggled through the kitchen. We, thought Dave, as he headed out the door doing up his belt on the fly. We want to keep the deer out. Smith and Dave worked together for most of that morning. Dave fetching and holding pickets for the fence, Smith driving the nails.

At noon, Smith surveyed the sky and said, I think we could paint it this afternoon. Dave said, why don't you get the paint and I'll finish it off. He almost had to wrestle the nail gun away from Smith. Go on, he said, get the paint. The long plastic strip of nails dangled down to his knees. He wanted to say, this is the trigger, right? But he didn't want to look stupid. So he didn't ask, unfortunately.

Instead, Dave hefted the gun and touched the trigger ever so lightly. And the gun went off three quick rounds. Thump, thump, thump. A volley of nails flew across the lawn. Smith threw himself on the lawn and covered his head. Dave turned to reassure him with his finger still squeezing the trigger. The barrage of nails barely cleared Smith and whizzed across the yard. One shattered the back window of Smith's gleaming pickup. It lodged in the dashboard like an arrow.

Another punctured his rear right tire, and then the gun was blessedly empty. As the air hissed out of the tire, Dave handed Smith his gun back. He said, it's really quite responsive, isn't it? Everyone tried their best to be upbeat at lunch. But there was no denying the tension hanging over the table. When Dave came into the kitchen, Margaret and Smith were standing by the sink, whispering. When Dave made Smith tea, he saw him sniff it suspiciously before he drank any. As if Dave was trying to poison him or something. After lunch, the two of them went outside and settled into separate jobs.

Smith went at the new fence with a paintbrush. Dave attacked the cord of wood piled by the woodshed with his father's old axe. Dave was out of practice, and as the afternoon wore on, he was painfully aware that Smith was outpacing him. He was determined not to fall behind. So Dave sped up. Soon Dave was cracking away at the wood like a maniac. Smith glanced over at Dave, anxiety creasing his brow.

And Smith sped up too, working his way down the fence as fast as he could, trying to work his way out a range of Dave's flying axe. Before long, they had worked each other into a complete frenzy. Smith was slopping paint on the fence like he was on amphetamines. Dave, his shirt off, was bobbing up and down like a mechanical woodpecker. Oh my goodness, said Margaret when she came out with tea. The two of them stopped and stared at her dumbly, both of them panting like sweaty weevils. It's dinner, said Margaret. Safe upstairs, dinner, said Margaret. Safe upstairs, Dave leaned against the bathroom window and tried to pull himself together. Below him in the yard, a worried-looking Smith gardener was saying something to Dave's mother while she patted his arm gently, the same way she used to pat Dave

and his sister Annie when they were upset. He couldn't believe this was happening to him. His own mother in his own house with this man. The next morning, Saturday, Margaret put the question of Smith on the table. This is silly, she said, at my age. It's a mistake. I can't change my life around at this stage of my life. Dave, who had never been in the position of giving his mother dating advice, didn't know what to say. So he froze up and didn't say anything. I'll do the dishes, he said. Damn, he said as he scrubbed a pot. He should have said something. On Sunday morning, Dave said, I think I'll go for a walk. It's chilly, said Margaret. I'll be okay, he said. He took a black sweater off a peg in the mudroom. The sweater used to be his father's.

He went out the back door and stood on the lawn. It was one of those perfect spring mornings, a morning that would make anyone who had gone away and come back wonder why they had left in the first place. Margaret was right. It was chilly, but the sun was shining and it would warm up soon enough. Dave headed down the hill towards town. When he got there, he stopped in at the Maple Leaf Cafe for a coffee. It still came in a white porcelain mug with a matching creamer. He sat at the counter thinking about nothing at all until pretty

soon he was thinking about the times he had sat there with his father. He and Charlie sharing an order of french fries after a ball game, a movie, or don't tell your mother after dinner. Oh, Charlie. don't tell your mother after dinner. Oh, Charlie. When Dave finished his coffee, he chatted to Alice at the cash, and then he wandered along Railroad Street. He passed Art Gillespie's old laundromat and ice plant and Kerrigan's Foods. He remembered the year he built the float for the Christmas parade.

The Narrows has a one-sided Christmas parade, and Dave was trying to impress what's-her-name Megan Lorius. He hadn't thought about her for years. He was so stuck on her, and she was so stuck up. Dave, lost in thought, was no longer paying any attention to where he was going, didn't know he was going anywhere. He wandered past Kerrigan's and out the south end of town. He stopped on the Thamesville Bridge and leaned on the rusty green rail and watched the current in the river, picking out bubbles on the water surface and following them as

far as he could. It was the very same spot where Charlie and he had stood the summer he was 11 years old. The afternoon Charlie had taught him how to jump. All his friends had already done it, but Dave was afraid. They were on their way home from church, fully dressed in their Sunday best. Hold my hand, said Charlie. We'll go together. Mom's going to kill us, said Dave, when they surfaced. I know, said Charlie, splashing towards the riverbank. Isn't it grand? Charlie always believed in him. Despite all evidence to the contrary,

Charlie believed Dave could do anything. Dave, lost in thought about days gone by, came to standing by the stone gates of the Big Narrows Union Cemetery. The Union Cemetery is a little square clearing where the Gillespie Road ends in a T-junction with the road to Macaulay's place. If you're in a car, you have to turn left or right at the stop sign, but if you're walking like Dave was, you can keep going straight and walk straight into the graveyard, which is what Dave did. He walked into the graveyard and along the gravel path about halfway to the back, and then he left the path and cut across the grass. He didn't go to his father's grave first. First, he went to the far corner of

the graveyard where the hill dips away and the trees are old and big, to where the graves are shaded and there are pine needles instead of grass. There was, unbelievably, still a mound of snow by the back fence. This is the corner where the old graves are. As Dave wandered among them, he let his fingers brush absentmindedly against the stones. Many of the inscriptions, worn by winter wind and rain, were too faded to read anymore. Some of the stones barely poked out of the earth, as if the ground was rising up to swallow them. For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. He walked across to a newer section and found his father's stone and stood in front of it wearing the black sweater his father used to wear when he worked in the yard. Hey, he said, how are you doing? Then he said, mom has a boyfriend. Then he said, Mom has a boyfriend.

I mean, I think she has a boyfriend. Yeah, she has a boyfriend. And I don't know what I'm supposed to think about that. I was wondering what you were thinking. I'm assuming you already know. Dave looked at the old trees. I keep thinking of you up here all by yourself. I keep thinking of you all alone. I don't want you to be lonely

and I wanted to know that you were you know I don't know are you okay? are you okay with this? he stood there for a while and then he went to the path and fetched a pebble and brought it back and placed it on top of his father's stone. Maybe, he said, if you had looked after yourself, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Then he said, sorry. I love you. He was still standing there, feeling sorry, when a green pickup rolled onto the gravel by the gates. When he looked over, he saw Smith Gardner step out of the cab and walk through the gates. He was carrying a weed whacker. When Smith saw Dave, he stopped abruptly. Dave by the grave, Smith by the gates. Dave looking awkward, Smith looking nervous. Hey, said Dave, it's okay. Did Smith think he was going to injure him here? Smith walked over. I didn't expect to run into you, said Smith. I didn't expect to come, said Dave.

I didn't expect to come said Dave Smith looked down at the stone is this Charlie he asked Dave nodded I've never been here said Smith I mean I've been here plenty too often these days but never to see him he held up the weed whacker and motioned at the grave. Doesn't seem to need it. The two of them stood there for a moment and then Smith said, I never met him. He was a good guy, said Dave. He liked music. I know, said Smith. So does your mom. They used to sing.

Dave smiled. She told you? Oh, said Smith. She's told me all about him all about him i don't know anything about music myself i got the lowest score in music and all of port hawksbury when i was a youngster the opera i don't know even a little bit about that i haven't the foggiest how to talk to her about it. He shook his head. So I just listen and nod. He was wringing his hands.

Then he cleared his throat and he said the most stunning thing. I thought of asking her to marry me, but I'm terrified she'd make me dance with her at the wedding. Dave didn't blink. Without thinking, not for a moment dave said you'd be fine you could take lessons or not you don't have to dance it came out fast all in a rush and then they stared at each other as what they had said to each other sunk in sm Smith was the one who changed the subject. It's his birthday next weekend, said Smith, nodding at Charlie's stone. He would have been 88, said Dave. 87, said Smith. Smith held up the weed whacker. I thought your mother would want to come by. I thought I would drop by first and clean it up a bit, clip the grass, you know, whatever.

He looked self-conscious. He held out the weed whacker. Maybe you'd like to do it. It's not that bad, really. An hour later, on his way back through town, Dave stopped in at the library. He wanted to use the computers. He wanted to send an email to Morley. Interesting day, he wrote.

I went out to the cemetery and Smith showed up, the guy I was telling you about. I think he asked me for permission to marry my mother. I think I told him it was okay. I didn't mean to. I'm not even sure if that's what happened. To tell you the truth, I don't have a clue how I feel, though I can tell you I miss dad. I think all I want is for dad to tell me he is okay with this and of course he can't and I strangely think that's what everyone here wants me to tell them and I guess it is and maybe that's what I need to hear from you I'll be home on Friday night I booked a flight this morning his fingers were flying across the keys now that's the great thing about email you can

write without thinking. I was wondering, he wrote, if maybe you'd meet me at the airport. That would be nice if you were waiting where everyone waits. If you were there to give me a hug when I came through the gate and tell me that you live me. That was a typo. He meant to write love. He meant to write love me. I don't really care if you do that, he went on, but it feels nice to write it. I just wanted to let you know it's been strange here and I miss you and love you and I am lucky you are in my life.

I don't think I say that enough. you are in my life. I don't think I say that enough. He leaned back and sighed and stared at the screen, his hands behind his head. Then he lurched forward and pressed send abruptly without reading another word. He was afraid if he did, he might change it. It was just an old song, but he did love her and he didn't say it enough. Why should he change a word? Thank you. That was the story we call Smith and Dave. That was the story we call Smith and Dave.

We're going to take a short break right now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. 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. How was Dave to know Morley was talking about her hairdresser? He irritates me, said Morley. He doesn't listen to me anymore. Dave, out of sight but not out of earshot, propped himself up on the couch. Okay, Dave shouldn't have been listening in, but he was listening in.

And he was thunderstruck by what Morley was saying on the phone. He used to know what I like, she said. But I've changed. I'm ready to experiment. I've seen things in magazines. I'd like him to try on me. That is a great story and one of my all-time favorites. So I hope you will be here with us next week. In the meantime, if you want to find out more, you can check out our website, VinylCafe.com, or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. 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.