Vinyl Cafe Turns the Page

by Stuart McLean

  “She doesn’t seem to be able to relax,” said Morley to Dave. I wish she could relax. She’s earned it.”

  But they didn’t say these things to each other.

  “You should move to my retirement community,” said Ruth to Helen. “I have my own place and they have dinner in the dining room if I want.”

  “She needs me,” said Helen. “It’s hard for her—the kids, the job. David.”

  When she was a girl Morley used to love to watch her mother iron. The hiss of the steam, the spray of water, the peaceful perfection of the folded piles. When she thought of her mother, she always thought of ironing. She added ironing to the list.

  So Helen started ironing, too.

  And so one morning Sam stood in his bedroom calling for his mother.

  “My jeans are weird,” he said.

  The jeans were hanging stiffly from his hips.

  There was a sharp crease running down the middle of each leg.

  “I can’t bend my legs,” said Sam.

  According to the list, Helen cooked dinner on Thursdays. Morley didn’t say anything after the first or the second week, but she did on the third.

  “You know you’re not supposed to eat liver anymore, Mom. They say it’s not good for you.”

  Helen snorted. “The next thing you know they’ll say the same about cheese.”

  Then she turned to Sam, who was pushing a piece of grey meat around his plate.

  “Don’t you worry, Sam. Dig in. Enjoy!”

  Helen was trying her best, God knows, but the truth is she didn’t want to cook family-sized meals anymore; she wasn’t even sure she wanted to cook at all.

  “I really want to help,” said Helen to Ruth one afternoon on the phone, “but honestly, who irons these days?”

  Ruth said there was a laundry service available at her retirement residence and that she had a cleaner come in every other week to do her floors and bathroom. There was a bridge night and a movie night. And a community dinner every night of the week if you wanted.

  Helen sighed and looked at the basket of socks waiting to be sorted. What on earth was her daughter’s family doing with so many socks?

  In the end she stayed four months.

  All things considered, it ended well. Better, really, than anyone could have hoped.

  One afternoon Helen looked at Morley and said, “We need to talk.

  “My friend Ruth is lonely,” she said. “She needs my help. I think I should move in with her.”

  Morley sat up straight.

  Morley knew the place. A good place. You got your own kitchen and a living room. Helen would have her own space. And meals whenever she wanted.

  “It will be difficult,” said Morley, measuring her words carefully. “Without you.”

  “Well, that’s obvious,” said Helen.

  “What?” said Morley.

  Helen put her hand on her daughter’s arm. “You do a good job, sweetie,” she said.

  And so she went. And Morley, who had spent her life leaving her mother, for the first time had to watch her mother leave instead.

  TANK OF TRANQUILITY

  Occupational hazards are obvious for people who work in certain occupations—on high-rise construction, for example; on a police force, or at a nuclear plant. But there are hazards in the quieter professions as well. Pity the poor accountant who can’t help but keep a running record of everything in his life: totalling the cost of all the spoiled milk and unread newspapers. The lawyer who sees nothing but lawsuits wherever she turns. Or the poor shopkeepers, whatever shops they keep—they all fall victims to their own goods.

  Dave’s friend Dorothy Capper has bought so many books from her own bookstore that she can barely fit a guest into her guest bedroom. And Kenny Wong, who runs a café down the block—Wong’s Scottish Meat Pies—Kenny can’t resist a deal on a case of produce. How many eggplants have to spoil in his walk-in cooler before Kenny learns his lesson?

  And then there’s Dave. Owner of a second-hand record store, Dave spends a good quarter of his working life poking around flea markets and garage sales, church basements and record shows, making him vulnerable to what might be the most insidious occupational hazard in the world—the impulse purchase.

  Set yourself loose in the sort of places Dave frequents, and see if you don’t come home with the odd lava lamp or abused pair of cowboy boots. See if you don’t find yourself, like Dave, huddled under the fire escape at the back of your store—where you could have found him one wet November afternoon—signing a packing slip here, and here, initialling there, acknowledging the receipt, safe and secure, of a large wooden crate. A crate large enough that it took three guys to wrestle it out of the back of the cube van idling in the rainy alley.

  “It’s bigger than I thought,” said Dave.

  The guy with the clipboard shrugged and said, “Where do you want it?”

  After a few more words and thirty dollars changing hands, the three guys picked up the crate again and lugged it through the back door of Dave’s store—lurching down the narrow hallway to the storage room, Dave leading the way.

  “Careful of the step. Watch the door.”

  The men were pros. They pocketed their thirty bucks and didn’t ask what was in the box. Which was just as well, because Dave was self-conscious about that and wasn’t inclined to say.

  It took him a good half hour to pry the crate apart. When he was finished, he stood there in a mess of wood planks and shavings, staring at a sleek fibreglass box that looked like some kind of space capsule.

  He tore off the instruction manual that was taped to the top and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the cash register reading it carefully. It seemed simple enough. All he had to do was fill the box with tepid water and salt.

  Dave had just bought a second-hand sensory deprivation tank. And he had gotten it for a steal. His only problem was that he wasn’t sure who he could tell.

  A few days after it arrived, Dave was at Kenny Wong’s café, sitting on his regular stool at the end of the counter, poking at a bowl of Kenny’s rice pudding.

  Kenny was sitting at his desk, where he’d been sitting most of the morning—more or less in the middle of the café, tilted back on his wood chair, his feet up on the paper-strewn desk top—talking on the phone or talking to customers, or sometimes both at the same time.

  He was on the phone now. And Dave was waiting for him to get off.

  The lunch rush was over. They were the only two in the café.

  Even though Dave was excited about his tank, he still hadn’t told anyone about it. He was intrigued, and had been for years, by the claims he’d read online of tank-imposed, otherworldly bliss—but he was also self-conscious. He didn’t want people thinking of him as, you know, all new age and crystal-weird.

  He hadn’t told anyone, but he was going to tell Kenny as soon as Kenny was off the phone. Because he needed Kenny’s help.

  Just as he finished his pudding, Kenny hung up. Dave put his spoon down and said, “Where do you get your salt, anyway?”

  Kenny, head down and pawing through a stack of paper in front of him, waved absentmindedly at the cupboard behind the counter. Then he paused, frowned, and looked up. Kenny was suddenly thinking, Was there something wrong with the rice pudding?

  He called Bobby.

  “Bobby. Get out here!”

  Bobby, his afternoon chef, makes all the desserts.

  Dave said, “No, no. I mean where do you buy your salt? Who supplies you?”

  Kenny waved Bobby off, looked at Dave, and said, “You looking for a deal? How much salt do you want?”

  Kenny thought they were kidding around.

  Dave said, “About eight hundred pounds.”

  Now, if you’re feeling unsure about something you’ve done, as Dave was, shy or uncertain about how others might receive it, chances are when you share your secret, your story is going to drift from the realm of information exchange into the world of hyperbole, justification, and r
ationalization.

  Kenny said, “You need eight hundred pounds of salt?”

  Dave said, “It’s for my float tank.”

  Kenny said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

  And Dave took flight.

  “Floating,” said Dave, “is like a return to the womb. You climb into a tank and stay in there long enough, you’re going to lose touch with your arms and your legs, and before you know it you’re going to be nothing more than a kernel of pure awareness floating in the inner-verse.”

  “The inner-verse?” said Kenny.

  “You close that soundproof lid and lie back,” said Dave. “And you’re floating on water denser than the Dead Sea. And for the first time in your life, your brain will be free of stimulation and stress.”

  Kenny didn’t say anything.

  Dave leaned forward dramatically and said, “One hour in a float tank is as good as four hours of sleep.”

  He was making stuff up now. He was riffing on vague memories he had from his online research.

  “We get two hours in a tank”—he was waving his spoon in the air—“we wouldn’t need to sleep at all. Think of everything we could get done.”

  “We?” said Kenny.

  “Think of all the extra time we’d have if we didn’t have to sleep,” said Dave.

  Kenny cocked his head, eyed his friend, and said, “You have never struck me as a guy who is exactly short of time.”

  No doubt about it, Dave was overselling the idea. Especially when you consider that he’d never floated himself, and had no idea what he was talking about. But as I said, he was feeling self-conscious about the tank. He was unsure about the thing. And uncertainty is a certain fertilizer for conviction.

  Besides, there was something else going on.

  Dave has a touch of claustrophobia. And as enticing as he made it sound, as enticing as it might be, the thought of floating in a dark, coffin-like capsule terrified him. What if he fell asleep and flipped over and drowned? Or worse? What if he went insane and came out stark raving mad? Maybe he would find the inner peace that they talked about online, or maybe he would come out convinced he could talk to shrubbery.

  That, of course, was why he really bought it. We are all drawn to things that terrify us. Don’t touch? We reach out. Don’t look. We do.

  Oh, Dave wanted to get in that tank.

  But what he really wanted was for Kenny to take it out on a test drive.

  That’s why he was laying it on so thick.

  And it worked.

  By the time he was finished, Kenny wanted to try it too.

  They bought sixteen fifty-pound bags of salt and picked them up in Kenny’s truck.

  And a week later, early on a Friday morning, they hooked up a hose to the sink in the washroom of Dave’s store, ran it across the hallway to the back storage room, and filled the tank with warm water.

  It took all day for the salt to dissolve.

  Just before four that afternoon, Dave called Kenny. “It’s ready,” he said.

  Kenny changed in the washroom. He darted across the hall with his belly protruding over his little Speedo.

  Dave was standing beside the tank with the lid open.

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  Kenny reached in to feel the water.

  “It’s warm,” said Kenny.

  “It’s perfect,” said Dave.

  And so Kenny climbed in. Kneeling awkwardly at first, and then slowly lowering himself onto his back.

  Dave was watching every move.

  “It’s easy,” said Kenny. “It isn’t hard at all.”

  It was just like lying on a bed—except wetter.

  Kenny said, “Close the lid. I want the total experience.”

  Dave closed the lid. He stood beside the tank in the suddenly silent room.

  Almost immediately he felt his heart rate accelerate, his mouth get dry, his palms turn cold and clammy. He knew immediately what was going on. He was suffering the onset symptoms of sympathetic claustrophobia.

  He lasted five uncertain minutes before he tapped on the lid.

  “You okay?”

  Did he hear a muffled “Okay” from inside the tank? It was hard to tell. It was like talking to a can of peas.

  Five minutes later, he tapped again. This time, however, it was more a rap than a tap. This time he hit it as hard as he could.

  And this time Kenny opened the door and stuck his head out. Kenny was blinking. He looked like the dormouse in the teapot from Alice in Wonderland.

  He also looked peevish.

  “I was just checking,” said Dave.

  Kenny said, “I was just letting go. I’m not going to be able to get into this if you keep interrupting.”

  And so, feeling a little reassured, and a little foolish, Dave turned off the storage-room light and left—shutting the storage-room door behind him. Alone in the darkness, Kenny ducked down and closed the tank door behind him as if he were getting into a submarine.

  A half an hour went by, then another. Dave cracked the door and peeked in. He wanted to knock on the tank, but he didn’t.

  Inside, where it was dark and soundless, Kenny was floating on his back in the soft, salty water—his legs and arms extended as if he were making a snow angel. Although he’d been in there for an hour, it felt like only fifteen minutes to Kenny. But Kenny was beginning to feel that he’d had enough. He was refreshed, and rested and calm, but he was also pruney and his mind was starting to drift back to work and a food order he needed to call in. He decided to give himself fifteen minutes more, so Dave wouldn’t think he couldn’t take it.

  Another hour went by. Kenny had had enough. He was wrinkled and bored. He was hungry.

  He reached up in the darkness and felt around for the handle to open the tank door. Now that it was time to get out, he suddenly had a touch of claustrophobia himself. He found the handle and pushed. The door didn’t budge. He pushed harder. Still nothing.

  When things go wrong—when nuclear plants melt down, or buses full of the faithful leave the road, when disasters happen, that is—it is seldom the result of some big thing; it’s always a chain of simple things, almost all of them avoidable.

  Outside, a mere foot from his head, Brian, who works part time at Dave’s store, dropped another milk crate of records on top of the tank. Brian is used to strange things popping up in Dave’s storeroom: a huge papier mâché sculpture of Frank Sinatra, a rusting phone booth, once, even, a coffin.

  No one had said anything to Brian about a flotation tank.

  Brian set the crate of records, the sixth, down on the lid of the tank and went back into the store to get the seventh and last.

  Inside the tank, Kenny brought his knees to his chest, put his feet on the door, and pushed with all his might.

  Without warning, Kenny’s back slipped on the slimy, salty bottom and he spun rapidly around so that his feet were where his head should have been and his head was where his feet belonged. He tried to flip back, but the salty, pitch-black tank hadn’t only disoriented him; it had left him tired and clumsy. He managed a half turn, slipped again, and found himself wedged across the width of the tank, knees bent, head pressing against the side. He wriggled and squirmed and batted his hands around. The water sloshed back and forth, washing over his nose and mouth. And most horribly, into his eyes. He felt his heart begin to pound erratically. He willed himself to stay still, to stop thrashing about, and then he slowly contracted his knees into his chest and bent his neck and slithered around until he was lengthwise again. His eyes were burning so intensely that he couldn’t open them, not that it mattered. He couldn’t see a thing in there anyway.

  You’d think it would be impossible for Dave to forget Kenny. You’d think Kenny would be the only thing Dave was thinking of that afternoon.

  But we all forget things. Sometimes we forget important things. It happens when other things come up. And other things had been coming up all afternoon. Soon after Kenny had crawled into the tank, a fell
ow had walked into the store with seven milk crates of soul albums to sell. It had taken Dave a while to sort through them so that he could make the fellow a reasonable offer. Right after that, one of Stephanie’s old friends had come in, looking for a birthday present for her father. And then, just before closing, Morley had phoned to remind him that they were going to dinner at the Lowbeers’. He promised he wouldn’t be late. And now—he was.

  In his rush, he just forgot. He locked up and he left. Simple as that.

  He quit the shop—leaving Kenny wedged in the fetal position at the bottom of the tank, cursing like a strangely foul-mouthed infant.

  Dave remembered Kenny an hour and a half later.

  He was sitting at the Lowbeers’ dining room table.

  Gerta carried in two beautifully plated filets of pink salmon.

  “I cooked them sous-vide,” said Gerta.

  Which means sealed in plastic and immersed in warm water.

  “It’s quite remarkable,” said Gerta. “You leave anything in warm water long enough, it will eventually cook—cook right through.”

  Dave stared at his piece of fish and said something unspeakably inappropriate.

  Carl’s jaw dropped.

  Gerta’s hand flew to her mouth.

  Morley sighed.

  And Dave bolted from the table and the house. Ran right out the front door.

  Gerta poked at the salmon on the plate in front of her and then looked at Morley and Carl.

  “It looks fine to me,” said Gerta.

  Dave was already out of earshot. Dave was pounding along the dark streets, racing through the neighbourhood toward his shop.

  It was possible that Kenny hadn’t noticed his absence. It was possible that the hours that had passed had felt like minutes to Kenny.

  Dave threw open the front door of his store and sprinted toward the back room. As he passed the cash register he was praying he’d find a mellow, transformed Kenny Wong—Kenny wrapped in a towel, waiting to describe some ethereal, otherworldly experience.

  What he found was $500 worth of salt water leaking through the floorboards and crates of soul records scattered everywhere.