Home from the Vinyl Cafe (2 page)

“What?” said Morley.

“No,” said Dave. “I don’t know where the train’s going.”

Morley leaned forward over the table. “The train starts at a town called First Day at School, Dave, and it goes to a village called Halloween, and then through the township of Class Project, and down the spur line called Your Sister Is Visiting. And you know what’s at the end of the track? You know where my train is heading?”

Dave looked around nervously. He didn’t want to get this wrong. He would have been happy to say where the train was going if he knew he could get it right. Was his wife going to leave him? Maybe the train was going to D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

“Not at Christmas,” he mumbled.

“Exactly,” said Morley. “To the last stop on the line—Christmas dinner. And this is supposed to be something I look forward to, Dave. This is supposed to be a heartwarming family occasion.”

“Christmas dinner,” said Dave tentatively. It seemed a reasonably safe thing to say. Morley nodded. Feeling encouraged, Dave added, “With a turkey and stuffing and everything.”

But Morley wasn’t listening. “And when we finally get through that week between Christmas and New Year’s, you know what they do with the train?”

Dave shook his head.

“They back it up during the night when I’m asleep so they can run it through all the stations again.”

Dave nodded earnestly.

“And you know who you are, Dave?”

Dave shook his head again. No. No, he didn’t know who
he was. He was thinking maybe he was the engineer. Maybe he was up in the locomotive. Busy with men’s work.

Morley squinted at her husband. “You’re the guy in the bar car, Dave, pushing the button to ask for another drink.”

From the way Morley said that, Dave could tell that she still loved him. She could have told him, for instance, that he had to get out of the bar car. Or, for that matter, off the train. She hadn’t. Dave realized it had been close, and if he was going to stay aboard, he would have to join the crew.

The next weekend he said, “Why don’t I do some of the Christmas shopping? Why don’t you give me a list, and I’ll get things for everyone in Cape Breton?”

Dave had never gone Christmas shopping in October. He was unloading bags onto the kitchen table when he said, “That wasn’t so bad.”

Morley walked across the kitchen and picked up a book that had fallen on the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I like Christmas so much. I
used
to like Christmas so much. I was thinking that if I got everything done early, maybe I could enjoy it again. I’m trying to get control of it, Dave. I’m trying to make it fun again. That’s what this is all about.”

Dave said, “What else can I do?”

Morley reached out and touched his elbow and said, “On Christmas Day, after we’ve opened the presents, I want to take the kids to work at the Food Bank. I want you to look after the turkey.”

“I can do that,” said Dave.

Dave didn’t understand the full meaning of what he had agreed to do until Christmas Eve, when the presents were wrapped and under the tree and he was snuggled, warm and safe, in bed. It was one of his favorite moments of the year. He nudged his wife’s feet. She gasped.

“Did you take the turkey out of the freezer?” she said.

Dave groaned. He pulled himself out of bed and went downstairs. He couldn’t find a turkey in the freezer—in either freezer—and he was about to call for help when the truth landed on him like an anvil. Looking after the turkey, something he had promised to do, meant
buying
it as well as putting it in the oven.

Dave unloaded both freezers to be sure. Then he paced around the kitchen trying to decide what to do. When he went upstairs, Morley was asleep. He considered waking her. Instead, he lay down and imagined, in painful detail, the chronology of the Christmas Day waiting for him. Imagined everything from the first squeal of morning to that moment when his family came home from the Food Bank expecting a turkey dinner. He could see the dark look that would cloud his wife’s face when he carried a bowl of pasta across the kitchen and placed it on the table she would have set with the homemade crackers and the gilded oak leaves.

He was still awake at two
A.M.
, but at least he had a plan. He would wait until they left for the Food Bank. Then he would take off to Bolivia and live under an assumed name. At Sam’s graduation one of his friends would ask, “Why isn’t your father here?” and Sam would explain that “One Christmas he forgot to buy the turkey and he had to leave.”

At three
A.M.
, after rolling around for an hour, Dave got out of bed, dressed, and slipped quietly out the back door. He was looking for a twenty-four-hour grocery store. It was either that or wait for the Food Bank to open, and though he couldn’t think of anyone in the city more in need of a turkey, the idea that his family might spot him in line made the Food Bank unthinkable.

At four
A.M.
, with the help of a taxi driver named Mohammed, Dave found an open store. He bought the last
turkey there: twelve pounds, frozen as hard as a cannonball, grade B—whatever that meant. He was home by four-thirty and by six-thirty had the turkey more or less thawed. He used an electric blanket and a hair dryer on the turkey and a bottle of Scotch on himself.

As the turkey defrosted, it became clear what grade B meant. The skin on its right drumstick was ripped. Dave’s turkey looked like it had made a break from the slaughterhouse and dragged itself a block or two before it was captured and beaten to death. Dave poured another Scotch and began to refer to his bird as Butch. He turned Butch over and found another slash in the carcass. Perhaps, he thought, Butch had died in a knife fight.

Dave would have been happy if disfiguration had been the worst thing about his turkey. Would have considered himself blessed. Would have been able to look back on this Christmas with equanimity. Might eventually have been able to laugh about it. The worst thing came later. After lunch. After Morley and the kids left for the Food Bank.

Before they left, Morley dropped pine oil on some of the living room lamps. “When the bulbs heat the oil,” she said, “the house will smell like a forest.” Then she said, “Mother’s coming. I’m trusting you with this. You have to have the turkey in the oven—”

Dave finished her sentence for her. “By one-thirty,” he said. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

The worst thing began when Dave tried to turn on the oven. Morley had never had cause to explain to him about the automatic timer, and Dave had never had cause to ask about it. The oven had been set the day before to go on at five-thirty. Morley had been baking a squash casserole for Christmas dinner—she always did the vegetables the day before—and
until the oven timer was unset, nothing anybody did was going to turn it on.

At two
P.M.
Dave retrieved the bottle of Scotch from the basement and poured himself a drink. He knew he was in trouble. He had to find an oven that could cook the bird quickly. But every oven he could think of already had a turkey in it. For ten years Dave had been technical director to some of the craziest acts on the rock-and-roll circuit. He wasn’t going to fall to pieces over a raw turkey.

Inventors are often unable to explain where their best ideas come from. Dave is not sure where he got his. Maybe he had spent too many years in too many hotel rooms. At two-thirty
P.M.
he topped up his Scotch and phoned the Plaza Hotel. He was given the front desk.

“Do you cook … special menus for people with special dietary needs?” he asked.

“We’re a first-class hotel in a world-class city, sir. We can look after any dietary needs.”

“If someone brings their own food—because of a special diet—would you cook it for them?”

“Of course, sir.”

Dave looked at the turkey. It was propped on a kitchen chair like a naked baby. “Come on, Butch,” he said, stuffing it into a plastic bag. “We’re going out.”

Morley had the car. Dave called a taxi. He shoved the bottle of Scotch into the pocket of his parka on his way out the door.

“The Plaza,” he said to the driver. “It’s an emergency.” He took a slug from the bottle.

The man at the front desk asked if Dave needed help with his suitcases.

“No suitcases,” said Dave, patting the turkey, which he had
dropped on the counter and which was now dripping juice on the hotel floor. Dave turned breezily to the man behind him in line and said, slurring only slightly, “Just checking in for the afternoon with my chick.”

The clerk winced. Dave wobbled. He spun around and grinned at the clerk and then around again and squinted at the man in line behind him. He was looking for approval. He found, instead, his neighbor. Jim Scoffield was standing beside an elderly woman Dave assumed must be Jim’s visiting mother.

Jim didn’t say anything, tried in fact to look away. But he was too late. Their eyes had met.

Dave straightened and said, “Turkey and the kids are at the Food Bank. I brought Morley here so they could cook her for me.”

“Oh,” said Jim.

“I mean the turkey,” said Dave.

“Uh-huh,” said Jim.

“I bring it here
every
year. I’m alone.”

Dave held his arms out as if inviting Jim to frisk him.

The man at the desk said, “Excuse me, sir,” and handed Dave his key. Dave smiled. At the man behind the counter. At Jim. At Jim’s mom. He walked toward the elevators, one careful foot in front of the other. When he got to the polished brass elevator doors, he heard Jim calling him.

“You forgot your … chick,” said Jim, pointing to the turkey Dave had left behind on the counter.

The man on the phone from room service said, “We have turkey on the
menu
, sir.”

Dave said, “This is … uh … a
special
turkey. I was hoping you could cook
my
turkey.”

The man from room service told Dave the manager would call. Dave looked at his watch.

When the phone rang, Dave knew this was his last chance. His only chance. The manager would either agree to cook the turkey, or Dave would book the ticket to Newfoundland.

“Excuse me, sir?” said the manager.

“I said I need to eat this
particular
turkey,” said Dave.

“That
particular
turkey, sir.” the manager was noncommittal.

“Do you know,” said Dave, “what they feed turkeys today?”

“No, sir?” said the manager. He said it like a question.

“They feed them …”

Dave wasn’t at all sure himself. Wasn’t so sure where he was going with this. He just knew that he had to keep talking.

“They feed them chemicals,” he said, “and antibiotics and steroids, and … lard to make them juicier … and starch to make them crispy. I’m allergic to … steroids. If I eat that stuff, I’ll have a heart attack or at least a seizure. In the lobby of your hotel. Do you want that to happen?”

The man on the phone didn’t say anything. Dave kept going.

“I have my own turkey here. I raised this turkey myself. I butchered it myself. This morning. The only thing it has eaten …” Dave looked frantically around the room. What did he feed the turkey?

“Tofu,” he said triumphantly.

“Tofu, sir?” said the manager.

“And yogurt,” said Dave.

It was all or nothing.

The bellboy took the turkey and the twenty-dollar bill Dave handed him without blinking an eye.

Dave said, “You have those big convection ovens. I have to have it back before five-thirty
P.M .
”

“You must be very hungry, sir” was all the bellboy said.

Dave collapsed onto the bed. He didn’t move until the phone rang half an hour later. It was the hotel manager. He said the turkey was in the oven. Then he said, “You raised the bird yourself?”

Dave said yes.

There was a pause. The manager said, “The chef says the turkey looks like it was abused.”

Dave said, “Ask the chef if he has ever killed a turkey. Tell him the bird was a fighter. Tell him to stitch it up.”