Grapevine Wasps: A Short Story

Grapevine Wasps

David is a teddy bear with a blue shirt and a big voice.  Some days, his voice ricochets across the thin wood-panelling of our shared house. Other days, it’s husky and faint from exhaustion.

Today, it’s husky and faint.

“Leslie, get down here and gather the clothes off the floor, before they turn to shit.”

A lone lawn mower cuts through the summer haze.

“Leslie….LES-LAAAAAAY!”

I hear pounding footsteps from upstairs.  Leslie’s voice materializes.

“Dad. I’ll do it when I get back. Promise.”

 The thud of the screen door marks Leslie’s swift departure.

David gasps between steps along the basement hallway. His rubber shoes squeak against the soaked carpet. Puddles of black water edge out and then recede back into the pink folds. They’re reminders of the aged plumbing, and the rainy summer. 

David occupies the main floor of our rented four-bedroom bungalow, along with his teenage son, Leslie, and a big black Labrador named Mushka.  He used to be a mechanic, until a heart condition made him unsuitable to work.  David collects disability cheques. His son is about to enter his final year in high school.

Sam and I are his ‘cell mates’, or so he calls us. We live in the basement’s two bedrooms, with a shared kitchen, bathroom and laundry. We pay cheap rent. Just like David.

Every night, David and Leslie fight about where Leslie will live when he goes to college.  Leslie wants to live away from home.  He assures his father that he will pay for rent and tuition with his part- time job at the bank.

 David insists that Leslie will be mooching off his dad soon enough after the first year.  He tells Leslie that it’s better off to stay home for college, to save money.

“Remember what your grandmother says. It’s good to be nice, but nice doesn’t pay the bills. What kind of skill do you have to show the world, huh? Or do you think it’s easy to work and study at the same time?”

David staggers up each creaking step to the main floor. As he reaches the top stair, he pauses to poke his cane into a cobweb buried in the corner.  A lone centipede scuttles up the wall, now evicted from its hiding place.

 “Promise me never to kill the centipedes,” David mutters.  A smile creases his thick lips. “They eat the spider eggs. Population control.”

We both exit the basement’s rear entrance.  David shields his eyes from the harsh sun. He sighs before limping to the open garage.

Bags of clothing, shoes and books line the inner walls of David’s garage.  There is so much stuff in bags that there is hardly any room for a car.

David’s Chevy bakes outside, in the mid-August heat. 

“Tell you what,” David whispers, “Since my ungrateful son won’t help me, why don’t you take these out to the front and put them on display for the yard sale?”

I pause. I remember the stack of library books I need to return by day’s end. I want to avoid fines.

David clears his throat.

“If you can help me schlep this stuff, I’ll give you and Sam ten bucks each. Plus, you both get to choose something from the sale.”

“Okay,” I concede. It’s the weekend. At least I don’t need to work for two days.

But I doubt if Sam is able to help. Sam is a machinist from Sri Lanka. He wanted to be an engineer, but then he dropped out before graduating from university in Sri Lanka. Sam has lived in Toronto for five years. He works strange shifts, smokes a lot, and drinks a lot.

I don’t imagine Sam would have the energy to fold baby clothes, after a long day in front of a lathe.

 I didn’t hear Sam leave this morning. He normally slams the bathroom door and spits out phlegm in the shower. That usually wakes me up. I wonder if he left earlier than usual. I savor the momentary quiet of the empty basement in the early morning.

 David arranges two tables in the front yard. His new girlfriend, Linda, sits primly between the tables. She folds tank tops into neat bunches.

Linda is in her fifties. She wears a black dress with a matching sun hat, to protect her fair skin and bobbed hair.  

Linda purses her lips. She doesn’t look up when David and I unload our bags onto the table.

“Larry, these clothes have got to be over thirty years old.” She holds up a blue and red Spider Man t-shirt. Tiny holes pepper the inner sleeves and shoulders.

I wonder whether they were from moths, or just the wear and tear of children’s play. And I wonder why David’s girlfriend calls him Larry.

David shrugs. “Hey, they will do just fine. Some people think these are collectibles, you know. I see them re-sell it on e-bay.”

“To unsuspecting kids with credit cards,” Linda snarls.

“Hey, it’s an original. And it’s a steal.”

Linda pulls a long face and continues to fold the clothes. Soon they form little coloured bunches across the tables. They look like baby cotton bunnies alongside the musty record albums and old electronic gadgets.

David’s Labrador, Mushka, claws at the screen door and whimpers. David hobbles up the front steps and opens the door. The dog lunges toward David, nearly knocking him over. David wraps his free arm around Mushka and kisses his head.

“My baby,” he cries. His voice fades into the house. The dog follows at his feet. The scratch of claws against linoleum mingles with the tap of the wooden cane.

Cars slow down as the tables fill with more clothes and used articles. But not too many people stop.

The elderly neighbour across the street pauses at her porch. She plops on her chair, puts down her coffee, narrows her eyes in my direction, and thrusts a newspaper in front of her face.

David stumbles back outside with Mushka at his heels. He wears a Yankees baseball cap to protect his face against the sun.  His nods when he recognizes a few of the cars. But some of them look sketchy, especially the dark cars with tinted windows.  David snaps the shades onto his glasses and lowers the lid of his cap.

David parks on a deck chair beside me. I dust off books and stack them up in a row. I try to arrange them in some semblance of order: historical fiction, house-repair, music. There are no philosophy or literary books in the pile. I strain to find something that interests me.

 A stack of romance books fills a big shoebox. Numbers grace their side bindings. A small piece of masking tape binds them together. It reads: set of twenty, fifteen dollars.

I scratch my head. “Where did you get these?”

“I bought them for my ex-wife years ago, when we were young. You know, the good old days.” David rubs his hand across his round hairy potbelly.

David takes out his wallet from his back pocket. He shows me a faded picture of a young couple. David’s face looks unrecognizable, without his sunglasses and beard.

“I don’t know what happened. I did everything I could for Barbara. Took care of her, gave her a roof. What more could I have done?”

David leans toward me and whispers. “You know, you and Sam are lucky. You are used to being by yourselves. It’s been five years now. I never did get used to living alone.”

David gazes at the piles of clothes and antiques. He waves at the passing cars. Nobody waves back.
                “Few years ago, I stopped going to the Synagogue.  Then they complained I wasn’t devoted enough. I’m a single working father. What could I do? I was too busy to go. And tired. But people talk.”

I nod.

“Yeah, yeah. It must be hard,” I say.  

My legs start to feel sore from standing for so long. I rock my heels from side to side.

 I think about the Jewish community of Bathurst and Sheppard, where we live.  Everyone must know each other. I feel lucky to be anonymous.

David looks down at his cane and at the Labrador sitting at his feet. “Now I can’t even work anymore. They think I’m faking all this. I tell them that if I were to walk longer than this street, I would drop dead. But they don’t believe me.”

Mushka levels his sad eyes in my direction. David pats his head.

“He’s got to be the gentlest dog I’ve seen,” I point out. “He doesn’t bark or anything.”

David laughs. “Of course he doesn’t. He’s the only one who doesn’t give me a headache. Doncha, Mushka? You’re my baby, Mushka. Mwa, mwa, mwa.”

David’s eyes twinkle as he strokes Mushka’s silky fur. Mushka sinks beside his water bowl and sprawls his back legs out into the driveway.  Flies swarm around his closing eyes. Muskha’s eyelids jerk and twitch.

The afternoon arrives. People start to come in droves. Many of them don’t intend to buy anything, but they mingle at the tables. A few people marvel at the old transistor radios and Polaroid cameras in boxes underneath the tables. The crowd creates the impression that something is happening.

A young girl in a pink t-shirt and cut-off shorts inspects the book pile. She discovers the ten- volume romance collection and signals to her two girlfriends. The three of them start to giggle and blush.

“How much for these?” the girl asks. She twirls her body around to no one in particular.

“Fifteen,” David says. His face hardly shifts an inch toward the young bidder.

The girls confer with each other for several seconds. A few heads shake, followed by whispers.

“Ten?” the pink shirted girl asks.

“Thirteen,” David snaps.

“Thirteen…such an unlucky number,” The girl strokes her left index finger across her bottom lip. “Twelve fifty?”

“Unlucky for you. I don’t carry coins.” David crosses his arms. “This is vintage romance.  Twelve fifty? C’mon.”

The girls huddle again in a circle. Finally, one open hand emerges from the tussle, with a few crumpled bills and a couple of quarters.

 Twelve dollars and fifty cents.

David hesitates, then whips out his right arm and pockets the money into his trousers.

“You girls should consider yourselves lucky that I’m so nice.” The right side of his lip curls into a half-smile.

The pink-shirted girl marches away with the books across her chest. Her nose cocks up to the sky. She looks triumphant. Her two girlfriends trail behind her.  

“I must have paid twice that much for those damned things. And that was in the sixties.” David strokes his beard.

“I’m sure she appreciates it,” I reply. “She looked all set, like she will never need to date again.”

 “Yeah, well, that’ll buy me dog food for Mushka. And maybe some leftover dog food for myself.”

Sales start to shoot up. People line up and down the tables. They bid and grab their goods. Linda heads inside the house for plastic bags.

Someone asks if Mushka’s water dish is for sale.  David chuckles.  His humor has arisen, like the scorching sun.

                A white van pulls over to the curb. It looks like an armored money truck. The man inside gets out, pauses in front of the clothes, and spots a batman shirt. It must have belonged to Leslie when he was a young boy.

                The man pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to Linda. He carries the shirt back to his truck and smacks it onto the dashboard like a dishrag. He pulls away with a big grin on his face.

                David looks at me and shrugs.

 “What the hell was that?” he whispers.  

                David is happy again.

                ***

                At sundown, David and Linda truck the remaining clothes and books to the garage and backyard. Linda takes a deep breath and hunches over the picnic table. She braces herself for tomorrow:  Day Two of the annual Yard Sale.

                Sam comes home at quarter to eight. He wears his green plaid flannel shirt and denim jeans. His skinny body droops from exhaustion. He stoops to carry the heavier boxes back. Between the four of us, he’s the strongest. But now, he looks like he is about to collapse.

Sam jokes about trying to apply for a job at Linamar, a popular auto manufacturer on the West end. He grumbles about how the receptionist sang ‘Linamar’ in a cheery voice. He mocks her condescending demeanor.  The job hunt descends into a black comedy.

                David counts the cash in a plain white envelope. He stuffs the wad into his pocket and paces around the backyard.

                “Not bad at all,” he mutters.

Linda leans her head into her left palm.  She gazes at the vines curled around the tressle.
                “Larry, I just don’t get it.” She sneers. “You guys have had these grapes in your backyard, and now look at them.”

We look at the grapes in the falling light. Many have shrivelled into ripened husks. Wasps swarm around the remaining bunches. Most of them look rotten.

“Hey, not my department,” David says. “I can’t eat too many of those things, with my diabetes.”

David looks back at me and Sam. “You two spring chickens should have eaten them long ago. God knows you both need it.”

“Oh,” I pause. “I didn’t know if they’re safe and stuff.”

“Of course they’re safe,” David moans. “They don’t have pesticides. They’re safer than the store bought grapes.”

“Not now,” Sam mutters. “All those bloody wasps probably have diseases. I hate insects. We used to have huge insects in Sri Lanka, where I was growing up. I get sick from bugs very easily. Centipedes, ugh…”

Sam shudders. He shakes his head and staggers down the stairway into his room.

“What a waste,” David says. “I told you guys before. You should have eaten them while they were still free. Nobody gets anything for free anymore. I’m going inside.”

Linda follows David up the stairs into the main floor.

My basement room is cold and musty. I feel the relief of the air conditioning after the humid day. I start to feel burn marks on my bare arms and the tip of my nose. I regret not putting on sunscreen in the morning.

I can hear the sounds of a television set upstairs. Electronic static fills the air. Leslie has returned home with his girlfriend. They giggle in the bedroom. Beeps and gunshots signal another round of video games. The Backstreet Boys play in the background.

“Leslie, I told you to pick the shit off the floor downstairs. Did you do it yet?” David’s voice booms again. The day’s success restores his vigor.

“Dad, not now. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
                “That’s not what you told me this morning! You do it now, or I’m gonna kick you out!”

Footsteps pound down the stairs into the basement. I hear arms clutching at a mass of crumpled clothes. The dryer door slams.

Footsteps amble back upstairs again.  The upstairs door slams.

Leslie and his girlfriend giggle again. The TV volume increases. More gunshot sounds ensue.

David sings a song in Hebrew. His voice overpowers the video sounds. I don’t understand the words at all, but it sounds like opera. I make a note to ask him the meaning one day. I am certain that the song is religious. Its beauty surrounds me. 

The house fills with mercy.