CLUTTERBUCKS — EPISODE 12

TWO HOURS EARLIER:
Daphne. Last time you were talking about Clutterbucks, some of the unbelievable things that go down over there and folks, I’ve seen it for myself and it’s all true – including the trapeze – and our listeners want more. They want lots more Daphne stories. Clutterbucks stories. So what you got for us today? 
You know, Cowboy, not everything that happens at the store is funny, but all of it’s interesting. Do you want a funny story or an interesting story?
In my humble – wait... who are we kidding – in my know-it-all opinion, you turn everything funny. There is nothing not funny about your stories.
Well I do have unfunny stories. I mean things have happened to me that aren’t even a little bit funny, of course, but you see – and you’ll understand this Jim – being funny is a way of coping for most of us, isn’t it.
Yes. I suppose it is. So what made you want to be a comedian in the first place?
My mom.
Your mom? I do not know a single comedian whose mom thought their career choice was a good one. Not one.
Different for me.
How so?
I didn’t decide to become a comedian until this past year, you know, and it’s because of my mom’s mental decline. She’s got dementia. It’s light, but it’s there and according to the pitiless logic of this disease, definitely more to come. 
So it’s a way of coping with that loss? Or potential loss?
In a way, yes, but in a bigger way, no.
How’s that?
It’s more that comedy is a way of keeping my mother engaged and present. When she laughs she feels like her old self again. She says it all the time. “Oh Daphne,” she’ll say, “you make me feel like my old self again.” And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make her feel like her old self so she’ll be with me a little longer and the only way I know how to do it is to make her laugh. I’ve always been able to make her laugh. I know exactly where her funny bone is. And she laughs and some of the old TV shows. MASH, Cheers, Carol Burnett.
Three of the best. She has good taste.
Yes. Unfortunately there’s not much else on. Nothing new anyway. Sitcoms just aren’t funny are they? I feel guilty but I play her favourites over and over again.
Does she know?
No. She forgets you see. But I know and it bugs me.
Yes unfortunately TV kinda sucks for humour.
I think instead of sitcoms standing for situational-comedy, today they stand for situational-commercials.
Exactly.
So I try to be funny. And I use things that happen at the store because there are lots of extraordinarily funny things that happen there. Due to the people. Most certainly due to the people.
Of course, yes, but also it’s a rather, um.... strange place. In a good way I mean.
Oh yes. It’s an oddball of a joint is Clutterbucks. All I have to do when I get home is make dinner and then just tell her about my day. The characters! I can do a full-on hour of kitchen stand-up every single night and it keeps her going.
Who’s her favourite?
Well she likes the Simple Simon one about how he got his name. Also Normal. I mean once you earn a nickname at Clutterbucks, it’s impossible to shake so you gotta live with it. Even Kreskin.
Oh yes. We all know Kreskin. We’ve all read his book haven’t we?
I think so. Can’t wait for the next one. He’s working on it all the time. Writing it in the store.  He’s got a perch–
Okay you’ll have to explain that one, Daphne. Nobody who hasn’t been in the store knows what your perches are.
Oh. Okay well I’ve talked about Grace and let me tell you that plots’s thickening nicely. 
What plot?
Sorry. Can’t discuss. It’s a police matter for the time being but when it’s over I’ll tell you guys all about it. 
Okay deal. But the perch?
Yes. Anyway. Clutterbucks is huge. And it’s an actual square so the ceilings are super high. That’s how there’s a swing, a trapese I mean, in the first place. So because of Grace’s before life – the details of which will come out eventually – she likes to sleep up high so when she moved into the store, we built her a floating room that’s sort of hangs from the ceiling and that’s her perch. It’s where she sleeps. And Kreskin who used to live in the basement – in fact he was a stow-away there for a while before I even knew he was there – but Kreskin got displaced when Warrior Waze moved in so he asked for his own perch and we built him one in the opposite corner from Grace’s and that’s where he’s writing book number two. 
Got it. Any idea what book number two is about?
All he’ll tell me is the title–
Which is?
‘Libbe.’ I hope it’s okay to say it. I hope he doesn’t mind.
Well I think he knows little is safe with you Daphne and he wouldn’t have told you if he wanted it kept quiet. So Kreskin is Jane’s son, correct.
Yes. He’s Jane and Matthew’s son. Matthew is currently doing Kreskin’s publisher. 
Doing?
Sorry. Dating. I mean it’s a crazy world, Clutterbucks. 
Well it most certainly–
WAIT! Now there’s an idea. CLUTTERBUCKS would make a great sitcom!
Flash to Moses Znaimer, president and founder of VisionTV at ZoomerMedia, relaxed and listening to the show on his radio station. He cocks his head, smiles and jots something down.

Cowboy Jim walks Daphne to the street.
“Great show, Daphne. See you next week unless you feel like coming to a meeting which almost always involves pizza afterwards?”
“Well I might be interested in the pizza part but now that Jet’s going on his own, well, with you, I don’t want to go to the meetings and I’ve got a busy week ahead. Drop by for lunch one day and I’ll take you next door.”
“Next door?”
“Best smoked meat sandwich you’ve ever had.”
“MeetMeat?”
“MeetMeat.”
Several people walk by, give Daphne and Cowboy a second look, not only is the combined effect of their attire shocking, they sound like Roadrunners.
Daphne gets in her car and makes a call.
“Greybird? Daphne. Hope it’s not too late but we have to change days, turns out I’ll be gone all day today so if you can bring whatever it is you’re dying to show me tomorrow, that’s great, because I’m dying to see it.”
Then she calls Jane who is having breakfast with Michool at Our Salad Days.
Jane hears her phone but does not take it out of her purse.
“Go ahead and answer it,” Michool says.
“It’s Daphne,” Jane says. “She’s not coming in again today.”
Michool sees where Kreskin gets it from. 
Daphne drives all the way down Kingston Road to the Lakeshore, gets on the QEW, rolls up her windows, turns off the radio, and drives. 

It seemed like the entire Funny Business audience responded to Michool’s offer of employment. Hopeful emails were written and sent immediately. Candidates lined up at the door and dropped their resumes off one after the other. Michool hired the first two applicants, one of whom we now see running toward him where he sits with Jane, hurtling the patio fence and coming to a perfectly executed landing in front of him.
“You gotta come,” she says.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s your wife. She’s here and she’s not okay.”

Daphne pulls into the driveway in Wainfleet, the address she got from Vera.
There are no cars, only a few rusty trucks and a couple of old tractors. A single Guinea hen pokes its head out from behind a bush and quickly makes its way across the driveway in front of Daphne’s car.
Why did the hen cross the road?
Daphne looks at the house. Nice enough. A little worn out but clean and welcoming. Not the kind of place you have to worry too much about. It’s the kind of house that’s used to a family and you can tell when it’s empty, and it’s definitely empty now.
To visit the chicken.
Daphne spots a couple of rusty metal sculptures in the yard and gets out of the car. She’s always been a fan of folk art and she goes to get a closer look when she hears hammering from one of the out buildings.
Poultry in motion.
The pathway is dusty and dry. A dozen or so chickens bounce around a field like popcorn. A distant rooster crows. Daphne follows the sound of the hammer down a shady narrow pathway.
“Hello?” she says. “Hello?”
She approaches the open doors of a big barn and stands in the doorway until her eyes get used to the dark interior. She makes out a figure hunched in front of an old couch.
“Hello?” she says, her eye on the couch rather than the person in front of it.
“Oh. Hello. Sorry.” the young man says. “How long you been there?”
“Only a few seconds,” Daphne says, walking in. “Wow. Look at that couch. You’ve done a beautiful job. I would have like to have seen it before.”
“Here. I have it on my phone,” he finds the pic and passes the phone to Daphne. “Take a look.”
“Yeah. I know those old couches. From the fifties. They are some of the first pull-out beds. Wow. Love the fabric. Beautiful job. Mind if I pull out the drawer?” she asks and does so before he can answer. “Wow. Unbelievable job. Glides good as new, better actually, and I should know because I grew up with one of these in our basement. Still have it actually. My mother reupholstered it herself from an old pair of curtains and then she drew ducks all over it. And I don’t mean cartoon ducks. These were like duck portraits.”
“Haha,” the young man says, “sounds nice.”
“But you’ve done it exactly the right way. And the fabric, too, I mean what’s better than checks? And the grey on grey. It’s very lovely. Is it felt?”
“Blend. Alpaca and felt. I get it from a farm in Washington State. They make it right there.
“My guess is that you learned from your father. It’s in your touch and your eye. You probably been watching him do it all your life. That’s why you’re so good at it.”
Daphne has been in lots of upholstering shops and when her eyes are fully accustomed to the light she looks around. There’s only a sewing machine in the corner. The tools are on the ground beneath a single work bench. Nothing like the shops she’s been in before.
“Or maybe I’m wrong,” she says. “You just move in?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah. So where’d you learn? Who taught you?”
The young man looks at her without answering, sits in the couch, and finally says, “a sort of trade school I guess.”
“Which one?”
It’s one of Daphne’s faults. She’s nosy.
“Not around here.”
“I’m not from around here anyway. Jeez. I can’t get over the job you did. You know the right person’ll pay good money for that. Are you doing it for someone or are you just going to sell it? Because if that’s the case, what kind of price did you have in mind?”
“Oh, no. I’m fixing it up for someone,” he gestures to the house. “The lady who owns the house. It’s for her.”
And then it hits her. Of course he’s Max. Of course he learned his trade while in detention. She sort of staggers to the couch and sits down.
“My God,” she says, half because it’s Max and half because it’s so unbelievably comfortable.
A car drives up the driveway, she looks out and asks Max “that her? Maggie?”
“Maddie.”
“Right. Maddie,” Daphne says, rushing out of the barn into the sunlight, toward the woman who is getting her baby out of the back seat of an orange VW van.
Maddie knows who she is.
“You must be Daphne. I was half-expecting you. Your friend said you would probably show up,” she says. “Mind grabbing that pie from the back there? Thanks!”
“Shit,” Daphne says, her thumb going through the crust. “Sorry. Ugh. My language. And your pie.”
“We’ll just have to eat it,” Maddie says. “C’mon. Put it on the counter. I’m going to go put this little guy in his crib. Right back. And please. Put the kettle on.”
Daphne puts the pie on the counter, fills the kettle and plugs it in. She stands in front of the window looking out over the uninterrupted fields of green. Thinking.
“It’s lovely,” she says when Maddie comes in. “So nice here.”
“I know. We love it. My husband’s not here much, really, but–”
Again, Daphne’s nosy nature kicks in. “What kind of work does he do?” she asks.
“He’s an auctioneer. He’s in Haliburton today–”
“I know exactly where he is,”
“You what?”
“Oh. Haha. That must sound odd. What I mean is that I am an antique dealer and I know there’s a big auction in the Haliburton Highlands today. Starts at one,” she looks at her watch, “in five minutes.”
“That’s the one. Small world.”
“Well, Maddie, it’s about to get smaller.” Daphne says. “I have an idea.”
Maddie laughs, “Okay. But hang on a sec. I need a piece of pie. How ’bout you?”
They talk and eat pie until there’s only one piece left.
“I wanna save that for Max. Kid loves rhubarb. Kid loves everything. Like I said, if it weren’t for my stepdaughter coming home from university for the summer we’d definitely ask him to stay. But there’s only one room and–”
“It was nice of you to let him stay at all. Not everybody would have done that, you know.”
“Just too bad. Such a sweet kid.”
“I’m gonna go see him,” Daphne says, “see what he thinks.”
“He’s probably figured out who you are. Good luck and I’ll get Jason to call you.”
Daphne waits at the barn doors while her eyes adjust to the light – or lack of light – inside.
Max has been sitting on the couch. He looks up and walks toward her. Daphne hands him her card.
“So it is you,” he says without looking up. “I thought so.”
“It’s me.”
“What’s Clutterbucks.”
“My store. Antiques.”
Max nods.
“Listen,” Daphne says, “if you want a job, come see me. I can set you up a nice little shop. Always wanted an upholstery department.”
“You’d do that? After everything?”
Daphne smiles and backs out of the barn, turns to leave, and over her shoulder, she says, “It’s time you caught a break, Max Dobson. High time.”

“Hey Jet?” Daphne says the minute she walks into the store, the bells ringing If I were a Carpenter. “Think you can build another bedroom?”
“You mean a floater?”
“Yeah. And I need a workshop – not a room, I want it open – just lots of space along a wall with a couple of benches and a couple of tool cabinets built into the wall, and a big long table for cutting and sewing. And I guess if there’s three bedrooms there might as well be four because after all we have four corners and there are lots of kids who need a chance. And if we’re gonna go that far I think we better put in a kitchen, you know, sink-fridge-stove, and another washroom. Can you do those things?”
Jet looks around the store doubtfully.
“I could help.”
Which is when Daphne decides to look into whether Avo is actually back. On the small chance that Michool was right.
She tries his number.
“Hello?” she hears.
“Avo? Are you here? Is that you?”
“It is me,” Avo whispers, “but barely.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I am going back home,” he says. “For good this time. One more thing to do then I will never return.”
“So you are here. Well Michool tells me you’re a lot richer at least.”
“Yes. We are very poor at home. That is part of why I came back. Exactly the small half of the reason. I grew up in war. I knew I would win.”
“How’d you like to make some more cash?”
“Go on.”
“I need some construction done. The way you work, it shouldn’t take more than a week.”
“Go on.”
“Four grand.”
“I’ll start now.”
“How about in the morning?”
“I’ll start in the morning!”
”Oh and also I need you to pick up a small item of jewellery at a house.”
”Must I illegally enter?”
”I’ll make sure they’re not home.”
”I will do.”

“Circio? Daphne. I’ll be there early tomorrow morning for the FINAL switcheroo.”

“I came right away,” Gerry says, executing a chin-up on Grace’s platform. “Can I come up?”
Grace nods – it’s all she can do – and Gerry hoists himself up and sits on the bed beside her.
“Got the results from Hill’s test,” he looks at her face, sweet and scared. “You ready for it?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“She’s your sister, Grace.”
Grace covers her face with her hands.
He gives her time and while he waits he looks around the strange place this girl calls home – a floating little world where she’s all alone – and spies the sprinkle of light coming in from the secret deck that’s not a secret any more. How strange. How beautiful.
“Do you know how many times I wished I had a sister?” Grace says. “I mean before. When I was with my parents. I used to ask them for a sister all the time but they just laughed and I’d get upset. I found out where babies came from and I was mad at them for refusing to put in the effort.”
Gerry catches the last part and smiles – but he can barely hear her – she’s talking into her hands which he now leans in and kisses.
Grace uncovers her face and looks at him. She places her arms very carefully around his neck.
Which is when Avo walks in with the intention of revealling himself, but when he sees Grace with her arms around Gerry, he ducks behind the cash, and listens.

The next morning Daphne and Jane both show up early to open. Daphne thinks the place has been robbed, the door is ajar, and she sees the hooded perpretator at the cash desk, grabs a baton and is heaving it ready to strike when Jane turns and screams.
Simultaneously, they say, “What are you doing here?”
Avo’s head pokes out from Grace’s perch and they holler, “What are you doing here?”
Daphne smiles and shrugs, “I’ll go get us a coffee.”
“Okay and when you come back I’ll give you your surprise,” Jane says.
“Not sure I can take another one.”
Jane places the finished lamp base on the desk where it glows in the golden morning sunlight coming through the far window. She admires it, the even colour she managed to achieve, not a spot of the old mess anywhere, she was consumed with getting it perfect.
Daphne walks in with coffee and pastry.
“Ta-daa,” they both say.
Jane takes her coffee from a speechless Daphne who frozen, stares incredulously at the dazzling lamp.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Oh my God.” She quickly picks it up and turns it over. “Oh my God.”
Jane, pleased as punch, watches.
We catch a glimpse of the completely patina-less Tiffany trademark and Daphne utters one more anguished little “Oh my God” when Greybird comes in, the bells playing Money Makes The World Go Around.
Greybird knows enough about antiques to understand that along with the patina, 90% 0f the value of the rare Tiffany lamp with matching base is gone, and since he’s already been paid handsomely for it, he knows enough to get as far away from Daphne as soon as he can.
“It saved me,” the polishing of this little baby, Jane says. “I mean talk about getting clean!”
Daphne, still in shock, says nothing, her hopeful eye going to the cloth-covered rectangle Greybird places in front of her.
“I’ll leave it with you,” he says quickly. “On my way to Parry Sound right now.”
“Wait!” Daphne says, “let’s see what we have here.”
She pulls the string bow, and opens the tablecloth, one flap at a time. The painting is backwards but when Greybird reaches to turn it over, Daphne stops him. She knows paintings and what’s on the back of this one makes the hair on her arms stand up.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Greybird. This is the real thing.”
“Yeah,” he says, “and you should see the other side.”
“Don’t have to. There’s the date, there, that’s the location, there, and see that? That’s his signature. I’ve seen it before and that’s the real thing. Now if it’s signed on the front, too, you’ve got a real winner. Ready?”
She turns it over. It’s upside down and Tom Thompson’s signature looks like a bird in the upper left corner. She rights it. Her hands are trembling and it’s all the brightly painted leaves in the brightly painted forest can do to hang on.
“Well, Greybird, let’s just say you’re a rich man. I think this will get a lot of people here on Saturday. I’d say, depending on the crowd, you’ll get at least half a million.”
Greybird closes his eyes.
“That should be just enough to build a better wo–”
The gaggle of bells behind him turns into It’s A Wonderful World.