Clutterbucks — Episode 2

Jane and Daphne are sleeping side by side on the couch. The sound of a truck pulling into the driveway wakes them.
There are a few drops of twilight in the air. 
“They’re here,” Daphne says, jumping up and looking out the window, happy to see that Avo put the correct sign on the truck this time, and it’s the right way up, too.
“Oh God,’ Jane says.
“Wait here. You don’t need to see this.”
“You sound like my husband again. My ex-husband I mean,” she gasps and covers her mouth. “Oh my God I said it. My ex-husband Matthew. I said it! It’s true what you said about clutter. It was gagging me! Choking me! Thank you Daphne! Take it all!,” she says making a wide sweeping gesture. “No don’t!” she adds, coming to her senses.
She leaps up and hits her head on the chandelier.
“But If you wouldn’t mind putting a dot on that piece of shit thing, Daphne.”
Daphne deftly places a dot, heads to front door, but mistakenly opens a closet instead, from which an entire men’s wardrobe tumbles out. 
“How did we miss this? Can you shove it all back inside, Jane? They’ll have a trolly and will need a clean trail.”
Jane waits for Daphne to leave.
She appears to be chewing toffee, her mouth suddenly churning, until she pushes a ring out with the tip of her tongue. She takes it between her fingers and carefully drops it into the back of the fish tank for safe keeping. Next she pulls out a pendant, smallish, followed by a 18-inch gold chain. She then coughs, and produces a matching bracelet. All items go into the tank along with the ring.
She remembers the dot on her forehead and rushes to the front door.
“The hair dryer! Daphne! Bring in the hair dryer!” she yells and then she coughs, and spits a pearl into the palm of her hand.
“Is there an alleyway?” Daphne hollers back. “Should he park out back?”
“No. The garage is in the way. He’s fine here.” 
Daphne’s eyes light up. “There’s a garage?”
Avo waits in the truck with his girlfriend, Graceif, beside him.
“Nice job on the sign, Avo,” Daphne whispers into the truck. “Perfect. Had a feeling she’d go with that one.”
“Thank you, Daphne my love. Wonderful to see you on this beautiful, beautiful day!”
Avo is from Yemen, which if you don’t know – and I didn’t – is a country at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is the second-largest Arab sovereign state in the peninsula, occupying 527,970 square kilometres (203,850 square miles). Yemen is a country whose inhabitants, at least some of them, including Avo’s parents, practice arranged marriages. Currently, in Avo’s back pocket, there is an unopened letter from his father, and a photograph of the girl his parents have chosen to be his wife, as well as a one way ticket from Toronto to Yemen, good for any time within the next three weeks.
But every day in Canada is a beautiful day. Avo is wearing a Forrest Gump T-shirt, the words IN GUMP WE TRUST printed beneath an illustration of what is surely meant to be a saluting Forrest Gump but it appears the artist didn’t see the movie, the depicted character is instead Gomer Pyle.
“There’s a whole load here, Avo, and it’s all good. Don’t leave a thing behind. Not the basement, though. I don’t want anything from the basement. I’ll call Greybird for that. Now, please try to act Salvation Army-ish.”
“Eye, Eye Cap’n.”
“No. It’s a God thing, Avo,” she reads his shirt. “Zip up the uniform and act holy.”
Avo starts to speak but she cuts him off. “No. The silent kind of holy.”
Avo scribes an imaginary halo above his head, smiles and zips up. “Always, my dear.” 
He leans back into the truck to where Gracief quietly sits, and coaxes her like a puppy, “C’mon honey. C’mon Graciaf. Come into the nice house with Avo.”
Jane is on the couch now, exhausted, and we see there’s a little mound of jewellery in the fish tank. She pats the cushion next to her inviting Daphne to sit down.
“All that stuff?” she says, “means nothing to me. Not part of My New Life. I’ve outgrown it. It’s got Matthew all over it. Feels okay to see it go – surprisingly enough.”
Avo pushes a cart piled high with boxes past them which they follow with their eyes. 
“Funny. It means nothing to me.”
Daphne watches the cart slide by and can barely contain her excitement.
“Means everything to me –”
“Huh?” Jane looks at her, puzzled.
“ – to hear you say that. Makes my job worth it.”
Avo walks by with an armful of fur coats.
“Makes my job every bit worth it.”
Gracief floats past them, right behind Avo, carrying a single spoon.
Jane leans over and whispers into Daphne’s ear, “Looks like she just escaped from Room”.
Daphne laughs, and reaches for her Laugh Line Log.

It’s dusk by the time Daphne pulls into the parking lot behind the store on Kingston Road in Scarborough. She navigates the pot holes successfully enough from behind the wheel, but when she pops from the car, she steps directly into the only one in which water has pooled, and her multi-coloured left shoe is now grey with mud.
She finds it rather attractive and dips the right one in to match.
Clutterbucks is a very large store located between Our Salad Days, a vegan restaurant, and butcher shop/sandwich joint MeetMeat, which sounds like the Road Runner when spoken. There are similarities between the two restaurants, they flank the antique store with equal size and weight, similar patio stones and furnishings, identical doors, and one wonders if two restaurants with such opposing menus might be owned by the same person. The Clutterbucks sign is hand-made – Daphne’s grandfather was a carpenter – and its individual wooden letters are spread across the entire store front. A tasteful few interesting antique-y things rest in or on the letterforms – her grandmother’s teapot for instance, red with white polkadots – is placed in the second “u” and is home to a family of sparrows. 
The store is a junker’s dream.
Stained glass pieces hang in the large front window, and they are especially beautiful in this soft spring twilight. Shapes and shadows of some collectibles show hints of themselves through the window, which is covered in nose- and finger-prints and requires twice-daily cleanings. 
But it’s early evening on a weekday, the street is alive with potential customers, yet the CLOSED sign hangs on the door, where it’s been all day, which is the way it goes when you can’t afford to hire help.
Daphne walks from the alleyway between Our Salad Days and Clutterbucks, jingling the keys, unlocks the front door, opens it and turns the CLOSED sign to OPEN. Bells on the door ring in a pleasant gaggle approximating For Once In My Life. She walks around turning on a few of the lamps, rehearsing a couple of jokes, repeating the one about Gracief looking like she just escaped from Room. 
By the time she reaches the luxurious cash desk, which is like a living room, she sees that the mud from her shoes has dried, cracked, and fallen to the floor so she deposits her purse and keys, grabs the broom, and retraces her steps, sweeping up the mess. When she gets the pile to the front door, she opens it as Avo arrives and parks directly in front of the store. She glances at the wall of clocks just inside the door, and it’s exactly six. She should have parked there herself. She sweeps the dust to the sidewalk, smiles at Gracief who is watching her from the passengers seat, and goes back inside.
Avo pokes his head in the door and waits for the gaggle of bells to die down before he hollers, “Daphne! This for the basement or up here my love?”
Daphne looks at the calendar. It’s the 29th and the 1st is marked with a great big red RENT!
“Up HERE!” she says, “and QUICK!”
“Yes boss!”
The bells sound again, and two well-dressed women, obviously sisters, enter. 
“This isn’t a restaurant!” one says to the other.
Daphne smiles wickedly, and enjoys a brief flashback in which she is coding at her computer, late at night, drinking coco and outsmarting goggle maps. When people google restaurants in Scarborough, they get “misdirected” to Clutterbucks. 
“Clearly,” Sister 2 says, “OH MY GOD look at that lamp!” 
“Oh, come on. I want wine – dinner, I mean. I want dinner. I’m hungry. Also thirsty!”
Avo looks at Daphne, raises his eyebrows, and she gives him a slow, purposeful nod. 
He walks toward the sisters. “It’s lovely, no? I’ve been trying to talk my wife into letting me buy it,” he waves his phone, “and just now, my wife, she finally agrees.”
He caresses the lamp, looks meaningfully at Sister 2, and says, “It’s real, you know.” 
“I knew it,” she says. “Look, Cheryl, it’s real!”
“The nice lady,” Avo waves at Daphne, “gave me a good deal. Only five hundred dollar,” Daphne’s eyes widen, “my wife was hoping for a blue one, but –”
“Did you say blue, sir? Blue? I am expecting a blue one tomorrow,” Daphne swoops in. “And it’s in excellent condition, too, and also very real. Perhaps you would consider waiting, and let this one go to this lady?“
Daphne rings in the sale as Sister 1, annoyed and parched, googles like mad for another restaurant.
“Jesus,” she says, “Goddamn thing keeps sending me back here!”

All is calm, if not bright, at 93 Halliday Hills Road this evening. Jane gave up all her lamps. But she found her long-lost speaker earlier in the day and miraculously, the charger a few minutes later, and music is now spreading around the house and Jane is feeling something new as she stands in front of the big living room window looking onto the darkening street. 
She is experiencing an unfamiliar feeling which at first she thinks might be an esophageal issue, she becomes alarmed that there might be remaining jewels to be coughed up, but she soon recognizes the feeling as excitement bubbling, and relief.
“Maybe I’m just happy,” she says and coughs again, “but it sure feels like a gemstone!”
She shakes her head and cackles at the stump of the FOR SALE sign – the orange towel has fallen to the ground – and she decides to call her agent in the morning to apologize. And to thank her for finding Daphne.
Things are looking up.
Of course Daphne is right. The house is full of the past, and it may be comfortable, and it may have been pleasant for a time, but it’s the past. 
She’ll ask Karen about condo prices in the morning. 
There’s a half-full recycling bag on the floor which she grabs and starts filling with scraps, little bits of crumpled packing that accompanied the day’s shipments, two chocolate bar wrappers she finds half-tucked behind the cushion on the couch behind where Daphne was sitting, and the box of Timbits Daphne brought, a single one left inside, which, when Jane goes to throw it in the garbage, reveals itself to be a yellow ping pong ball, which is even more puzzling than the chocolate bar wrappers.
There’s a stack of mail on the floor, she got rid of the coffee table, and as she sifts through it, she comes across a flyer showing a smiling Karen Buck beside an architectural rendering of the new condos going up at Kingston Road and Birchmount, and maybe it’s a sign.
But after taking a quick look at the price, she tosses the flyer across the room, where it lands between Rig and Mortis, who look at each other and try not to laugh.
“I think I’m going to need a job!” Jane says, and the cats can’t take it any more. They break out laughing.
“Oh fuck off you two,” Jane says on her way to the kitchen.
There’s a newspaper on the counter which she grabs and starts looking tor the help wanted section. When she finally spots it, there’s a single notice for a roofer’s assistant and she pictures herself for a moment, holding a ladder, until her attention is caught by a small advertisement on the same page, a two inch square for Clutterbucks Antiques. Let your clutter haunt someone else, the ad reads, and she thinks she’s heard that line somewhere before. 
She turns on the ancient computer that teeters on the edge of the kitchen table, a pile of cords in a huge knot behind it. Of course she should use her new one – it’s a brand new MacBook Pro that Kreskin gave her as a birthday gift – but she can’t figure the damn thing out, and she can’t follow Kreskin’s instructions and it always turns into a weird kind of fight so she makes do. 
She lets well enough alone. 
But that’s her old mantra. 
Daphne gave her a new one.
She googles how to find a job and a million things come up. Then she googles how to find a job when you’re 61. Not so many. How to find a job when you’re 61 and female. Less. How to find a typing job. A few. How to find a typing job when you’re 61. Nothing. How to get everything in a divorce. 
She ends up on Indeed. Workopolis. Finally she finds an ad for a Social Media Engagement Specialist, which sounds pretty good and she applies. It’s an online form which she starts carefully and eagerly enough, but by the third page, she’s had enough. 
“When I graduated high school? Jesus!”
She googles calendar-by-decade, but is served a pop-up instead, from The Bay, but before she can click on it, her new mantra kicks in, just like Daphne said it would, and she continues with the application form instead.
Daphne chose Jane’s mantra based on the Think Thin hypnosis psychology that many people, including herself, adopted in the 60s as a weight loss practice. She thought a Think Less mantra would hinder Jane’s impulse to Acquire More.
However, the Think Less tactic actually makes Jane think less. 
But the application process goes much more smoothly post mantra, Jane has stopped over-thinking as she’s so apt to do and she merrily continues, answering the questions quickly, very likely incorrectly, and after she presses send, she just sits there, spaced-out, waiting for a reply, repeating the self-fulfilling mantra Think Less Think Less Think Less.
The sun sets. She’s still waiting. Yawning. Midnight.
Next morning it’s the same thing – did she even go to bed? – and then bing! she gets an email response in the form of an interview request, which completely throws her into a panic but she gives the mantra another whirl and relaxes, clicks yes, and is slated for a three o’clock interview at Warrior Waze on Kingston Road that afternoon.
“Jesus,” she mutters. “I need a shower or two!”
Wet and towel-less (she’s wearing one of her furs – inside out – as a substitute) she brushes her hair with a fork because her hairbrush, too, is missing. She quickly and expertly chooses her outfit – modern and age-appropriate – and lays it out on the bed before she tries on a dozen or more alternate outfits, hairstyles, shoes, etc. until finally she’s on her way out the door in the first outfit. A glimpse into her bedroom shows the cats carefully sticking their nails into the reject pile on Jane’s bed – purring and pulling.
Kreskin opens the basement door just as Jane closes the front door behind her. He is looking for his guitar. “Claire?” he calls over and over. Finally he sits on the couch and places his fingertips on his temples and “sees” that Daphne has taken Claire, “gets” Clutterbucks address, and flies out the door.

Whatever money-saving spell Daphne put on Jane yesterday seems to be working. She’s actually on her way to catch the streetcar for the first time in forty years and she happily climbs aboard.
“How much?” she asks the driver who points to the $3.35 sign. He then looks Jane over and points to the smaller sign beneath indicating the Seniors’ price of $2.30.
“You’re kidding,” she says. “Last time I took a bus it was 15 cents.”
Through the window, Jane looks at all the little shops along Kingston Road, some of them teeming with treasures. Maybe she’ll go shopping after the interview, she thinks, as a kind of reward, but before she knows it her mantra kicks in again and she begins to chant think less think less think less think less think less think less think less think less think less think less think less think less until the bus driver turns and yells, “Listen lady. I’m not the one who sets the prices.” 
But Jane, who is thinking less, doesn’t get why he’s suddenly blurted this out and moves a few seats further away from him.
For the moment, she is quite unconcerned about her purpose or destination and simply stares out the window blankly until she sees the Birchmount Avenue sign whiz by, which is when she snaps out of it, dings the bell, and hits the sidewalk. 
She’s early for the interview, and wanders back along Kingston Road, stepping into CoffeeMate for a quick espresso but she changes her mind at the request for five dollars and sixty cents. 
“You’re kidding,” she says. “For a single!?”
She can’t do it. Something has changed.
Still too early, she walks past the Warrior Waze sign, until she’s in front of Mertz’ old hardware store, which is currently under renovation. She remembers going in there with her father, the isles full of mysterious shiny things she wasn’t allowed to touch, the wavy old hardwood floor, Mr. and Mrs. Mertz ancient and creaky as the store itself.
She glances with interest at the antique store across the street, which she also remembers from her childhood, but again, her mantra kicks in. She turns to go back to Warrier Waze, just missing Daphne, who comes from the alleyway and goes inside.
She doesn’t see Kreskin either, who, still running, approaches the store.
He slow-motion enters, like he’s crossing a finish-line, the usual gaggle of bells becomes Chariots of Fire, and Daphne, who is deep into the process of untangling the crystals on Jane’s chandelier, looks up.
“Oh, fuck,” she says.
Kreskin walks down the first isle, through the silverware section, through the furniture section, past the wall of doors, to the luggage area where Avo mistakenly placed the guitar. He picks the case up, and carrying it against his chest, he leaves, without a glance Daphne’s way.
Outside, he sits on the church pew he recognizes in a casual way as the one from home, takes his guitar from the case which he leaves open on the ground, and starts to play, softly talking the guitar into tune, “It’s ok, Claire. It’s gonna be fine.”

Jane is in the reception area waiting to be called for her interview. The room is full of 20-somethings, every one of them staring at their phone. Jane looks for a magazine or something to read but all she can find is a stack of pamphlets about what looks like a group tour company. She picks one up and reads the headline: You’ll Never Be The Same Again. Inside there’s a picture of a group of people, all wearing white robes, walking deep into a far-away jungle.
She imagines Kreskin in the group of people, wearing a white robe like them, walking deep into a far-away jungle, a red dot on his back.
She puts the pamphlet in her purse. 
A middle-aged man jogs/slides into waiting room. She recognizes him from the pamphlet except now he is wearing a Warrior Waze t-shirt, jeans and sneakers – all meant for a much younger man.
He calls Jane’s name, and looks surprised when she stands up.
“Oh. I thought – “ he points to one of the 20-something girls who looks like she could be Jane’s daughter, back to Jane, back to girl – and after an awkward pause, says, “Well come on in,” and Jane follows him down the hall.
“I’m Michool.”
“Nice to meet you, Michael. My name is Jane.”
“Michool,” he corrects. “Michool.”
The studio is trying very hard to be an awesome millennial workplace. There are all kinds of popular games and toys but they are cheap and second-rate. The ping-pong table is yellow, for instance, as are the balls, and it’s crowded into a small space in a corner where there is not enough room to play. A legless fooze-ball table is sitting on top of a coffee table, a couple of girls are playing but they are weirdly crouched, one of them rubbing her aching back. It’s all pretend cool. Just like Michool, who directs Jane into his office where she notices the name Michool has been printed, cut out, and taped over the bronze plaque that once read Michael.
“Take a seat, June,” he says.
We see a framed photograph on Michool’s desk, of himself and presumably his mother. 
Jane is wearing the same outfit as his mother.

Kreskin continues to play, and talk to, the guitar. “I know. Me too. Weird, right? I get the same feeling about this place.” 
Waitress Norma, 22, from vegan Our Salad Days, slinks by on her way to secretly get a sandwich from MeetMeat, on the opposite side of Clutterbucks. She is wearing a t-shirt that says “Friends don’t let friends eat friends.” 
Norma reaches into her pocket and tosses a toonie into Kreskin’s open guitar case, and in that moment she confirms what Kreskin and Claire were discussing, and it’s official: Kreskin is Clutterbucks resident busker.
He smiles at Norma, who blushes and smiles back. 
At the counter in MeetMeat, Sylvester, wearing a Roadrunner t-shirt, is ready to take her order. 
“Sausage again today, Norma?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not that hungry any more,” is her dreamy reply.

Michool’s phone rings, mid-interview, and he checks who’s calling.
“Sorry, June. I have to take this,” he says.
“Jane. It’s Jane. June. Whatever.”
Michool turns in his chair and speaks quietly.
“I know, mom. I know. I know it’s not easy sweetheart. I know... Oh I’d love to. You know Salisbury steak’s my favourite... “
Michool gets off phone and turns. He has tears in his eyes and he looks at Jane, says nothing for a moment, looks at his mother’s picture.
“Listen. June. I will give you a chance. I wasn’t going to because frankly you’re not what I expected and you’re over the hill. But as long as you are Social Media Savvy, I’ll give you a second interview.” 
Jane nods enthusiastically.
“Oh, yes. Very savvy. And quite social, too.”
Michool looks at his screen and he types June in the single empty slot where it’s shaded because it should be lunch.
“Ok. Tomorrow then. 12:45. Bring your portfolio. “
“Thank you,” Jane says. “Thank you so much. Wonderful. I mean cool. Awesome. Later –
“– Gator,” Michool laughs but catches himself before he says anything else uncool. “Dude. Later dude.”
Portfolio of what? Jane wonders, walking down the skinny staircase. Only creative thing I’ve ever done is lie.
Jane walks along Kingston Road, not exactly toward Clutterbucks, but in that direction. She keeps looking over her shoulder for the streetcar, but it’s nowhere in sight. 
She gets to the stop right across from Clutterbucks and her mantra kicks in, and she starts thinking less. Otherwise, surely she would notice the hand-carved pew sitting outside, and perhaps catch a glimpse of her grandfather clock in the window.
Every time she looks up the street to see if the streetcar is coming, Avo, Daphne, Graciaf and Kreskin are in plain sight but the moment she looks across at the storefront, they are either gone about their business or hidden behind a vehicle. 
A garbage truck pulls in front of the store and parks. 
Jane recognizes the driver. It’s Greybird, the garbage man Daphne sent over to empty her basement.
He waits in the truck until he hears the gaggle of bells indicating Daphne has stepped out onto the sidewalk before he opens the door and climbs down. Jane watches, noticing the tinfoil cap which he suddenly becomes aware of and quickly, he clamours back up and reaches into the cab for a Blue Jays baseball cap which he pops over the tinfoil.
Usually people who are crazy enough to wear tinfoil hats don’t care who sees it. But that is not the case with Greybird, who wears the tinfoil over his bald spot because he believes it helps the hair-growing tonic gain traction because his ponytail has dwindled of late into more of a rat tail and his credibility as a proud First Nations man, he feels, is at stake. His heritage is important to him always, and especially now, when the funding of his new world is at a critical point.
Greybird meets Daphne on the sidewalk, but he’s watching Kreskin, who turns with great interest and wide eyes and covers his mouth in disbelief. He’s “heard” of this person and has written about the new world he is building.
“Hey Bird,” Daphne says cheerfully. “What you got for me today?”
“Medicine cabinet, globe, half a row of theatre seats – plaques on every one – a leather-tooled landscape like before, from the train, just as nice as the last one and twice the size.”
“How much?” she asks, “for everything.”
“Well Daphne. Building a better world is not cheap. Going to run into some problems at the Canadian Shield. Likely will need the entire crew.” He pauses, looking into the distance, “Seven hundred fifty.”
“Three seventy five,” Daphne says. “Meet you out back.”
Jane, still waiting for the streetcar, watches the garbage truck turn down the alley, looks longingly at Clutterbucks, takes another look up the street. 
No streetcar. Stares at Clutterbucks again. Up the street again. 
Finally, slowly, she points. Traffic stops. She steps onto the crosswalk. 
A final check up the street reveals an oncoming streetcar. 
She leaps back onto the sidewalk where the streetcar comes to a stop in front of her.