My Dad Got Me to a Nunnery

by B. A. Berube

  across our street.

  I acquired more satisfyingly independent work to gain from time to time at the Card

  residence. Every several weeks, I scraped out the fetid stench of wood shavings containing

  the droppings of the turkeys at the Card’s turkey farm. I also plucked turkey feathers for

  them just before the Thanksgiving harvest. No complaints about that from me. Yes, that was

  tough labor, but the money it brought in to me was well worth it. The good working-class

  people from across the street, namely Mr. and Mrs. Card hired me. I always refused their

  compensation for work I enjoyed –no matter what the task was. Nevertheless, they

  consistently refused my repudiation of remuneration. Of course, the Gamaches took my

  earnings for “safekeeping,” buying me a new item of clothing from time to time from that

  cash. I never dared ask what my savings remained in that inventory. I had no cause to distrust

  them. As for the kinder, gentler Cards across the street, I happily worked for them any time—

  money notwithstanding. Every dollar I earned went into the Gamache bedroom coffers—

  never to be seen again. I was too ignorant and trusting to pocket the money I earned.

  I also painted the Card house and their barn. Not only was I handsomely paid, Mrs.

  Card frequently interrupted my work detail in order to prepare banana splits for me, ice cream

  sundaes, and may varieties of her legendary pastries. An inopportune circumstance presented

  itself as I was foolishly transporting a long extension ladder containing a full gallon of white

  oil-based paint on its top rung. The bucket escaped its hook and descended pell-mell over my

  head. Yikes! What was I, a bumbling laborer, to do? If I were to return across street to the Gamaches to report this ignominy, I knew that I would become as dead as a regenerative sea

  star. I was terrified at that prospect. Moments later, a characteristically jovial Mrs. Card

  approached me as she uttered her favorite phrase, “Heavens to Betsy!” In a tone of

  affectionate assurance, she beckoned me to come into her kitchen, “Let’s get you cleaned up.

  We can’t let Babe [Gamache] see this. No way.” With her at my side came a gentle head

  dunking in the sink with a cup of turpentine. Repeated massaging of Lestoil in my scalp and

  neck followed that maneuver. Finally, I came clean. What next? A root beer float, of

  course. Mr. Card next presented me with a new bucket of paint as I more cautiously and

  vigilantly carried on with my post above the tall ladder. Despite my sincere insistence of

  performing pro bono work, I remained generously paid. This incident was to be our covert

  operation, one that the Gamaches would never know, but one that I would be razzed about for

  many years of reflective laughter in the Card family. Mrs. Card was my very best ally.

  Sometimes, Mr. Card, too.

  Mrs. Card treated me generously at Christmas, where she took me to the department

  stores of Lewiston to choose any clothes I wanted. Knowing that the Cards were a family of

  limited disposable income, I sought to rebuff their generous overtures as well the money that

  she and her husband were so openhandedly paying for the tasks I carried out at their request;

  they insisted that I accept it. Whether it was for work or to socialize, I found that visiting the

  Cards’ home to be my getaway, my Utopia. Save for my late Mom, Mrs. Card was the

  surrogate mother anyone would have loved to have—a spartan existence and an eminent

  yeoman whose heart no platonic valentine could ever emulate. Two years after my mothers’ death I was remarkably fortunate that this angel from heaven was to become my surrogate

  mother. No one could raise my spirits higher than she.

  During the summer of 1961, I met my best friend, Bob Lavertu, second only to Peter

  Plowman, my convent buddy from St. Louis Home. two years earlier. Bob was nephew to the

  Gamaches, whose parents traveled from Connecticut to Maine to vacation there every

  summer. Nearly the same age, Bob and I hanged out together at the Gamache homestead as

  his parents went elsewhere. Enjoying each others’ company, we went fishing at a fishless

  brook, chatting about for hours—ignoring the need to include Danny Gamache in our

  camaraderie. Our lapse in accommodating him was, on hindsight, reprehensible.

  The climate of my relationship with the Gamache family began to erode when I

  became a high school freshman. Evident was a appreciable increase in their drinking,

  household disarray, and a raised level of annoyance not previously exposed. For my part, I

  chose to mind my business and go about my routine without question. That is what I did. The

  kennel had grown to accommodate more than sixty German Shepherds—puppies and other

  dogs maintained for breeding. Witnessing the birth of pups a couple of times a year was

  uniquely special; just their trusting mother, her pups, and me. The kennel business had

  expanded to include the boarding of cats and dogs of customers.

  The Lisbon kennel evolved to become 100% my responsibility—feeding, cleaning,

  and exercising the Shepherds as well as its other canine and feline boarders. That also meant

  keeping the barn’s kerosene stove functional during the winter with heat sufficient to keep the

  water pipes from freezing. My chores also called for maintaining rat traps, where we killed up to three rats a day. These long-tailed vermin feasted on the animal grains and the feces they

  accumulated. During winter, we maintained warmer spaces for the puppies in the house

  basement—another haven for the plump and hoary rodents we could hear from our living

  space above. Despite the distant and useless company of our occasional parasitic visitors, I

  cherished my private time in the basement with the puppies. Whenever I tired of the animus

  of Aunt Fern and Uncle Babe from the kitchen or living room overhead, I became spiritually

  affianced in the harmony of hums among the weeks-old puppies in their cages. I regularly

  crawled in the cage with their mother as I dozed off to their soothing chant. The mother

  welcomed me against her warm shoulder as her faithful guest, given our bizarre and “cagey”

  arrangement. My existence, however escapist, appeared quixotically healthy in the dog pen.

  Balancing my high school studies with work at the Gamaches was sometimes taxing,

  though almost always manageable. As long as there was little or no recreation no after-school

  stuff, I could manage my responsibilities for the dogs as well as maintenance of the

  Gamaches’ two buildings and several acres of fields, apple trees, and maples This meant

  many full weekends dedicated to hours and hours of solo leaf-raking. Care in landscaping the

  property was mine as was painting the main house, the barn, including the interior of both

  (Yes, I painted the barn’s interior, too.). Aunt Fern assigned to me the task of washing all the

  windows of the homestead each month and washing the floors throughout the seven-room

  house . Each Saturday, she assigned me to dusting those rooms, including the individual slats

  of the Venetian blinds among each of their fourteen windows. Washing the dishes for each

  meal was my chore as was hanging out the laundry and tending to the ironing of the clothes of our four-member household. At day’s end, Uncle Babe instructed me to me drive

  his station wagon backwards into the barn. Mind you, I had not yet learned how to drive a

  car. He only taught me how to place t
he car in Drive mode or Reverse mode for the purpose

  of getting it into the barn each night. That minor routine was a pleasant duty to end an

  otherwise protracted day with this atypical family unit.

  Whenever I was seen by myself reading or otherwise left to my own devices, Aunt

  Fern instructed me to drop whatever I was doing in order to accompany Danny on the swing

  set or the hanging tire that he briskly enjoyed After supper, I managed my homework and the

  Gamaches permitted me about an hour of TV time each day What a treat it was to watch The

  BeverlyHillbilliesand Bonanza.shows! Danny, however, did not watch television. He

  would prefer that I entertain him outdoors, however dull that was for me each day, given that I

  was an advancing adolescent versus this pre-adolescent who was developmentally and

  intellectually comparable to a six-year old.

  The Gamaches reminded me of the fine role model I was for Danny when he and I

  were back at the convent. I understood that to be why they were prepared to take

  responsibility for my care. Some may tritely insist that nothing is free in this world. Yet, I

  felt somewhat free, limited only in that I was bound in servitude to my owners: the Gamaches.

  Except during my first year with them, they rarely gave me money—no allowance, no pocket

  change. My contribution to their care of me was, as I was frequently reminded, miniscule in

  comparison to what I was costing them to have me with them. I never did the math. They

  also reminded me that what I was doing for them was my duty as an honorable Catholic, reared by the dubiously good nuns at St. Louis Home. Besides the Gamaches took me in, rags

  enhanced by my nothings, from the sidewalks of Lewiston. Surely, I ought to have been more

  grateful. Indeed, I never openly questioned them, though their sanctimonious sentiments

  eluded me—especially on Sundays, as I walked alone to and from St. Anne’s Catholic Church

  to attend Mass as they all slept in.

  Uncle Babe often stopped at the local bar before coming home to dinner. That was his

  little secret. Aunt Fern, meanwhile, sipped a bit of whiskey while she was awaiting his arrival

  for dinner. That was her little secret. My duty was to keep Danny company while these pesky

  events were going on. Later, after dinner, he returned to the beer joint to guzzle two or three

  or four beers after a couple of brews at home; that left Aunt Fern and me alone with Danny.

  The two of us were the sole sober creatures in the house, plus the two dogs.

  I knew when Aunt Fern’s whiskey had taken full effect once she reminded me

  repeatedly of how lucky I was to be living with them. Her endless chant was that the

  Gamache family was my only hope ever to become an respectable adult one day. They

  repeatedly reminded me that my parents failed to own up to their responsibilities as parents of

  us eight offspring. Aunt Fern also expressed confidence that, sans Mary Ann, my sisters

  Flora and Florence and Connie would become honorable contributors to society—thanks to

  their convent upbringing. They dubbed our oldest sister ,Mary Ann, a hopeless sailor-chasing

  harlot. They judged brothers Bobby and Junior as shameful because each sported a tattoo, and

  that Bobby stole a b-b gun from Gamache’s store. Surely, I would not want to descend to a

  the sort of righteous lifestyle of the sort that the Gamaches thought I had left behind. Yet, I knew better than to think of Uncle Babe as a model parent. or as caregiver. A drunken Aunt

  Fern commanded me to utter to her husband the following: “ Disezà Babequetului

  apprecié.”[“Tell Babe how much you appreciate him.”] I respectfully remained silent.

  One could surmise that I was Uncle Babe’s evening caregiver. The evidence would

  suggest that to be true. After completing my evening homework, Aunt frequently asked me to

  take a walk to the local tavern in order to retrieve Uncle Babe—to have him return home

  immediately, saying , “ Disezàluiderétournericitoutesuite.”[“Tell him to return home

  right now.”]. After realizing that I was an ineffective courier in instantaneously rescuing her

  Budweiser-bruised husband, Aunt Fern scolded me as useless. I really hated to serve as

  messenger; there was nothing to gain by obeying her command. Besides, I knew that a return

  home from the bar meant that awaiting him would be his whiskey-wasted wife. What’s a kid

  to do? As always, I sauntered in to the pub as Uncle Babe bought me a Coke on tap along

  with a bag of potato chips. Not a bad deal. To my contentment, he and the bartender

  exchanged favorable comments about my character. Mind you, Babe was drunk; I did not

  believe his kind words about me to be genuine. When we returned home from the pub, Aunt

  Fern had long given up waiting for us as she went to bed. Not once did she ever interrogate

  me about my misguided visits to Uncle Babe’s watering hole. After a time, my intervention

  on her behalf ended only to be eventually replaced with a witness to his infidelity. Alas,

  Uncle Babe had a lady friend. What was I to do next?

  Aunt Fern’s fury over Uncle Babe’s betrayal of his marital vows added to their

  customary dysfunctionality that I had come to know well. Their mood swings grew worse as I entered my sophomore year. In addition, it was becoming increasingly evident to me that I

  was unwelcome in their home. I also understood that I had nowhere else to go, though I

  faithfully executed the chores I had been given. My assigned work schedule remained intense

  at probably five hours each day after school and perhaps seven hours on the weekends. No

  friends to visit; no calls to make friends. As far as I was concerned, I was living in captivity.

  Once again, my quixotic alternative was to either bide time with the Cards across the street or

  to curl up with our caged dogs of Lisbon Kennels, or if only I could just live forever at school.

  I was, for the most part, contented with those escape venues.

  My fifth year with the Gamaches was also the time when my brother Bobby and sister

  Connie, finally confronted my father about his unrelenting irresponsibility to their care. While

  I was miserable as a domestic to the Gamache ingrates, they did provide me with three squares

  a day as I did for the dogs, too, at two squares a day. Dad was determined to discontinue

  supporting them. Bobby and Connie, by contrast, went frequently hungry, though they had no

  chores or other responsibilities to manage other than their schooling. There was no parental

  supervision at home. When they ultimately confronted Dad about the empty refrigerator and

  cabinets, he told them to go to work to provide their own food. Connie and Bob felt that they

  had no alternative other than to take their father to court. When the judge asked Dad what he

  expected of his children, given their ages as minors, he lectured the judge about his free

  loading children—just enough to anger the judge in forcing Dad to allocate dollars from his

  wages to each of his children under age eighteen. For me, that meant three dollars each month

  for my use in any way I wished. Of course, the Gamaches placed my newfound resources in their “good hands,” not too differently from Soeur Boulé’s style of managing my account.

  Like most people, I have long cherished caring, positive human relationships. To that

  end, I sincerely labored at home and at school to please the Gamaches during my first two

  years at high school. However delusional my intentions, I th
ought I could make them proud.

  I did not enjoy the loneliness that life among the Gamaches had foisted on me. There were

  others I needed to enlist as friends. There were two: each quite different. One was my high

  school soul mate, Al, with whom I shared the sordid details of my past as well as my pathetic

  status as a charity case. I knew that he was fascinated by the events in my history. Until this

  time, I discussed my past with no one else other than to Peter, my childhood friend at St Louis

  Home. Al was very much middle class, bright, and personable, though, like me, he had few

  friends. I also befriended one Robert Roy, a loner with a serious spinal condition, causing him

  to remain hunchbacked. We both shared our disadvantaged status as wards of the state,

  though Robert’s life at a state-approved private residence seemed so far better than mine. I

  also flirted a bit with a few girls, but the Gamaches placed limits on my socializing after

  school, permitting me to attend very few weekend functions at school where guys and gals

  would party under the close auspices of school personnel. No matter, Danny, the dogs, and

  doing the domestics were always the top priority.

  deliverance

  As a state ward under the care of “Uncle” Babe and “Aunt” Fern, I was well aware that

  they pocketed the state’s money for my food and shelter> I was well aware of their

  unscrupulous squeazing any of my small change, arguing that my income from Mrs. Card or

  from the print shop was theirs. Babe was remarkably well skilled in exploiting my talents as a

  defenseless teenage laborer. My aptitude as an aspiring handyman served Babe and Fern well.

  I provided them with free labor such as painting interior and exterior floors, ceilings,

  makeshift carpentry, landscaping, and kennel care. Since, I was also capable of managing

  domestic chores, Fern directed me to oversee all aspects of their homestead. Unpaid

  drudgery involved tending to gardening, laundering, ironing, house-cleaning, dishwashing,

  short order cooking, childcare. and factotum plus. My eventual covert mission was to do the

  Gamaches proud, to maintain an intrepid smile when they boasted to their friends (however

  trifling) and relatives of my happy enslavemet unto them. The time had come. I was poised