Chapter 21: A Gentleman's Proposal

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After the week at Bible camp, the summer of ’64 was the same usual routine. Up early, to the barn, eat breakfast. Cliff was always ready with my orders for the day. There was no shortage of work to do on the farm, especially since I was now the only helper.

For the first year or so, Cliff worked on the farm every day, all day long, and my brothers and I worked with him. Now, he was at the farm only for a few hours in the morning each day, and for a full day on Sunday, otherwise he was mostly at the beer parlour with mom. Bruce was gone for good, and Raymond was away all July and August working at Maylings’ tourist camp. I was Cliff’s only farm helper now.

Even if I spent every day, all day, working, I would still never get all the work done.

After breakfast, Cliff showed me what my day’s work would be. Usually, he came with me to make sure I got a good start on it before he left. I just followed along, doing everything he wanted me to. He always wanted to make sure I did things right. He knew there was a proper way to hoe potatoes, for example. And without his instruction and demonstration, he couldn’t trust me to be able to figure it out. He wanted to show me that he was the master. I went along with his plan without complaining, because I had a different agenda for my day.

As soon as Cliff got me started on the job, he left and went to the house. If I was down at the barn, I kept my ears alert waiting to hear when the car’s engine started. He always left before noon to go to the beer parlour, meeting my mom there after she finished cleaning rooms at the hotel. If my mom wasn’t working that day, they left together. For me, the earlier they were gone, the better. Sometimes, they left as early as 11 a.m. They never said goodbye, they just left when they were ready.

I was not allowed to go back to the house until they were gone. I could hear the sound of the tires on the gravel as they drove down the driveway to the gate. There was a pause when they had to get out of the car to open and close the gate. That’s usually when I ran up to where I could see the car going down the road. They never looked back to see me. As soon as they left, I was free! I stopped doing whatever it was I was doing and came back to the house, my house. Now my day was my own. I could do whatever I wanted to. I wasn’t going to do all Cliff’s work for him while he drank all day in the beer parlour.

Cliff must have known that I never finished many of his jobs. One day, he left me hoeing in the potato patch. From there, I could easily see when they had left the property, and they could also see me as they drove down the road. In that case, I just waited until they rounded the corner and were out of sight. Not once did they ever come back to the house for any reason. I supposed it was too much of a nuisance for Cliff to come back and check on me later in the afternoon to see if I was still working. Once they were gone, they were gone until midnight, guaranteed.

The potato patch never did get hoed. He sent me out to it every day for a week on that job. I didn’t even manage to finish hoeing one complete row, and there were about 20 rows. He knew I didn’t like that job, so that was why he wanted me to do it.

One morning, Cliff took me to the shed and made his way through piles of junk until he found a large, old-fashioned, wooden scythe and a smaller metal golf-club-shaped weed whacker in the back corner. He must have disturbed a wasp’s nest because the next thing I knew, they were buzzing after us. I remembered going in there one time out of curiosity and getting stung a few times, so I never went in there again. This time, I was closer to the door so managed to get out and away from the wasps in time, but Cliff got stung twice on the arm, yelling out a few curse words that I hadn’t heard before. He told me to wait there while he went in the house to dress his wounds. He put some calamine lotion on the welts and covered them with bandages. He was still cursing when he came back out.

Cliff grabbed the scythe and told me to carry the whacker. We walked out into the field in front of the house. I had no idea what he had in mind for me this time. Obviously, he had a job for me, a new job. Maybe he was running out of ideas. In previous years, he plowed this field in the fall and planted seeds in the spring, harvesting the field in the summer with us helping him. It was a very large field and took a couple of days to bale all the hay and stack it in the barn. Now, the field was overgrown with weeds and grasses.

Cliff showed me what a sow thistle looked like. I hadn’t really noticed this particular weed before. Each stalk was about two to three feet high, with a yellow flower at the top that looked somewhat like a dandelion but a bit smaller. He showed me how to use the scythe. He could cut down quite a swath with just a swoop or two. I tried it but it was too heavy and unwieldy for me. It also took some coordination, which I didn’t have, and after a few tries, I just couldn’t manage it very well. I tried the metal whacker and that worked much better, though it did not cut down as many thistles with each swoop compared to the scythe. But I could handle it much better, so I started whacking them down, a few at a time.

He watched me for a minute or so to make sure I could do it correctly. Once he was satisfied with my effort, he told me that my task for that day was to cut down all the sow thistles in the field. He took the scythe back to the shed on his way back to the house. I lifted up my gaze and looked around me. There were millions of thistles. The whole field was dotted with yellow as far as my eyes could see. Basically, I would have to cut down the whole field, because there was hardly an area that did not show blotches of yellow. Cliff left me standing there, stupefied with the thought of trying to complete this new chore. He had given me an impossible task and a senseless one as well. How many ways can someone try to ruin a child’s life? He must have thought long and hard to come up with this one. Crazy man!

I could see how Cliff must have gotten many twangs of pleasure out of this particular project. First, he got pleasure from telling me what to do. He enjoyed giving orders. Second, he gave me a job I hated. He did not want me to enjoy my life. Third, he knew I could never finish this task. He had set me up for failure, I had no chance of being successful. It would take me a week of whacking for 10 hours a day to clear that field, and no child should be expected to do that.

Cliff could use this impossible task to prove once again how useless I was, and to give himself more reasons to yell at me. It was obvious this was given to me as punishment. This completion of this chore was not going to benefit anyone, nor was it essential or reasonable. What could be the purpose for doing this anyway? What was he planning to do with the field once the sow thistles were gone? There was no logic in this, but dictators didn’t need to use logic. Cliff’s answer was always, “Because I told you to do it.” I whacked away for a while until I saw the car going down the road. Then I put the whacker away, and went back to doing what I wanted to do.

The summer dragged on. I no longer found it interesting or amusing to play with the cut-outs from the catalogues. I lost interest in piling up hay bales to create forts and towns. I wandered around the barn and the fields looking for other things to do, but I was getting bored with everything.

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Often, during the hot afternoons, I sat on the front steps of the farmhouse and looked out over the field, wondering what the next year would bring. I would be starting grade nine in September, and going to high school. That was exciting and something to look forward to.

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One afternoon, I was inside the farmhouse when Blacky frantically started to bark. It happened so suddenly, it startled me. Something must have alarmed Blacky for her to immediately start barking like that. Because the barking was urgent and agitated, it made my hair stand on end. My heart started to race. Someone must be coming into our yard and coming very fast.

I looked out the window and saw Blacky barking in the direction of the gate. None of her barks had ever frightened me before. I had gotten to know them and their meaning. At night, when she growled deeply and made a yippy bark, staying under the porch, I knew there was a wild animal nearby, perhaps a fox or maybe even a bear. When a person walked up the road, which was very rare, she stood at the edge of the field and barked in that direction, intermittently to show there was no immediate danger. That was her warning bark to let us know someone was in the vicinity. When someone came to the gate and opened it, she barked in that direction, but not frantically. Today’s bark was very different and it scared me. It was as if she didn’t have time to give a warning, but danger was imminent.

What was also strange was that someone must have been coming into our yard on foot. No visitor had ever come into our yard on foot. Someone must have parked their car by the gate, perhaps on the road. Blacky would have started barking much earlier had someone been walking up the road. I couldn’t see the gate from the house, so I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure this out, but I didn’t have much time to think. The barking was becoming more incessant. Whoever was coming would be making an appearance in just a few seconds.

I looked out through a window, making sure I was out of sight, so I could get a glimpse of who it was before they could see me. I could see that Blacky was starting to back away slightly, so the person was very close. Then I saw this tall, skinny figure emerge from behind the shrubs.

It took me only a second or two to figure out who it was. I knew the man from seeing him at Ed’s Grocery store. He was an elderly widower who lived by himself, and I knew he had children and grandchildren. My heartbeat slowed slightly as I took in this information. I assumed he was harmless. Why he was here and how he got here was a mystery, however.

I considered hiding in the house and not answering the door, but our doors were never locked, so he might come inside and look around. I didn’t want to appear afraid, suspicious or nervous. I wanted to act very normal. I didn’t think he would be a threat. This man was twice the age of Frenchy, so I didn’t think I had much to fear. But he was not an old doddering fellow, he seemed physically fit and walked with an energetic gait.

I quickly decided to go outside and meet the man, before he got to the door and could come in the house, partly to show that I was ready to face him. This way I would also have a chance to run away outside if I felt I was in any danger, whereas I could get trapped inside. I stood at the top of the steps. He took a few more strides with his lanky legs and stood in front of me, his eyes almost at the same height as mine. He was a tall guy. As soon as Blacky saw that I greeted him, she quit barking, moved off to the side, and then went back into her den under the porch.

“Hello,” the old man said. “May I come in, please? I would like to talk to you about something, if that would be all right with you. Is it okay if I come inside?”

I was a little hesitant about this, but somewhat curious too. He wasn’t aggressive. He could have just barged in if he wanted to. I was a little bit leery but decided I could trust him. I started to breathe more easily.

“Of course,” I said. “Come on in.” I led the way by walking ahead through the kitchen and into the living room. I offered him a seat.

“Thank you,” he said. I took a seat across from him. The old man seemed nice enough, almost overly polite.

“I’m here because I have an offer for you,” he said. “I would really like you to consider it.”

My eyes lit up. Maybe it was a summer job, I thought. Maybe he would hire me to clean his house or something like that.

“Okay, tell me,” I said, my curiosity piqued, eagerly waiting for him to continue.

“I don’t know if you knew Phyllis who lived in Minnitaki before?”

“Not really,” I said, looking a bit perplexed as I shook my head.

I had heard about Phyllis, she was several years older than me. Cliff had mentioned her family when we first moved to the farm, and I had heard her name mentioned by others occasionally. Her family used to own a farm around here somewhere, but they had sold it and moved away.

It didn’t take him long to get to the point. He went on.

“You see, Phyllis and I were good friends, but she moved away some time ago. I’ve been quite lonely ever since. When she was about your age, she came over to my house about once a week and we had some fun together in the bedroom. It was very safe and no one was hurt. I gave her money and we were both very happy about the arrangement. I would like to make this offer to you, as well. You can be sure that I wouldn’t hurt you in any way. You don’t have to do very much. You would make me very happy if you’d do this for me. You can earn some extra money and no one needs to know about us either. I guarantee you, I would not tell anyone. We would keep this just to ourselves. I think it would be a mutually beneficial situation, good for both of us.”

The old man paused and waited for a response from me, without a flinch. My hunch was correct. He was offering me a job, just not the type of job I was hoping for. I tried to contemplate this situation more clearly. He was so polite and courteous, and worded his offer so carefully and respectfully. It was a gentleman’s proposal, in a sense. He wasn’t being pushy about it. I could sure use some extra money.

In my mind, I tried to picture what his penis would look like. He was old and wrinkly. Would his penis be old and wrinkly too? I quickly decided that I didn’t want to see it. So that made the decision easier. Many girls might have been shocked by what he said. I could have been insulted too. But, in fact, I was quite amused by it. My experiences in life so far seemed strange enough, but this was even more bizarre. I was quite relaxed now as he didn’t threaten me, not like Frenchy had.

I answered, also in a very polite way, as if this had been any ordinary proposal. “Thank you for stopping by. That was very kind of you to offer me this opportunity, but I don’t think I want to do that. Not right now anyway. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to show respect to the man, as he had been very respectful to me. I bent my head to the side a little, like a curious dog, to show him I was trying to be kind, and hoping he would take my refusal with good will.

The old man immediately stood up. “Well then, I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for listening. Please think it over. Remember the offer will always be open for you, so please let me know if you ever change your mind. I hope you will consider it carefully. It’s been wonderful to meet you and thank you.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will think about it and let you know.” I didn’t want to flatly refuse him when he had been so nice to me. By leaving the option open, he wouldn’t feel outrightly and totally rejected.

He strode to the door, said goodbye, and quickly walked around the bushes, towards the gate.

I mulled over the situation in my mind, trying to analyse what had just happened. I saw nothing wrong with what he suggested, and I did not think it would be illegal or immoral. It seemed like a reasonable request. According to him, he didn’t force Phyllis to do anything, she did it willingly. She must have liked getting the money, so that was good for her and good for him. Maybe she even had fun doing it. It all seemed okay to me, except that I didn’t want to do it, that’s all.

I just had an offer from a pedophile, though I did not know that word at that time.

I never mentioned the old man’s proposal to anyone. I kept this little secret to myself. I also never mentioned what I now knew about the old man and Phyllis, and their special arrangement.