The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter

by Holly Robinson

  “Did you know,” Dad enthused over his briefcase of papers at the dinner table one night, “that of the sixty-six thousand laboratory animals used in this country daily, over ninety-five percent are rodents?”

  “I had no idea,” Mom said. “It’s amazing how many things I don’t know.”

  As usual, Dad either missed or ignored her sarcasm; I could never be sure which it was with him. He kept talking as if nobody had said a word. “All we have to do to succeed is find a niche market for gerbils,” Dad assured us. “Give me a niche to fill, and I’ll do it.”

  Thanks to my father’s steady marketing efforts, which included advertisements in laboratory magazines and direct mailings, gerbils began inching their way into research studies on epilepsy, stroke, nutrition, human behavior, and infectious diseases those first two years on the farm. In a fit of optimism, Dad even created his own letterhead. The letterhead read “Tumblebrook Farm, Home of the Gerbil” in English and, in tiny letters below a simple line drawing of a house, the same thing in Mandarin Chinese.

  “Why Chinese?” I asked Dad, squinting at the letters.

  “For the gerbils,” he said, sounding surprised. “It’s the language of their homeland.”

  DONALD and I both worked for Dad after school and on weekends. Some days, it seemed like it took us years to trudge up to the silver building that sat like a windowless ranch house out on the back ten acres, especially in cold weather or when we were trying to outrun the mosquitoes. While our friends played sports or watched TV, we went to work and came back with wood shavings in our hair and stinking of gerbil pee. The stinging smell of rodent urine was so bad that Donald, assigned the unlucky job of loading the jeep full of used gerbil shavings for Grandfather to drive to the dump, rechristened that vehicle the “Honey Wagon.”

  Our chores in the gerbil building were mundane enough to produce the sort of altered state that I imagined my musician idols, Morrison and Hendrix, achieved with drugs. As Dad’s radio hummed easy-listening music in the background, we wheeled our carts up and down the cement aisles, rhythmically doling out green food pellets, filling water bottles, and cleaning out cages.

  We also tagged new litters of squirming, pink, blind gerbil pups as we moved through the tall walls of cages. Dad used a special system to track new litters. This involved attaching color-coded plastic rings to the cages of breeding pairs to mark the ages of the babies and recording births on index cards. The colored rings—red, green, blue, or yellow—each represented a certain age in weeks.

  We weaned the pups at five weeks, and the colored rings made it easy to identify which gerbils were ready to leave their mothers. We separated the new weanlings by sex into larger metal cages that held fifty or so at a time. I hated the assembly-line nature of the work, and tried to think of these gangs of young, single-sex gerbils as teenagers in school dormitories, waiting to grow up and get married. Dad had a more pragmatic view.

  “It’s pretty much like propagating seeds,” he observed. “You just put the gerbils in a box and watch them grow. When they’re old enough to breed, you set them out in new boxes of their own.”

  Though the work was often mind-numbing, my dad’s gerbil hothouse provided me with a welcome sanctuary after fending for myself at the high school, especially if it was an afternoon where I was lucky enough to work alone. Often I’d linger there after my chores were done, soothed by the steady scratching noises of the animals in their shavings. I’d change the radio station from Dad’s elevator music to rock and roll—forbidden by my father, who was afraid that hippie music would upset the animals.

  Occasionally I even brought homework and did it at Dad’s metal desk in the corner. Dad’s desk was “strictly off-limits to all employees,” that is, Donald and me. But I loved sitting there and, if I finished my homework, flipping through the science journals that collected in dusty knee-high stacks all around the floor. In this way, I discovered that there were pygmy gerbils, bushy-tailed gerbils, fat-tailed gerbils, Egyptian gerbils, Indian hairy-footed gerbils, and naked-soled gerbils. I wanted to see and hold them all.

  I also found out that our own Mongolian gerbils weren’t technically gerbils at all but a type of jird. They were also called desert rats, antelope rats, yellow rats, or clawed jirds, and fell in the order of rodents (Rodentia) and in the same suborder as mice and rats (Myomorpha). Gerbils were in the same family as hamsters (Cricetidae), but despite my mother’s dislike of them, I thought gerbils were cuter. I loved the thick black tufts at the ends of their tails and their dun color. The color, which Dad called “agouti,” was the same lovely soft brown as the cotton-tailed rabbits I often startled on my long walk up the dirt road to the gerbilry from our house.

  One day at breakfast, I asked Dad if I could have some gerbils to keep as pets in my bedroom. I’d loved training Kinky in Virginia, and I hated Dad’s view that all gerbils were the same, just “drones,” as he put it. I wanted to prove him wrong and show him that gerbils had souls.

  But Dad refused. “Absolutely not!” he shouted, clearly panicked by the very idea. “You are barred from bringing any gerbils into the house, and that’s an order! Is that clear?”

  “But why, Dad?” I asked, truly puzzled. I knew that he wouldn’t miss the ones I took. He certainly didn’t notice when Donald carried a shoebox of gerbils on his bike to sell to local kids for spare change, a practice he would continue through college, when he sometimes bartered gerbils for beer. “You know I’d take good care of them.”

  “That’s not the issue,” he said. “You kids would bring them down to the house, and then you’d get tired of them. Next thing I know, your pets would be back at the gerbil building, contaminating the colony with fleas or disease, and we’d be ruined. Ruined! Do you hear me?”

  “What disease could the gerbils catch if Holly brought them to the house?” Mom intervened from the stove, where she was scrambling eggs. “The children don’t have any diseases. I don’t, either.” She looked pointedly at my father.

  Dad shook his head. “Sally, you don’t know that. A staph infection could spread like wildfire through the gerbils and wipe out the business. Or fleas! Did you ever think of fleas, and what that would do to the gerbils? I’d never sell another animal if I ever filled an order with flea-infested or sick animals. We may never be a germ-free colony, but I can at least keep the colony clean.”

  Mom scoffed. “If you’re really so worried about our children infecting your gerbils, maybe you should put a shower inside the gerbil building so the kids can wash up before they go in there to do all of that work for you,” she said, turning back to the pan of eggs. “Hell,” she muttered into the stove hood, “why not make us all wear spacesuits? Life with you can’t get much weirder than it already is.”

  TWO years after our arrival in Massachusetts, Dad retired from the Navy without fanfare after twenty years of service. He immediately incorporated Tumblebrook Farm as a business and named himself president and treasurer. Mom was listed as company secretary. Donald and I were official company employees, “on the books,” Dad told us proudly, our work hours and pay meticulously recorded.

  I didn’t mind being a tax write-off. But being an employee meant mandatory attendance at Tumblebrook Farm company meetings. These were held in the dining room every Sunday night without fail, in case the IRS ever dropped by to see Dad’s accounts, which he kept in oversized record books that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. All he needed was a pair of fingerless gloves.

  “I don’t get why we have to attend,” I grumbled as I helped Mom load the dishwasher before one company meeting. “It’s not like Dad ever asks us for an opinion.”

  “Your father misses his Navy staff meetings,” Mom said. “Humor him.”

  That night, Dad opened up the company meeting in the dining room with a cigarette and a cup of coffee at his elbow and his briefcase in front of him. He began with an official welcome, then said, “My intention tonight is to bring you up to speed on the current state of
affairs and inform you of coming events.” He passed out a printed agenda.

  We heard a detailed update on building maintenance and construction. Then came a report on sales, which had been brisk again that week. Finally Dad surprised us.

  “I’m proud to announce that we can now promote Tumblebrook Farm as the world’s largest producer of gerbils,” he told us. “Our monthly sales now surpass those of any other gerbil breeder, including what Victor used to do.” He gazed at each of us in turn, as if waiting for us to dispute his numbers. When we didn’t, he argued back anyway.

  “It’s an entirely truthful tag line, unlike some,” Dad said, casting a sidelong glance at a copy of Lab Animal Magazine lying next to his briefcase, a look that said, You know who you are. “Given our rapid rise to success, I have begun plans for phase two of the business, which involves the construction of a second building similar in size to the first.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Mom said. She gripped her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles went white. “We don’t have that kind of money.”

  “We have no choice,” Dad said. “Despite the success of Tumblebrook Farm as a supplier of gerbils worldwide, there can be no resting on our laurels. We still have to grow while watching every penny.”

  “Dad, shouldn’t Grandmother and Grandfather be downstairs to hear this, too?” I asked. “They do an awful lot of work around here.”

  My father ignored me. “As I was saying,” he went on, “we can expect to have to tighten our belts during the next phase of the company’s expansion.”

  This was a common refrain at our company meetings. Phrases like “we’ll have to tighten our belts,” “trim around the edges,” and “lower the heat” were so routine that Donald, Philip, and I immediately began fidgeting, kicking at each other beneath the dining room table and dropping bits of food to make the dogs start fighting. Meanwhile, Mom stubbed out a Benson and Hedges on top of Dad’s Camels in the ashtray and gave a longing glance at the paperback novel she’d left on the sideboard.

  “Still, despite our need to proceed with the utmost caution as we venture into phase two of the business, I’ve deemed it necessary to hire additional staff,” Dad announced. “You kids simply aren’t keeping up with the work.”

  I looked at Donald. I knew who skimped on cleaning cages. He made a face and kicked me under the table again.

  “Who in the world is going to work for you?” Mom asked.

  “Your mother, for a start,” Dad said.

  That got us. We all stopped fidgeting, even Mom. “In the gerbil building?” I asked, trying to picture Grandmother, perfectly coiffed and outfitted in one of her proper tweed suits, taking that long walk up the dirt road to scrub out pee-soaked cages.

  “No, of course not,” Dad said, irritated that we were all giggling, even Mom. “I’ve made Grandmother our new company secretary.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Mom said. “I’ve been fired at last. I don’t suppose there’s any severance package, though. Ah well.” She stood up, carrying her coffee mug with her.

  “Where are you going?” Dad asked in alarm.

  “I assume that my presence is no longer required at company meetings, now that I’ve been given the boot,” Mom said, and left the room without even waiting for permission to be excused, grabbing her book off the sideboard as she made her getaway.

  ONCE he’d added Grandmother to the gerbil payroll, Dad put a telephone extension in her apartment so that she could field orders from customers while she continued to cook, sew, do housework, and take care of Philip when Mom was busy. Occasionally I’d wander into Grandmother’s apartment and overhear her taking down a message in her tidy retail clerk’s hand on the pad next to her new flesh-tone telephone. Grandmother’s keen interest in people, retail experience, good manners, and vaguely British accent made her the perfect public relations representative for Tumblebrook Farm. She’d chuckle over a Swedish researcher’s joke, or ask a Maryland scientist about his daughter’s wedding, and then she’d get right down to business, persuading scientists around the world that they really didn’t want to be caught short on gerbils, so it was always best to order a few spares.

  “What do you tell your friends about your new job, Grandmother?” I asked her one afternoon. “Do they know what Dad does?”

  “Of course they know,” Grandmother answered crisply. “I’m not the least bit ashamed. You shouldn’t be, either. I think your father’s done very well for himself. So does the rest of the family. Your uncle Skip and uncle Don both say they’d give their eyeteeth to build a business for themselves the way your father has. Most people don’t have the nerve to start a business from scratch.”

  “But do you tell your friends at church about the gerbils?” I pressed.

  “Oh, my, yes,” she said, tearing a message off her pink telephone pad. “And let me tell you, they’re all very impressed. They’ve never heard of gerbils, most of them, you know. They can’t even begin to imagine how we have thousands of them up here. But not one of my friends has ever expressed any reservations about it.”

  “Nobody?” I asked, surprised.

  “Oh, well, once in a while, I suppose,” Grandmother said, patting her hair. “But then I point out how very useful gerbils are for the different diseases these scientists are working so hard to cure, like cancer and epilepsy, and people understand that.”

  “They do?”

  “Of course they do!” Grandmother stood up and went over to the refrigerator, where she began pulling out ingredients for a shepherd’s pie. “Not that I tell just anyone,” she admitted. “When Laura and I took the bus to Boston with the senior citizens’ center, the bus driver asked me if I was retired, because I’m so young looking.” Here Grandmother paused, savoring that comment and patting her hair once more before going on. “I told him, ‘Oh, my, no, I’m not retired. I still work as a telephone secretary.’”

  I laughed, trying to imagine what the bus driver might have said if she’d told him about the gerbils. “That sure was quick thinking, Grammy,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yes, well, not everyone needs to know our business, do they?”

  WITHIN a year of incorporating Tumblebrook Farm, Dad was able to complete construction on his second building. We now had more than two thousand gerbils, many of them producing new litters every month. We were shipping gerbils to university research laboratories, medical schools, government scientists, and pharmaceutical companies all over the world. This meant that we were not only cleaning cages, feeding, watering, and weaning animals but also boxing them up and driving them to the airport once or twice each week.

  To keep up with business, Dad began hiring maintenance workers and animal caretakers. Donald and I met Dad’s first outside employee, Jack Baptiste, when we showed up at the gerbil building one Monday afternoon to clean cages. “This is our new animal caretaker,” Dad said, clapping Jack on the shoulder with the zeal of a feudal lord congratulating a peasant for fields well plowed. “He’ll be helping your grandfather, too, with all-around maintenance handiwork, trips to the airport, and whatnot.”

  Jack was a tall, knock-kneed man whose face was a road map of burst blood vessels. His skinny arms bulged with ropy blue veins and Popeye muscles. He wore a faded pair of blue work pants and black boots, but his tattered denim shirt had been starched and ironed with knife-edge creases. For the ten years that Jack worked for us, I never once saw him without a crisply starched shirt.

  But Jack’s single most unique feature was his nose, or rather, his lack of one. Where his nose had been was just a flap of skin between two nostrils, giving Jack the pinched look of a flounder glaring up at you from the bottom of the ocean.

  “You see how I am so strong?” he asked me in his heavy French accent that afternoon while we worked together, cleaning cages and feeding the gerbils. “Me, I was a logger in Quebec.” He made a muscle to show me how he’d felled trees, possibly without an ax.

  I focused on Jack’s bulging muscle to avoid staring at
his nose. “You’re very strong,” I said.

  “Strong like mad bull,” he agreed with satisfaction.

  “Why did you stop logging?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “The trees, they all go away, too many. And it is so cold in Quebec, you know? You always need your dancing to keep you warm. Dancing and a fiddle, and a crossbow to keep the bears away.”

  “Was your wife living up there with you?” I asked.

  “No, no, no! No women in the woods of Quebec,” he assured me. “They bleed, the bears come. No good. But you dance with the other loggers, you can stay warm anyhow.”

  Before coming to work for my father, Jack had been an animal caretaker on a chicken farm. “I quit there, because they have this buyer, he come to buy the sick or dead birds for the soups because they so damn cheap,” Jack said. “That is bad thing to do, I know that, so I quit.”

  Eventually Mom took notice of Jack’s shirts and began taking some of her laundry to Jack’s wife, Louisa. I loved driving over to Jack’s house with my mother because it was like no other place I’d ever seen.

  Jack and Louisa lived on a potholed dirt road in a crooked cartoon house with a stovepipe chimney and red asbestos siding. They kept their own little animal colonies on the side. They sold rabbits for meat. They also bred domestic animals to sell as pets: Maine coon cats, with tufted ears and broad, Cheshire-cat faces; foxy-faced Pomeranians with plumed tails and barks that could shatter glass; and homing pigeons that Jack kissed on the tops of their little heads before setting them free to fly who knew where. Mom called their farm “the little French village.”

  Louisa was built like a bullet and smelled of cat piss and dandelion wine. Because she made a living by taking in other people’s laundry, their yard was a spiderweb of laundry lines with clothes that flapped and slapped at your face and shoulders whenever you tried to make your way to the front door. Louisa also crocheted sweaters and blankets in color combinations that made you squint: yellow with purple and orange, brown with orange and green, orange with mauve and pink. Orange was the one consistent color theme in that house.