Last Bus To Wisdom: A Novel

Donal wakes, uncomfortable from the night’s sleep, and goes downstairs. He hears Aunt Kate and Herman argue with one another in the kitchen and stays away until they are through. He asks Aunt Kate what she did with his money, which had been in the shirt he threw in the laundry chute. She tells him that the shirt was beyond saving, so she threw it away. They quickly determine that the money has gone irredeemably to the dump.

The telephone rings with a phone call from the hospital saying that Gram has come through the surgery and is recuperating. Donal feels like telling his grandmother that he is in an unacceptably strange place but does not get to speak to her. Aunt Kate sets up a card table with a 1000-piece puzzle for Donal, one he has worked on before. She tells him he can also go to the greenhouse, where Herman is working with his vegetables.

Outside, Donal discovers that the ceiling of the greenhouse is made from old photographic plates with the faces of many families and individuals still visible. Aunt Kate appears, telling Herman and Donal that she is leaving for her weekly canasta game. Herman and Donal discuss the Indigenous tribes who lived in Manitowoc before colonization but now have completely disappeared.

When Herman fixes their lunch, Donal asks him why he doesn’t call himself Dutch anymore. Herman explains that Dutch was his nickname when he was a stoker who shoveled coal on an ore ship traveling the Great Lakes for 20 years. He explains that his ship, the Badger Voyager, broke into the Witch of November, the name sailors call the sudden autumn Great Lakes storms. Herman speaks of his best friend, who disappeared during that storm, and reveals that he lost an eye, showing Donal that his left eye is glass.

Aunt Kate returns, distraught because one of the canasta players is leaving the group. She decides that Donal can learn to play and be ready to be her partner in one week.

Once Aunt Kate decides to train Donal to play, she works with him for hours and grows frustrated when he does not grasp the nuances of the game. About this week, he writes, “That began a spell of time when the high point of my days was the sugar on my cereal” (167). Donal notices that there are no children in this neighborhood at all. Herman explains that the city has aged out since the conclusion of World War II. Herman wants to talk continually about life in the Wild West.

Donal, who intended to use his missing $30 to buy school clothes, wonders what will happen when he shows up without them. When Aunt Kate asks him how he broke his tooth, Donal makes up a story about chasing a stray cow once on horseback. He says the horse threw him when it got bogged in an alkali pit. He learns that he cannot speak colloquially because Aunt Kate finds his language offensive. When Donal grows frustrated with trying to please Aunt Kate at the canasta table, Herman secretly produces two decks of cards from his old duffel bag and shares insights about the game that Aunt Kate clearly has not discovered. Meanwhile, Aunt Kate spends time in her sewing room, excitedly making something that Donal mistakenly thinks is a shirt for him. Rather it is a new muumuu that Aunt Kate will wear to canasta.

One afternoon, Herman drives with Donal to a rundown area where they enter a bar meant to look like the inside of a ship. There, Donal meets Ernie, the bartender, a good friend of Herman’s. Donal watches in amazement as Herman successfully identifies by taste a number of beers that Ernie puts in unmarked glasses.

Donal and Aunt Kate go to the home of her friend Herta, who has decorated her home for canasta. Donal sees her parakeet, named Big Tiny Little Junior after a piano player in the Lawrence Welk orchestra. Donal finds Herta and her partner Gerda to be extremely good canasta players. He feels surprised to learn that they are playing for money, or as he asks, “Are we playing for blood?” (193). As the game progresses, Donal and Aunt Kate fall behind.

Donal hears Herta express a desire for a new lawn chair, which he knows she can purchase with Green Stamps. When the players break to renew their refreshments, Donal approaches Herta in the kitchen and tells her he has a full book of Green Stamps that will help her get her lawn chair if she is willing to make a mistake so that Aunt Kate and he win the game. Donal makes a savvy play that at the time seems to be an error. However, soon after that, Herta seems to accidentally drop an important card that Kate scoops up. In the aftermath, Aunt Kate and Donal reach 5000 points, winning the game and $10.

Afterward, Aunt Kate lectures Donal on minding his tongue. He responds by asking her when he will get his half of the winnings, which she says actually belong to her since she staked him to the game. Aunt Kate drives past the Manitowoc almshouse and warns Donal that they will end up there if they don’t carefully watch their money.

Donal reports that he promised Gram he’d write once a week. He euphemistically tells her that everything is going fine.

Donal overhears a huge argument between Herman and Aunt Kate and realizes that they are fighting about him. Herman says that Aunt Kate should leave him alone and that he should not have to play canasta. Kate suggests that Herman was a German soldier.

As soon as he has the opportunity, Donal confronts Herman, believing that Herman and his father were on opposite sides in the last war. Gradually Herman helps him realize that he was in World War I because he got drafted and had no choice. When the Nazis came to power, Herman sailed as a stowaway to the US.

When he discovers this, Donal feels emboldened to take what he thinks is rightfully his, as with the arrowhead. Aunt Kate discovers him in her coin drawer in the middle of the night taking his $5. They argue about which of them is the thief.

For several days, they avoid one another until Saturday morning, when Aunt Kate announces she will take Donal to the bus station and send him back to Montana. This causes him to panic. He says, “With Gram laid up, they’ll put me somewhere! An orphanage” (223). Aunt Kate drives him to the bus station by herself, saying Herman couldn’t bear to say farewell.

Once on the bus and almost out of Manitowoc, Herman sits down beside Donal and tells him that he has left Aunt Kate and will accompany Donal and they can go wherever they want.