Growing Up Amish - A Memoir Part 13

Shocked silence ensued. Gasps were hastily stifled. Several lovely young Mennonite ladies paled and cast startled glances at each other, struggling to cover their dismay. You could have cut the disdain with a knife. The young man smiled patronizingly. And that was the end of the conversation, since I obviously had nothing edifying to contribute. To this day, Iam still not sure whether he was trying to trap me or embarra.s.s me or was just having a benevolent conversation with an obvious misfit.

Then everyone recovered and smiled again. A healthy glow returned to the wan faces of the shocked young ladies. I hunched down, chastised. Just leave me alone. Later, I overheard the clean-cut young man comment that he would like to see Alice Walkeras The Color Purple, a very aina movie among Hollywoodas cultural elites. His friends somberly nodded that they would like to see it too. I said nothing, but I thought to myself that I probably would not want to see that particular movie, just because it impressed them so much. And I never did.

Dean and I headed out again early Monday morning, driving northwest. Destination: Montana. Iad never been through this area of the country before. It was vast, open, and breathtaking. Dean and I took turns driving and pushed on through until we arrived.

He was an old hand at this. Head worked the wheat harvest several times before and had all the necessary contacts. He was confident he could land me a job, even though I had no experience with motorized field equipment. Eventually, we arrived in Great Falls, Montana, and left the interstate for the dusty roads that led into the country, surrounded on all sides by tens of thousands of acres of golden, rolling wheat fields.

And then we arrived at the Rossmiller family farm, a cl.u.s.ter of buildings dwarfed by the open countryside. There, Ben Walters and his harvesting crew awaited us. Ben, a tall, dark-haired man with a no-nonsense gaze, and his wife, Donna, were from Magrath, Alberta. They traveled south into the States every year with a huge convoy of equipment and machines and worked their way back north toward home, harvesting wheat for grain farmers. Eventually they ended up back in Canada, where Ben and his brother farmed around ten thousand acres.

Dean and Ben greeted each other like old friends who had worked together many times through the years. Then Dean introduced me. Ben looked me up and down and seemed a trifle grim. I was the perfect picture of a wild Amish guya"twenty-four years old, with curly black hair that fell down to my shoulders. I shook Benas hand and looked him in the eye. He launched a few curt questions: aWhere are you from?a Fresh off an Amish farm in Iowa. aHave you ever driven a combine?a Nope. Never driven much of anything with an engine, except a car. But I can learn. I can ride with Dean for a day or two. Iam capable.

None of the questions were personal in nature. My problems were of no concern to him. Only one thing mattered. Could I perform the work if he hired me?

And for some reason, probably because he trusted Dean, or maybe because he desperately needed help, Ben Walters hired me on the spot. Five bucks an hour. Flat rate, no overtime pay. And room and board. I was hugely relieved.

On the wheat harvest, there is little opportunity to spend money. All you do is work, sleep, and eat, day after day. This meant my wages would sit idle and acc.u.mulate until the harvest was over.

Ben had four harvesting machines, combines, they called them. Ma.s.sive hulks of fabricated steel on wheels, painted John Deere green. Each one was as big as a house, with a roomy cab mounted front and center and encased in gla.s.s so the driveras vision would be unimpaired, at least on three sides. Dean and I walked out and inspected them. I was astounded and intimidated. Maybe this time Iad bitten off more than I could chew.

aItall take a month to learn how to drive one of these,a I said.

Dean laughed. aTheyare simple to operate,a he said. aYouall be driving by tomorrow afternoon.a We rode out the next morning in a combine. Dean was at the wheel, and I perched beside him on the armrest of the driveras seat. He s.h.i.+fted into gear, and the combine shuddered as the thirty-foot-wide cutting blade clacked to life below us. We moved slowly forward into the field; behind us, wheat poured into the combineas holding bin. Dean coached as he drove. aKeep your hand on the lever, here. You can feel if somethingas wrong, once you get the hang of it.a aKeep your eyes on the cutting blade, down below, and make sure the wheat falls in smoothly.a aWatch out for rocks.a And so on. After lunch, he got out of the driveras seat and motioned me in. Thus began my crash course in operating heavy farm machinery.

It was a weird feeling, operating such an enormous piece of equipment. A short hydrostatic lever controlled the ten-ton machine. Push the lever forward to move forward, pull it back for reverse. And that was about it. We throbbed along that afternoon, Dean keeping a careful eye on things. I remained tense and alert, always scanning for any sign of mechanical trouble.

Dean stepped out of the combine sometime during the second day, leaving me all alone in the cab. He moved over to the job he loved, jockeying Benas semi-tractor hitched to double trailers, hauling wheat to the elevators in Great Falls, while I trundled along timidly in the fields, driving the combine on my own. For a few days after that, Ben kept a close eye on me. When he saw that I was responsible and careful, he relaxed, and I grew more and more confident with each pa.s.sing day.

In the comfort of my air-conditioned cab, I drove and drove through endless acres of waving gold. And in that private zone, alone in my cab, the recent past gradually receded from my mind until it seemed far awaya"another world, in another life. Physically, I was a long way from Bloomfield, and emotionally, the distance lengthened each day.

I immediately connected with Donna, Benas wife. The year before, she had emerged from a long battle with cancer. Shead licked it, at least for the moment, although within a decade or so it would return and claim her. She was a strong and beautiful woman, exuding fort.i.tude and courage. Perceptive and intelligent, she instantly saw through my smiling facade and sensed that I was running from something in my past, that I was lost and searching. And in time, she openly confronted me. Not as a hostile force but as someone who was genuinely interested and concerned. I remained guarded at first, but as time pa.s.sed, I began to confide in her. I told her who I was. What I was. The things Iad done. And she was intrigued.

At the time, I was deeply immersed in the works of Leon Uris. During our conversations, I cautiously mentioned as much. She immediately went out and bought one of his novels and read it cover to cover in a few short days, and then we discussed our opinions of it.

Ben, too, lightened up a good deal as the weeks rolled on. He was a good and decent man, slightly dour, with a dry sense of humor. He was a businessman, a farmer, and above all else, a man who walked forward into life, tall and confident. He had been born in the Hutterite colonies in Alberta. A communal branch of the Anabaptists, this society was even more closed than the Amish. His parents had left the colonies, and Ben grew up mostly outside the confines of that isolated culture. But he knew and understood what it was to break away. Through the course of many decades, he had seen his parents grapple with the pain, the struggles, and the stress of it.

I didnat realize it at the time, but this Mennonite couple from Magrath, Alberta, were providing exactly what my hungry, traumatized mind craved and cried for at that moment. Ben provided me with work, a job that required many hours of physical effort each day. He looked me in the eyes and treated me like a man. And Donna, well, she provided intellectual challenges and a tentative place to communicate, even though at that time I had little grasp of how to do so. They were there, Ben and Donna, and to a large extent, they were safe. Safe, as in a place for me to unwind from and absorb the stress and strain of all that I had just fled back east.

The days and weeks rolled by, and August came. Day after day we rolled through the fields, from midmorning until midnight or later, when the call would come over our two-way radios to stop for the night. Then we would park our machines, get out, and wait for the pickup to fetch us and haul us back to camp, where we would fall into our beds for a few hours of exhausted, dreamless slumber before getting up the next morning to do it all over again.

Sometime in August, Dean left for his home in Daviess. He did not travel the wheat harvest because he had to, but simply because he enjoyed it. He didnat need the money. It was unfathomable to me that he could afford to travel for almost two months without any concern about his future. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he was never really alone. He had his family back in Daviess. A secure support structure, always there for him in case of emergency.

And I knew they would have been there for me, too, in an extreme emergency. But in the normal course of things, I had no one. Unlike Dean, I was alone in the world. Whatever happened, he would be okay. He would somehow make it back to his family. I would nota"because there was no family to whom I could return. Not in my current state.

With Deanas departure, the fact that I was alone, at least symbolically, was even more obvious. I had people around me, of coursea"Ben and Donna and the crew. But except for Donna, they didnat know that much about my past. I was on a clean slate, alone, among those I had never known before. No connection whatsoever to Daviess or Bloomfield. What little Dean knew of my past stayed with him and went home with him. And in the vast Montana landscape, I felt a strange new sense of freedom in the here and now. The past was behind me. Who knew what the future held? In the moment, I simply lived.

In the spirit of this vagabond life, I decided to grow a beard and a mustache. It actually looked pretty tough, especially after I took to wrapping a bandanna around my head as a standard part of my daily attire. I could have been a mean biker, the way I looked. Definitely not someone youad want to meet in a dark alley late at night. But it was just image, with no real substance. I wondered if all the tough guys I had ever seen felt the same way. Or even some of them. Maybe it was nothing more than a sham, dressing like that.

Late August came, and with it, my birthday. I was twenty-five years old, and I celebrated alone, quietly and reflectively. I donat remember if I even mentioned it to those around me. To me, twenty-five had always been some distant, mystical age by which I figured I would be settled into the Amish faith and lifestyle. A young Amish husband in my own newly established household, perhaps with a son or daughter, moving forward into the future, content in the quiet life. Thatas where I had always thought Iad be at twenty-five.

But thatas not where I was. I was in the remote country of Montana, vagabonding my way through life, thousands of miles from the land of my fatheras people, because I could not abide there. It was a bit of a jolt to realize, at twenty-five, that life was not turning out as Iad always imagined.

After the wheat harvest was done, Ben planned to travel from Great Falls over the border into Canada. He asked if I would come along and work for him. By then, I was considered an experienced, battle-hardened handa"just the kind of guy Ben needed in Canada to harvest his own crop. With my Canadian birth certificate, I could legally cross the border and work. I agreed to go on one condition. I needed a guaranteea"fifty hours a week, at five bucks per hour.

Amazingly, Ben agreed to my terms. I figured his local labor market must have been pretty bleak or he wouldnat have agreed so readily. But his risk was low. Theyad never worked fewer than fifty hours a week in previous years. How could he go wrong?

And soon enough, we harvested the last acre and wrapped it up in Montana. During the next few days, we disa.s.sembled machines and loaded them on trailers for transport up north. And when we left, I got my first and only experience as a trucker. I proudly drove Benas ten-wheel dump truck, pulling a thirty-foot combine head on a trailer. I reveled in the experience. Bearded and bandannaed, I gripped the steering wheel and s.h.i.+fted gears like a pro. When we reached the border, I handed over my paperwork, and they waved me througha"a boring moment for a real trucker, an intense, once-in-a-lifetime moment for me.

I pulled into Benas huge farm complex and parked out by the shop. This was my first time in Alberta, three provinces west of Ontario, the place of my birth. Ben pointed me toward a small travel trailer set up behind the shop, where I unpacked my meager belongings and got mentally set for the long days ahead.

Then a strange thing happened. Great cloud banks rolled in from the west, and it began to rain. And rain. And rain. Day after day, then week after week. Such heavy, persistent rains were a rarity for the season, and as the days pa.s.sed, the soggy wheat bent heavy on the stalk and then bowed to the ground. There was nothing to be done except wait. And wait. Restless, I puttered around the shop, swept, cleaned, and asked Donna for projects she wanted done. Eventually, I was stuck. There was no work. But I didnat sweat it. Ben had guaranteed me fifty hours a week. So whether I actually worked or not, I knew Iad get paid.

It rained for a solid month. It was the first time in anyoneas memory that such a thing had happened. Ben stirred about uneasily, looking at the dark, spitting skies. But there was nothing he could do.

In an effort to pa.s.s the time, I commandeered Benas farm pickup and headed off to the town of Lethbridge, about twenty miles away. There, I hung out with the other harvesters, local guys who gladly welcomed me into their group. I loved spending time with them, absorbing the clamor of their Canadian dialect. They were good guys, all of them. One of them owned a house in town, where I ended up staying for days on end, partying, vegging, and just hanging out, waiting for the rain to stop.

After four weeks of incessant rain, the skies finally cleared. This time, it was not a temporary halt, as had happened a few times before. The sun came out and stayed out, drying the earth and the soggy wheat. After a few days, we geared up for work, silently, almost desperately.

And then we attackeda"one vast field after another. The largest one was two miles square. We cut that field and many others. Day and night for four weeks we worked. And then it was done. We had finished the Alberta harvest.

It was time for me to leave that world and head back east. Back to Daviess and the people and places I had not seen for months. Ben and I settled up. He never winced, but paid me through all those weeks of rain, plus the actual hours of labor on the harvest.

It was a nice, fat check. At least to me it was. A good chunk of money. More than I had ever owned before. With the help of my new local friends, I went shopping for a vehicle. I wanted a pickup truck. A manas wheels. We located one at a shady, small-time dealers.h.i.+p. A Chevy, built in 1979. Blue, trimmed with a wide gray stripe on its sides, and dual exhausts. It was a cla.s.sic truck with high mileage. But most important, it was priced within my budgeta"twenty-five hundred bucks. With what I had earned from Ben, I could buy the truck, get it licensed and insured, and still have enough left over to make it back east.

It was my first vehicle since the Cougar with the 351 Cleveland engine, back in Florida. All I had to do now was come up with a fitting name. It didnat take long. On the blue, hard-plastic bug s.h.i.+eld mounted on the hood front, I glued reflective letters spelling the word Drifter. It seemed so fitting for who and where I was at that time.

In the next few days I packed up to leave and said good-bye to Ben, who offered me work the following spring.

aCome on up and help me seed my fields,a he said. I felt good about the offer and promised to consider it. Then I stopped at the house to say good-bye to Donna. She wished me safe travels and invited me to return again, as a friend if not a worker. And then I left them.

30.

It was late October, and the nights were chilling. From Canada I headed down to Montana and stopped for the night at the Rossmiller farm, where I had learned to drive a combine mere months before. They greeted me cheerfully and put me up for the night. The next day I headed east.

I took my time, meandering back. A week or so later, I arrived in Daviess, where I discovered my friends in a tizzy. They had not heard from me in more than a month. This was, of course, before cell phones. You couldnat just call someone whenever you wanted. I had not communicated much with Eli or the Wagler family since the summer, and not at all recently. As the days and weeks pa.s.sed and no word came from me, they imagined something terrible must have happened. They were ready, they claimed, to send someone on the road to find me.

I settled into the trailer house with Eli and his brother, but not for long. I could not rest in Daviess. I itched to move and to travel. And within a week or two, I was making plans to head south to Florida for the winter.

I took what money I had, loaded the Drifter, and headed down to Pinecraft, the Sarasota Amish suburb where my brother Nathan lived. There, I rented a room and found a job as a masonas helper. I had not been back to Florida since Marvin and I lived there in 1981. Nathan and his friend Eli Yutzy lived in an apartment in the very center of Pinecraft, and we hung out almost every night, playing cards and partying.

Iam sure I appeared relaxed to those around me during those winter months. I enjoyed life and, to some degree, enjoyed living. But always, deep down, a thread of desperation pulsed inside me. I was a drifter, a rolling stone with no goals and chronically short of money. I was living day to day. I had zero long-term plans, or short-term plans for that matter. It was not a good place to bea"financially, emotionally, or spiritually.

And always the old thoughts crept in and tormented me. I could not squash them, could not escape. I brooded quietly, intensely. What would happen to me if I were killed? I knew, deep down, there was no hope, none at all, that I would ever make it to heaven. Iad done so many bad things, hurt so many people. I had left the Amish church for the world after promisinga"on my knees when I was baptizeda"to be faithful. Breaking those vows was a very serious thing. There could be no hope of ever righting those wrongs. Not unless I returned and repented and rejoined the church, which was not an option.

But I could not shake the thoughts of my sins and of the afterlife. I knew I was lost and frankly admitted as much. There was no salvation for me. Not in my current state. I had escaped the box of the Amish lifestyle. That was a simple matter of making a decision and walking away. But the box that bound my mind wasnat that easy to escape. Entrenched inside my head, powerful and persistent, my fear of eternal d.a.m.nation would not be denied. And I could not shake it off.

Once againa"in spite of myself and in spite of the fact that it had never worked out beforea"thoughts of returning sprouted and grew. Frightful thoughts of returning to the fold of the Amish church. It was the strangest thing. I had returned three times before over the years, and not once had it worked. In time, I always despaired, always chafed at the confines of the culture. And yet I felt that this time might be different. This time, I could make it work.

It was tricky, the way things played out in my mind. The Amish have always taught, always preached, that once the desire to return leaves, thatas when you are truly lost. Because thatas when your conscience has been seared with a hot iron and you wonat know right from wrong. Youare a walking dead man. Preachers have polished off many a sermon with tales of such people, people bereft of hope who yearned for the desire to return and could not grasp it. Tales of woe and loss and tears of regret and eternal d.a.m.nation.

And in my head, I still held on to that spark, that remnant of desire to make it work. I seized on that remnant as proof that I could make it work. Simply because there was a shred of desire. Desire based on fear to be sure, but desire nonetheless. I could return. I would return. In the future, of course. At some distant date, maybe the next summer. That was still far enough away that I could consider it without freaking out. Inside me, the restlessness stirred, as it always had. Wherever I was, I wanted to return to where Iad been before. Not the real place, but the idyllic place in my mind. The place that could be, if only I could get it right. And do it right.

I mulled over the issue and mentioned guardedly to my friends that I was thinking of returning once again to the Amish church.

Their reactions were pretty unified, mostly a mixture of horror, disbelief, and astonishment. My awilda buddies were incredulous. Why would someone do such a thing? Iad just torn away from Bloomfield. How could I even think of going back into that mess? It wouldnat work. Even my Christian friends, the Wagler family, responded with polite disbelief. They were much nicer about it, but clearly skeptical nonetheless. From their perspective, why would someone ever want to return to the darkness of that cold and legalistic world?

And so, surrounded by doubters, I found myself alone again. Alone and confused. But I could not shake the idea. Why couldnat I go somewhere else and try it? Some other community instead of Bloomfield? That way, I wouldnat have to face all those people from the past. Especially those I had hurt so cruelly. Especially my parents. And Sarah.

I still thought of her sometimes. Mom wrote to me of her and how she was doing. In one letter Mom dramatically informed me that Sarah had had a date with someone else. Another guy. Now she was gone, Mom wrote. It was too late for me to ever get her back. Momas message was crafted to make me feel bad, but instead, I read her words and felt nothing.

The weeks rolled by, and I finally caved to the mental pressure. I decided to at least explore the idea of going back again to the Amish church. This time, I thought I might go to northern Indiana. There was a huge Amish community there, stretching from Ligonier in the southeast to Elkhart in the northwest, more than a hundred districts, total. Maybe even a couple hundred. Either way, it was a big place and a long-established settlement. I could try it there, I figured, without causing a lot of waves. They had seen about all there was to see when it came to wild youth. Besides, the place was so big, odds were n.o.body would even notice me or make a fuss.

I wasnat looking forward to the effort it would take to go back: moving again, getting rid of my truck, and forcing myself back into the mold. But a more powerful force was compelling me, pus.h.i.+ng me forwarda"the force of fear. Not that I talked about it much to anyone, but it was there, a fear planted deep within me. The raw fear of h.e.l.l and eternal d.a.m.nation was the only thing that could ever have made me consider returning to any form of Amish life.

We all long for inner peace. And I was simply following the only path I knew to try to reach it. Not that there were any guarantees. Only ahope.a No a.s.surance of anything.

I had a contact in the northern Indiana area, which is probably why the idea occurred to me at all. That contact was Phillip Wagler, one of my first cousins, who was born and raised in Aylmer. Iad known him all my life. A quiet guy a few years older than I was, he had married a local girl in the Ligonier area and settled on a farm. So I located his address and wrote him a short note. I told him what I was thinking and asked if they would consider providing a place for me to live. Of course, Iad expect to pay for my room and board, whatever they thought was fair. I hoped to find work in one of the many local factories that employed primarily Amish people.

Phillip replied almost immediately, and I knew his response before even reading it. Phillip and his wife, Fannie, would be delighted to put me up and provide room and board. He was certain Iad be able to find work in the area, and he wanted me to know that he and his wife were eager to have me.

I read the words he wrote. Absorbed them. I had taken the first step, the exploratory step. Now the offer lay there before me in black and white. The doors seemed to be opening for my return. All I had to do was walk through.

Although that was just about the last thing I wanted to do, the invisible force of raw fear compelled me to seriously consider an option so repulsive. This was a chance to redeem myself. To return. If not to Bloomfield, then at least to the fold of the mother church. Return and make good.

It wasnat easy, considering going back. But it wasnat easy, either, to consider the alternative, an eternity in h.e.l.lfire. Pretty scary stuff. This was my last chance, I figured. I was twenty-five years old. If I didnat make a decision soon, it would be too late. The desire to return would leave me. And like Cain, I would wander the earth alone. Lost. With no mark on my forehead for protection.

I thought it through for a week or two. Or three. Then, in February, through sheer force of will, I made my decision. I would return, for one last try. One last attempt to make it as an Amish person. Strangely, my decision did little to relieve my inner tension. I wrote back to Phillip. I would move up in June, which somehow seemed like a safe distance. But I knew it would come soon enough. I told my friends of my decision. And Nathan. Of the choice I had madea"again. He said little, but he supported me. If thatas what I wanted, then thatas what I should do. They all, I think, recognized instantly and instinctively that it would not work.

I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the time I had left on the outside. June lurked out there in the distance like a Montana mountain storm, approaching slowly, relentlessly, soon to be unleashed with savage force.

It was only a matter of time. From that point, the days pa.s.sed at hyperspeed. Soon March rolled around, then April. I wanted to return to Alberta and help Ben Walters with the planting that spring, so I packed up and left Florida. Nathan wanted to settle in Daviess for a while, so I dropped him off on the way. After a few days of hanging out with the Wagler family and other friends, I headed for Alberta.

On the way, I pa.s.sed close to Bloomfield, so I stopped for a few days. I donat know why, particularly. To see family, I guess. I told them of my plans to settle in northern Indiana and rejoin the Amish church there. I donat know why they would have thought it would be any different this time, but they believed me. My parents smiled with joy. I was returning to the fold. Thatas all that mattered. Whatever I had done in the past could be overlooked, forgiven, if only I returned.

After a day or two, the Drifter and I headed into the Dakotas and then on into Canada. Ben and Donna welcomed me. By the next day, I was driving a four-wheel-drive tractor as big as a house, pulling an eighty-foot-wide harrow across the fields. For days and weeks on end, I tilled the vast fields of southern Alberta.

All too soon, in late May, it was finished. And June approached. I fought the sinking feeling in my stomach, the dreaded thought of returning. But I held fast to the plan. There was no backing out. This was my last chance. It had to work this time. It simply had to. There was no other choice.

I sold the Drifter in Lethbridge to one of my friends from the previous fall. After cas.h.i.+ng out, I said good-bye to Ben and Donna and boarded a bus for the long trip back to Daviess, where Nathan would meet me. Iad stay with him a few days; then he would take me to Ligonier, Indiana, for my final return to the Amish church. One way or another.

31.

After an exhausting three-day trek, my bus finally reached Daviess. Nathan was there, waiting for me, grinning. He was doing well. He had rented a small house in Odon, bought an old T-Bird, and made friends. He was getting established in the area.

I hung out with him until the weekend. Then, on Sat.u.r.day, we loaded all my stuff into his car and drove north. Four hoursa"the amount of time it took to reach the new land where I would try it all over again. I was running on pure adrenaline, fighting the rising panic inside me, focusing only on this final brutal sprint.

Looking back, I donat know how I did it. Given my history, this attempt was doomed to fail. I had left the Amish four times over the years. Each time brought its own degree of serious trauma, and there was not a single time I had returned with joy. Not one. Mostly it had been homesickness and nostalgia that lured me back. Or economic stressors. And after each return I realized almost immediately that I did not want to be there.

But I was stubborn. Something of my fatheras blood stirred in me. Unwilling to admit defeat, still trapped inside that box in my head, I would do what needed to be done. The Amish way provided my only chance at salvation, of this I was convinced. I knew it in my heart, and no one could tell me otherwise.

I wonder now if my father would have been proud, had he known how deeply his influence and his teachings had invaded my soul. How strongly his presence and the craving for his approval and his love haunted me. Despite all I had experienced through the years, I was returning one more time.

Nathanas old T-Bird pulsed along, heading north around Indianapolis toward Ligonier. Closer and closer. Our conversation was muted and terse. Nathan could not understand what I was doing or why, but he would do what it took to get me there.

And then, way too soon, we were pulling up to the farm. Phillip and Fannie walked out to greet us, smiling in welcome. Their farm was a tidy little place with a rather ramshackle farmhouse. They were childless, so there was plenty of s.p.a.ce in their house, and they very much looked forward to having me around.

Nathan helped me carry my bags inside and upstairs to my room, then politely declined Fannieas invitation to stay for supper. After visiting for a bit, he turned toward the door, ready to leave.

I fought back wave after wave of panic. After Nathan left, I would be stuck here on this little farm, with no way to get around. Trapped in a strange land, where I knew no one but my cousin and his wife.

I walked Nathan to his car, shook his hand, and thanked him. He got in, started the engine, and s.h.i.+fted into gear. The car slowly pulled out, tires crunching on the gravel lane. I watched as he turned onto the paved road and then was gone, heading back to his world in Daviess.

I turned back to the house, where Phillip and Fannie stood smiling. I walked toward them, smiling in return, but my heart was sinking. In that desperate moment, I was as lost as Iad ever been.

The days and weeks that followed are blurred in my mind, as are some of the things that happened while I struggled to settle into this strange new place. It was Amish, but it was vastly different from Bloomfielda"or Aylmer, for that matter. I had always lived in small communities of one or two districts. This settlement was ma.s.sive, stretching many miles in all directions. These people had been here for many generations. Some of their habits and customs seemed strange to me. Small things, probably indiscernible to anyone from the outside. Differences in dress. The area is one of the few where galluses are optional for men in many districts. Distinctive head coverings for the women. Even the cadence of their talk seemed odd. Other than that, I canat put my finger on exactly what was different. It just was, the entire area, I mean.

I settled in uneasily, always aware of my surroundings, always aware of my status in this place. I was a stranger here, in a strange land.

The first order of business was to get myself some means of transportation. In northern Indiana, the Amish are allowed to ride bicycles. In fact, the roads are practically clogged with Amish bikers, and after trekking to a local Amish cycle shop, I joined their ranks. I chose a brand-new, bright blue twelve-speed, with collapsible baskets mounted over the rear wheels. It was the first bicycle I had ever owned. And that was my transportation, except on Sundays when I drove to church in an old buggy Phillip owned.

I knew no one. People were friendly enough, and they did their best to visit with and include me, but it was tough. I was an older single guy, and I didnat exactly fit in anywhere, under any circ.u.mstances. That was bad enough. But then almost immediately, I walked smack into a serious roadblock as the Amish bishop in the Ligonier District, a harsh, screeching man who will remain unnamed, rose like a specter to confront me.

After my last desperate flight from Bloomfield, I had been excommunicated from the Amish church. As was the custom, immediately following services one Sunday, good Bishop Henry Hochstedler had stood before his flock, sadly proclaimed me a heathen, and formally cast me over to Satan, to be shunned as an outcast. There were tears in his eyes, I was told, as he officiated over that somber little ceremony. I was also told that Mom was asicka that day and stayed home, so she wouldnat have to endure the pain of hearing the bishopas words. I was her son. I would always be her son, excommunicated or not.

Now, after moving to Ligonier, I planned on performing my official penance there and doing whatever it took to be reinstated and have the excommunication lifted. It wasnat that unusual, what I was planning. Those who left and were consequently excommunicated were known to rejoin somewhere else in another area, for a fresh start and all. It happened, here and there, and the preachers usually understood and did what they could to ease the journey back.

On my new bright-blue bike, I cycled over to see the bishop on his farm one fine summer afternoon. He was outside, puttering around the barn. He was a short, dark hulk of a man with a large, untrimmed, red-black beard. Not that old, really, probably in his midforties, but he seemed old to me back then. He saw me approaching and paused, almost as if he were irritated at being interrupted in his work. He grimaced with what barely pa.s.sed as a smile.

I introduced myself and his asmilea disappeared. He glared at me suspiciously.

aIam here,a I stammered, ato see if I can rejoin the Amish here in your church, be taken in as a full member.a I explained how it had gone in Bloomfield, the people I had hurt when I left, and how I had been excommunicated. I really didnat want to have to go back there, to rejoin, I explained. I would also save face rejoining here, I thought, but that fact remained unspoken. We both knew the real reason.

The bishop did not seem receptive, or even cordial. He stared at me grimly, unsmiling and hostile. I could feel his spirit, thick as smoke. Then he spoke, his rasping voice echoing across the barnyard.

aNo,a he said. aYou will need to return to Bloomfield and make things right there. After they take you back as a full member, you are welcome to move here and transfer your members.h.i.+p to my church. But not before.a I tried to reason with him. aYou donat understand,a I said. aI really donat want to go back there. I canat go back. Thereas just too much there, too much bad blood.a I may as well have choked on my words, for all it mattered. He listened to me speak, but he refused to hear. Nothing would sway him. He was every bit as dense as he appeared. Denser, even. Obtuse. And hard inside, like a rock.