by Ira Wagler
We sat there silently through the eternity of the next few moments. There was nothing more to say. She stirred.
“I have to go now,” she said. I nodded and rose to my feet. As she got up to leave, she tossed aside the little ring of grass and dandelion stems. After she walked away, I picked it up and held it in my hands. It was a work of art, beautifully woven, about the size of a wristband. Too beautiful to discard. I carried it with me into the house and placed it carefully between the pages of a heavy book so it would compress and dry.
Through the years, and all that flowed from them, I somehow managed to preserve that woven ring as a remembrance of the beautiful young girl whose heart I so ruthlessly crushed, whose innocence was so cruelly shattered through no fault of her own. A token of guilt and penance for me, perhaps. But also a token of that time, those harsh and heavy days so long ago, when the world first trembled, then violently shook, then slowly collapsed in ruins around two young Amish people in Bloomfield, Iowa.
* * *
I left late in the spring of 1986. Behind me lay a long and bitter trail, littered with the remains of so many broken dreams, some of which were my own, but mostly those of others.
From my farming partnership with Marvin, I took one fattened steer and sold it at market for a thousand dollars. That and a duffel bag of meager belongings were all I took from almost two years of hard and steady labor on the farm. I didn’t ask for anything more. I was breaking the deal we had made, and he would have a tough go of it as it was. Now he alone would do the work we both did before.
Our good-byes were sad and short. Abrupt, even. There was nothing much to say to Marvin, to Rhoda, to Titus and Ruth, or to my parents. An English friend picked me up at the farm and dropped me off at the station in Bloomfield, and I boarded the bus around noon that day. I sat hunched on the seat, motionless, as it pulled out and headed southeast to my connection in St. Louis, then on to Indianapolis. Then south to Daviess County, the land of my father’s blood.
28
I dozed fitfully, slumped on the reclining vinyl bus seat. It was a comfortable seat for an hour or two—maybe even three—but not for a twelve-hour journey. The diesel choked and growled behind me as the bus rumbled through the night, on and on, hour after hour. Long after midnight we finally pulled into the station. I grabbed my bag and stumbled down the steps, bleary eyed, and scanned my surroundings for my cousin Eli. He had agreed to meet me at the station, even at this unearthly hour.
Soon enough he showed up, accompanied by a troupe of rowdy-looking friends. A band of intimidating, raucous toughs, they whooped and hollered as they approached. It was a Friday night, and they were feeling good. I gaped, mildly startled. I had imagined that Eli would come alone to pick me up so we could talk, the way we always did. But I greeted them all, shook their hands, and smiled, as if pleased to meet them. Of course, two minutes later, their names were as lost to me as if they were never spoken.
Eli and I embraced each other, smiling and greeting each other familiarly. He was my old friend from way back, though we hadn’t hung out much since the troubled days of the old green Dodge. Since then, Eli had left the Amish and moved from Missouri to Daviess.
We chattered for a few minutes in our native Pennsylvania Dutch, and then I picked up my bags, and we walked out of the station. After packing my stuff in the trunk, all five or six of us piled into Eli’s old T-Bird, which crouched low, sagging under the heavy load.
Eli had lived in Daviess County for a couple of years, working construction. Rumor had it that he ran with a tough, wild crowd. He lived with his older brother in a little three-bedroom single-wide in the country, a few miles southwest of Montgomery, Indiana. Redneck city, but perfect for two brothers, complete with a spare bedroom for an old friend.
Soon enough, after dropping off Eli’s friends, we were there. Exhausted, I stumbled in, lugging my duffel bag. Eli showed me to my room, a tiny cubicle with four thin walls and a door, but as far as I was concerned it was a palace. More than sufficient. Luxurious even. I collapsed onto the bed, conked out in minutes, and slept solidly through the night.
The next day I awoke to a new life in a new land.
* * *
Daviess County. The land of my father’s blood. And my mother’s. The land that harbored in its soil the hidden saga of my family’s history. The land of my ancestors, where several generations had lived and grown and toiled and died. The importance of this didn’t really hit me on that first day. I was more focused on adapting to my new surroundings. My earthly belongings consisted of a duffel bag filled with mostly Amish clothes, and a little cash. That was it. I was twenty-four and pretty much broke. But that was the least of my problems.
Emotionally, I was exhausted. And tense and jittery from the stress of recent events. Not that I talked about it much, what had happened back there in Bloomfield. I mumbled a few brief details to Eli to fill him in. He’d heard some rumors floating out there on the family grapevine, but he claimed he never paid them much mind. Eli was too busy to worry much about me. And as it turned out, the stories that had traveled through Bloomfield’s gossip lines were actually true. Eli was running wild. Partying hard with a rough crowd.
I didn’t think much of it, one way or another. Eli was an adult. He could take care of himself. I had enough to deal with.
Those first days in Daviess were surreal and strange. I had left home three times before, but my last flight from Bloomfield was different. Always before, I had known in the back of my mind—even as I was leaving—that I would one day return, that somewhere down the road I would come back to the quiet pastoral life into which I had been born. Back to my birthright and the way of my fathers. To settle down, to be satisfied and content.
Not this time. This time, the future was blank. There was no returning to Bloomfield. Not after burning so many bridges. After breaking so many solemn promises—to the church at baptism, and later to Sarah. This time, it was so much more serious. I had left as a member of the church. And in the code of Amish discipline, there would be only one reaction to my choices and my bold and wicked deeds.
Excommunication.
They would cast me out. Consign my soul to Satan and all his works.
There are a lot of ex-Amish out there who claim it’s no big deal to be excommunicated. That excommunication is so legalistic. So, well, quaint. And vicious. And biblically excommunication bears no weight. At least that’s what they claim. But I can guarantee that even if they don’t admit it, it does bother them, at least to some degree. Even though the process seems so infantile, so futile.
It is a terrible thing to be formally rejected by the only people, the only culture, you have ever known. Rejected as a heathen. Lower even than the common English. The English didn’t know better, so they could not be judged, at least not absolutely. But the excommunicated do know better and thus are responsible for their sins, their choices, and their actions. And because of their knowledge and actions, they are formally cast out and proclaimed tools of the devil, henceforth to be ostracized.
All this would happen to me soon enough. The full treatment. I would be formally excommunicated, that much was assured. They’d send out a warning letter, maybe two, urging me to return and make peace with God and the Amish church before it was too late. If I ignored the letters, there would be serious consequences. It would come down the way it always did. One Sunday after church, all members would be instructed to remain seated, and Bishop Henry would proceed with the process of casting me out.
It’s not that I wanted it to happen, the excommunication. But I knew it was inevitable. Things were messy. There was nothing I could do, not that I could see, anyway. And so I pushed back the thought and ignored it, focusing on the other pressing issues that demanded my energy—like surviving.
I don’t remember when the first letter arrived from home, probably within a few weeks. It was from Mom. She wrote chattily of the news, the weather, her garden, and how all the children came home the other night fo
r supper. They missed me, she wrote. Her sadness seeped from every line. I was heavy in their thoughts and, although not stated, in their hearts. I knew they were reeling from my departure, but I told myself they would work through it in time. They always had before.
I had some sense of how deeply I had hurt them. I thought of it sometimes at night, when sleep would not come. I thought of my family and of all the broken promises I’d made to them, to the church, and not least, to Sarah.
I thought of her sometimes. Mostly fragmented slivers of guilt, slicing through the shadows of my mind. But I had no regrets, other than about the way it all came down—the way I’d done things. That was bad. The heavy choking guilt closed in sometimes, but despite it all, nothing could have induced me to return. Not to Bloomfield, and not to Sarah.
* * *
Eli introduced me to his “adoptive” family, the people who provided some stability in his life at that time. They were my distant cousins, and they were Waglers. Ours was a very common surname in Daviess, which probably has more Waglers than any other locale in the world. These Waglers, this family, consisted of five brothers and three sisters, all living with their mother in one vast, sprawling house. Their father had passed away a year or so before from cancer. They were polite and genuinely friendly, and they welcomed me into the bustle and clatter of their lives.
These Waglers were big-time farmers. They owned a local grain-bin business and raised meat turkeys by the tens of thousands. The five brothers bustled about, each performing assigned duties like well-oiled machines.
I was invited to drop around every Sunday for lunch. They accepted me as I was. They sensed my troubled mind but never pried. I suspect Eli had filled them in on my less-than-honorable flight from Bloomfield and the mess I had left behind, but they never let on.
They were personable and fun to be around. They were Mennonites from Amish stock, but they’d never been Amish. And they were Christians. They attended church every Sunday and prayer meetings most Wednesday nights. They always invited me to go along. Sometimes I went, to be polite. After all, they fed me on Sundays. The least I could do was attend church with them once in a while. And church was all right, because no one bothered me with awkward or embarrassing questions.
I watched them, this clamoring, joyous family. They had recently lost their father, and yet they seemed so exuberantly alive. I wondered if they were all deceived, thinking they could possibly be Christians, living like that. So worldly—driving cars and dressing in English clothes. Sure, they talked the talk. Anyone could do that. But was it real, what they had? Deep down, I doubted it.
They were very relaxed, talked openly about their faith, prayed before meals as if talking to a friend, and laughed a lot. But they were born Mennonite. They didn’t know any better. So maybe they could be Christians even though they weren’t Amish. I couldn’t. For me, it wouldn’t work. The only way I could ever make it to heaven was through the Amish church. That’s what I had been taught all my life, and that’s what I believed.
I hung out with the Wagler clan, and the days flowed on. Bloomfield and all the trauma that had transpired there still bubbled inside me, always there in my head. I needed to be busy, so I immersed myself in work and then partied hard on weekends to fend off the guilt and the incessant memories. It was a hard and desperate time.
Even though a lot of my uncles and aunts were living in Daviess, I never made the slightest effort to look them up, or any of my cousins. And that was my loss. I could have learned so much from them. Listened to their stories, discovered who my parents really were, and so much more. All I had to do was ask. The chance was there, and I let it slip through my hands. I didn’t want to see any relatives. Not on my mother’s side or on Dad’s side. I wanted nothing to do with them, especially the Amish relatives. They would have heard the rumblings of what I’d done, how I’d left Bloomfield. I didn’t want to face them, not in that condition. So I stayed away.
During that first month, I worked construction. It was okay. But inside, the restlessness stirred like silent demons, lurking in my mind, keeping me on edge. Daviess would not hold me long. I wanted to keep moving on, to new countries, new faces, and new lands.
The opportunity came soon enough. Dean, one of the Wagler boys, planned to leave in July for the wheat harvest out west. He invited me to go along. To me, it seemed ideal—travel, work, save up a few bucks. Dean was a laid-back guy, extremely calm, and a couple of years older than me. We got along well and would make an excellent travel team.
And so we left one fine day in early July, driving west in Dean’s souped-up Oldsmobile Cutlass, our meager luggage packed in the trunk. A classic eighties car, it could flat out move. We took turns driving, west through St. Louis, then on into Kansas, where Dean knew some people. He said we would hang out there for the weekend, and I agreed, mildly dubious. It was his car and his trip, but I wasn’t keen on mingling with a bunch of clean-cut Mennonite kids. I wouldn’t fit in. Oh well. At least I would be a stranger to them. They would know nothing of me.
29
Dean and I cruised into Hutchinson, Kansas, on Saturday afternoon, and when we arrived, a great fuss ensued—mostly from the girls gushing over Dean. His reputation as a dashing, eligible bachelor was widely known in his circles of the Mennonite world. Mine, not so much. Dean coolly greeted them all and introduced me. The Mennonite kids were all polite, although mildly patronizing, to this long-haired, uncouth, jeans-clad bumpkin who had suddenly materialized with one of their eastern friends. I smiled at them and lurked around the perimeter of things, listening to the keening clamor of their talk.
They were different, the Kansas kids. Certainly different from any I’d ever met, even in Daviess. They were friendly, but dead serious. I saw and heard it as I walked among them. They spoke in muted voices about cultural events—politics, mostly. And they leaned left. To me, much of their talk was gibberish, but some of it was fascinating. Earnest and solemn questions like “What do you see yourself doing in five years?” startled me. Such discussions, entirely nonexistent in my past, were new to me. I was lucky to think or plan ahead five weeks. Five years might as well have been eternity.
Then, for no particular reason that I could discern, a young man approached me. He was clean cut and wore khakis and a shiny new belt. I was standing off to the side, minding my own business, when he loudly asked me what kind of music I liked. The room fell silent as his friends paused from their conversations and strained to hear my answer. After stuttering a bit, not used to such a question, I stammered that I liked Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” a popular, then-current, completely rollicking but generally senseless rock song.
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, I’m still not sure whether he was trying to trap me or embarrass 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 Walker’s The Color Purple, a very “in” movie among Hollywood’s 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. I’d 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. He’d 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 cluster 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 guy—twenty-four years old, with curly black hair that fell down to my shoulders. I shook Ben’s hand and looked him in the eye. He launched a few curt questions: “Where are you from?” Fresh off an Amish farm in Iowa. “Have you ever driven a combine?” 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. I’m 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.