Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [45]
After an experience like that, there isn’t a whole lot to say. We actually shook it off as just another event in the normal course of things. That’s how screwed up we were. Of course, back in Bloomfield our reputations took another serious hit as the story—greatly embellished, I’m sure—made its inevitable rounds.
We were officially outlaws.
Renegades.
Wild Amish youth.
And we were lost. We knew it—at least I did. We didn’t talk about it, but we knew that if something happened and we were killed, we would straightaway enter the fiery pits of hell and burn forever because we had left the safety of the protective box. We had scorned our birthright. Left the Amish. If we died, the punishment for such blasphemy would be more severe than we could possibly imagine. We knew that, beyond any shadow of a doubt. But we plunged on anyway. Grimly focused on what we felt we had to do. If God struck us down, well, then, so be it.
It takes a desperate mind to be willing to take such risks against such eternal consequences. But we were beyond desperate.
* * *
For the next two months, Eli and I bummed along. Our cash flow improved some, but mostly the times were lean. We had a saying, “If we’re too broke to buy a pack of smokes, we’re truly broke.” We reached that point a time or two. But mostly, we survived okay.
We worked at odd jobs around the Arthur area for a month, hanging out with Willis and his buddies. Then Eli and I decided to pull up and go to Daviess County. We didn’t know many people there, but at least my brother Jesse lived there. We said good-bye to Willis and left Arthur, heading south and east.
We found Jesse’s place and showed up at the door of his trailer home. Although surprised and not all that pleased to see us, he gave us shelter and some work, cleaning up an old burned-out house site he had bought in a nearby village. We meandered along for several weeks with no long-term plans, and everywhere we went, the whispered stories of what we’d done back in Bloomfield preceded us.
On the weekends we ran with the Daviess Amish youth. We made a lot of friends because we had a car. Many a time, the old green Dodge creaked along on the narrow gravel roads, loaded to the gills with rowdy Amish youth.
After another month had passed, we realized that we were pretty much spinning our wheels. We didn’t want to face it, but it was becoming clearer with each passing day—our options were running out. We could continue down this bleak and desolate road, struggling for survival. Struggling for our daily bread. Or we could return to our homes, where at least we would be warm and sheltered and fed. Mine in Bloomfield and Eli’s in Marshfield. Initially, we recoiled from the thought. But gradually the conditions of our surroundings closed in. We had no support. Not from any source, not from anywhere. No prospects for a brighter future out here, outside the box. Our only option was to go back. Back to our respective homes. Back again, to the Amish life. We’d had a lot of excitement on this little run. We’d seen and done things we’d never seen or done before. It was time for some rest and some stability.
Eli left by bus one morning for his home in Marshfield, and I drove home to Bloomfield. It’s impossible to describe that feeling, of approaching home after an infamous extended foray like that. Had I been honest with myself, I would have admitted that I did not want to go. But I was not honest with myself. Besides, the economic conditions of surviving out there were tough.
And thus ended my second desperate flight from home.
18
I returned late that Saturday night, after dark. Pulled the car right up the drive