Old Order

by Jonathan Janz

  “You can diddle yourself if you want,” Deek said at his ear.

  Horace shoved the farmhand away. The skinny man landed in an awkward heap.

  Horace was turning back to the eyehole when Deek shouted, “You don’t have to get sore about it!”

  Horace saw Susan turn and frown in their direction. Though he knew she couldn’t see him, she could sure as hell walk the twenty feet around the side of the building, and then what?

  Then it would be happy trails, Horace, and start again from square one.

  “I wasn’t doing nothing to you!” Deek yelled. “I was just saying—”

  “Would you shut your goddamned mouth?” Horace hissed.

  That cagey look again. “You got quite a mouth for an Amish, it’s no wonder they kicked you out.”

  Horace back to the peephole but Susan’s blue dress was sliding down her body. He got one last look at her rear end before the dress covered it up. She pulled the hem down her thighs, placed the sponge on the wooden stool, and tipped over the metal basin. The water flooded the straw covered ground and little rivulets of mud rushed toward the bunkhouse. Horace glanced down and watched them creep under the plywood wall and pool around the toes of his leather boots.

  Deek was on his feet, his face sullen. “Come on then. Let’s fix that combine.”

  * * *

  After two backbreaking hours, the dinner bell sounded. Horace tossed the crowbar into a dusty corner of the barn and walked toward daylight.

  “Metal’s still bent,” Deek said from his perch on the grain drain.

  “It’s as good as it’s going to be.”

  “McCarrick won’t like it.”

  “Then he shouldn’t have bent it.”

  “Suppose I tell him you said that?”

  Horace turned at the mouth of the barn. “Listen, asshole. I pushed and pulled all afternoon while you sat there singing shitty country songs. Suppose McCarrick hears about that too?”

  Deek cocked his head, eyes narrowing. “No way in hell you’re Amish. I never heard a Dunkard yet who cussed like that.”

  “I’m not Amish anymore, now am I? And I never was a Dunkard.” Horace moved toward the house. “They’re not even the same thing, you dumb bastard.”

  The smell of good cooking swept away his bad mood the moment he stepped inside the house.

  “Mr. McCarrick?” he called. “Belinda?”

  A cracked crone’s voice from the dining room startled him. “They’re out looking for Jimmy.”

  Horace entered and beheld a tiny shriveled woman in a wheelchair. He put her at ninety at least. Maybe ninety-five.

  Horace took off his hat, held it before him. “Evening, ma’am. I’m—”

  “I know who you are,” the old woman said. “What I want to know is why you’re in my house.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am—”

  “Name’s Agnes,” she said. “What’d you do to get sent away?”

  “Well, Agnes, my people are good people, but they put too much stock in rumors.”

  A nod. “I know about that.”

  He kneaded the brim of his hat. “Well, my younger brother Louis was always prone to mischief. He was already in trouble with the church when one of the pastor’s kerosene lamps went missing.”

  Warming to the story, the tiny woman wheeled closer. “Your brother steal it?”

  “He did, ma’am, but it was just a prank.”

  “Prank?”

  “A dare, ma’am. He planned on returning it in a couple days, but they found it in our barn before he could.”

  Horace fixed the old woman with his most earnest stare. “I knew if they found out it was Louis that did it, he’d be shunned for sure, and I couldn’t let that happen to my little brother.” Horace paused impressively. “So I took the blame.”

  She frowned. “And they threw you out for that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Said it was a serious offense since it was the pastor’s wife involved.”

  Agnes shook her tiny head. “I never understood most religions. They say they’re built on love, but they haven’t got a clue about the natural way of things.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “True religion nurtures its people, brings them closer to the earth, closer to nature.”

  Horace nodded but he’d ceased listening. From the old woman’s ears hung what could only be canary diamond pendants. They’d fetch thirty grand minimum, maybe more. Son of a bitch, he thought. If she wears that sort of thing around the house, what else does she have hidden in her room?

  Horace swallowed. No way he could sleep in the bunkhouse tonight.

  He made a pained face.

  “Are you alright, Mr. Yoder?”

  Massaging his lower back, he said, “I’m okay, Agnes. It’s just this slipped disc of mine. I aggravated it trying to fix Mr. McCarrick’s combine.”

  “Are you well enough to eat?”

  “I can eat alright,” he smiled and patted his belly. “I always have an appetite.…” He sobered. “It’s just…the sleeping situation. I’m worried about that old wire bed of Deek’s.”

  Her mouth went tight and she folded her hands in her lap. “I won’t hear of your staying the night in that bunkhouse.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “Thomas’s room is empty.”

  “Thomas?”

  Her face clouded. “Susan’s older brother,” she explained. “He died three years ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Agnes.”

  The old woman averted her eyes. “It was difficult.”

  Belinda McCarrick appeared in the dining room doorway. “There you are, Mr. Yoder. I see you’ve met Grandma Agnes.”

  “Mr. Yoder told me the saddest story about his brother,” the old woman said. “I can’t believe how some people behave.”

  Horace shook his head. “It’s okay, Agnes. Really.”

  And it was. The story did contain grains of truth—there had been a theft, and Louis had initially been accused of it. But the items stolen—a whole set of sterling silver cutlery—had been found in Horace’s closet, in a hiding place he was certain no one else knew of.

  But Louis had known. And Louis had told.

  True, his brother hadn’t blown the whistle on him until after Horace allowed him to be hided and grounded for the crime, but that notwithstanding, Louis should have had sense enough to let things lie. Louis should have known Daddy would go harder on Horace, his being seventeen and all.

  But Louis told on him, and one night Horace awakened to find his father standing over him, eyes wild with rage. Somehow, the man’s expression was worse than the slaughtering one, for even though this one also contained a trace of lunacy, there was a knowingness in it, too. A calculation. When Horace saw what his daddy was carrying—the longest, sharpest sterling silver carving knife in Pastor Tarkington’s collection—he knew it was time to go. For the first and only time in his life, he used his superior size on his father. But only to shove past the man.

  Before he reached the door, Daddy got him with the carving knife.

  Bleeding badly, Horace fled into the night and never returned. The scar from his daddy’s drunken swipe still stood out in a thick raised line an inch to the left of his spine. Seven inches long, the color of blood sausage, the scar was a constant reminder to do his stealing far from home, far enough so the merchandise could never be traced back to him.

  The episode taught him many other things. It taught him how obsessed people could become with material possessions, how truly valuable silver was. It got him interested in antiques.

  It took Horace time, nearly two decades, but by his thirty-sixth birthday he had collected enough merchandise to open an antique shop in downtown Hartford, far from where he did his stealing. Far from where he could get caught.

  Horace’s smile faded. He ran a hand along the base of his spine, his fingers tracing the scar.

  Hell no, he thought. He’d never get caught again.

  “Are you alright,
Mr. Yoder?”

  Horace glanced at Belinda McCarrick, at the diamond ring on her left hand. He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I’m just great,” he answered. “Let’s eat.”

  * * *

  “What was it like being a Dunkard?” McCarrick asked.

  Horace searched his dark, angular face for traces of irony, and finding none, he answered, “I’m actually not a Dunkard, Mr. McCarrick. They don’t adhere to quite the same beliefs as we—”

  “Why they call ’em that?” Grandma Shirley asked. She sat across the table from him, next to Susan and her plain blue dress. “Why they call ’em Dunkards?”

  Horace chewed his bread. “They’re called that because they baptize by immersion.”

  “Don’t you all do that?” McCarrick asked.

  “Yes we do,” Horace said. “But we focus more on living plainly than we do on ceremony.”

  Grandma Shirley leaned forward. “What does ‘living plainly’ mean?”

  Horace smiled and said, almost by rote, “We forsake modern conveniences, ma’am. We believe that God meant for man to have what he needs and to resist what he doesn’t.”

  “Like what?” Susan asked. Her pretty head was lowered but her eyes were on Horace, a mixture of naiveté and coyness that drove him crazy.

  He met her gaze. “Cars, televisions, just about anything created in the last hundred years.”

  “You all have phones don’t you?” McCarrick asked.

  Horace nodded. “Some of us do, yes.”

  “What about birth control?”

  They all turned and stared at Agnes, who sat at the head of the table.

  “Grannie,” Susan said, but she was laughing.

  “If they use phones they can use rubbers,” Agnes said.

  McCarrick coughed, smiling into his napkin.

  Horace suppressed a grin. “Most Amish people believe that birth control is an excess. So no, it’s not very common.”

  “Bet you all have big families,” Agnes said.

  Horace dabbed the corners of his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Belinda lifted the bowl of mashed potatoes and said, “More, Mr. Yoder?”

  Horace was reaching for the bowl when he saw the face in the window and gasped.

  McCarrick looked bemused a moment, then started to laugh. “That was Jimmy,” McCarrick said.

  “Scared the shit out of me,” Horace said and froze.

  Though Susan and Belinda were giggling, Shirley McCarrick watched him severely.

  Horace cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”

  She pointed a butter knife. “You’ll do well not to use such language at my dinner table.”

  Horace bowed his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “I’ve got a notion to ride over to Camden so your mother can know what kind of filth her son speaks.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “No wonder they turned you out, a mouth like that.” She poked the knife across the table at him for emphasis. Horace could feel his heart pulsing in his ears. He looked at Belinda for help, but she was studying her plate, apparently waiting for the storm to pass.

  Shirley went on, “And don’t tell me you haven’t been eyeing young Susan here—”

  Horace flushed, the collar of his shirt suddenly feeling three sizes too small. He hid his hands so Shirley wouldn’t see them flutter.

  “—even though she’s half your age, you dare enter this house with designs—”

  “Shirley,” Agnes thundered.

  They all turned and stared at the old woman. Horace wouldn’t have thought her capable of such power, so small and frail did she appear. But now she was rising from the wheelchair and steadying herself by placing her veiny hands on the table. “You need to think hard about what you’re saying,” Agnes said to her daughter. “You need to think long and hard.”

  Shirley, though twice the old woman’s size, had shrunken dramatically, so that now she really did seem like Agnes’s child.

  Grandma Shirley turned to Horace, but she didn’t make eye contact. “I’m sorry, Mr. Yoder. I shouldn’t have said those things. It must be your resemblance to Jim.”

  Horace nodded but the silence drew out.

  Finally, Belinda shifted in her seat and said, “You probably think it odd that young Jimmy isn’t sitting at the table with us.”

  “Not at all,” Horace said. “Me and my brother used to play until nine or ten o’clock some nights. Summer’s a fine time to be outside.”

  Belinda smiled. “That’s how we feel. Little Jimmy loves nature.”

  Agnes turned to Daniel McCarrick, “What’s this I hear about Mr. Yoder sleeping in that barn?”

  McCarrick moved uneasily in his chair. “Where else did you want him, Grannie?”

  “There’s no one in Thomas’s room,” Agnes answered.

  McCarrick glanced at his wife. “I’m not sure—”

  Agnes sat forward. “Young Thomas died three years ago. Surely you aren’t saving the room for when he comes back.”

  Horace saw the moisture well up in Belinda’s pretty eyes and thought of how it must have hurt her to lose her child, her son.…

  “It’s okay,” Belinda said. She looked at Horace with shining eyes. “You may as well stay in Thomas’s room. It’s better than spending the night with Deek.”

  “Mrs. McCarrick,” Horace began, but Agnes cut him off.

  “She’s right, Mr. Yoder. It’s time we all moved on from Thomas’s death. You’ll sleep in his room tonight.”

  This time Horace didn’t argue.

  * * *

  Horace used the penlight to check his watch: 11:35.

  If they weren’t all asleep by now, they soon would be. He’d wait another fifteen minutes; then he’d make his move. He’d hit Agnes’s room first, then Shirley’s. The jewelry nearly always made its way down maternal lines, and though it was Susan’s room that interested him most, he doubted there was much to steal there.

  He remembered the look of her through the peephole, the way she bathed herself. The clear bubbles, the white-tinged water flowing like milk over her large breasts, her pleasantly curving belly. Lower, the sponge raining warm water down her legs.

  Horace closed his eyes as snapshots of Susan flashed through his memory. Her sweet brown skin. Her slightly open mouth. The pink tongue within.

  He froze as the door creaked.

  He sat up, feeling for all the world like an adolescent again, but when he saw who it was, embarrassment gave way to confusion.

  Belinda McCarrick.

  She wore a sheer white gown. It hung loose on her large frame. Outlined clearly in the pallid light from the bedside window were her enormous round breasts, the dark V between her legs.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  Because he was speechless, he nodded, not caring that his mouth was agape, not caring about anything other than the way her big body drifted across the hardwood floor, the way she lifted the bedclothes and raised one muscular leg over him. All Horace had to do was lie back as Belinda bunched the nightgown over her hips, the sweet massive feel of her lapping over him like a slow tide. They moved together, and soon he was groaning into her huge breasts, and though he was worried McCarrick would hear and murder them both, the fear soon faded.

  When they’d finished, Belinda kissed him lingeringly and climbed out of bed. As she lowered her gown, Horace caught sight of the large pale buttocks, a little fatty but lovely all the same, and felt a sharp pang of regret as they disappeared.

  Horace lay awake a long time after that. He saw the framed picture of Thomas McCarrick, of Belinda’s grown son who had died too soon. In a strange way it made him feel even better about sleeping with the married woman. She deserved any solace she could get.

  With luck, Horace thought, he could give her more solace tomorrow.

  * * *

  The following morning he made a show of working, but his mind was constantly on Belinda, on those enormous white breasts.

 
; He and Deek made further repairs to McCarrick’s combine—a tire low on air and a seat that needed reupholstering but received duct tape instead. They were lazing on overturned five-gallon buckets in the shade of the barn when Deek checked the cracked face of his wristwatch and declared it was time to head for the bunkhouse.

  “Suppertime already?” Horace asked.

  Deek grinned, the tobacco juice darkening the corners of his mouth. “Bath time.”

  Horace flushed. He opened his mouth to tell Deek he wasn’t interested, but why resist? It was like having a strip show brought right to your front door. He’d be insane to pass it up.

  Deek eyed him. “You want, I can let you have the bunkhouse to yourself.”

  Horace’s neck grew hot.

  “Where’re you going to be?” he asked without making eye contact.

  “I see it every day. Isn’t like she’s going to stop taking baths.”

  Horace remembered the nude, soapy body, and had to speak through a thickness in his throat. “Why does she bathe outdoors? They have showers inside.”

  Deek shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s one of the few pleasures I have in life.”

  For a moment Horace glanced at the man, saw his age, his gauntness. “Don’t you have family?”

  “Haven’t seen ’em in years,” Deek said and spat between his workboots.

  Horace watched him a moment longer. The pity aroused by the skeletal old farmhand was the last thing he needed. Horace stood and moved quickly toward the open barn doors. Deek must have caught his haste because the farmhand laughed loud enough to frighten a blackbird sheltering in the rafters. It fluttered past Horace’s face in a disturbing whir of wings and shadows. Annoyed with Deek and the blackbird, he entered the bunkhouse at a jog and forgot to stifle the slamming screen door.

  Grimacing, he moved gingerly to the painting of the half-nude wheat woman and lifted it off the wall.

  Susan was already at it.

  Facing him this time, the dizzying bare fact of her was nearly too much. Her feet were planted close together so that her glistening silhouette was like the old time nudes he sometimes bought at auctions: body like an hourglass, bulging breasts and sweetly rounded shoulders, slim around the ankles but nice and plump around the hips. She slowly lathered her arms, her wrists. As Horace’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the lean-to, he saw more clearly the way the cool water raised goose bumps on her flesh.