As for what happened next, I owe it all to my parents, who were dairy farmers. You see, what most folks don't realize is that the milk you buy in the supermarket is taken from a cow that has given birth in the not too distant past, and that is being kept in a perpetual state of nursing. We refer to these cows as "freshened." At any rate, in order for there to be milk available to sell, the calves must be removed from their mothers and weaned early. It was my job, after school, to care for these unhappy "orphans," and more often than not, this job required a good deal of wrangling.
Papa had an uncanny ability to communicate with his cows. Most of this communication was unspoken, although he used a few grunts and hand signals. Occasionally, he had to deal with a wayward calf by throwing it to the ground and dragging it to where he wanted it--all by just using his bare hands. (Papa eschewed ropes.) I, on the other hand, had to get a headlock on my charges just to turn them around in their stalls so that they faced the feed bucket.
But Papa never had to manhandle a bank robber
ess
from New Jersey. Particularly one like Tiny.
"If you've broken my implants, I'll sue," she screamed from beneath me.
I could see the gun glinting in the grass about a dozen feet away, so I was no longer in any physical danger, but I still gave her tit for tat. "Well, I can sue
you
; I expected a softer landing."
"Get off me, you big oaf! You Mennonite country bumpkin."
I sat up on her sternum, just south of the Rockies, with my legs splayed outward to hold her arms down. "Why, Tiny Timms, how you talk! And I always thought you were the sweetest of the bunch."
"You were a fool! Melvin said that you once married a bigamist, and I read in the
National Revealer
that you had a love affair with a real-life Bigfoot."
"It was inadvertent adultery," I wailed, and this was my very last wail--I promise! "And as for Bigfoot, what they say about men with big feet is absolutely true, so how could I resist?"
"
Huh?
You don't deny it?"
" 'If you read it in black- and-white, it must be right.' Stories written in colored ink are not to be trusted."
"Yeah, I guess. Hey, what you doing?"
I'd done a complete about-face so that I could hold both her tiny hands in one of mine, while the other performed a necessary function. "I'm removing my over-the-shoulder boulder holder," I said, exhibiting far more patience than she would have, had the tables been turned.
"What? You're taking off your bra?"
"Don't worry; I'm just going to tie you up with it."
"But you can't! I'll absolutely freak out. In fact, I'm freaking out now with you holding my hands."
"Well, dear, you should have thought about that before you embarked on a life of crime." I emitted a long, drawn-out sigh. "And if I can't even hold your hand, what chance do we have?"
"
What?
Miss Yoder, are you--"
"I suppose we could move to Iowa; gay marriage is legal there now. Plus which, I hear that folks are more taciturn there--especially out on the farms. We could get ourselves a nineteenth-century farmhouse with a working windmill--I've always wanted one of those--and raise pigs and corn. Do you know how to call pigs, Tiny?"
"Miss Yoder, you're crazy! I mean like
really
crazy--over-the-top nuts. Are you supposed to be on some kind of medication?"
"Oh phooey on pills. All I need is clean Midwestern air and--ding, dang, St. Louis International Airport, Concourse A!"
I wasn't getting very far in removing my flopper stopper. Not without letting go of Tiny's hands for a second or two. Not all of the petroleum by- products Tiny owned had been affixed internally. Attached to her tiny fingers were the longest fake nails I'd ever seen in all my born days. Ruby red garden rakes--that was what they were! If I let go of Tiny's hands, those claws could grate my flesh like a head of cabbage.
"Miss Yoder, you just swore!"
"Indeed, I did. Please remind me later to apologize."
"But you have such a foul mouth! I've been to Terminal A. On a Sunday evening. I had three hours to wait before my next flight. I'm not religious, but I prayed that God would take me--that's how boring I found the place."
"You too?"
She nodded vigorously. "So maybe we can make a truce?"
"A truce?" I said. "Like what?"
"I'll promise not to struggle, and you can take me somewhere and lock me up--but just don't tie me up, because that will really freak me out."
Sometimes one has to go with one's gut. (Judging by what I saw at the shore last summer, there sure are a lot of people going very far in life.) Call me silly and ship me off to boarding school, but I had a feeling--in my large intestine--that Tiny was so terrified of bondage that she would indeed cooperate. Of course I would have to hold the gun on her. However, she did not have to know that, as a practicing Mennonite, I would never, ever use it.
I got a death grip on one of her frail wrists and we both stood up. After a couple of steps, and a quick bob to get the gun, I dragged her straight into my laundry. I swung her up in front of the dryer and pried open the door with the end of the gun barrel.
"Climb in, dear," I whispered. The laundry room is an add-on behind the kitchen and has its own rear door so that one can head directly out to the clothesline if a genuinely fresh scent is desired. (I particularly love the faint smell of nearby cow patties.) You can be sure that I immediately shoved a chair under the doorknob that led to the kitchen.
"What?"
"It's a jumbo-size, commercial machine; there's plenty of room."
"But I'll suffocate!"
"No, you won't. I just cleaned the lint trap; stick your nose up against it. By the way, I clean all my lint traps before and after using my dryers, don't
you
? A lot of people are lazy about cleaning them, which is a good way to get your house burned down."
"I don't
do
laundry," Tiny said. "I get Peewee to do it."
"Well, I'll be dippety-doodled! How on earth do you get a man into the laundry room?"
"Look at me, Miss Yoder; I could have any man I want. Why would I be with someone like Peewee unless there were some perks--you know, special services?"
"Hop in," I said, "and start praying that I don't send you for a short spin."
The Good Lord knows that I was sorely tempted to do just that. But I behaved. I merely shoved the folding table up against the dryer, jamming it against the lid in such a way that Tiny would be unable to open it by herself.
Then I did exactly what I'd begged Melvin and Tiny not to do to me. I made myself go down into the cellar.
32
I wasn't lying about the spiders. They're everywhere in the cellar. Fortunately most of them are fairly benign, and since I would walk through fire--slowly--if it meant putting Melvin behind bars forever, so what if they weren't?
By the way, I feel compelled to distinguish fire walking from mere coal walking. The latter, in my not so humble opinion, is a gimmick. I shall herewith attempt to elucidate. Hot coals (aka embers), are by their nature covered in a layer of ash. A person walking quickly across a bed of coals is protected by that ash, and will not get his feet burned. To perform this feat, one does not need to be in a trance or be the object of a miracle. One need only walk quickly.
Contact with actual flames, on the other hand, will certainly result in injury. Although it may appear that I have digressed, I assure you that this is not the case. I am stating, unequivocally, that I would endure great pain, if it meant that the Murdering Mantis, that the Conniving Chameleon, was no longer a threat to humanity and to my family in particular.
If this were not the case, if my resolve had not been so strong, believe me, I would never have dared tug open the little round metal door on the north side of the cellar and squeezed blindly into it, like a bottlebrush into an opaque rose vase. Once I was fully inside, there was barely enough room for me to wiggle my way forward, with my arms stretched out in front of me. I felt like a giant earthworm--Well, I don't mean that literally, having seldom, if ever, been a giant earthworm.
This tunnel, incidentally, was constructed at the height of the French and Indian War, shortly after my Hochstetler ancestors were taken captive by the Delaware Indians in eastern Pennsylvania. It was intended solely as an escape route that led from a log cabin on this site to the nearby woods. Comfort of the escapees was not taken into consideration.
At any rate, as I have many times stated, adrenaline is a wonderful thing. Oh that it were available for purchase in pill or liquid form. Because I was focused on my destination, and because of what I intended to do when I reached it, I didn't feel the many cuts and abrasions I collected along the way, nor did I particularly notice the myriad insects I squashed. Some insects, of course, bit me, as did some spiders, but I honestly wasn't aware of this until long afterward.
Nowadays the far end of the tunnel surfaces smack-dab in the middle of my henhouse. As I understand it, the tunnel has been closed and reopened several times in its long history, but Papa was the last person to reopen it, and that was during the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In the event of a nuclear war, we were to take refuge in the root cellar. Should the house tumble down, or the surrounding trees topple, and we were trapped inside, we could always escape via the tunnel and the henhouse. Frankly, it wasn't such a bad idea then, and given the way things have been going on the international stage since then--well, I've not been motivated to spend the time or money to block up the tunnel.
The henhouse exit is a simple wooden trapdoor that blends in nicely with the floor, and under a layer of straw is virtually unnoticeable. Thus it was that when I finally flung open the door and hoisted myself up into the broad light of day, I caused quite a bit of commotion.
For one thing, the hens that had been skulking about, waiting for a chance to lay their eggs, became highly emotional. That is to say, each clucking chicken had been instantly transformed into a five-pound ball of airborne feathers and earsplitting cackles. Then there was the not so small matter of Peewee Timms and Barbie Nyle, who had unwisely chosen the henhouse as the location for their romantic rendezvous--No, I take that back. This was adultery, pure and simple.
What a disappointment that was! Barbie had always treated me nicely, and although I don't know why, I'd had this feeling that maybe Peewee was secretly Jewish. Well, Peewee, although aptly named, was certainly
not
Jewish. Still, who was I to judge, and why should I even entertain the idea? After all, the zillion mites and fleas resident in my henhouse were going to do the judging for me, although most of the misery would come a little later, once Barbie and Peewee started scratching.
Of course I was shocked to discover two naked people fornicating amidst bits of straw and chicken poo, but I was nowhere near as shocked as they were to see me suddenly rising from the floor, covered as I was in slime and squashed spiders. They were literally breathless for a spell, and frozen with fear, and when they did react, the first sounds they made eerily resembled chicken squawks. Fortunately by then I had exited the well-built shed, slammed the hasp into its place, and closed the Yale lock on their sinfulness.
Now to catch the evil Melvin--although I had a sinking feeling he'd already gotten away by car. I started running and was halfway to the parking area in front of my barn, just passing under the old swing tree, when George Nyle appeared out of nowhere. Well, to be fair to myself, George did have mousy brown hair, a mousy brown mustache, and a deep tan, and he was wearing a khaki safari suit--even a Maasai could have walked right past without noticing him.
"Hey," George said, "where are you going so fast?" He sounded positively genial, but then again, he might have been putting on act. After all, I had become Alice in Wonderland; nothing was as it should have been. Until I figured out just how much he knew about what
I
knew, I'd best play along as though everything were normal.
"It's been a long day," I said, "and I still have miles to go before I sleep."
"Ah, a fellow lover of poetry."
"Not especially--unless you're talking about the Song of Solomon. Now
that's
poetry. 'Thy hair is like a flock of goats, going down from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep which have come up for the washing.' No modern poet could touch lines like that with a ten-foot pole."
"And I wouldn't want to touch a girl like that with a ten-foot pole.
Where
did you say the poem was from?"
"The Bible."
"It figures. Look, Miss Yoder, I don't mean to be rude, but you're not exactly touchable at the moment, either. Where the heck have you been?"
"Well--you see--one might say I look like a sewer rat."
"That's not what I asked."
Uh-oh, his tone was a lot nastier than I'd hoped for. If I didn't think fast on my size elevens, I might well perish whilst covered in a shroud composed of squished arachnids. It would not be a pretty way to go. Personally, I was hoping to hold out until the Second Coming, because I have never been a big fan of pain. Just about every day I give thanks that when I gave birth to Little Jacob, I practically shot him out like a cannonball. Of course, it hurt like St. Louis International Airport, Terminal A, while it was happening. . . .