14
Elias Whitmore. Now there’s a Mennonite who is hands down more sexy than an Indian Runner duck. Then again, Elias is only half Mennonite; his father was a Methodist udder-balm salesman who charmed young Rachel Beiler off her feet-literally. Rachel was only sixteen, and Johnny Whitmore a decade older, but rather than press statutory rape charges, the girl’s parents unfortunately saw a golden opportunity. The couple was wed in West Virginia, and honeymooned in South Carolina, both states, where, I am told, just about anything goes, as long as one can come up with three Scripture verses to defend it-oops, perhaps I’m being unkind. For that I repent.
At any rate, financially speaking, the Beilers made a good call, and thus Beiler’s Udder Massage, or BUM, as it’s called in the trade, was born. But poor Rachel was never even given the benefit of counseling, and less than a month after giving birth to her son, she hanged herself in her parents’ barn. To be fair, the girl’s parents claim she was always unstable, and I didn’t know her well enough to hazard a guess one way or the other. I mean, who is to say what’s normal?
What’s important to know at this juncture is that Johnny Whitmore drank himself to an early death, and the Beilers were killed in an automobile accident a year ago Thanksgiving weekend, when they were broadsided by another vehicle. The couple in the other car was distracted by an argument they were having over who used the last teeth-whitening strip. In the twinkling of an eye, the handsome young grandson of self-made multimillionaires went from working in a car wash to running his own company.
Although strictly speaking Elias Whitmore is probably wealthier than I am, since his is not a self-made fortune, I do not count him as Hernia’s richest citizen. Besides, when it comes to philanthropic donations, BUM lives down to its name. True, Elias does donate one morning a year to whipping up batter and flipping hotcakes, but as head deaconess I happen to know how much Mr. Whitmore drops in the offering plate every Sunday, and it could be a lot more.
I like to think of Buffalo Mountain, which I can see from my front verandah, as the Beverly Hills of Hernia. Although really just a long wooded ridge, Buffalo Mountain does offer some splendid views of our countryside and therefore is real estate appropriately priced out of range of our average citizenry (which, sadly, is not saying much). Those folks who have been able to take advantage of these lots positioned closer to Heaven have been, for the most part, successful artsy types, and owners of small businesses in Bedford and surrounding communities. Then there is Elias Whitmore.
Zigler Bend Road, which winds its way to the top of Buffalo Mountain, is as crooked as a serpent’s tongue, and thus the delight of teenage boys for miles around. To reach the summit alive is akin to climbing Everest, but I made it in one piece just as the sun was setting over Miller’s Pond and my homestead to the west. After enjoying the view for a long minute, I made a sharp left and continued north along the ridge until I got to Stopper’s Gap Road. Since the latter isn’t so much a road as it is a pair of axle-breaking ruts, I parked the car in a clearing that already contained at least two dozen other cars. From there I hoofed it the rest of the way up.
To say that Elias lives in a log cabin would be a fact, but it’s also an understatement along the lines of: the Taj Mahal is an attractive tomb. Tree Tops, as Elias calls his wooden palace, is three stories high and contains just over five thousand square feet of heated space. One might jump to the conclusion that this quiet young Mennonite man, this member of my church, might find such a large house lonely, and one might be right, were it not for the fact that Tree Tops was the site of one continuous party.
Okay, so maybe I’ve exaggerated; maybe the parties end at ten every night, and the partygoers are all Scrabble-playing Christians who listen only to inspirational music, and Elias acts more like a chaperone than a playboy host. Nonetheless, the Devil himself has to be lurking in the shadows outside that oversize pile of sticks, just waiting for a chance to snatch some poor teen’s soul out of the loving hands of the Good Lord. Elias claims that he started having these parties when he discovered our young folk necking in the woods along Stopper’s Gap Road. But if you ask me, the problem has only gotten worse since the parties began, as word of “something happening on top of Buffalo Mountain ” has spread far and wide.
Even now, from a hundred yards away, I could hear the thumping rhythm and shrieking vocals of something called Christian rock. Freni, who is denominationally challenged, calls this an oxymormonism. Jesus didn’t have an electric guitar, she says. Neither did the disciples jump around to the beat of Jewish hymns. Of course I can agree with her line of reasoning only so far; any further and I’d have to become Amish, which would mean giving up my car and Big Bertha, my whirlpool bathtub with seventy-odd delightfully pulsating jets.
At any rate, the oversize log cabin lacks a doorbell. Instead, there is a life-size brass woodpecker attached to the door, which one is supposed to rap against a brass plate. It is actually a clever idea-assuming anyone inside can hear over the din.
Eventually I gave up on the brass woodpecker and used my knuckles, which, by the way, are the envy of real woodpeckers. That did the trick. The so-called music stopped immediately, and a few seconds later the door was opened by a wide-eyed waif in a black sweatshirt that featured Jesus Himself bedecked in a crown of thorns. The rest of the waif’s outfit consisted of ragged blue jeans and the hideously ugly footwear Alison refers to as muck-my-lucks.
“Who is it?” I heard Elias call from somewhere within the bowels of his wooden house.
“I think it’s your grandma,” the child said.
“I don’t have a grandmother,” Elias said, sounding slightly closer. “Tell whoever it is that I’ll be there in a minute.”
“He’ll be here in a minute,” the waif said, her gaze never leaving my face.
“In the meantime, dear,” I said, “I think I’ll step in. You don’t want me freezing my tuchas off, do you?” Thanks to my Jewish husband and his mother, I had a small Yiddish vocabulary that allowed me to add a little spice to my daily discourse without making me feel like I needed to wash my mouth out with soap.
The urchin was quick, however. “Are you a neighbor? Because these windows are double sealed, ya know? Besides which, Elias says he can hear yinz guys classical crap all the time.”
“Yinz? Me thinks thou must have originated in Pittsburgh.”
“Huh? What about Pittsburgh? Yinz didn’t say anything bad about it, did ya? Because that’s where I’m from.”
“What’s not to like about Pittsburgh? It’s got Mystery Lovers Bookstore in Oakmont, and some very fine restaurants. Say, isn’t yinz supposed to be second person plural? Like y’all?”
“Huh?”
“Not to mention the fact that you said yinz and ya in the same sentence. At the very least, one should show consistency.”
“Oh, I get it; you’re that crazy aunt of his.”
“Hardly.”
“Well, yinz is too old to be a friend.”
“Call me Methuselah with a handbag.”
“You’re really weird, ya know? And I bet yinz weren’t even invited, were ya?”
“Case in point, and the answer is no, but I-”
“Then yinz can’t come in. Elias is very strict about not allowing outsiders into these parties. Unless you’re on the list, ya can’t come in. Not without prior screening.”
“Outsiders? Screening?”
“You know, like unbelievers. Ya wouldn’t believe how many times they’ve tried to sneak in and sabotage things.”
“I’m neither an outsider nor an unbeliever,” I said and gently pushed the elfin creature aside as I scurried into the light and warmth of the double-sealed cabin.