Growing Up Amish - A Memoir Part 12

aHeas done. Your horse is not going to get better,a he told me. aThereas nothing I can do. We may as well put him down.a I stared at him. I heard the words. He spoke what I had feared would come. And now Iad have to decide. I looked at the Stud, my proud horse, helpless on his side, breathing hard. It could not be. Of all the bad luck I could imagine, this was probably the worst. Something I could not have fathomed or foreseen.

I could just let my horse die on his own, I thought. A natural pa.s.sing. But as I looked down at his proud head, now sweating with fever, I knew I could not do that. He was as good as gone. There was no sense in prolonging his agony. I turned to the vet.

aJust give me a minute,a I said. He nodded, turned, and walked out of the barn.

I knelt there in the dust and straw beside my horse, cradled his fevered head in my arms, and stroked his long, coa.r.s.e black hair for the last time. I spoke no words, just knelt there in silence and sorrow. Minutes pa.s.sed. The vet waited patiently outside. I stood, then bent and stroked the Studas forehead one more time. Then I turned and walked out.

aDo what you have to do,a I said to the vet.

He walked into the barn carrying an ominous little black satchel. I crouched inside the doorway of the barn, watching. He set down his satchel and opened it, took out a large syringe fitted with a wicked-looking needle, and a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid. He stabbed the needle into the bottle and filled the syringe. Then he stepped over to my horse, wiped a spot on his neck, lifted the syringe, and plunged the long needle into the hard muscles in the Studas neck. Slowly he depressed the plunger, and the evil liquid flowed into the Studas veins.

In mere seconds the Studas entire body relaxed visibly. He never even quivered. Just relaxed. Then his proud eyes closed in final sleep. It was over. My horse was dead. His body lay there, stretched in the dust and straw, limp and quiet.

I got up and walked outside.

After the vet had cleaned up and left, I hitched a team to our work cart, backed up to the barn door, uncoiled a long rope attached to the cart, and tied it to the Studas rear hooves. I clucked to my team, and the horses snorted nervously at the smell of dead flesh behind them before lunging forward. Then off we went up the hill to the west side of the house, and down again on the other side, to a soft, shaded spot beside a tree-lined creek in the northern field.

After untying the rope from the Studas hooves, I drove back to the barnyard, gathered a ma.s.sive hedge-wood corner post, a posthole digger, and a chain saw, and returned to the spot where the Studas body lay.

The soil by the creek was moist and soft, and within a couple of hours, I had dug the hole. A grave for my horse. I shoveled the damp earth over him and piled it high.

Dusk was settling around me as I sank the post into the ground and tamped the dirt around it. I fired up the chain saw and cut the Studas date of death into the post. Then I fastened his halter and his lead rope around the post. And with that, it was finished.

I stood there, a solitary figure in the lengthening shadows. The sun sank low, then disappeared. In the settling night, bats flitted and zipped about. In the southern skies, a white half moon appeared, then the first stars. From the brushy hillsides all around, whip-poor-wills whooped and called. I stood there, silent, unmoving for some time. Finally, I stirred, picked up my gear and turned toward home. I slept that night in utter exhaustiona"a deep, dreamless slumber.

My horse was dead. Head pa.s.sed, after wilting into a weak and helpless sh.e.l.l, for no discernible reason. And was now properly buried, by my own hand. A signal event, unexpected and tragic, followed by a symbolic act. In my exhausted and traumatized mind, it seemed like a sign. There was nothing left to keep me here. Not even my horse.

Those around me sensed and felt my despair, but they seemed helpless to offer any comfort or a.s.sistance. There was no rage. No lashing out at anyone, no seething. I donat remember the exact moment that I realized I could not do it. A few months later, I suppose. Or maybe I always knew it, deep down, but could not face it honestly. Whatever the case, I fully and finally realized and admitted to myself that if I married Sarah, I would one day leave her. Period.

My final withdrawal from her was painful and protracted. Instead of confronting my options and making decisions, I continued mentally drifting away from her. She sensed she was losing me for real this time and fought hard to hold me. Still, I avoided the matter as much as possible because I didnat want to hurt her. What I didnat realize was that my actions and eventual choices would hurt her far worse than they would have, had I just told her how it was.

Looking back, there really was no reason why it couldnat have worked, at least on the surface of things. We were very compatible, she and I. She loved me honestly and deeply. She would have been intensely loyal. But in my heart, I felt nothing. No love. No feelings at all. Except a sense of pity for the pain I knew was coming. For what I would put her through.

During the years of our courtship, we got to know each other pretty well, up to a point. Beyond that, I would not allow her closer, would not allow her to explore the boundaries of my heart. Had I known then even a fraction of what I now know, the issues would have been confronted. I would have spoken, confided in someone. But there was no onea"not one soula"I trusted enough to reveal what was in my heart. Thatas just the way it was.

And there was one other thing Sarah and I never did together. An important thing for any couple considering marriage, according to our preachers in the Amish church.

We never prayed together. Never approached G.o.d to ask for his blessing on our future. Never. We should have, I suppose. But we didnat. And the blame for that omission was mine alone. I was the man. In Amish culture, as in many others, the man is expected to lead. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

I did not. Didnat have the nerve, I guess. And besides, I wasnat sure it would do any good. There were times when I wasnat even sure I believed in G.o.d at all.

I probably always believed there was a G.o.d, a sort of dark and frowning force. I just didnat believe in him, not to the extent that I thought he could or would make an actual difference in my life. I tried to believe, in my heart. But I couldnat, in my head. Iad heard about him all my life. But if he was everything the preachers claimed he was, he sure had a strange way of hiding himself from people like me.

And because we, Sarah and I, could not address the G.o.d we claimed to serve, because we could not as a couple even speak to him from our hearts, our relationship was doomed to fail.

Sometime late in 1985, I entered a land of looming, fearful shadows, a mental zombie zone, from which I would not emerge for several years. And gradually, I descended into a world of real depression. There was no diagnosis, because counseling was not an option. Requesting counseling, back then, would have been tantamount to admitting one was insane. Not that I would ever have thought of considering it, anyway. I wouldnat have known enough to consider it. So there was no help for me. The darkness would have to be faced alone.

Those were surreal days, in retrospect. I walked about in a fog of pain and silence, walled off from those around me. I wasnat angry. Only sad. And not particularly because of them. It was not their fault. They were who they were. And I was who I was. They could not communicate. I could not communicate. We didnat know how. We were never taught how. So we stirred about, pa.s.sing each other like blind men stumbling in the night.

Had I been less intense or less honest, I might have squelched the doubts, ignored the depression, as most Amish youth somehow manage to squelch that inner drive, the inner hunger to know and live outside the box of Amish life. Some few probably never even wonder whatas outside or, if so, only sporadically, lacking any real pa.s.sion to find out. Some have vague perceptions that there is another world out there. Most decide to do what needs to be done, and they stick with it through sheer force of will.

But for me, that was impossible. I was trapped. The walls were closing in. Imminent disaster loomed. Those around me simply looked on in disbelief as I slowly sank before their eyes. In their defense, they offered what they could, which was little more than the broad, meaningless bromides I had heard all my life: aCanat you just decide to do whatas right? Reject the aworlda and accept the Amish way? Really and truly, once and for all?a In the troubled fog of those days, Mom sought me out one day and tearfully spoke to me of Jesus and how he could help me, if only I asked him. Her words came from her heart, and she believed them. And I did not doubt them, necessarily. But what she said was hopeless. At least to me. I had tried that a few times. Praying. Never seemed to do much good. Maybe my prayers werenat heard. I doubted that they were. Iad done a lot of bad stuff, possibly even committed the unpardonable sin. Blasphemed the Holy Spirit, that horrendous act about which Amish preachers often thundered at great length and warned against. None had ever, as far as I could remember, defined that unpardonable sin. What it meant to blaspheme the Spirit. But it probably applied to me and the things Iad done. Who could tell?

I turned from Mom in silence. She did not approach me again, not like that.

My father, too, troubled by my traumatized state, admonished me kindly, or with what pa.s.sed as kindness for him. The Studas death, he decided, was the real source of my problems. The reason I was depressed. A horse is a horse, he told me encouragingly. There were other horses out there, as good as or better than the Stud had been. He even offered to buy me another one, any horse I chose. It was a generous, although somewhat desperate, gesture, coming from a tough old man like him.

But from him, too, I turned in gloom and silence. And he did not approach me again, not like that.

The days crept by. I still faced one major task, an ominous task, fraught with all manner of messinessa"breaking up with Sarah. It loomed before me like the dark clouds of a gathering thunderstorm. Never for one instant did I consider slipping away. I would face her and tell her this hard and terrible thing. That I did not love her and that I was leaving. It was almost more than my exhausted mind could absorb, but I never considered any other option. The days of leaving with only a note to explain my absence were over. I would never do that again. Not to my parents. Not to anyone. Ever.

I would face Sarah and tell her. But when? How? There was never a good time for a tough job like this, but if it had to be done, I might as well get it over with.

With the Stud gone, I drove Kenny, a sad old plug of a horse, to church and the singing. Kenny was almost a caricature compared with the Stud. Big headed. Bony. Klutzy. No one in my position would normally be caughta"under any circ.u.mstancesa"driving a horse like that, but I couldnat have cared less. Little pride remained in me for the trappings of Amish youth. And Kenny did get me to where I was going, albeit at his own snailas pace.

I donat remember where the singing was that Sunday night. After the singing, I hitched up Kenny, and we lurched slowly up to where the girls waited for their rides. Sarah flitted from the group and stepped up into my buggy. As I had done dozens of times in the past two years, I leaned over, slid the buggy door shut, clucked, and slapped the reins. Kenny plodded out the drive and lumbered down the road as the other buggies whizzed past us. We had three or four miles to go to get to Sarahas house.

I remember nothing of our conversation. She chatted about this and that. I mostly grunted in response. We traveled down the highway, then off to the side road leading to her house, the gravel crunching under the buggy wheels. I guided Kenny up to the hitching rail. Sarah moved to get out, but I held her back. Tonight I would not be tying my horse to the hitching rail. Tonight I would not enter her home.

She looked at me with startled eyes through the darkness. And I spoke to her in curt, choppy sentences. I canat remember my words to her in that momenta"all I know is that I spoke to her, brutally and honestly. And after fifteen minutes or so, she walked alone into her home, stunned, crying, and heartbroken.

There is no human penance anywhere that can ever atone for the wrong I did to her that night.

The news flashed through Bloomfield. Ira had broken up with Sarah. aOh,a people gasped. aWerenat they about ready to get married?a aWhat went wrong? Could it be that he just canat get settled down? Canat shake the aworlda from his mind?a And their gossip, as often as not, pretty much nailed it right on.

I stopped attending the singings and instead stayed home, reading and brooding. During the week I still hung out at Chuckas Caf. It was my only connection to sanity, at least the way I saw it. My friends there realized I was going through some hard times, but they didnat pry. They just quietly offered what support they could. And I held on to that world because it was a rock for me in the midst of those terrible days.

My friends and family were around me like sad shadowsa"separated, silent, but there. To his credit, Marvin never confronted me in anger. Maybe he should have. But he didnat. It wouldnat have made any difference. He expressed only sadness, and we spoke about the matter only once. He broke down briefly, wept openly, a thing I had never before witnessed. And then he let it go. We were friends from way back. He recognized and respected that. And he showed me the meaning of true friendship during those bleak days.

I saw Sarah now and again, but I never talked to her much, other than an awkward greeting. She came around periodically to t.i.tus and Ruthas house, just down the lane. And one afternoon, after spending some time there, she walked up to our home to see Moma"at least that was the official reason. But she really wanted to see me. She had some things to tell me. I walked out with her to the banks of our pond, and we sat there on the gra.s.s.

She asked about my plans, and I told her I was leaving soon. She nodded. Absently, she picked blades of gra.s.s and dandelion stems from the bank, wove them together, then looped the woven band and tied the ends together, kind of like a little bouquet. Or a heart.

aI hope you find what youare looking for,a she said, looking right at me. Her blue eyes were pools of infinite sadness.

I could not meet those eyes. I looked down and mumbled incoherently. She still faced me.

aThese are my people, here in this community,a she said. She wasnat pleading. Just telling me. She continued. aThey are my family. I could never leave them.a I looked at her, startled. I had never asked her to leave with me. I hadnat even remotely considered it. But it was important to her to tell me she wouldnat go, even if I asked. I wanted to respect that.

aI donat think you should leave,a I answered gently. aIf this is where you belong, stay here among your people. Itas not where I belong. I just canat do it, Sarah. Iam so very sorry, but I just canat do it. I tried. Believe me, I tried. I canat do it. Iam so sorry.a It was a hard moment for both of us. I sensed the raw depths of her pain and felt the loss in her heart. But my own heart was far from her, and cold. Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded and looked away. I looked out across the pond.

We sat there silently through the eternity of the next few moments. There was nothing more to say. She stirred.

aI have to go now,a she said. I nodded and rose to my feet. As she got up to leave, she tossed aside the little ring of gra.s.s 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 didnat 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 t.i.tus 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 fatheras blood.

28.

I dozed fitfully, slumped on the reclining vinyl bus seat. It was a comfortable seat for an hour or twoa"maybe even threea"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 hadnat 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 Elias 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 Elias 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 fatheras blood. And my motheras. The land that harbored in its soil the hidden saga of my familyas history. The land of my ancestors, where several generations had lived and grown and toiled and died. The importance of this didnat 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. Head 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 Bloomfieldas gossip lines were actually true. Eli was running wild. Partying hard with a rough crowd.

I didnat 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 minda"even as I was leavinga"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 promisesa"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 itas no big deal to be excommunicated. That excommunication is so legalistic. So, well, quaint. And vicious. And biblically excommunication bears no weight. At least thatas what they claim. But I can guarantee that even if they donat 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 didnat 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 a.s.sured. Theyad send out a warning letter, maybe two, urging me to return and make peace with G.o.d 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.

Itas 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 energya"like surviving.

I donat 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 for 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 Iad 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 downa"the way Iad 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 aadoptivea 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.signed 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 theyad 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 embarra.s.sing 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 worldlya"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 didnat know any better. So maybe they could be Christians even though they werenat Amish. I couldnat. For me, it wouldnat work. The only way I could ever make it to heaven was through the Amish church. Thatas what I had been taught all my life, and thatas 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 didnat want to see any relatives. Not on my motheras side or on Dadas side. I wanted nothing to do with them, especially the Amish relatives. They would have heard the rumblings of what Iad done, how Iad left Bloomfield. I didnat 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 ideala"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 Deanas souped-up Oldsmobile Cutla.s.s, our meager luggage packed in the trunk. A cla.s.sic 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 wasnat keen on mingling with a bunch of clean-cut Mennonite kids. I wouldnat 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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and when we arrived, a great fuss ensueda"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 b.u.mpkin 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 Iad 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 eventsa"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 aWhat do you see yourself doing in five years?a 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 Gabrielas aSledgehammer,a a popular, then-current, completely rollicking but generally senseless rock song.