Part 2 of 4 – Israelites on the Road
The Veldtman Cracker Factory
In Chicago I worked at the Veldtman Cracker Factory for many years. Old man Veldtman was a self-made millionaire who’d built a fortune on his grandma’s soda cracker recipe and a nearly inhuman work schedule. He was sorely afraid of communism and unions and would stand watching us clock in at 4:45 am each morning, holding his old well-worn leather bible and looking at each one of us as if he could suss out our sins.
For ten hours each weekday and Saturday I moved tray pans of crackers onto the huge stone shelves in Veldtman’s giant tubular ovens. When the shift started the stokers would already have the ovens at a sweltering 400 degrees. If you fell onto one of the oven’s giant shelves you had about 15 seconds to roll your ass back off, or you would go on a rotation up into the oven, emerging 9 minutes later with all of your layers of skin fully cooked and sloughing off. If your lungs haven’t burned up completely, you’ll be croaking out a plea for death. Shoot me. Smother me. Make it stop. There was the constant stress of instant death looming at Veldtman’s all the time. But there weren’t exactly dozens of options for manufacturing work that wasn’t blistering hot, soaked in pig blood, or fraught with danger of falling ten stories into a new elevator shaft. The work was clean and the baking areas warm in the cool and colder months. Hot in the summer, but I’d once cooked in canvas Army tents in the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa. I could deal with some heat, especially in a place where I could escape sometimes for fresh air or even a jump in the river.
I had a manager at the cracker plant, a nice, harried Jewish guy named Spiegel. Once in a while his wife would go by train to visit her family in Madison, and he’d take me to drinks. It was never awkward, though it could have been. Spiegel would always come and talk to me about how things were going. When I asked for things for our baking team, even when I wasn’t the manager, he’d usually have those things to me within a week or two. When we went for drinks, it was at his friend Alan’s place. Alan was an old Marine sniper with a scar very similar to mine. Without asking him, I figured it might be attached to a story very similar to mine. Roadside bombs and shrapnel and hot metal chewing up our young faces when the medics are way, way too far away along shifty, muddy roads. I bet he had thoughts like I used to have. About how I’d never have someone to love. Never have someone look at me without pity.
Alan, the bar manager. He’d worked his way up from a dish boy to co-owner of Nelly’s Tavern by always keeping up on what was going on in a room and making sure he was the most sober man there. On the first night I met Alan there were some loudmouth drunks in the place who’d just made a load of money in some sort of business deal that it was difficult to pin down, something in sales of some sort of heavy equipment. I was sitting at the bar minding my own business, like usual, and this one sales guy took a shine to me. In a bad way. He decided he was going to fuck with me, and his friends along the bar all thought it was funny. I’d taken this sort of abuse before and was pretty good at it, much better than when I’d first begun to get bullied, back in middle school. At one point I stood up and poured my beer into this fellow’s lap. The sputtering and shouting that came up galvanized the bar’s attention, but I was focusing only on my new friend and each of his fists. I could work with a knife, gun, punch, slap, whatever, I just needed to know what it was going to be.
The bar patron grabbed a bar towel and stuffed it down in his crotch. While he was working I grabbed to hair on the back of his head and led him, quite quickly, to the back door. I deposited him back by the dumpsters in back and asked him if he wanted more. After waiting a few minutes for a response, as he choked and cried into the blacktop, I went back inside to retrieve my cane and lighter at the bar.
My manager, Mr. Spiegel, had watched the whole thing, and he had a sort of proud smile on his face, he had just told the friends of Mr. Bully that he’d black the eye of any man who tried to go help out back. It was after that time with Mr. Spiegel that he gifted me one of the finest gifts I’ve yet to receive, my Colt Army Special .45 Revolver.
Olivia
The first time I rode out to the House of David it was spring and the famous baseball team was out playing farm teams in Iowa and Nebraska, leaving things pretty quiet back home. The grounds were fragrant and verdant, layer upon layer of greens varying from the light yellow green of the hosta plants to the deep forest greens and reds of the maples in the thick woods. There was a young black boy mowing the lawn in front of the restaurant and I parked Charley’s car and walked through the gates advertising a miniature steam train and with signs pointing to a zoo, an outdoor stage, and a gallery of miniature houses and electric cars. I looked around and then backtracked to the restaurant, admiring the fine leaded glass in the heavy oak door and the sparkling, clean-smelling dining room through the doorway. There was a hostess stand near the door and the woman standing behind it was the most striking creature I’d ever seen up until that point. Her bright green eyes stood out from her cocoa skin in striking contrast. Her hair was chestnut brown and sun-bleached at the ends, drawn up in a ponytail to show her strong, high cheekbones and a smattering of tiny brown freckles on her cheeks and nose.
Finally she spoke and my first thought was that her voice and accent were familiar somehow, like a long lost cousin you see again after a decade and you can still see remainders of their younger self that you once knew. “Would you like a table for dinner? The kitchen opens in 30 minutes.” She said. Her voice was like music, the accent gorgeously lilting and exotic. I find that I can’t remember how long I’ve been looking into her eyes, and she doesn’t look away.
“Yes, please.” I say. “Just myself”. I laugh nervously, feeling like a kid again. Olivia steps out from behind the stand and although she’s clothed in the long, flowing quaker-ish garb of the Purnell devotees, her curves are still visible, so lovely they’re almost frightening to behold. “She moves like a panther.” I think to myself then am embarrassed at this gushing. I try not to watch her behind as she leads me to a table near the back of the dining room, pleasantly separated from the rest of the room by a brown woven rattan divider. She smells like flowers and herbs and the smell, too brings back vague memories, like something I may have smelled on vacation years ago as a child.
I’m delighted to find that this radiant girl, who introduced herself as Olivia, is also my waitress. I order water and a root beer and pore over the attractive, leather bound menu that Olivia places before me. I order three courses, one at a time, making sure not to overtax Olivia who appears to be in charge of the dining room this evening all by herself. It’s not busy, but a few other tables filter through and I watch Olivia handle them deftly all while keeping my water glass full. She’s really something.
As I’m leaving Olivia invites me to “Prayer Meeting”, the next Wednesday at the chapel here on the grounds of the House of David. I’m excited at first but talk myself back down in the car on the way back to the house. She probably was required to invite any customers to the prayer meeting as part of her job, as long as they didn’t come off as crazy. I allow myself the satisfaction at least of having that thought: At least I passed the crazy test. I don’t feel particularly inclined to join the prayer meeting and put myself into a closed space with the man I’m pretty certain killed my brother, but I think of the green coolness of Olivia’s eyes and realize that I’ll likely be going to the meeting anyway.
Prayer Meeting
The prayer meetings at the House of David all seemed to follow the same script. Father Purnell came in after everyone had assembled in the meeting room, smelling strongly of exotic incense and herbs. Purnell would walk slowly to the front of his congregation, stopping from time to time near a congregant and raising his hand up over their head, palm down. His lips would move as if he were muttering a blessing, too soft to hear, then he would kind of snap his large hand shut and move on. At the stage in front of the smaller, darkly and humbly dressed group Purnell always did the same thing: first he stopped before the simple cross standing there and removed the heavy, lustrous satin cape he wore. He placed the garment carefully on a rug in front of the cross and bowed his head.
Having shed his cape, Purnell was still quite imposing on stage, a study of severe angles in his simple black broadcloth suit and deep blue tab-collared shirt. There was a hush in the room that had begun even before the man had made his appearance. The followers all seemed devout, attentive, and ready to hang on his every word.
“Welcome, my flock.” Purnell finally spoke in a deep, sonorous voice that filled the room easily, even twenty rows back in the lines of chairs. “Do we have any newcomers?” Usually three or four hands would raise, at least one of which would belong to a gangly, awkward looking young white man gleaned from whatever baseball team the House of David was playing and proselytizing to this week. “Welcome, welcome brothers and sisters.” Purnell would beam proudly around the room. “I am Pastor Benjamin Purnell, founder of the Israelite House of David. My wife Mary and I have come here from a great distance to bring each of you the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ and his heavenly mercy. Amen.” Purnell stopped to let the congregation bask in his poetry for a moment. Other “Amen’s” were muttered throughout the crowd. “Now although it is right and good that we celebrate this good news, we must also know and note that this bond with our father and indeed with us, our family here, is not to be entered into likely. For like the dog returning to its vomit, verily does man oft return to his sin, his Worldly and evil ways.” More “Amen’s” spread out through the rows, sounding vaguely like a group of chickens kibitzing in the yard.
For over three hours, and with seemingly unflagging strength the white bearded Purnell led his followers in three or four hymns that seemed to have been penned in the South with an eye for longsuffering and dirt poor masses. “Shall we Gather at the River?”, followed by “Only by His Blood”, followed by some rousing, loud anthem about the sacrifice of the lamb and the blood of the Christian soldier. This one I hadn’t heard before and I looked around incredulous as bright eyed child and doddering grandfather alike sang happily about mowing down the heathen and dying in battle to join the sky god up in the clouds for just rewards. At a certain point I got goosebumps and had to close my eyes for a while until a wave of nausea passed. Purnell followed up the song with more sermon, his voice continuing to boom through the narthex of the chapel, though he took no water or sacramental wine as he held forth.
“The blood of the lamb.” He started, looking out boldly in the crowd to meet the eyes of his audience whenever possible. “The broken body of the son of God, cut, beaten, stabbed, strung up and nailed to the tree. This is the good news I bring you, brothers and sisters. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, amen?” The congregation allowed an Amen quickly, desperate to hear the rest. “All, ALL of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Rich man. Poor woman. White man yellow woman green child, All have fallen short. White black brown Puerto Rican or Haitian. Proud and pitiful. All have fallen. But the Bible tells us even though we’ve fallen. Even though we’ve sinned and spit in the face of our mighty creator, even still he sent us a Savior. A son. To live and teach and then be betrayed and broken and tried to death on the tree.” Around the auditorium, believers were raising their hands over their heads, palms open and facing their pastor as if soaking up his words.
“The Bible tells us that although we don’t deserve it, although we should burn without succor in the fires of hell at the feet of Satan himself, there’s a savior. And to win that salvation, it’s real simple. There’s no entrance fee. There’s no great trial to overcome, no mountains to climb. To take up this great mantle of salvation from the Lord, we need only to believe. Isn’t that marvelous? Isn’t that amazing?” All over the room people are nodding vigorously, holding up their hands to bask.
“Leaning, LEEEEEAAAANING, safe and secure from all alarms.” Purnell sings loudest, booming the words out over his crowd as a hundred voices harmonize: “Leaning, LEEEEAAAAANING, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The congregants who had stumbled down front and thrown themselves at Purnell’s feet during his altar call have disappeared and I wonder with only a speck of sincerity if they’ll ever be seen again. I stand and stretch mightily from the simple wooden chair and it feels like I’ve slept here all night. I’m embarrassed to realized the family just in front of me in the next row all are looking at one another because I’ve let out a great, pained moan as I stood and stretched.
I had attended old school Catholic mass with my grandparents from time to time as a child. Now, Catholics, they meet once a week, on Sunday, of course. There are catechism groups and a lady’s Bible Study and a mom’s group, Knights of Columbus and such that congregants COULD get involved in, but relatively few people were involved in anything other than the main Sunday thrust. One hour, say all the words like the priest does and head home for brunch. The zealots at the House of David turned Sunday into a full day of worship and the rest of the week into a patchwork of other “learning” and worship activities designed to keep a large group of young congregants out of trouble like pubs, taverns, gambling halls and other houses of ill repute. No fewer than four young couples invited me to dinner with them after the prayer meeting. By making up a sick wife back home in Chicago whom I needed to call, I both looked like a good, chaste married man, one who was in touch with the womanly needs of his wife, and also gave me an ideal excuse to demur from the invites. Truthfully I was scared to death to go to these people’s homes back in the little corner of the Burgh where they’d built their houses all in a row as if to be easy to enclose by a Medieval wall at some later date. I left as quickly but politely as I could and willed myself not to run back to Charley’s sedan.
On my way to the parking lot I saw a man with flaming red hair and a marked limp leading two boys who were pulling a stout wagon loaded with something big, rectangular and heavy looking. I was startled when I heard a hiss then a strangle meow-roar sound coming from the cargo. “Aigh’t lads, look lively don’t spill our princess out, aye?” The man spoke in a thick Irish brogue. I watched them move the cart across the lot and over the small gauge tracks for the steam train. They slowed as they reached the rougher path on the other side of the tracks that led off toward the zoo. The Irishman stopped as he entered the treeline and took a bottle from his pocket. He looked around quickly and I made sure to look the other way and return to walking before his eyes swept my way. Drinking on the job, at the House of David? The Irish guy had more grit than I did, I thought. I’d bet the smell of liquor stood out in this cloistered environment, I wondered if he chewed mint leaves or tobacco all day to hide the smell like the lushes back in the factories where I worked did.
I spoke to myself, a habit I hadn’t indulged in since I’d left Chicago. “Irish. I see you. I bet that drink makes you honest. And I bet I’m going to find out what you know about Uncle Benjamin.” The crickets thrummed in the bushes and exotic animal calls filtered through the trees as I finished the walk to the car. In my head I recounted the long service of the day, and the clear picture emerged in my head of Benjamin the Prophet, the teacher, seated before his flock. How vulnerable, to be in such a position. How narcissistic to bare facedly sit before people who’ve children you’ve stolen, whose savings you’ve taken and spent on neat black suits.
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Part 3 of 4