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Anna the Baptist
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December, 1634
Julio stacked clean glasses under the bar. "Damn it Ken! I don't know what's got you riled but I'm sick of it! Back off or I'm goin' home. I don't have t' have this job. I only took it to help you out."
Julio didn't mention his fear of losing his regular job to what he thought of as cheap foreign labor. The fear drove him to drink, something he'd done little of before the Ring of Fire. He did his drinking in the one place a man didn't have to put up with "krauts." This led to a part time job.
***
Julio had been sitting at the bar, contemplating the world at the bottom of his beer, when Ken yelled, "Julio!"
He looked up and said, "Yes?"
Ken Beasley calmed down immediately. "I'm sorry, Mister Mora. I'm almost out of glasses and I was yelling at my dish washer. I forgot he quit."
"You need a dish washer?" Julio tipped his beer, set the empty down on the bar and headed for the swinging door to the kitchen.
"Hey, the bathroom's that way." Ken pointed.
"I know," Julio answered.
"Where're you goin'?"
"To wash dishes."
Someone called out, "Hey, Ken, where's my beer?" First things first, Ken took care of the customer, then another one, then he cleaned up a spill. By this time there was a tray of glasses under the bar. Glasses and customers kept coming. The stack stayed topped off and all the glasses were clean. Ken quit checking.
At closing, Ken remembered someone was working for him that he hadn't hired. He found Julio mopping the kitchen floor. To Ken's disappointment Julio would only take the job part time. Short of hiring a kraut, what was he going to do?
***
"Sorry, Julio," Ken said. "It's the damned krauts."
Julio relaxed. Ken had his full sympathy. The Ring of Fire changed everything, mostly. He still spent third shift mopping, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, and washing windows at the bank and elsewhere. Food had changed. Bread didn't come pre-sliced in plastic bags. Canning jars came up out of the basement. Pepper had to be ground. Salt didn't come in round boxes anymore. Ken had him take an ice pick and make the holes in all of the salt shakers bigger, but getting it out was still a problem. The big difference, though, was "the krauts."
"I'm sorry," Ken continued. "I'd hardly gotten to sleep last night when, at the crack of dawn, a bunch of damned krauts woke me up singing hymns off key, right out side my window!"
"What're you talkin' about?"
"My neighbor, damned hypocrite, is letting a bunch of damn bible-thumping krauts use his storage shed for a church," Ken said.
"They can't do that! It's not been consecrated. You can't have a church without an altar, or an altar with out a relic. The saint has to be installed by a bishop. They sure wouldn't put one in a garage." Julio didn't get to Mass as often as he should, but knew his catechism from when he was an altar boy. "When the cops stop in, you tell 'em about it. If people can complain about us making noise late at night, then they ought'a do something about the krauts waking you up."
"The cops?" Ken growled. "Just great! What in hell are they doin' here?"
"They're here every Sunday," Julio said. The police investigated every complaint. As sure as God made little green hypocrites, one of the old ladies in town called the station after Sunday dinner and complained.
***
As Julio predicted the cops showed up on a noise complaint.
The cops were Hans and Hans. One was Hans Shruer, the other was Hans Shultz. Ken Beasley couldn't remember which was which. It didn't matter. They came in a matched set, Catholic and Lutheran. It was too bad the sign on the door, "No Dogs And No Germans Allowed," didn't apply to cops.
As cops went, Hans and Hans were all business. If they talked to each other about anything else, it ended in an argument about religion. They sure couldn't talk of families. Hans Shruer had watched from the hill while a Catholic troop burned his home, raped his mother and sister and tortured his father. Hans hated Catholics, collectively and individually. The only redeeming fact in a Catholic's favor was he would be spending eternity in Hell. The sooner he got there, the better.
Hans Shultz's family had been well off before the Lutherans came. They lost over half of the family and everything but the clothes on their backs. Compared to Hans Shultz's attitude towards Lutherans, Hans Shruer was a soft spoken, forgiving moderate.
"You want to talk about noise?" Ken blew up. "What are you going to do about those damned Baptists waking me up at the crack of dawn with their singing?"
"Mister Beasley, you live over a mile from the Baptist church, and they start at ten," Hans Shultz said.
"Well, maybe it wasn't dawn but I'd just gotten to sleep. And I'm talkin' about the ones who've moved into the garage behind my house!"
A blond haired, heavy set man in a plaid shirt sitting at the bar spoke up. "They ain't Baptist. That's why they got thrown out of the church. They're Anna Baptist. But I got no idea who Anna is."
Jimmy Dick called out, "Read your bible, Bubba. Anna Baptist is John Baptist's sister."
Julio spoke up to straighten Jimmy Dick out. "Anna is the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of God." He had stacked a half full tray of glasses on the pile under the bar as an excuse to leave the sink when the cops showed up.
"Well, if that don't beat all," Bubba said. "No wonder they got tossed. It's bad enough, the Catholics worshipin' Mary. Now you got people worshipin' her mother! Humf." He snorted. "Sssshit! Does that make her the grandmother of God?"
***
At the accusation that Catholics worshiped Mary, Hans Shultz started to object. Veneration is not worship. It might be a small hair to split, but the difference is very important to knowledgeable Catholics. At the words "Anna Baptist" Hans lost all interest in straightening out one ignorant, obnoxious up-timer.
"Anabaptist?" Hans Shruer asked in a shocked voice.
"Yeah." Bubba agreed. "That's what I said. Anna Baptist."
Hans and Hans looked at each other in apprehension bordering on fear.
Hans Shultz spoke slowly in a soft voice, as if it were bad luck to speak the name aloud. "Anabaptist."
***
Ken was very good at reading people, especially people who were scared or angry or just plain crazy enough to start a fight. Fights were bad for business. Hans and Hans suddenly needed watching. "What's wrong with Anna Baptist?"
"Mister Beasley, they're trouble! Every one knows that! Even the English heretics have outlawed them! They are . . . what is the word . . . people without respect for authority, who do whatever they please, without concern for decency or order."
"Red necks?" Bubba volunteered.
Hans ignored him.
"Antichrist?" Hans Shruer supplied cautiously.
"That will do. I was looking for anarchist. Anabaptists are anarchist, rebels, nihilists, fanatics, troublemakers! Luther, Calvin, the king of England and the pope all outlawed them!"
"Sounds like red necks to me," Bubba said.
"Shut up, Bubba," Ken said. "So what's so wrong with Anna Baptist?"
"They do not give proper respect to the civil authorities. Their practice of re-baptizing strikes at the very root of Christianity. They want to tear the church down and start over, their way. Have you heard of Münster?" Hans Shruer asked.
Ken shook his head.
"A thousand Anabaptists took six wives each, declared the city of Münster an independent republic. It took war to stop them!" You don't need all the facts completely right when you are spreading slander.
Bubba was on a roll. "Sounds like my kind of red necks. Six wives? Where do I join up?"
Ken tried to shut him down. "Shush up! You can't handle the woman you've got or you wouldn't be in here every other night, drinking."
"Do you know of the peasant's revolt?" Hans Shultz asked.
Ken shook his head.
"They nailed priests to the doors and burned the churches. They raped the nuns. They burned manor houses, convents, castles, entire villages. They drank the cellars dry, looted . . ."
"Sounds like red necks to me," Bubba said.
"I said shut up, Bubba!"
Hans ignored the interruption. ". . . every thing they could carry and burned everything they couldn't. Even Luther condemned them.
"It took the armies from four countries to put the revolt down, and the nobles back in charge. Anabaptists are evil incarnate." The last four words were rote dogma.
"We need to tell the chief! He needs to do something before it gets bad."
"Like what?" Ken asked. "Run them out of town?" Hans and Hans didn't catch the note of sarcasm.
"That would work," Hans Shultz said.
"Like hell it will!" Bubba didn't catch the note of sarcasm either.
"Shut up, Bubba," Ken said.
"Hey, Ken. What cha' got against religious freedom?" Bubba asked.
"I ain't got nothin' against it, Bubba. I just don't want it in my back yard."
***
Later in the night, Lyndon Johnson stopped in. Departmental policy required a follow up call to anyone making a complaint after an investigation.
"Mister Beasley," Lyndon said with the serious demeanor he used for official police business, "Hans and Hans said you want some people run out of town and they agree with you.
"The two of them were adamant. Hans said 'the disease-carrying vermin should be exterminated for the good health of the community and the general improvement of mankind.' They were distraught and sure there would be trouble. Chief Richards told me to check it out and file a report."
Ken shook his head. "Officer, they said something had to be done, not me. Usually, when I hear talk like that, it's from some old lady talking about the bar. The next words would be 'run it out of town.'
"So I asked, 'You mean something like, run out of town' and they agreed. I don't want them run out of town. I just don't want them over my back fence." Ken glanced both ways and leaned forward before asking, in a voice too soft to carry, "Lyndon, what's goin' on? Who are these people?"
Officer Johnson leaned forward over the bar. "Ken, that's what is really strange about this whole thing!
"Hans and Hans came in to the station all hot and bothered. I mean to tell you they were really wound tight. They're pretty good cops for a couple of krauts. So Chief Richards told me to look into it, quick! I went over and had a chat with Shultz's pastor, then with Shruer's pastor, then with Reverend Green down at the Southern Baptist church. Green said Joe Jenkins was the pastor of the Anabaptist church and I should go talk to him if there was a problem."
"Old Joe?" Ken asked. "A pastor? Can he do that?"
"I asked Green about it," Lyndon answered. "Green said he could. Seems he was ordained in some off-brand Baptist denomination years ago. Green says it's still valid.
"As I was saying, Hans and Hans were making some mighty wild claims! Shultz's pastor said they were true. Shruer's pastor agreed."
***
The down-timer Shultz called Father and Lyndon addressed as Reverend assured Lyndon the Anabaptists were trouble just waiting to happen.
The Lutheran pastor's first words were "Spawn of Satan! The Augsburg confession clearly condemned them." He was sure they were Arminians. It was the only one of the pastor's six-syllable words Lyndon remembered because he knew where Armenia was. The pastor made it sound contagious, vile and shameful. Any Anabaptists discovered in a Lutheran country would be lucky to escape with their lives. He was sure they were nothing but lawless, reckless, rioters without morals, decency or self control.
By the end of the second conversation, Officer Johnson was convinced Grantville had a real problem on its hands. He was wondering how they had managed to miss it so far.
***
"I caught Reverend Green right before his evening service," Lyn told Ken. "He didn't have time to talk right then but he had someone go to the office and get me a list of the Anabaptists who'd left and those who agreed with Southern Baptist doctrine and stayed, which was over half of them.
"I asked about them being thrown out. He said they left by mutual agreement, which means 'left quietly.' I took the lists down to the office, to have names cross reference to complaints for the report.
"Then I drove out to the Jenkin's place to let Joe know what he'd gotten into so he could get out before he got hurt. And let me tell you did I get an ear full!"
***
"Joe, what's this I hear about you starting a church for a mess of bad news Germans the Baptists threw out because they're Armenian Anabaptist?"
"Lyndon, first off, all Baptists are Anabaptist. They only baptize adults. It is true most Baptists are Calvinist, but a few of us are Arminians."
Lyndon was shocked and puzzled. Joe sounded proud of it. So he asked, "What is an Armenian?"
"An Armenian is someone from Armenia. An Arminian holds a doctrine the Calvinists dislike."
***
Lyndon leaned a bit farther over the bar. "You know what 'once saved, always saved' means?"
"I think it means if you're born Baptist you can do whatever you want and still think you're not goin' to hell," Ken answered. It was an impression he got from listening to drunks.
"Well," Lyndon said, "according to Old Joe, an Arminian is the other side of it."
***
Officer Johnson looked at Old Joe Jenkins, who was on his back porch in an old rocking chair. The last light faded from the sky along the ridge line. Joe nursed a shot of corn squeezin's his father had put in the cellar. He smoked a hand rolled cigarette made from tobacco raised in a cobbled up green house behind the barn. There was a crate of papers, bought wholesale, in the house. He had offered Lyndon some of each but Lyndon didn't drink or smoke.
"That's it?" Lyndon asked. "That is what all the fuss is about?"
Joe looked at Lyndon and smiled. "If it's already decided, why bother tryin' to change things? If it's a matter of choice, then if things are bad you're obliged to try an' change 'em."
Lyndon didn't think through the implications of Joe's statement. "You know there are a lot of people mighty riled up over this. They're sayin' these people are trouble."
Joe smiled again. "Check the records."
"They're being checked now," Lyndon replied.
"You won't find nothin'."
"If that's the case, why is everybody so upset with them?"
"It's not their theology," Joe replied. "It's their politics."
Lyndon thought what does theology have to do with politics? Then in short order his mind clicked through the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and Right to Life. Maybe theology does affect politics.
Joe explained. "They want the government to stay out of religion and religion to stay out of government."
"Separation of church and state?"
Joe snorted. "Where did you think the idea came from?"
"The Constitution," Lyndon said. "People went to America for religious freedom."
"Yeah," Joe said. "Freedom to have their own church. But when Roger Williams started preaching free will, he got chased out of Massachusetts for heresy and went down to nowhere and started the Rhode Island colony where you could believe anything you wanted and worship God any way you pleased. And from there it got into the Constitution."
"You mean we got these Arminians to thank for freedom of religion?"
"Pretty much," Joe said.
Lyndon didn't know whether to believe him or not but decided he'd ask a history teacher first chance he got.
***
Ken Beasley looked at the young, clean cut police officer in puzzlement for a few seconds. Ken knew the kid and liked him. Lyndon had briefly dated his stepdaughter, Morgan. The boy had been polite. He got her home before the deadline with time to spare. He had treated Morgan well, and her mother with respect. Ken and Lyndon had formed an odd friendship in spite of the difference in age and attitude. Morgan broke the relationship off when Lyndon wanted her to start going to church with him. Finally, Ken asked, "That's all this is about?"
"Looks like it, Ken." Lyndon stepped back from the bar and back into the voice and demeanor he used when he first entered. "Mister Beasley, they ain't doin' nothin' I can do anything about. Shoot, if everybody was as good at staying out of trouble as these folks, I'd be out of a job.
"I mentioned the noise to Joe. He said he was sorry but didn't think it was overly loud. I'll stop by Sunday and see for myself, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do much about it."
"Why am I not surprised?" Ken let sarcasm drip off the end of every word.
***
Lyndon started his written report with a one paragraph summation concluding with his recommendation.
"This alleged noise violation is nearly the only complaint to be lodged against anyone on either list of Anabaptists Rev. Green gave me. All other accusations are lodged against the group in general and arise from blatant prejudice. I recommend no action be taken at this time."
February, 1635
"Hey ,Tom. Let me buy ya' a beer," Jimmy Dick said when Tom stepped up to the bar.
Tom was chronically short on money. His wife counted his pocket change to keep track of how much he was spending on beer and bad company. Jimmy Dick was chronically short on someone to drink with. He rubbed everybody the wrong way.
"Ain't seen much of ya' lately. What's the matter? Won't the little lady let ya' stop for a drink on your way home from work?"
Tom didn't say anything.
Jimmy Dick saw a sore spot and pushed. "Hey buddy! What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" The attitude, a malicious condescension, was raw. "The old hen pecked problem, huh?" Jimmy Dick was not going to drop it.
Tom needed a reason why he hadn't been in lately. "I don't like drinkin' in a place that lets in krauts."
Jimmy Dick smirked, and looked around. "No krauts here."
"Yeah? What about Sunday morning?"
"Shoot, they don't count. They're gone before the bar opens," Jimmy Dick said. "Besides, there's krauts and there's krauts. These are our kind of krauts."
***
Ken heard it and shook his head. Just yesterday, Jimmy Dick was complaining about the krauts using the place to hold church on Sunday morning. Jimmy Dick would argue either side of anything.
***
"Don't see it," Tom said.
"Then ya' haven't looked. Open your eyes man! These krauts are red necks."
"How do ya' figure?"
"Well first, how many churches ya' know who'd ever hold services in a bar?" Jimmy Dick asked.
"None," Tom said.
"Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Ya' know one. This one, so they ain't your average, run of the mill, goody two shoes. Second, Zane was a good old boy right?" Jimmy Dick asked. Zane was a drunken reprobate.
That ends the preview. Probably in the middle of a sentence. Sorry.