transformation

The small boy cried in his father's arms. Being only ten years old and of Amish decent,this trip was probably the most exciting thing he had ventured to do in his entire life span. He matched his father's apparel exactly, along with the other group of men he was traveling with, that is, minus the great, wooly beard. Navy trousers were hemmed precisely to the rubber sole of the black, weathered boots they wore with such pride; faded pale blue button-up shirts were tailored to contour to every curve of their broad shoulders and bulging biceps and forearms; the bottom edge of their narrow-cut navy vest just reached the waistband of their pants; and their straw hats were all carefully stowed away in the overhead bins of the Greyhound bus we were being transported in.

We had all met the night previous to this in the Memphis, Tennessee Greyhound station. They were at the front of the line at Gate Five, ensuring that if they were any available seats, they would be able to get them. You could tell that they were exhausted - their eyes told no lies - but the men did their best to remain in healthy spirits. Apparently their wives, who were raised according to tradition solely to reproduce and care for their family, made them food for their journey. While the others told jokes in their native tongue, the boy and his father made their way to the concessions area. His son was hungry so he decided to treat him for doing so well on the trip. "May I have the nachhhos with a few peppers for my boy here? How much is that?"

"Fo dollas and fiddy cent." The clerk's eyes were dilated and irritated. Upon arriving, I had noticed him lighting a joint next to a green dumpster at the back of the building as a janitor waited for him to pass it along to him. The light from the lighter exposed his cheek bones in the dark. He brought the joint to his lips and breathed in its flavor like he was reborn and breathing for the first time all over again. Time stood still as he held the smoke in as long as he possibly could with eyes shut tight. Billows of smoke crept out of his mouth, climbing towards the heavens, like pollution from an old paper mill, as the bus rounded the corner.

The father's face dropped when he heard how much the food costs. I watched as he laid three dollar bills on the counter and started searching frantically for loose change in his pockets.

"Do ya got the money or not man? I ain't got time fo this shit."

The boy's eyes widened.

Embarrassment crept across the father's face. "I had more money. I know I did." He kept searching and stepped to the side acknowledging defeat.

I stepped up to the counter and ordered a coffee. "Give me a nacho with jalapenos on it too." The smell of the cheap canned cheese they used reminded me of going to St. Louis Cardinals baseball games as a kid. I paid the jerk and walked over to the man and his son.

"Is this what you were trying to order?" I handed the plastic tray of food to the man.

"Yess, but there is no reason for you to . . ."

"It's alright." He still looked puzzled - like he was expecting to be the target of some cynical joke. "Seriously, it's okay. It's no big deal at all."

His dark, swollen eyes darted to where his son was sitting. The small boy's head was resting in his own arms on the aluminum table. He sat awkwardly in a semi-fetal position in an orange fiberglass chair. "Are you shhure? Here take this money."

"No, you keep it. You need it more than I do. So, where are you off to?"

"Home."

They had come to Memphis with good meaning; they needed money to survive and prosper; although it wasn't particularly to his liking.

"I don't mind making these trips you know. This city is so lively, and it's really beautiful at night when you look at it all lit up. It's the people, especially the homeless, that ruin it. The rich too. No one appreciates life; they defile their bodies with alcoholism, drugs, you name it." I felt like I was back in church. "I don't understand them. It's such a waste of life. Everyone is so downhearted, so pessimistic. No one realizes how lucky they are. Do you think I always accepted my heritage? Of course not. But I learned to bear with it, to stand it. Now I embrace it, and I'm glad my life turned out the way it did. I just don't appreciate the way people look at us. And when they stare and talk about my son Joseph here, I get very defensive feeling."

"I know what you mean, but I'm just as guilty as the next person. But, for the most part, I think it's just human nature. Curiosity gets the best of us. Obviously you dress differently, but the ideas of your culture, the principles it was founded on, it all just seems so foreign to modern society. It's very dated to us, and, other than tradition, we can't see why any group of people would want to live that way."

"A lot of it is about tradition. You are right about that. But it's more: it gives us a sense of unity. No one understands us, so we bond together even more. Others try to study us, the way we live, but it's not until you actually live the life that you begin to grasp what our lifestyle means. It's an experience."

Jakob and I had talked for nearly two hours when our bus arrived after a tremendous delay, due to overbooking. It was 3:00 a.m. Passengers stumbled in the dark through the smoke filled entrance to the vehicle and boarded like robots. I noticed for the first time as I got settled in, the putrid smell of the group of Amish men. The smell of smoke and food had disguised it earlier, but now it was prevalent, this lack of deodorant, to the point that the small children around us were holding their tiny noses.

Jakob smiled at me.