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 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 Munster?" Hans Shruer asked.
Ken shook his head.
"A thousand Anabaptists took six wives each, declared the city of Munster 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 wife 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 Pastor Holt's six syllable words Lyndon remembered because he knew where Armenia was. Holt 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."
"Hey ,Tom. Let me buy ya' a beer," 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. 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.
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?" 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."
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," 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, 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?" 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?" Dick asked. Zane was a drunken reprobate who wasn't home for the Ring of Fire.
"What's your point?" Tom answered.
"Well, the Baptist church threw him out. They threw these krauts out too. Makes 'em our kind of people."
Tom shook his head. "Don't see it."
"Three," Dick said. "Half the people in here can't stand somebody else in here. Right?"
"So?"
"So these here krauts can't get along with each other either. Ken didn't offer to let them use the place until they started havin' two services back to back 'cause they couldn't get along. So ya' see, they're our kind of people."
This time Jimmy was half right. Some of the Anabaptists were non-violent, amongst other things. They wanted to hear their own speaker. The other group liked Brother Fiedler's preaching. The building was getting too small for all of them at once so they went to two services. If Ken had known they'd take him up on the offer, he wouldn't have made it. Still, the rent helped.
"Don't see it," Tom said.
"Well, we don't like krauts and the krauts don't like us. Right?"
"And?" Tom asked.
"So the other krauts can't stand these people. I mean Catholics pick on Lutherans and Lutherans don't like Calvinists. But all three of them got it in for Anna Baptists."
Tom became half interested in spite of himself. "Yeah? Why's that?"
"'Cause they won't buckle down and go along. They insist on doin' things their own way. Like only baptizin' adults and to hell with the consequences. Sounds like red necks to me." Dick grinned.
"Don't see it." Tom shook his head.
"And I hear tell back in the world, it was these people who got freedom of religion put in the constitution."
"They didn't do it from Germany," Tom answered.
"Well, how about the place bein' cleaner since they started usin' it?" Dick asked.
They came in the first Sunday and moved the tables and set up the chairs. Before they put the place back together they mopped the floors and wiped down the chairs and the tables.
"So? Ken could hire an American to do it," Tom said.
"Yeah? With what? So many of us are in the army or off somewhere else, business is way off. Shoot, with the rate we're droppin', all of his regulars will be dead shortly anyway. He can't afford to hire more help. Besides they were keeping Ken awake, singing and preaching just over his back fence."
"He could sleep here Sunday nights," Tom suggested.
Dick grunted. "And not go home to the missus? Not Ken. But then he's not henpecked."
"I ain't henpecked," Tom muttered.
Dick took out his wallet and put five twenty dollar bills on the bar. "Hundred dollars right here says ya' are."
"Well, I ain't. Who we goin' get to settle it?" Tom asked.
"Uh uh. If you ain't henpecked, then she'll do what you tell her." Jimmy Dick pointed at the door. "The day she walks through that door and stays for one hour you win the bet."
"I ain't got a hundred dollars on me."
Dick sneered. "And you won't have it come pay day. Shoot, you won't have it at twenty a week. Hell, you won't have it at five a week, 'cause you're a loser. I tell ya' what, I'll put up the hundred against you admitting you're henpecked. Hey, Ken."
"Just a minute, Jimmy Dick," Ken called back. Ken finished the order he was working on. Since the bartender quit, he'd gone back to doing it all himself. "What do ya' need?"
"Tommy and me got a bet goin'. Can you put this in the box until we settle it?"
Ken went down to the cash register and grabbed a lockbox out of the cabinet. When he got back, he opened it and took out a pad of paper. "Okay, what's the bet?"
"I bet Tommy one hundred dollars he's henpecked."
"How ya' gonna settle it?"
"If his wife comes in and stays for an hour any time in the next month, the hundred is his. If she don't, then he answers to henpecked."
"You agree, Tom?" Ken asked.
Tom was caught in a web. "Sure. Why not?" What in hell did I just get my self into, he thought. Maybe if I agree to go to church with her? Naw, won't work she won't agree to come in here anyway. Then it clicked.
Tom smiled. "Sure! If she comes through that door and stays for an hour anytime in the next month the money is mine. Give me the pen."
Tom snickered as he signed his initials to the bet slip. "You just lost your hundred dollars, Dickhead." Then he tipped back his beer and drained it.
All the way home he tried to figure out the best way to get his wife to agree to the plan. He settled on goading her into bugging him to go to church. She did it often enough without his trying. Then he would agree to go if he got to pick the church. When she balked, he'd offer to go with her to her church after she went with him to the church of his choice.
The bet was any time in the next month. Sunday morning would do just fine.
"What can I do for you fellows?" Ken asked as Hans and Hans approached the bar. He had talked to them on Sunday when they routinely "investigated" the noise complaints called in on Sunday afternoon. Now it was Monday and the cops were back.
"Mister Beasley, do you know where your congregation was on Sunday?" Hans Shruer asked.
Ken Beasley broke into a deep belly laugh. Somehow, they were his congregation and he was supposed to know what they were up to. The cops seemed to think he knew what his regular patrons were doing twenty-four, seven. Now he was supposed to keep track of the Anabaptists, too.
The fact was he knew exactly where they were on Sunday morning. Tom Ruffner and his wife Jenny were part of the congregation now. Tom had stopped in for a beer last night. Oddly, his wife didn't mind his having a beer now and again anymore. She even came with him for an hour one evening. She found out about the bet with Jimmy Dick and said it wasn't right. He said he wasn't giving it back. So she traipsed in one evening, hopped up on a bar stool and ordered a cup of coffee. Then she announced it was six minutes after six. At seven minutes after seven, she walked out the door.
When Tom stopped in for a beer, Ken complained about the mess.
"Ain't our fault," Tom said. "Weren't none of us here. We all went over to Rudoltstadt for the first service of a church Joe is starting over there. They're gonna have some trouble on account of Rudolstadt being nothin' but Lutheran. We went over to show support. If there was a mess, it was your mess."
Ken had to concede the point. Still, just because he knew where they were didn't mean he was going to tell the cops anything, especially not in front of Jimmy Dick. James Richard Schaver was the only patron in the place at the moment. The lunch drinkers were gone; the "beer or two on the way home" crowd wouldn't trickle in for awhile and it was way too early for the every-night late-night regulars. If he told the cops anything, sure as Saint Patrick wasn't Jewish, Jimmy Dick would see to it everybody knew it. His patrons expected privacy with their beer.
When his laughter ran down Ken responded to the question without answering it. "Joe Jenkins hasn't been in yet to pay this week's rent. When he does, I'm going to complain about the mess they left me. It almost looked as if there hadn't been anyone here at all."
Hans and Hans exchanged knowing glances.
"What's up?" Ken asked.
"We got a query from over in Rudoltstadt. It seems someone with a truck was at an unauthorized church service," Hans said.
The description of the truck matched Joe's ancient (early fifties vintage) coal hauler to a "T." Joe ended up with the old thing when the company he was working for went bankrupt. It was so old the army didn't want it. Even the tires weren't worth taking. Now, it had a propane tank for natural gas over the cab. The bed was boxed in against the weather with benches down each side, with a door and steps to the rear for people. Joe was using it for a church bus.
"Unauthorized?" Jimmy Dick piped in. "It was Sunday. How much more authorized do you need to be?"
"Mister Schaver," Hans said. "The ruler in Rudoltstadt is Lutheran. So the church in Rudoltstadt is Lutheran."
"And if you ain't Lutheran?"
"Then you convert, or you move," Hans said.
"That ain't right! What ever happened to freedom of religion?!"
"Rudoltstadt is not America. Not being Lutheran in Rudoltstadt is a punishable offence!"
The law in the USE called for religious tolerance, but the gap between custom and law is often quite large.
"That just ain't right," Jimmy said.
"Punishable, how?" Ken asked.
"Fines, confiscation, exile, imprisonment, beheading." Hans knew full well capital punishment was rare even before the USE. Still, getting sick or starving to death in prison or on the road was not in the least uncommon.
Jimmy practically squealed. "That's medieval!"
"And just when do you think you are, Mister Schaver? This is the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and thirty-three. You are in Germany and this is the way things are done," Hans said.
"Mister Beasley, when . . ." It was clearly when, not if. ". . . you see Joe Jenkins, please let him know we would like him to stop in at the station. We need to assure the people over in Rudoltstadt that it won't happen again."
Having made that pronouncement Hans and Hans stalked out. Ken watched them leave with a feeling of anxiety.
"That's bull shit!" Jimmy Dick said. "They can't tell our krauts what to do."
Ken's head snapped around. "Our krauts? Since when did any of those shit-heads become our krauts?"
"Ken, there ain't a conversation in this bar you don't know about." It was a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one. "You know we've been sayin' the krauts holdin' church here are red necks and our kind of krauts."
When Jimmy said "we" he was talking about himself. But no one was shutting him down, which he took as agreement. "We ain't gonna let them push our krauts around. Not when it comes to religious freedom."
"Jimmy Dick, you're full of shit!"
"Well, sell me another beer."
Later, Jimmy Dick was riding a high horse hell bent for leather. What surprised Ken was that people were listening. Normally, Jimmy had to buy to get anyone to drink with him and listen to his ranting insults. But he started talking about religious freedom.
"We shouldn't let them outside krauts over the border push our good old boy, red neck krauts around. Our krauts ain't too stuck up to hold church in a bar. Are we goin'a let some asshole over the border tell them what they can and can't do? We ought to take our shotguns and go over there to church next Sunday and how ever many Sundays it takes until they figure it out and leave our krauts alone." Jimmy actually had people buying him drinks.
Ken heard it and the sinking feeling in his stomach started turning into a large knot.
Joe Jenkins turned up the next day after the lunch crowd was gone. Ken let him know right away the cops had been in looking for him.
"I've already talked to them."
"Then you're shutting down the church over there?" Jimmy Dick asked. He was there for lunch, as usual, and would likely stay to closing. Between his disability from the army and family money he hadn't held a job since coming back from Nam.
"No," Joe answered.
"Good. Me a few of the boys are talkin' about comin'."
"Be glad to have you."
"You got this week's rent?" Ken planned to tell Joe it would be going up.
"We didn't use the place this week."
"Why, you cheap S.O.B. Get your worthless, sorry ass out of my place and don't let me ever catch you in here again." In truth, Ken was relieved. He knew in his bones something bad was going to happen and he didn't need to be part of it.
"Sorry ya' feel that way about it." Joe sighed.
Hans Shruer requested permission to handle the follow up on the complaint that Grantville was exporting heresy. Hans wanted it handled by someone sympathetic. He was not sure an up-timer would show proper respect for a pastor.
Despite everything he loved in Grantville, there were things which troubled him. Their willingness to treat all men as equals was refreshing. It was amusing when the emperor became Captain General Gars upon entering Grantville. It would not be amusing if someone was less than deferential to a pastor.
Hans rose early, mounted a borrowed horse and made his way across the boarder. Pastor Holt received him in the study. The room's fireplace was welcome on a chilly April day. A writing desk, a magnificent library of seven books and two comfortable chairs in front of the fire furnished the room.
"Pastor, I am here in response to the complaint you lodged with the Grantville Police."
"Good." Pastor Holt said. "We need this nipped in the bud with as little fuss as possible."
"I couldn't agree with you more, Pastor. But I am afraid I must inform you the chief of police feels there is nothing he can do."
"What?"
"He says it is outside his jurisdiction."
"He intends to let these, these blasphemers, carry on their criminal activities because they cross the border to do it?"
"Pastor, first, he does not see it as criminal."
"Nonsense! It is against the laws of God and man!"
"Pastor, the laws of God are not the laws of the USE. Or of Grantville."
"They should be!"
"I agree. But unfortunately they are not. The different churches cannot agree was to what those laws are and . . ."
"On this point we are in agreement! The re-baptizers strike at the very root of Christianity. How can anyone have confidence in their salvation when someone claims baptism does not save?" Pastor Holt shuddered. "Where does this leave those children who die an early death?"
"I understand completely. You are absolutely right. Except all of the churches do not agree on . . ."
"Nonsense. It was settled at the second Diet of Speier. The Catholics, the Lutherans, and now the Calvinists, all agreed the Anabaptists are not to be tolerated."
"Pastor, there are three established churches in Grantville who practice only adult baptism. They have, or will have, existed for hundreds of years in America. Their existence is not a threat to the Lutheran church or Christianity. The chief feels you will just have to make an accommodation in your thinking. You know they have a radical concept of religious freedom."
"I can do nothing about what 'they' do in Grantville." It is amazing how much can be said with how a word is pronounced. "But, I will not allow this travesty to be inflicted on the people of my parish."
"Pastor, Joseph Jenkins claims to have the count's permission."
"Nonsense! The count is a loyal member of the Lutheran faith. He would never condone this."
"The chief has known Mr. Jenkins for years. He accepted his statement without bothering to verify it. I overheard the conversation. Mr. Jenkins claimed to have talked with the count. He claimed the count does not want to lose a large party of gunsmiths who were about to move so they could attend church without walking miles and miles. The count, according to Jenkins, feels this acceptance of any faith as long as it does not create social disorder is one of the secrets of Grantville's prosperity."
"Social disorder? What does he think rebaptism is? Doesn't he know about Munster?"
"Pastor, you will have to ask the count. I fully sympathize with your problem. Believe me, I will do anything I can to help. But the response I was sent to deliver is: the officials in Grantville are not prepared to do anything."
"Surely you jest?"
"I wish I did."
The count did not relieve Pastor Holt's frustration. "Pastor Holt, I know you are aware the Emperor has declared religious freedom."
"Religious freedom? Yes. But surely it does not include these people."
"Yes. It does."
Next Sunday's sermon was a railing accusation against Godless polygamists and anarchists. On Monday, word came from the count to drop it. Pastor Holt had no choice but to obey. After all, the count was the one who appointed him to the pulpit and paid his salary.
About three months later, the English version of the Magdeburg Freedom Arches propaganda broadside started turning up in Grantville. When Jimmy Dick saw the lead article, he wondered just how long he would have to do his drinking at home.
Red Necks to the Rescue by Leo Nidus
If you have not been to Grantville then you may not know of a private drinking establishment called "Club 250." There is a sign on the door "No Dogs and No germans Allowed."
The people who drink there are referred to by the general population of Grantville as "red necks." This is a derogatory term designating a lower class of people. They are presumed to be louts, willfully ignorant, belligerently pugnacious, and ethnocentric in the extreme, as noted by the sign on the door. They are not well considered and clearly stand in opposition to the general policy of acceptance which is a hallmark of Grantville. But since tolerance is so highly esteemed by Grantville's ethos, even red necks are secure by law from any disapproval beyond verbal condemnation.
Why should I write of these dregs of their culture, the lowest order of society? That is simple. I write of them because of the nobility of their actions and the generosity of their spirit.
When no place to worship could be found amongst the established churches—yes, churches. Grantville's tolerance fosters over half a dozen different faiths existing side by side without even covert violence—for a small Anabaptist sect, the red necks of Club 250 opened the doors of the club to them in off hours, asking only that they be gone well before the club opened for business. When the sect opened a church across the border and encountered active opposition, including the threat and actualization of violence, these same "degenerate louts" undertook to guarantee the safety of the congregation by standing armed vigil over the services until the violence subsided.
Why would the dregs of society, the despised lowest order, the willfully ignorant do such a thing? Because they know in their hearts, they hold the conviction deep in their souls, that freedom is not free. They understand that when one man is not free, then none are truly free.
If today we allow the Anabaptists to be denied the right to freely assemble, then tomorrow that freedom could be denied to others and then to us.
The price of freedom is the defense of the rights of others, even if it is the right to be wrong. As one red neck put it, "the price of freedom is the defense of idiots."