Feature: Abner Comes Home

As a child, Abner would ride to church in the rear of his parents’ buggy, clopping along country roads. While his father worked the reins, Abner would lift up a black cloth flap in the back to watch sports cars flash by. So sleek. So loud. He loved them loud.

“The Amish guys would always have these souped-up cars, you know,” Abner told me. Tinted windows, chrome wheels, hopped-up mufflers. “From the back of the buggy I would watch these Camaros and Cutlasses go by.”

Those freewheeling Amish guys were enjoying rumspringa (“running around”), a phase that starts at age 16 and stretches until they decide to be baptized into the church, or not. During rumspringa, Amish teens move among outsiders, whom they call “the English,” giving them a chance to sample the world before deciding whether to devote themselves to Amish life. They join “gangs” ranging from the conservative Parakeets to the looser Pilgrims. It’s a ­centuries-old idea, that someone can only choose baptism as an adult, when he can opt not to accept the world’s influence. So, the Amish reason, how can a young person choose to give up something he has never experienced? Their plan works. Ninety percent of their teens come home.

When Abner turned 16, he joined one of the faster groups, called the Crickets, where some members drove cars and drank booze. Abner started slow, installing a radio in the back of his buggy. He’d listen to Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, whatever. Then he started bringing beer along on his buggy rides, holding the reins in one hand and a bottle in the other. “If I wanted to have a drink, I wanted to have a drink,” Abner said. “Now, I wasn’t going to ride down the road with my head out the window drinking a beer. … ”

Abner started up his own roofing company and put aside enough money to buy a car just before he turned 18. He drove it home to his parents’ farm and parked it far from the house, out in a pasture. His father stepped from the house and saw it: a gleaming ­monster — red Thunderbird — jacked up in the rear — up on its haunches — Father forgive him.

Abner ambled up and waited for his father’s word. “Just don’t park it near the house,” he said. “Son … don’t be too bold.” Then he turned and walked inside, leaving Abner to think. Was this approval? Disappointment?
One weekend, Abner and a friend traveled out of Lancaster County to see a demolition derby, an exquisite Amish splurge, almost pornographic, to watch perfectly good cars smash into each other. At the derby, Abner’s friend saw an English neighbor from home, whom Abner describes as “a long-haired hippie guy.” He needed a ride, so Abner and his friend obliged.

In the car, Long-Hair asked, “You guys mind if I smoke?”
Nah, Abner said. He’d seen plenty of cigarettes. No big deal. We’re worldly guys.

“But he pulled out this thing” — here, Abner uses his hands to form a bowl shape — “and we were looking at each other like, ‘What is that?’”

Then Long-Hair remembered his manners. “You want a little?”

The Amish pair furrowed their brows. No, no. Heh heh. Nah.

“But he kind of freaked out, like wondering why we didn’t want it,” Abner said. “He asked again, and we said, ‘Hey, all right. I’ll try it.’”

By the time they dropped Long-Hair off, they were all loopy. Abner bought 20 bucks’ worth of pot from the guy and smoked it immediately.

With time, Abner was shocked to discover a whole culture of pot-smoking Amish guys in gangs like the Antiques and the Pilgrims. An Antique — Abner X. — pulled him aside one day. “You ever tried this?” He had cocaine. “You want to?”

The two Abners shared a name growing up but little else. Abner King Stoltzfus was wiry, darker complected, with the limp. The other, Abner X. Stoltzfus, was robust and plump. Abner sported a modern, slightly rebellious hairstyle, which the Amish call “getting the haircut,” while Abner X. kept the traditional bowl shape. But they did share the one thing: They were Amish. Brothers. So Abner didn’t hesitate. He just leaned into the line of white powder and —

The rush. Cocaine flows through an Amishman’s bloodstream the same as anyone else’s. The Abners snorted more and more, working together on roofs during the week and inhaling their profits on the weekends. Abner X. took Abner to meet his source for the coke: the Pagans.

“There was this guy, this big guy with tattoos and long hair and the whole thing, a motorcycle with the handlebars way up here” — Abner indicated “ape-hanger” handlebars. “I couldn’t believe Abner knew that guy. I would have been too scared to talk to him. But Abner had met him doing a roofing job. And you know, when you’re working like that, everybody’s kind of the same. You talk to people you wouldn’t maybe talk to otherwise.”

That was Doug Hersch, better known as Juke. He was a big-time Lancaster County drug importer, and his partner, Dwayne Blank, was better known as B.D., as in “Big Dwayne.”