The Road to Jonestown Read online

  The Depression brought about one major change in Lynn’s population. It skewed younger. Previously, the majority of the residents were older, most often married people who had owned farms and raised families. When the parents reached their late fifties or early sixties and no longer could handle the hard physical labor required, they turned the farms over to their kids and moved into town. But by the early 1930s, terrible economic times found many younger couples forced off their farms and moving into Lynn with their children. The town assimilated them easily enough. Most had relatives or friends already living there. Newly arrived husbands took factory work in Winchester or Richmond, the nearest big towns. Young mothers kept house and raised children. These new arrivals automatically fell into all the familiar Lynn ways. Jim, Lynetta, and Jimmy Warren Jones, part of the esteemed Jones clan, were expected to do the same.

  They didn’t.

  The townspeople were ready to embrace Jim and Lynetta Jones and their little boy. Everybody already knew Jim; he’d been raised there and in Crete. He’d always been considered a nice fellow, and there was universal sympathy and respect for his postwar disability. Most Lynn residents had their doubts about the government, but not the country itself. Patriots all, they honored Jim for his service and wanted to do what they could for him now. Some part-time work was found for him in one of the railroad offices, simple clerical tasks since he now couldn’t handle any physical labor.

  Family and generous neighbors helped the Jones family set up in their new house on Grant Street. As town residences went, it was neither distinguished nor dilapidated, just an ordinary frame structure with a pleasant porch Jim liked to sit out on in the evenings. There was also a garage—Jim and Lynetta had a car, a hand-me-down from some sibling or other but still transportation. Lots of families in Lynn didn’t have cars and had to rely on buses when they needed to get anywhere beyond walking distance. Above the garage was a loft, useful for storage. But Jim and Lynetta didn’t have a lot to store. The Grant Street house was minimally furnished, with gently used furniture either trucked down from the lost farm in Crete or else donated by members of Jim’s extended family. So they had the basics—dining room table, a few chairs, a bed for Jim and Lynetta, and a crib for little Jimmy. A great deal could have been done to make the place more attractive, but that was a wife’s responsibility and Lynetta had no knack for or interest in decorating.

  The rest of Lynn wasn’t automatically condemnatory of such bare-bones housekeeping. In this community of no secrets, everyone knew the other Joneses were subsidizing Jim and Lynetta. The lack of furniture, household amenities, and traditional meals could be chalked up to pride. Jim and Lynetta probably didn’t want to take one more cent from his relations than they had to.

  But Lynetta dreamed of a finer life. She fancied herself a writer and thought she’d been one in previous lives. She wanted conversation devoted to grand things, reincarnation and progressive, nonconservative politics, not boring chatter about drapery and pie recipes. So she spurned invitations to visit other women in town and never invited them into her home. Even out in public, shopping or attending the Wednesday night community movie, Lynetta rarely spoke to anyone, and when she did kept conversation minimal. Many felt she was taking on airs she didn’t deserve—the woman couldn’t even keep a decent house. But Lynetta simply didn’t have anything to talk to them about and felt there was no basis for friendships.

  Lynetta couldn’t avoid spending time with the rest of her husband’s family. Without them, she and her husband and son would have been insolvent. But she was sensitive to every word they spoke to or about her, always anticipating insults. It was particularly galling that they constantly called her “Lynette” rather than “Lynetta.” When they’d first met her, she still called herself Lynette much of the time, and that was how they continued addressing her. They meant no offense, and certainly would have obliged if she’d asked them to call her Lynetta. But she didn’t, preferring to assume deliberate insult. Constantly frustrated, unable in any tangible way to fulfill her ambition of being a great lady, Lynetta got through her dreary days by nurturing resentments, and imagining confrontations where she triumphed over enemies through wit and courage. Lynetta later wrote colorful accounts of these fantasies, substituting self-aggrandizing fiction for fact. But during these early years in Lynn, her only audience was her small son. Jimmy’s two earliest and most enduring lessons from his mother were these: there was always some Them out to get you, and reality was whatever you believed.

  * * *

  Even after moving to Lynn, Jim’s health continued to fail. He suffered periodic physical and emotional problems. Besides scheduled visits to the hospital in Oxford, Ohio, sometimes one of his brothers would drive him to a Dayton VA hospital for emergency treatment. Jim coughed constantly—his respiratory problems weren’t helped by chain-smoking. A cigarette always dangled from his mouth. Jim’s posture grew stooped, and he stopped occasionally working for the railroad. In the mornings he dragged himself out on the porch and sometimes sat there all day. People felt sorry for him. They waved when they walked by, and called out greetings. Jim responded as best he could. He could talk better some days than others. He was invariably friendly. Town children liked Jim because, unlike many grown-ups, he always called them by name. Up close, his appearance was startling. Though he was still in his midforties, Jim’s face had become a mass of wrinkles and saggy skin. Before, he’d been known around town as “Big Jim” to distinguish him from his son, Jimmy. But now some people in Lynn began calling him “Old Jim” instead.

  Lynetta continued keeping to herself. When she did venture into the main part of town, she made a spectacle of herself by smoking and wearing pants instead of dresses. People stared, and she glared back. When she did talk—to grocers or store clerks or to passersby she absolutely had to greet—she peppered her conversation with swear words. By Lynn’s lights, “damn” and “hell” simply did not pass a lady’s lips. Lynetta used them all the time, with an occasional “bullshit” thrown in. She never understood why cursing upset so many people—they were just words. It amused her whenever her swearing bothered someone.

  To an extent, everyone else in Lynn could accept even this eccentricity. But there was one thing about Jim and Lynetta Jones that set them apart in a critical way. In a town where everyone else went to church on Sundays, they never did. For this, they might have been ostracized by many devout townspeople. That they weren’t was due mostly to respect for the rest of the Jones family, who could be found every Sunday dutifully attending Quaker services, and also out of appreciation for Old Jim’s war service. But it was troubling.

  * * *

  The time finally came in the fall of 1936 when Jimmy was old enough to start first grade. Lynetta had to get a job. The area factories were hiring. It was mostly a matter of where she wanted to work. Later, Lynetta spun a tale of persecution by her in-laws. Now, she believed, they resented her for the many prospective employers clamoring to employ her—that, in fact, they really didn’t want her to go to work at all: “[My husband’s family felt] that one’s character if a housewife was dwarfed by working outside the home, especially if she was so skillful and if her services were as much in demand as mine.”

  Lynetta hired on at a glass factory in Winchester. Every morning she got up and took the bus to work. Before she left, she gave Jimmy a sandwich in a sack and sent him off to school. She left her husband to his own devices. Old Jim mostly filled his time by shuffling downtown to the pool hall. It was that or sitting alone in a dreary house. When he got there, he played cards and drank coffee or soda—the owner of the place abided by Lynn custom and did not serve alcohol.

  At night and on weekends when all three Joneses were at home, they had few visitors, mostly family members dropping off food, Lynetta usually being too weary or agitated to cook, or else kids from the immediate neighborhood who came by to play with Jimmy but left soon afterward, spooked by the forbidding atmosphere. Nobody ever seemed to talk at the h
ouse but Mrs. Jones, and this always took the form of diatribe rather than conversation. She’d be hollering at Mr. Jones or Jimmy, or else cussing a storm about the mean sons of bitches at work who didn’t mind working a woman half to goddamn death. She didn’t care who else was there to hear her. No other woman in Lynn took on so; no other husband would have tolerated it.

  Still, after two and a half years, people in Lynn were used to Old Jim and Lynetta. The couple was odd, no doubt about it. But now, for the first time, little Jimmy Jones was loose on the town streets, and it soon became apparent that compared to the boy, his parents were almost normal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JIMMY

  One weekend morning, twelve-year-old Max Knight and his dad drove toward the central part of Lynn. Mr. Knight operated a small airport just outside town. He always had weekend work to do, and Max liked going with him. Watching the planes, which were mostly crop dusters, take off and land was fun.

  As they approached downtown, Max saw a much younger boy—he guessed the kid was maybe six—walking along the side of the road; a beagle trailed after him. The beagle looked a lot like Max’s dog, Queenie. Mr. Knight agreed the resemblance was amazing, and pulled the car over so Max could hop out and get a better look. The minute Max did, the smaller boy ran away, the beagle right on his heels. Max didn’t want the kid to be scared. He ran after him, yelling for him to stop. The chase lasted about a block and a half before the smaller boy tried to hide behind a tree. Max wasn’t fooled. He came up to the kid and was surprised to see that he was trembling. Almost eighty years later, Max described him as “petrified for some reason, just scared to death.” Max introduced himself. The other boy said his name was Jimmy. Max said, “I’ve got a dog that looks like your dog.” Jimmy seemed to think he was being accused of pet theft. He said defensively, “It ain’t my dog. It belongs to a neighbor and just followed me.”

  Max felt bad. He hadn’t meant to upset anyone, he’d just wanted a better glimpse of the beagle who looked like Queenie. Changing the subject, he mentioned that he was out riding around with his dad, who ran the airport. Jimmy’s eyes lit up when he heard that. He said he loved airplanes. Max said Jimmy ought to come to the airport sometime. Then he could see the planes up close.

  The next thing Max and his dad knew, Jimmy was out at the airport every weekend, buddying up to Max and telling Mr. Knight that he wanted to be a pilot and fly airplanes himself someday. That pleased Mr. Knight. Lots of local kids liked to hang out at the periphery of the airport and watch the planes, but because Mr. Knight was so impressed with him, Jimmy got special privileges. He was allowed to go right up to the planes and touch them, and to talk with the pilots as they prepared their aircraft for flight. Soon, there was no doubt in Mr. Knight’s mind: Jimmy Jones loved airplanes more than anything else in the world, and the youngster meant it when he said that, thanks to Mr. Knight, he would become a pilot when he grew up. Max Knight started thinking of Jimmy as a little brother. Their age difference kept them from becoming running buddies, but whenever he was in downtown Lynn, Max made a point of looking his little pal up, seeing how he was doing. Jimmy hinted at a bad home life, mostly due to a mean father who scared him. Jimmy was so obviously needy—Max couldn’t help liking and wanting to protect him.

  * * *

  Jimmy Jones had already spent considerable time scampering along Lynn’s streets before he started grade school. There was nothing unusual about this. From the time they could walk, little boys in town ran all over the place. It was considered part of the natural cycle of growing up. First, they’d stick to a block or two around their homes, then gradually branch out into the neighborhood, and finally, when old enough for first grade, they’d walk to school and back. From there, it was on to the fields and woods surrounding town, always on foot until perhaps a tenth or eleventh birthday when the gift of a bicycle greatly expanded their roaming range. Parents didn’t worry about them, because every grown-up in town watched over the boys. (Girls stayed much closer to home. While boys were encouraged to get out and play, girls from a very early age were expected to stay close and help their mothers with household chores and cooking.) No matter where they went in town, Lynn kids were never unsupervised. The presence of adult strangers was always noted. The children were safe.

  The unique thing about preschool Jimmy was that his parents didn’t join in general supervision. But from his earliest ramblings, Jimmy still had plenty of adults watching over him. Two sets of aunts and uncles also lived on Grant Street—the aunts mothered him if Lynetta was closed up in her house, which was usually the case. Most days the Jones aunts provided snacks when Jimmy was hungry and first aid when he skinned an elbow or knee. Jimmy’s first playmates were cousins. There were dozens of other little Joneses either in Lynn or out on family farms. Age-wise, Jimmy fell about into the middle. He never lacked for company. And, like all the other kids, he was back in his own home by sundown.

  But Jimmy’s situation changed significantly once he started first grade. His mother was at work all day, and his father still haunted the pool hall. From the day she started at the Winchester glass factory, Lynetta had a rule: Jimmy was not to come into their house until she got home. This edict quickly became known all over town. Nobody understood why, or was friendly enough with Lynetta to ask. But it engendered considerable sympathy for Jimmy, whose relatives’ homes were always open to him.

  Yet Jimmy seldom ended up there. Instead, he wandered Lynn’s streets looking lonely and helpless. The little waif’s plight seemed obvious, and around town ladies outside the Jones family did the natural thing and invited him into their homes for snacks, or even full meals when he said he was really hungry. Jimmy swore to each that her food was the most delicious he’d ever tasted. Jimmy was such a polite child, grateful for the slightest kindness. Almost every lady ended up feeling she had a bond with Jimmy—the boy seemed to find something in common with each of them, a shared interest in flowers or animals or handicrafts. This proved especially true for Myrtle Kennedy.

  Myrtle was a scarecrow of a woman, six feet two inches tall and self-conscious about it. In a small town where everybody was religious, Myrtle took her faith to extremes. Orville, her husband, pastored Lynn’s Nazarene church. Nazarenes were conservative in terms of social behavior—no dancing, drinking, or swearing. Nazarene women never wore sleeveless or short dresses, in fear of inflaming the sinful lust of men. In Lynn nobody tried to woo anyone else from one church to another, but Myrtle was the exception. To her, it was join the Nazarenes or go to hell. Those were the only options. On Sunday afternoons, she was known to buttonhole people on the streets and ask if they’d been to church that day—she sure hadn’t seen them in the Nazarene service. Nothing delighted her more than the baptismal dunking of converts in a nearby river.

  People forgave Myrtle for her zealotry because in every other way she was a lovely person. No one in Lynn was more generous to the needy. Because the train and a couple of highways ran through Lynn, in the depressed 1930s there were always tramps around town, all carefully monitored by residents. Questionable ones were hustled on their way, but harmless indigents down on their luck were usually fed. No one was more generous to hobos than Myrtle. She was renowned for baking dozens of pies and setting warm slices out on the sill of an open window so passing transients could help themselves. Along with the food came an obligation to listen awhile to Myrtle espousing the Nazarene faith. She claimed that joining her church guaranteed glory in the next life, if not this one. It was a testament to Myrtle’s goodness that she kept putting out pies even though none of the tramps was ever converted.

  In little Jimmy Jones, though, Myrtle sensed Nazarene potential. After all, the child had no church. His parents never took him on Sundays, so he was growing up godless. He was an attractive child, too, dark-haired and dark-eyed like his mother, but with none of her standoffishness. The Kennedys lived directly across Grant Street from Old Jim and Lynetta. Every day, Myrtle saw poor Jimmy out wandering. It was na
tural for her to invite him in and stuff him with pie when he was hungry, which was all the time. Supposedly his mother gave him a sandwich to tide him over during the day, but every time Myrtle asked if he’d had something to eat, Jimmy said no, and this precious little boy would never lie.

  Once the pie was consumed, Myrtle took the opportunity to share with Jimmy the Good Word of Jesus, how He wanted everybody to be a Nazarene. Unenlightened people thought Nazarene rules were too restrictive, but all they in fact did was hold everyone to standards set down in the Bible. Myrtle read to Jimmy from the Good Book. He hung on every word and remembered what he heard. Soon he was quoting scripture back to her. It was thrilling.

  From there, Myrtle’s next step was taking Jimmy to church with her on Sundays. Lynetta didn’t care. She was always worn out from her weekday work, and if this busybody neighbor wanted to tote Jimmy off for the morning, well, that was one less thing Lynetta had to worry about on her day off. So every Sunday, Jimmy went to the Nazarene church with Mrs. Kennedy, and listened to Mr. Kennedy talk about the Lord and all the things He didn’t want you doing.

  After a while, Jimmy started spending occasional nights with the Kennedys. That was all right with his mother, too. Lynetta had only disdain for those who believed in some simple God up in the sky who eventually consigned everyone to heaven or hell, depending. Lynetta’s spiritualism was far richer than that, involving reincarnation, one life after another, destiny. Sometimes in a life, which was not the only life, a person’s grand destiny was thwarted by those unappreciative or jealous of someone else’s superiority. That was currently happening to her. But her son in his present incarnation was going to be great. She was certain of it. Greatness wouldn’t include falling for Myrtle Kennedy’s Nazarene foolishness. Lynetta probably mentioned this to Jimmy now and then, just to be certain that the boy wasn’t being duped. Beyond that, let him spend time with old lady Kennedy, go to church with her. It kept Jimmy out of his mother’s hair, and, besides, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, Lynetta didn’t think it made any difference.