worse than usual, and though I saw no apparitions and heard no voices telling me to get out of the house, after fourteen weeks of Bible School I found it both effortless and uncomplicated to believe that Satan must be picking on me.
Perversely, I confess, I felt flattered by the attention.
I imagined a boardmeeting in the bottomless pit, with a middle-management succubus pointing to a pie chart of my soul while he detailed a scenario to stop me before I won all those headhunters for Christ. “We can get to Gideon through our music,” he’d tell the others, who would nod their scarlet heads and scribble notes in their asbestos spiral binders. “He’s particularly fond of the opening riff of ‘China Grove’.” I’ll have to tell Moon about this when I get back, I thought. He’ll be so jealous.
One evening I approached my father — his left hand deep in a tin of mixed nuts and his right clutching the latest Worker’s Vanguard— and nonchalantly mentioned that I suspected some sort of demonic activity in my bedroom. He looked up at me slowly, pushed his glasses back against his bridge and popped an almond in his mouth. “Count your blessings,” Dad sighed, tugging at his moustache just as a car honked in front of our house. It was his carpool. “Rally at the consulate,” he explained. “Exorcism.” He shrugged and smiled wanly, then stood and left the room. What must life have done to him, I wondered, and made a mental note to pray extra hard for him later that night.
After Jeopardy I almost called my mother tor counsel, checking myself only when I considered that she’d probably blame the evil visitations upon my Father and insist that I move back in with her. Besides, I was certain that she would be paralysed by any inference that I was rooming with Lucifer. She’d likely live in expectant dread of my hissing at the crucifix of some astounded Catholic priest, or my head spinning as though my spine were a string of rosary beads. No, she could never know.
During Maude I called Pastor Fillmore, and he told me quite calmly that he had two other possible cases of demonism on the go, and could he possibly get back to me, no later than mid-week? I was equally alarmed and disillusioned that my predicament wasn’t as novel as I’d thought. Perhaps this was just a run-of-the-mill haunting; a rite of passage for the common Christian rabble — nothing to write home about. Left to sort things out, I saw two courses of action before me: a radical purging of my record and tape collection, eliminating everything that smacked of syncopation (which was everything except a Steve Martin comedy album), or just deep six the Doobies. Since their tape seemed to be the focus — and given that Filmore’s indifference had led me to believe that it wasn’t such a big deal — I found the latter course most prudent. Just to be safe, I also scrapped Wild and Crazy Guy.
Say what you will, but that was the end of it.
When Filmore finally got back to me he was glad to hear that the disturbances had ceased (though he sounded nonplussed I hadn’t trashed all my albums, and perhaps slighted that God hadn’t needed him to cast out a demon after all. He alluded to his having put the devil to chase on other fronts, but didn’t offer details.) After chatting amiably for a while about the power of the blood and what I wanted for Christmas, Filmore asked whether I might be interested in scoring quickie Christian Service points over the holidays.
“You know Johnny, don’t you, Gideon? Johnny Cicero? A short fellow, but stocky — tough and leathery — an ex-biker, actually. Sings in the choir.”
“Oh right — I know who you mean.” Barely. We’d shaken hands a few months before, when he’d heard I was leaving for Bible School and had wanted to wish me well. All I remembered was a squat, fleshy man in a corduroy suit that matched his tan, with a grip that could splinter my palm like a pistachio shell. A raw pistachio.
“Johnny does lots of work with a nifty little street mission downtown called Wise Up! Heard of it? Been with them ten years now. Johnny’s director of their open-air campaigns. He often gets some of our young people to help out. Surprised you haven’t yet. Anyway, he asked me to recommend a young man who might give his testimony on Christmas Eve.”
“Oh?”
“How about it?”
“Well .…” The man of sin inside me, my Old Adam, said Nomotberfuckingwayleavemethefuckalone. The new man said Get thee behind me, Satan.
“How many points does Overcomer hand out for street evangelism?”
“Five. I’ll do it.”
“Good stuff. I’ll call Johnny. And, Gideon,” Filmore added with sotto voce,“I wouldn’t say anything about the Doobie Brothers and all that, son,” he suggested. “What Johnny’s looking for is a basic conversion story. ‘Once I was lost and now I’m found’ kind of stuff. Devil talk could, you know, distract from the greater miracle of God working in your heart. Besides, we don’t want to give ?l’ Sooty Face any free publicity, eh?”
This, then, was how, while balancing on a folding chair in the open air at the corner of Yonge and Dundas, I came to meet Oppie Szabo.
Cicero called the evening of the 23rd to confirm the arrangements, and was as blunt as any man should be who’d been making the same phone call for 10 years. He told me to meet him at 4:30 in the Cliffside parking lot. (“a.m. or p.m.?” I inquired. “What?” he barked. “Never mind.”) Then he asked if I was nervous. “Well, I guess,” I answered. “Good,” said Cicero, and that was that, besides telling me to be on time and to dress “for the street.” He’d hung up before I had the courage to ask him what he meant.
Snow had been falling since mid-morning, and was beginning to choke the parking lot when I arrived at 4:20 on Christmas Eve in my oatmeal wool sweater, beige double-knits and blue vinyl coat. The mission van was already there with the motor idling; it had been parked long enough for its tracks to almost fill with snow. Cicero rolled down his window and spat out a pink wad of chewing gum, folded his copy of the Toronto Sun away on the dashboard, then stretched across the passenger’s side and opened the door.
“Hop in. You got the death seat. The girls’ll be along soon.”
“Girls?”
“Augusta and Sally,” he answered, as though I should know them. “They do the singing. Good kids.”
Cicero seemed remarkably underdressed for winter, wearing only frayed jeans, a stained maroon sweatshirt and a ragged denim jacket, the back of which I would discover he’d embroidered with ruby-coloured sequins that spelt “Jesus is Lord.” His thinning black hair was pulled back and tied off in an unnecessary ponytail, and beard stubble spotted his cheeks and neck like iron filings do a bar magnet. A leathery man, Filmore had called him. That and more. He looked like cowhide, with the cow still inside.
“Glad to have you with us, Gideon.” His voice, sweet like a Macintosh seeded with razor blades.
“Glad to help out, Mr Cicero.”
“Johnny. We don’t stand on formalities. Not on the street.”
“Sure, okay.”
And that was all that was spoken between us until Augusta and Sally showed up. In the meantime I admired his diploma in New Testament studies from Swift Current Bible College, which he kept taped to the back of the van’s sun visor.
“You gals’ve done this before,” he said, once they’d arrived just on time and found their seats, “and Gideon’s an OBIer. There’s not much a punk like me can tell you college kids. You know where we’re goin’, and you know why we’re goin’ there. Any questions?”
“I’m just wondering about the order of things.”
“I’m gonna start, then Augusta and Sally’ll sing a few songs, then I’ll say something more, then the girls again, then you, and then me again.” He sounded like Bob Hope, outlining a Christmas special to Johnny Carson. “Sally, I might ask you to use the felt board, but we’ll see how the Spirit leads. That’ll probably take us to seven or so. Then we’ll do an invitation to know the Lord and see if