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 anyone needs counselling.”
“And um, about how long should my testimony be?”
“Oh, whatever. Not long. Fifteen minutes or so’d be fine. Sally, you got a playlist or something I can look at?”
“No — sorry, Johnny,” Sally said. “We didn’t think that was necessary.”
“I know. I’ve never asked for one before, but you haven’t been on the street with me since October and, well, now it’s Christmas.” I glanced over my shoulder at Augusta and Sally. They looked as clueless as I felt.
“What’dya plan to sing?”
“The usual,” Sally answered, “plus a few carols.”
“Yeah,” Cicero sighed and scratched his head. ? thought you might. Sorry, I should have talked you sooner. It’s not your fault. I just would rather that no carols be sung.” He released the brake and put the van into gear. “Jesus ain’t a baby no more.”
Cicero was the only Christian I’d met who didn’t object to the materialism of Christmas; his problem was with its spirituality.“It’s nothing but a Babylonian feast day,” he explained on the way downtown. “Egyptian, too. December 25th was celebrated as the birth of Horace, the son of Isis. I’m not telling you nothing you don’t know when I say that Christmas was a compromise of the early church to accommodate pagan culture. ‘Yule’ is Chaldean for ‘infant’. Not too many people know that.” Baal, Moloch, Osiris, it didn’t matter which gods of which godless nations were invoked: they were all in it together so far as Cicero was concerned. He objected to Christmas ever having been introduced into the Christian calendar. In fact, he despised the notion of a Christian calendar altogether. It was nothing but “veneration
