that looked like quilted terrycloth, a red checkered flannel shirt and a buttonless, much distressed, grey leather greatcoat that reached the tips of the tongues of his tattered Doc Martens. He would have been shorter than his girlfriend but for a green mohawk gelled into five, 10-inch spikes.
“Scott’s a musician,” she confided as he loped towards us. “Thinks he is, anyway. Calls himself Scott Mission. Least he has since the Santa Claus parade. His real name’s Poors, so he figures it’s kind of a pun. He thinks he’s funny, too. Oh, fuck it,” she sighed. “Ignore me. I’m just pissed he’s late. He’s the bassist for the Bangkok Lady Boys. Heard of them? They suck dick, but he’s sure they’re gonna be the next Masturbation Death.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, and took a drag on her cigarette. “Don’t be scared. He’s not exactly harmless, but — Scott, sweetie,” she shouted, “where the fuck have you been?”
“Alarm didn’t go off,” he rasped in a reedy voice. “I thought we were meeting at the subway.”
“Well, we know better now, don’t we, ya sweet, dumb bastard?” As Scott ambled closer she smiled, tossed her cigarette into the street and stretched out her arms as though she were about to feel her way across a darkened room. After their embrace and sloppy kiss, Scott kept one hand around her waist while the other fished a pack of Marlboro’s out of his coat pocket. He was staring at me as it he’d never before seen blow-dried hair.
“I’d like you to meet my street preacher friend — sorry, what’s your name?”
“Gideon. What’s yours?”
“Oppie.”
“Oppie?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Like Poppy. Just hold the ’?’”
“Street preacher?” Scott cried. I nodded, and gave a little shrug and smile to tell him that I was still human. He let loose with a phlegmy laugh that quickly became a hacking cough. “No shit! You’re just in time. Oppie an’ me need saving, baad!” And he squeezed her ass
“Bastard!” Oppie said, slapping his arm. “Behave yourself. He doesn’t need you to embarrass him, too.”
“Why? What’d you do?”
“Tell you later — just be good.”
“Be good?” Scott leered at me. “But that’s not enough — is it, brother? It’s not enough just to be good, is it?”
“No, that’s right.” Suddenly I was in a wind up, about to cast my string of pearls. “The Bible says, ‘Our righteousness is as filthy rags.’ Everybody falls short. That’s why Jesus came; so that ‘we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’”
“Have you been born again?”
“Yes. Have you?”
“Why make the same mistake twice?” Scott smirked as though he’d caught my pearls on one of his spikes, then he wiped his mouth. His fingers poked out of his coat sleeve like little piggies in a blanket. He lit a cigarette and then leaned towards me, his gelled points quivering, and put his hand on my shoulder. “You probably wouldn’t think to look at me, but I’m into God.”
“Great. What does that mean, exactly?”
“I like talking religion and shit. My folks are Catholic. I’ve read the Bible — more than I can say for them.”
“Well, good. That’s good.”
“Pretty hot stuff. That Song of Solomon — I mean, Whew! I can dance to that.”
“Scott, must you be such a prick?”
“I don’t know; I guess. But Jesus, Oppie, I’m just joking. God should be big enough to take a joke, eh?”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Oppie told me. “He’s always like this.”
“So save me — in twenty-five words or less.”
“I can’t do that,” I smiled beneficently. “That’s up to God. I can’t argue you or anybody into Heaven.”
“So it’s up to God then, who gets into Heaven?”
“Well, that’s one side of it. But it’s also up to us. The Bible says, ‘Whosoever will come unto me I will in no wise cast out.’”
“‘No wisé ?” he laughed. “What the fuck kind of way is that to talk?”
“Anyway,” I said, pressing on. “What the Word tells us is we’ve got free will. It means that on one side, God chooses us, and on the other, we choose God.”
“Why do you think God gave us free will?”
“Because he loves us. Because he wanted creatures who could love him freely.”
“Where’s the freedom in that?” Scott coughed as he poked the air with his Marlboro. “If we don’t make the choice he wants, then he sends us to hell? If that’s freedom, I’ll take Door Number Three, Monty. Shouldn’t God love us whatever choice we make?”
“But the thing is, God’s holy. He hates sin but loves the sinner.”
‘Uh huh,” he nodded taking a puff while werghing which plank of the Creed he should splinter next. “So I guess you think we’ve got immortal souls or something?”
“Can you imagine not existing?”
“Tell me, what was it like before you were born?” He was leering again. “You didn’t exist then, did you? Why is it so tough to accept that someday you won’t? I think, maybe, our life energy or something goes on in some form
“Ah, well, there you go.” I felt the hint of a smirk begin warming my face.
“But your soul’s got personality, right?” I nodded. “Let me tell you something. My Dad was in a bad car crash a couple of years ago; had a real serious head injury. Personality doesn’t even make it out of this life, brother.”
“But — I’m very sorry about your father — but there’s a lot of comfort in knowing that God loves him.”
“Right,” he spat. “And if I treated my lover the way your God treats his, I’d be thrown in jail.”
“Scott, our streetcar’s coming.”
“Merry Christmas, preacher.”
“Merry Christmas. Nice meeting you, Scott, Opy.”
“Oppie! Ritchie Cunningham used to be Opy.”
“Oh hey, just a sec, would you mind if I gave you something?” I reached inside a trouser pocket for a couple of gospel tracts entitled This Was Your Life that were stamped with Cliffside’s address for soul-winning emergencies.
“Ooh, cartoons,” Oppie squealed,
