As a Thief in the Night (12 page)

The fortune of us that are the moon's men

Doth ebb and flow like the sea,

Being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

Ezra looked over the drawing as he walked. When he got home he stuck it to the mirror in his bedroom with scotch tape and asked Elsie about going on Friday night to the Bird Man's church group to play basketball. As long as he found out the name of the church, she told him, he had her approval. 

The Bird Man showed up at the house that Friday night, and with something of a gentleman's tone, introduced himself to Gord. Elsie heard them talking and stepped out of the back room and into the kitchen.

"Hi, Michael."

"Oh, hello Mrs. Mignon."

"Did you walk over?"

"Yeah, I live just a few streets over."

"So it's not too far," Elsie said as she looked Ezra up and down. Then, seeing something she was not content with, she stepped toward him, licked her thumb, and wiped something from the side of his face with it.

"Elsie!" he complained, pushing her hand away.

"I'm sorry," she said inspecting him again, nodding that things were now satisfactory.  "So you guys are going to play basketball?"

"Yup," the Bird Man nodded. "At Belle River Public School."

"And it's with your church youth group?"

"We do it every Friday night."

"What church is it that you belong to, Michael?" Elsie asked.  Ezra had not found out for her.

"Calvary Pentecostal Assembly. It's over on the east side of town, on your way into St. Joachim."

"Do your parents go there, too?"

"No. Just me."

"You go to church all by yourself?  That's pretty impressive."

"Yup," the Bird Man acknowledged, agreeing that it was, in fact, pretty impressive. He looked at Elsie and then at Gord. "How about the two of you? What are you guys doing tonight?"
  The two of them looked at each other and smiled.

"Not much, Jason," Gord patronized him. "Probably just watching a movie and going to bed early. You know, old people stuff."

"That's good too sometimes," Mulligan said seriously. 

Gord looked at Ezra. He could tell that he was glad to have something to do.

"Just try to keep this guy away from the girls," Gord joked, smacking Ezra on the back.

The Bird Man threw his head back, laughed, and clapped his hands together. "I'll try," he said, still laughing a little.

The first boy that the Bird Man introduced Ezra to was walking out of the gym doors just as they were walking in. He was short, with close-cut black hair, and walked with a bounce in his step.

"Alex," Mulligan said, stopping him, "this is Ezra."

"Hi," the boy said, looking him directly in the eye and quickly extending his hand, "I'm Alex."

Ezra shook his hand. "How's it going?"

The boy continued into the hallway. "Are you a Christian?" he asked over his shoulder. He was a little short of breath from his efforts in the gym. He moved with confidence and his voice was full of energy.

"Yes," Ezra answered, a little unsure.

"Praise God," he said with a friendly smile and bounced down the hall to the water fountain. Ezra felt the familiar sting of conscience. He wondered if he had just lied. But he had not lied; the subtle pangs of guilt he felt came from a vague awareness that the boy had meant something different in his use of the word 'Christian' than the meaning Ezra attached to it.

He met the others. They were as old as twenty-one and as young as ten. He joined a group of four or five of them with the Bird Man and started a game of basketball. All of them were awful players. Ezra scored easily and moved the ball wherever he wanted to and felt glad that he was establishing himself so quickly. When the game was over the Bird Man, who was probably the worst player, pulled him off to the side.

"You're really good."

"Thanks," Ezra said dribbling the ball between his legs. "I've been playing a bit more lately."

"You should play against Alex; he's probably our best player." The Bird Man looked around the gym and saw Alex shooting by himself at one of the other baskets.
  "Alex, you should play against this guy; he's really good."

Alex took a long jump shot and missed.
 

"Sure, come on over."
 

He was aggressive and very quick. Most of his longer shots bounced hard off the rim but he fought hard for the ball and beat Ezra to the rebounds. Ezra became frustrated and worked harder and harder. As he became more competitive he started to sweat and his breath grew ragged. Jumping high and reaching for a rebound, Ezra accidentally came down on Alex's head with his elbow. He was sure he had hurt him and called foul and offered him the ball. But the shorter boy turned down the ball and became more and more frantic in his efforts. Alex scored two more baskets to tie the game. Both scrambled, missed shots, and swatted roughly at the ball on defense. Finally, his heart now pounding, Ezra threw up a fifteen-foot shot that he prayed would fall through the hoop because he was too exhausted to chase the rebound. The ball bounced around the rim and then through the basket. With a sense of relief he shook hands with his opponent, and turning toward the hallway to walk to the water fountain, gagged, and then threw up in his mouth. He ran through the front doors, puked in the shrubs just outside the front doors, came back inside, and took a long cool drink of water.

When he came back inside the gym Alex was sitting on the stage with the rest of the group gathered on the floor in front of him. Ezra looked for the Bird Man and saw him seated expectantly at the front of the group. Seeing that he looked a little lost, a couple of the others ushered him to a spot on the floor. Everyone grew quiet and Alex began to speak.

"I asked Pastor Mark if I could witness to the youth tonight because it's been almost two years since I accepted Christ into my heart as my personal savior."
  Voices, some loud and some barely audible, spoke out around Ezra: "Praise God" and "Amen" fell over the top of each other while Alex paused and smiled. Encouraged, he continued, "I'd like to speak tonight on being prepared for the coming of Christ."

"For a long time, before I was saved, I did a lot of evil things. The devil found all kinds of ways to sneak into my life. Mostly, through the friends I hung around with. I was like all those blind people around Noah before the flood. They drank and had sex with different women and did not believe the day would come when they would be punished. It wasn't until they were sinking, their lungs full of God's holy waters, that they believed, and then it was too late."

Ezra looked over at Pastor Mark, who was nodding his head in sympathetic agreement with the truth being spoken.

"So be prepared," Alex continued, "because it will be the same for the world when Jesus Christ returns. The Bible tells us that two men will be working together in the fields. One will be taken and the other will be left behind. Two women will be doing their housework. One will be taken and the other left behind. Now some people will tell you not to take these words literally.
  They'll tell you about symbols and that God doesn't mean the things that are right there on the page in front of you. But mark my words, if you do not accept Jesus into your heart, if you are not born again as you must be to be saved, the day will come when you turn a street corner, or get out of bed, and you will find that the brothers and sisters in Christ will be missing from the world of sin. On that day God will release his grip on the evil he is protecting us from and it will attack like the flood that Noah's doubters drown in. So, the question is: Where will
you
be? All of us as youth need to be ready. We need to watch and wait, because the day of accounting is almost here. If you haven't given your life over to Christ, today or tomorrow might be your last chance. We do not know when he will arrive, but the Bible tells us he will come in darkness. He will come
as a thief in the night
."

Who was this boy? Several members of the group on the floor applauded and praised what he said. Then he passed around copies of the song he wanted to sing to close his lesson.
  Alex showed a silent four count with his hand and gestured for the group to begin singing.

Pastor Mark had them hold hands and say a closing prayer. Ezra closed his eyes and felt his stomach turn. Anxiety at the boy's words and passion shook his balance as Pastor Mark began to pray. The faces of the other young people became earnest as their lips moved silently along with the pastor.

But, mostly, he was glad to have friends around him again. Over the next couple of months he continued to play basketball with Alex and the others. Each Friday, after either a member of the youth group or Pastor Mark had spoken, they all went and ate fries and drank Coke at the Charcoal Pit. A grumpy old Greek man owned it. He was always kicking kids out who made too much noise or hung around too long after they had finished eating. Ezra got to know some of the others better and soon they offered to pick him up for Wednesday night services at the church itself.

Calvary Pentecostal Assembly was an ugly modern church made of red and brown bricks. It was stripped down both inside and out, left "open" in that barren and cardboard Christian style that is a reflection of our Age's arrogant belief that our reason has transcended our need for symbols and ritual. The altar was an empty stage with a shiny black piano and a pulpit.
  Office style chairs were used in place of pews. A lone lit cross, bright white against the red and brown brick, was attached to the front of the building.  It threw its pale light on the closely cut, flowerless front lawn.

Well, it all came as a great shock to him. He had never seen people behave this way before. The young people were joined by their families at these Wednesday night meetings.
  While the pastor spoke they called out and praised God and Jesus with their hands in the air.  They kept their hands extended towards heaven while they sang and shut their eyes like babies being put to sleep while they swayed to the music and prayed. During the first service the man beside him broke into a sweat with his eyes shut tight and began mumbling and chanting.

"Bim da la bim da bim...Sashacon
  saba....Sashocaon saba."

"What was he doing?" he asked the Bird Man after the service was over.

"He was speaking in tongues."

"Speaking in tongues?"

"You haven't heard that before?"

"No."

"It's the language of the Holy Spirit. When you pray, sometimes you're filled with the Holy Spirit and it speaks through you like that."

"Like possession?"

"No. Possession is what demons and evil spirits do to you."

Ezra's eyes opened wide. "You believe in demons?"

"Of course," the Bird Man said. "People here have had experiences with them."

"How do you know?"

"Because I have."

"What kind of experience?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

If the history of man has proven anything, it is that extremes are not sustainable. The other thing it has proven is that certain natures are always attracted to them. It was precisely at these extremes that the people who attended and ran Calvary Pentecostal Assembly lived. The adults, almost to a person, were former drug addicts, alcoholics, and criminals. Several of the men wore faded motorcycle gang tattoos, perhaps a skull or a grim reaper with some appropriate phrase like "Love and Hate" smeared in bluish-black ink around it. They did their best to cover these with their much newer, clean white shirtsleeves.  The marks on the women were not always so visible, but in all of them the hard lines of their faces told the stories of lives they had tried to leave but could not escape. Prison, abuse, divorce, and children left behind but not forgotten made up many of the days they had lost to the snares of the devil.

From the gutter they went directly to the rooftop and declared for all to hear that they were reborn, that the devil had been driven out, and that all who had ears to hear should follow or risk eternity in flames. Many of them attended church three or four times a week because they knew, but would never have admitted, that if it wasn't the temple, then it would be the tavern, or much worse. They came to the pulpit to be healed, and the pastor laid his hands upon them.
  Sweat from the effort of summoning the Holy Spirit streamed down his strained face.

The repentance of some lasted months, that of others years, yet all but the old and tired eventually found themselves face down in the muck again. The bottle and needle were picked up once more, the call of the city streets proved too strong for their flawed wills, and the beds of strange men and women too warm. Before long this too, in its turn and according to the course of the pendulum, could no longer be sustained. Then, just before the final note on the tragedy was struck, they returned beaten and bloodied to the God and church that, so long as they were willing, would always welcome the prodigal home. These were the poles that their lives threw them back and forth between, and the ones most of them were able to pass on to their children.