As Lightning Fall from Heaven
by Constance Gelvin

"Say what?" By that I guess the Stay-a-Spell Inn desk clerk--with his question-mark posture, his stained Deathrocker t-shirt and his tribal-looking nose and ear piercings--meant: "Excuse me?"

Followed by the generic, har-de-har-har comment I've heard countless times when the nature of my business comes up. "You mean, like, in "The Exorcist"? Like with head swiveling and--"

"Green pea soup vomiting? Not quite, but our friends in Hollywood got one thing right--what the Devil can do to a person is downright nasty."

"That's so cool, man. I, like, saw your flyers downtown, and I said to my buds: 'Check it out, man. Look what's--'"

"Deathrocker, huh?" I jabbed a finger toward his t-shirt emblazoned with: 'Japeth Case Died for Your Sins.' "You one of those--what did Case call his fans?--Deathians, something like--"

"Deathlings. Yeah, I'm a hardcore Death-head. Case was a genius."

"So I've heard. Here," I pulled out a business card printed with: 'Rev. John-Dallas Moore, Ph.D./Exorcist/Let's Kick Some Devil Butt' in block letters and jotted down: '6:00--Squanee Springs Living Gospel Church.' "Tonight I'm going to talk about my close friend who truly died for your sins."

"Yeah, like, Jesus, right?"

He smirked. So much for customer service. But that's what I get for letting the sponsoring congregation take care of my travel arrangements. I pawed through my carry-on for the brochure I'd designed specifically for liberal-leaning, secular humanist college students. I handed him one. He read it haltingly. So much for higher education.

"'Lonely?' Nah. 'Problems You Can't Solve?' Check--two big problems: my parents. 'Unexplained Memory Loss?' Double check--especially after a night at The Brewski." He brayed a joyless laugh and wrote 131 on the paper pocket that held the credit card-like key.

"How do you like Barton?"

"How did you know I go to--"

Because I'm an investigative genius on par with Sherlock Holmes, I thought, but said only, "Lucky guess."

The only reason I'd decided to come to Squanee Springs--the original two-church burg (one of them a papist congregation which shouldn't count)--was because A) it would fill the hole in my schedule caused by Palina Falls reneging--something about their namby pamby "fears regarding the controversy" and B) so I could go undercover and check out the leftist, noveau hippie, nature-worshiping, politically correct Barton College in nearby Colorado Springs.

Yes, that Barton College, so recently in the news. Seems some geeky freshman asked a chick out and she refused. A glutton for punishment, he asked her out again later and she promptly complained to some campus Fem-Nazis. Seems there's a "Two Strikes and You're Out" policy coupled with a "No means No" one so the poor schmuck got thrown out of school. For harassment. B. C. offers a "Situational Ethics" class I wanted to sit in on. I'm going to blow the lid off this newfangled, so-called "morality" in my book: Digging the Devil Out of Our Schools which Miracle Press is interested in.

I wanted to witness to the clerk a little longer, but the soccer mom behind me said, "Maddie, it'll just be a little longer. The man is helping someone else right now" in a syrupy voice with a steely edge intended to get me to hurry. I gathered up my stuff and headed to my room to nap, maybe swim a few laps before my evening of spiritual warfare.

Thank you, Jesus, I mouthed to myself when I surveyed the crowd. I was crouching in the baptismal, a small stainless steel tub similar to a hot tub, with a background Balm in Gilead scene painted in pastels. The young people present had obviously grown up in the church: girls whose flowered dresses were topped with collars like lace doilies, boys in long-sleeved button-down shirts--all of them clutching Bibles with personalized or quilted covers. In Galesburg a bunch of smart-ass college punks had heckled me and Marvin, my right-hand man and brother in the Lord, wasn't there for crowd control; he'd just flown to Houston to bury his mama.

But, by the looks of this group, I'd be okay with him still gone. My gaze swept over: countless boxy middle-aged matrons and their equally bloated hubbies with guts pooching out over fist-sized belt buckles, black women dressed to the nines, young mothers with a baby draped over a hip and toting bags stuffed with bottles, plastic diapers and baggies of Cheerios.

Bingo. I saw exactly what I'd need later--t.y.J. A scrawny man with a pack of cigarettes rolled up 50's style in a t-shirt sleeve jiggled a cheap running shoe-shod foot rat-tat-tat a mile a minute. He sat alone at the far end of a pew; eyes narrowed as he squinted at a stained glass window of Jesus cradling a lamb. The man's whole body thrummed with unfocused energy and need.

He'd do.

No one else caught my eye until I spotted a couple in matching denim shirts, the man in Bermuda shorts, the woman in a jean mini. They held hands, rocking back and forth to the organist's ponderously slow version of "Amazing Grace." They both muttered at a neon green parrot perched on the man's shoulder--their movement obviously intended to lull the bird. Kids peeked over the backs of pews at the bird; I'd have to make sure it wasn't a distraction later on. The woman, with her creased face and bleached-dead hair had eyes filled with ready-to-spill tears. Definitely some potential there. I gave the crowd one more once-over. Good turnout tonight. I wished Marvin was here--I'd bet him a ten spot that there were no Unitarians present, or people who could count the times they'd been in church on one hand. This was a rare night, nobody looked like they'd come only to scoff.

I glanced at my watch. Showtime.

"How many of you are in pain, and you don't know why, exactly? How many of you are in pain, and you don't think you should be?" The coughs, stirrings and whisperings evaporated; it was as if everyone in the sanctuary was holding their breath. "I mean, you're healthy, so's your family. You have a nice house, a car, a job with full benefits, but something's not...right."

Earlier I'd preached my "Sharing the Wealth" sermon and felt the crowd grow restive. If people come thinking it'll be fireworks from start to finish, they'll be sorely disappointed. But now I was getting down to it. I teetered on the first of four carpeted stairs at the base of the pulpit. I paused, looked slowly over the crowd, saw people's discomfort when my gaze lingered briefly on them. I felt my feet take me over to a monochromatic--beige hair, beige lips and skin--fortyish woman with thirty extra pounds and outdated winged bangs. Behind her Parrot Lady still rocked. Time for the set-up.

"How many of you are in pain and...nobody...knows...it?" Beige Woman pressed her lips into a slash and ducked her head, then snatched up the purse at her feet and fumbled through it. I had a direct line of vision to Parrot Lady whose rocking had slowed to an autistic-child type jerk; we stared full face at each other. Projectile tears seemed to burst from her eyes. She didn't look away or swab her eyes with the tissue her worried-looking husband tried to pawn on her. A low moan released from somewhere deep in her gut.

"Well, I've come here to tell you you're not alone. And there's something that can be done. That Jesus can do." A child wiggled on the cushiony lap of an economy-sized black lady wearing a purple hat with a small triangle of fabric erupting from its top. The kid emitted a siren-like wail.

"Thank you, Jesus." The woman pronounced before hefting the shrieking child over one shoulder; then she imperturbably sailed down the center aisle. I squatted on my haunches; people had to strain to see me. "Oh, yes, praise God, what JE-sus can do."

I held my Bible above my head, waved it back and forth. "Oh, maybe what we're going to do here tonight won't sit well with the high and mighty E-piss-co-pa-lians." There was a smattering of laughter. "And maybe it's unfashionable to talk about the Devil running loose in our country. Maybe it'd be more 'appropriate'"--I minced the word--"to talk about wrong choices, and time outs, and couples' therapy and transitional ethics and all that other bullpucky."

Louder chuckles this time, and a hearty, "Tell it, Brother John-D."

"But I don't give a good you-know-what. I've come here--" The time was right, the time was now. I loved this feeling, like the second before you let everything release in orgasm. "I've come here to--" I jumped to my feet, flew down the steps, punching the air with a clenched fist to accentuate every word. The crowd shouted along with me.

"Kick. Devil. Butt." The mournful chords of "Softly and Tenderly" welled up; I'd have to remember to try and push a twenty dollar tip on the organist. She'd refuse, of course.

I opened my Bible, "The way Jesus is going to work through me tonight is scriptural. Yes, it's right here in the Good Book. Revelations twelve, verse nine says, 'and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil who deceived the whole world.' Cast out. Those are the key words here. Not discussed out, or therapeutized out, or even prayed out, but cast out. And notice what else it says, 'the Devil who deceived the whole world.' Some of you here tonight have been deceived. And you know what? I have something to tell you that's the God's honest truth. Something that you might find hard to believe." I snapped my head back, shot a glance at Parrot Lady who turned slightly to her right toward her husband's shoulder almost like she was looking for comfort from the bird.

"And that something is," I intoned in my deepest voice, "that some of you have been deceived by the Prince of Darkness himself. Some of you have the Devil inside you. And. You. Don't. Even. Know. It."

I heard soft weeping. I could feel heat emanating from the crowd, squashed together. The atmosphere was charged, but contained somehow like in a small vacuum of time, the way it is before a free throw in a close basketball game. I stood on my tippy toes and pranced down the right-most aisle. "But some of you do know. Yes, some of you do know you have evil inside you. Maybe you have the Devil's lust inside you, or his avarice." By this time I'd neared the row where the scrawny man I'd seen earlier sat. He watched me, mouth agape, almost hypnotized. "Or demon rum. You think alcohol's your best friend, even when your friend is starting to turn on you, to bite you on the butt. You think alcohol brings you release, surcease, even when there's evidence all around you that it's ruining your life, your body, your marriage, your job."

I was speaking to the man directly now. I narrowed my eyes and pretended he was the only person in the room. My left hand pointed, arm outstretched like a divining rod. "Jesus, where are you leading me? Do you have someone in mind that you want me to pray over? Do you have someone in mind that you want to rescue from the Evil Serpent?" A bald-headed man sweating in a too-tight, checked suit jacket seemed to pull his girth in on himself, trying to shrink into invisibility for fear I was speaking to him. I turned my hand upward, palm exposed toward the skinny man who pretended to scratch his left eye; I knew he was trying to dab up a tear before it ran down his cheek. I made the slightest of gestures: come to me.

His gaze riveted on mine; he rose, stumbled, oblivious to the bald man's feet and joined me in the aisle. His eyes looked rheumy and unfocused. As I'd guessed--Marvin always tells me I have a drunk detector inside me--his pores seemed to ooze whiskey instead of sweat. I sensed movement around me; people were craning their necks, some nudging out of their pews to stand in the aisle for a better view.

The man dropped to his knees, then clasped onto my pant's leg like it was a life preserver. In a way it was. I placed my right hand on his greasy hair. "Satan, Prince of Darkness, Evil Angel from on High, I can feel you here, but we don't want you here!" There were no amen's, no hallelujah's, the fear in the air was palpable, thicker than the muggy summer air itself. Though the people present had probably heard of me, had read copies of the clippings I'd sent their preacher, they'd never experienced an exorcism before. Only about forty percent of my attendees are repeat customers, but I'm trying to get the numbers up. In fact, John-Dallas Moore Ministries, Inc. is goaled at double digit growth this year and I'm pushing for a healthy fifty percent retention; sixty five percent in three years.

I grabbed his head with both hands; his shoulders trembled. "I want every head bowed and every eye closed. Psalm 67 says, 'God arises; His enemies are scattered and those who hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so are they driven; as wax melts before the fire, so the wicked perish at the presence of God." The man jerked his head from my hands and leaned forward, his forehead touching the carpeted aisle like he was Allah-ing me. He lay there, face down, twitching as if he were palsied. I could tell he was going to be one of the passive ones, deadened by years of drinking into viewing his life as dispassionately as he would a t.v. show. I'd have to ignite the fuse--the surprise factor helps a lot. I eyeballed the crowd around me; a sad sack former-jock-gone-to-seed with an amoebae-shaped wine stain by his left eye watched me balefully. Behind him peered a pimply pre-teen boy bouncing on his feet, trying to see.

"I need you to close your eyes and smite heaven with your prayers." I did a split second assessment. Go! I fell to one knee with my hands outstretched the way Superman flies. My body blocked the view and I, quick in, quick out, sent a clenched fist between the prostrate guy's legs and punched his balls. His satisfying howl was filled with surprise and horror. Sounded Devil-worthy, it did. I bent over and lifted him--all wobbly-kneed and blubbering and mumbling to himself--then wedged my right shoulder under his armpit, supporting his entire weight with my body. This job's not for the out of shape.

I half-walked, half-dragged him down the aisle and up in front of the pointy pulpit that looked more like a ship's prow than something that belongs in a house of the Lord. I turned him toward me, grabbed his chin and held it facing me the way you would a baby you were forcing to take his medicine. "Stand!" I commanded and something wavered, then held fast in his eyes. "Jesus, drive from this man the unclean spirit of the Devil living inside him. We want you to repulse Satan and all his wicked legions, starting here, starting now, with this our brother, with this the lowliest of your creatures."

"Help me, Jesus. Please help me." He whimpered.

Sometimes they really touch you with the childlike humility of their pleas. There was this guy in Johnstown: a small-town mayor and prosperous business owner by day, a drunken wife beating, daughter diddling monster by night. Cried like a baby the evening he was released from the Devil, even called out for his mama. My ministrations really took with him; I have copies of his testimony in my press packets. The old goat ended up remembering J-DM Ministries in his will, he did.

But tonight, after my prayer ended, I stared hard at the drunk whose gaze skittered from my fierce stare. One look at his blank face and I knew it was hopeless. Some people just can't change. He wobbled, then crumpled to his feet. I nodded to Living Gospel's Pastor Harlan and his gang of deacons who charged forward, gently picked the limp man up and carried him to the Prayer Room. I'd prepped them earlier, gave them one of my brochures that talks about sustaining the Spirit's cleansing with pastoral counseling, AA, that kind of thing. Sometimes even miracles need a little tending-to.

The crowd sat, awed, expectant. And I always come through. That was just an appetizer, folks, I thought to myself as I strode to the side of Parrot Lady's pew. She had one arm raised toward the ceiling, as is the fashion lately in Christian circles.

"I know you all will uphold your brother who has just been released from his burden of sin. Welcome him into the fold. After I leave here, your work will just be beginning--pray for him and with him, shore him up. But right now I feel led to talk to certain of you. Some of you are pillars of the community. The backbone of your church. But you know, deep in your heart of hearts, how false you are. You know you're a hypocrite, a whited sepulchre. You. Know. Who. You. Are."

And that was all it took to open the floodgates. Parrot Lady's husband tried to hold her back, but she was having none of it. She shrugged away from his grasp and headed straight for me, mewling, crying, mascara-stained tears trickling down her cheeks, snot globbing from her nose. Her face was red, rubbery-looking. Her lips writhed; she tried to press them shut, but to no avail for a horrible barking sound poured from the o'ed tunnel of her mouth. I placed both hands on her waist, all the while my eyes boring into her's. She struggled, tried to wriggle away from me, then, without warning, one foot flew out from under her and kicked me so hard my leg buckled. She lost her balance and whomped onto her back. She lay sprawled on the carpet with her dimpled legs, thick as thumbs, splayed, one foot sandal-less. Her eyes, with pupils glassy as a doll's, still swam with aquarium-thick tears. I was distantly aware of people praying aloud, shuffling, sobbing, the overhead fans sh-shurring above.

And then, oh-so-slowly, Parrot Lady raised up on one elbow and stared at me with an expression that was half childlike/half suggestive. Her blue jean skirt was hiked almost to her waist; I glimpsed her panty's bright flash of color. Her eyes never left mine as one hand levitated, then reached between her legs. At that same moment I heard a "Hrrumph" of displeasure and caught sight of a granola-ish woman in Birkenstocks and a wrinkled linen dress. Granola Lady was scribbling something into a small spiral notebook clutched, like she was trying to hide it, in the curve of her palm. How could I have missed seeing her?

Parrot Lady began to touch herself lightly, her face suffused with idiot pleasure. Show's over, folks, I thought. My body pulsed toward her; I shoved her backwards with both hands. Her head bounced against the floor with a sickening thump. Hitting her head seemed to evaporate the spell she'd been under. She, too, caught sight of Granola Lady's sneerful expression, and, for a moment, a confused look washed over Parrot Lady's face. She turned toward me, her eyes suddenly full of a terrible knowledge. And I knew, I just knew, what had happened. She'd been able to step outside herself and see what Granola Lady saw, what her beloved pastor, her clueless husband, her friends from the Dorcas Circle saw: herself, lying there, spread and shameless.

Bending toward her I whispered so softly only she could hear, "Go and sin no more."

I'll admit, what happened that night kind of shook me. I've always known the Devil was able to walk upon this earth, just like you or me, just like it says in the Word. Simply because he's not always visible doesn't make him any less real. After all, we can't see electricity but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist is the example I always use.

But what happened with Parrot Lady made my faith waver a tad. I wondered if the Devil could just be the evil inside a person needing to be seen. Maybe the burden of tucked-away sins, pushed-down hatreds, gnawing desires and unsatisfied cravings molder in our spirits and create a pressure that must be released. That what I'd been brought up to think of as the Devil, Satan, is nothing more than the release of internal steam powerful enough to cause a churchgoing, middleclass woman to bark and bray and howl and kick and stroke herself in front of people who will always remember the sight of her doing so.

Anyway, as I said, that's what I thought, briefly. My faith was definitely resting on shifting sands. Then I got an email from the guy who's organizing the Midwest Evangelical Association's "The Devil Made Me Do It'" tour. They want me to join the roster. Me--finally accepted by the mainstream ministries. Thank you, Jesus. I called my accountant and told him the good news, and what kind of ballpark figures they'd thrown out. He whistled.

Yep, my faith got tested there for a while. The Devil is the evil inside a person, yeah, whatever. I was thinking like one of those misguided ecumenical pablum mouthers. See how sneaky the Devil can be? I mean, like it says in Luke chapter ten, verse eighteen, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Beheld Satan, looked at him and saw a living, breathing entity. Not looked inward, not recognized the Devil as the evil part of you yourself. See the difference?

Like I said I wavered there a bit, I did. But I just said, Get thee behind me, Satan.

Constance Gelvin's book No Reason to Lie is due out in spring 2003.