Walking Through Walls (9 page)

Next my father repeated his own special exorcism prayer: “Cleanse, clear, fill, encircle this body in the white light of healing protection. Remove all negative energies and entities, and send them to their proper plane…” This prayer put the finishing touch on the exorcism. Apparently this was all too much for the devil, and he just up and skedaddled out of that girl.

As she calmed down, my father began to slowly bend closer to her, holding his cross about three inches above her body. He waved it over her from head to toe as if he were disinfecting her. My steady diet of nature shows such as
Wild Kingdom
had me thinking, “Don't get too close, she's going to pounce.” I was not far from wrong. Without any warning, she sat bolt upright, as if an electric current had just surged through her body. I thought she was going to stand up and start sleepwalking zombie style. Then, just as suddenly, she collapsed back onto the floor, sprawled out like she was nailed to a cross, and fell into a deep comatose sleep. I felt as if a kind of irritating static electricity had suddenly lifted from the room. The air now seemed clear and calm.

Her mother started weeping uncontrollably. My father looked back at the parents and said, “The devil's gone, she's fine. Let her sleep. When she wakes she won't remember any of this. It's over now.” The husband remained silent.

“But how could this have happened?” the mother asked. “She's usually such a good girl. Yes, we have our problems with boys and stuff, but nothing like this, never.”

“We are surrounded by dark forces,” my father answered. “At any given time, they are looking to find a place to rest, a host that will give them physical form. These are people who died violently but still can't acknowledge that they are dead. As a result, they are desperate to take over someone's body so they can continue to live on the physical plane, here on earth.”

“But Melissa didn't do drugs. She is not a bad girl.”

“There are a thousand ways this could have happened. Sometimes dark forces can enter the body while you are sleeping. You never quite know how this happens. You always have to protect yourself and surround yourself with the white light of protection: Christ's light.” My father smiled at the woman and reached out to shake her hand. She seemed comforted. In some way this explanation had made sense to her.

As we prepared to leave, the woman said to us, “May I offer you some coffee and cake? I can put up some instant coffee, and I just baked some angel food cake.” I knew better than to eat anything from a kitchen where the devil had probably been nibbling away at boxes of cereal and spaghetti like a mouse. Thankfully, my father also declined.

Finally the husband spoke up. “Why, preacher, I got to thank you for saving my little girl. Damn! Ah don't know what the hell came over her. She just started screamin' and cussin' like some bobcat caught in a trap. Ah never seen nothin' like this before.”

“Frank!” admonished his wife. “Don't talk that way in front of Father Smith—especially after what we just went through.”

“She's fine now,” my father reassured them. “I'm glad to be of service. God bless you.” After the good-byes and handshakes, we left. Boy, was I happy to get out of there. I had seen enough of that creepy naked girl in that room to last me a lifetime. It was getting dark as we got into the car to drive away.

“How come they called you Father? You're not their father.”

“Well, it's just a formality. They were being respectful and appreciative. I think that's what they say to their priest, and maybe they think of me as a priest. In the old days, priests used to do exorcisms all the time.”

“But you're not a priest.”

“Well, in a way I am. I try to help people find God or to do good in life. These are things that a priest does.”

If standing over some smelly naked girl with spit all over her face is what it takes to find God, then I wanted no part of it. “Why was that girl acting that way, all crazy?”

“Because she was possessed by the devil.”

“I didn't see the devil there. Where was he?”

“You couldn't see him because he was inside of her.”

This didn't make any sense to me. “Inside of her? How did he get inside of her?”

“The devil likes to find people who are weak or have problems; this way he can take advantage of them and make them do things they don't want to do. When that girl bit her mother, she didn't mean to do that; she didn't know she was doing it. It was the devil acting through her.”

“I didn't think the devil was real. I thought it was just some sort of cartoon thing to make people scared.”

My father laughed. “The devil is indeed real and causes people to do things against their better judgment. I don't think he looks like some red man with horns and a pitchfork. That is definitely a cartoon. But there are powerful dark forces out there that can make people do evil.”

“How can I keep the dark forces from taking over my body?”

“At all times you need to keep yourself surrounded by the white light of protection. Imagine yourself enveloped by a bubble of white light that can repel any type of negative energy that tries to attack you.” As he said this, my father drew an arc over my head with his finger. “This will keep you safe. You have no idea of the number of people I see who are possessed and have a dark entity making them do things against their will. We are all surrounded by possessed people. It's a real problem because you can't easily tell who's possessed and who isn't. And now with so many young people taking drugs, this creates just the type of environment that these lost souls are looking for. The other thing you can do is to say the exorcism prayer, which will instantly get rid of any possession.”

“Where do I get that prayer?”

“I'll give you one when we get home. But you don't have to worry. I'll always watch out for you and keep you safe. If you have any problem, I'll be able to fix it.”

“When Mom gets mad at you, is she possessed?”

“No, she's just mad. But there are angry people who are possessed.”

“Maybe all of us should say this prayer so that nothing happens to any of us.”

“I don't think Mom would be interested in this. In fact, I don't think you should discuss what happened today with anyone. Let's just keep it as one of our little adventures.”

“Wait till I tell Mrs. Lincoln that I saw the devil,” I said. “Tomorrow we're having show-and-tell; I'm going to tell them all about this.” Mrs. Lincoln was my ninth-grade teacher. I imagined she would be suitably impressed that my father beat back the devil. Perhaps this story might help improve my homeroom grades, which were somewhat lackluster. I only hoped she didn't have one of her spells when I got to the part about the naked girl rolling around on the floor. Mrs. Lincoln, a good woman who also taught Sunday school, was prone to getting dizzy when things upset her. She was not meant for the modern world. I knew all the boys were going to start to laugh when I told them about the girl with the devil inside of her. I was going to score big points with this story.

“Philip, you can't tell Mrs. Lincoln about what happened today.”

“Why not?”

“You can't tell anybody about this. What happened today is a secret. Would you like someone going around telling everybody that you had the devil inside of you?”

“No, but you fixed her. So now that the devil's gone, it's okay to tell people.”

“I don't think that girl would want you telling people what happened to her. It was like she was sick, and now she's going to get better. Do you understand?”

I was very disappointed. I thought I would make a lot of new friends telling this to everybody. Finally I could brag about my father. It didn't make sense that he didn't want me to share his victory over the devil with the class. But I agreed. “Okay, but I'll just tell Mom.”

“Mom gets very upset when she hears about things like this,” he said. “She might not be happy that I took you to see the devil. She would be worried that you might get hurt.”

This bothered me. It sounded as if my father had just put me in a very dangerous situation where either one of us could have gotten in trouble. I could have been eaten alive by the devil or had him jump inside of me. I was a little mad that my father had put me at such risk. Clearly he was flirting with danger. I was afraid that if my father kept doing exorcisms, he might come home with the devil inside of him. Then what would I do? It would be the sanpaku thing all over again.

Obviously my mother was not happy with her husband's newfound hobby of exorcism. Had she known how I had spent my afternoon, Mom would have probably grabbed me, gotten on the next plane to New York, and taken me back to her family.

“You don't want to get Mom scared, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay, then, don't tell Mom either. This is our secret. I just wanted you to see this so that you knew what could happen in case the devil got ahold of you.”

“Well, I'm not going to let him near me. Besides, I don't want to bite anybody.”

“That's good.”

“But what if the devil tries to find me and get inside of me when I'm sleeping?” I asked.

“Don't worry, I am always watching, and nothing like that will ever happen to you.”

“You gonna buy all
that
?”

The black checkout lady wore a little white hat bobby-pinned to her hair that made her look like a nurse. She was staring at me, waiting for an answer. It was a bit like going through customs: I couldn't make my purchase until I had fully declared my intention. Her questioning made me feel slightly criminal.

Too embarrassed to answer, I just sort of nodded my head and looked away.

She wanted an explanation and wasn't going to check me out until she got one. All I wanted was to get out of the Food Fair with my dignity intact.

Unfortunately, this was happening on my first date ever, with a gorgeous Brazilian girl named Maya. She had the most remarkable blue eyes, which seemed to dilate and ratchet wide open when they fixed on you. Once fully opened, her eyes overwhelmed your vision until you couldn't see anything else but this cerulean blue field. The rest of the world ceased to exist. I often found myself stopping in mid-conversation, completely hypnotized by her eyes.

Maya started nudging me, wondering what was going on. She was dressed in tight jeans and a man's shirt, which was unbuttoned at the bottom and tied in a calypso-style knot that showed off her tan, flat stomach. Her goggle-sized amber sunglasses were perched on top of her head, and her feet wore turquoise Greek espadrilles.

“What you doin' with all that?” The checkout lady pointed to the thirty pounds of carrots that I had heaped high on her conveyor belt.

Yes, I was buying thirty pounds of carrots as part of my first date with the most beautiful woman in Miami. I had just turned sixteen and had gotten my driver's license, and with that, the freedom to date. I no longer had to have my father drive me somewhere, which meant that I no longer had to introduce him to a total stranger. “Hi, meet my father, he's from another planet and is a macrobiotic. If you'd like to join us on a fast sometime, I'm sure you'd enjoy it.”

I had met Maya at school. She was the only person in the entire high school that would speak to me. Kids picked up on my weird vibe and refused to have anything to do with me. However, Maya just loved it. While stunningly beautiful, she had her own weirdness going on. She could have easily fit in with the prevailing jock-cheerleader culture, but she was curious about a more interesting ride. We hit it off immediately. I had no idea how to ask her out or what to do on a first date, so I said, “Hey, you wanna come over and make some carrot juice?”

She smiled and said, “Yeah, that sounds cool.”

Maya responded to the checkout lady's persistent inquiries with a perky but slightly confrontational tone—“We're going to make carrot juice”—followed by her devastating smile.

“You wha—?”

“Carrot juice!” she replied somewhat firmly.

The woman looked at Maya with real pity. Slowly shaking her head, she said, “Ain't no such thing as carrot juice, hon.” She raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes as if signaling the checkout lady next to her that she had a real case on her hands. I was beginning to get a sense of what my father went through on a daily basis. His life was just nonstop public humiliation.

“So, mister, you sure you buyin' all them carrots? I don't want to ring all this up and then y'all change your mind. That's a lotta carrots. We don't sell that in a whole week. No, we don't. No one bought that many carrots, ever. I never seen nothin' like this. That's sure a lot of carrots.”

At that moment the woman waiting on line behind Maya poked her and said, “Excuse me, but what are you going to be doing with all those carrots?”

“Oh boy, here we go,” I thought. A simple little thing like buying thirty pounds of carrots is turning into a major commotion. As my mother would often say, “Another country heard from.”

Maya was enjoying the attention and the controversy that we were creating. I was horrified and wanted to walk out and leave the carrots on the checkout counter. However, I was impressed that Maya was jumping into the fray with great enthusiasm. I had finally found a fellow traveler.

“Oh, we're going to make carrot juice,” she answered authoritatively.

“Why, I've never heard of carrot juice.” The woman put her index finger to her lips as she pondered the concept of carrot juice. “How do you do that? Do you boil the carrots?”

“No, he has a special machine. I've never seen it, but we're going home to do it right now. Philip, what's that machine called?”

“Um, I think it's an Acme Juicerator.” Where were those magic make-me-invisible pills now that I needed them?

“Ohhhh…” The lady cautiously looked around to see if anyone was overhearing the conversation. “A
Juicerator
?”

“Yes, that's what it's called, a Juicerator.” Maya loved being one of those in the know about the Juicerator.

“Oh, I see, a
Juicerator
. I never heard of that.” The woman leaned farther forward and addressed me as the premier carrot expert. “Tell me, do you buy that in the hardware store?”

“Uh, no, I think it comes from California. They drink a lot of carrot juice out there. You should only buy carrots from California. They really know their carrots.”

My father had been influenced by an early health pioneer named Paul Bragg, who believed that by juicing you could ingest hundreds of pounds of vital vegetable nutrients in just a few glasses of juice. Leave it to my father to be the only person in the whole city of Miami, not to mention probably the entire Eastern Seaboard, to own a Juicerator. Just the possession of this curious piece of equipment was creating far too many problems for me.

“California? Oh my…”

While Maya smiled at the woman, I handed the checkout lady $8.70, a fantastic sum at the time, but I figured this was a date, so I'd better show off.

We carried the four shopping bags of carrots to the car, got in, and headed to my house for an evening of ecstatic juicing. This was the first time anyone from the outside had been allowed into my private universe. I wasn't sure this date thing had been such a good idea. I was afraid that this was probably going to be the last date in my lifetime.

To my surprise and good fortune, Maya loved carrot juice. In fact, she loved carrot juice so much that she wanted to make it again. Having successfully passed the carrot juice test, I thought I could go a step further and invite her to see Sophie Busch. Along with séances and exorcisms, our father-son bonding sessions also included weekly Sunday afternoon trips to visit Sophie Busch, a charismatic preacher woman whose church was located in Overtown. Just north of downtown Miami, Overtown got its name when the city fathers wanted to knock down a large area of the black section of town to put in new roads. Somehow the roads never got built, probably because the suburban white folk farther south were concerned about their neighborhoods being invaded by a sudden mass migration of the black dispossessed. So the city fathers built an expressway
over
the
town
and left the shacks intact. During the twenties, thirties, and forties, the area had a thriving black community and a lively cultural scene. Entertainers such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald would do their gigs in white venues and then come back to Overtown and do the real thing till the wee hours.

The place was dirt-poor. Few of the houses had real walls or windows. Instead they were built from leftover wood: old branches knocked down from banyan trees during hurricane season, fallen For Sale signs, and pieces of cardboard with
Modess
and
Palmolive
printed on the sides. You could see through the gaps in the wood right into most of the houses. They looked like birds' nests.

Anchoring the neighborhood was the lime-green Mount Zion Baptist Church, most of its windows blown out either from hurricanes or kids throwing rocks. Next door was Diamond Jim's Pool Parlor, which was painted pink and featured an amateurish painting of a trapezoidal pool table on the side of the building. Down the block was the Sunshine Liquor Shop, with chain-link fencing for windows. Broken glass littered the deserted streets, along with empty Nehi and Orange Crush soda bottles. Stray dogs slept under low-hanging poinciana trees, and old black men sat on empty boxes, staring at the railroad tracks. Amid this desperation was an abandoned wooden warehouse built on stilts that had been transformed by Sophie Busch into her own personal church. The pulpit was nothing more than two sheets of dirty, warped plywood nailed together on two-by-fours standing about a foot off the floor.

The glass in the windows was deep cobalt blue, which was used during the 1930s to alleviate the harshness of Miami's noonday sun. There was no air-conditioning back then, and this tinted glass bathed the interiors in a dark blue light that seemed almost holy and offered some relief from the oppressive oven-hot heat that was otherwise inescapable. The original solar panels still faced east on the building's roof, which was a leftover from the thirties, when solar energy was used to heat most of the water throughout Miami.

Lit by two or three long fluorescent tubes, Sophie's church was filled with an assortment of folding chairs that had been begged, borrowed, and stolen from all over Miami. On a good day, about sixty chairs were set out for the parishioners. By the time services started at four o'clock, there wasn't an empty seat in the house. The late-afternoon starting time gave the regulars a chance to attend their usual Pentecostal or Methodist services before risking transgression by showing up at Sophie's place.

Reverend Busch was a small, very old white lady who probably had been smoking Lucky Strikes since she was nine. She was the kind of girl you would imagine running off with the circus during the height of the Depression and getting by on her wits and sassy mouth. Now, stooped over and frail, she was the embodiment of a kind of harsh southern poverty.

Maya looked around the church with a bit of apprehension. This was not the kind of place or neighborhood for a nice Brazilian girl. Aside from the three of us, there were maybe five or six other white people in the place. The few white men present wore their hair slicked back in a greasy sort of way that was quickly becoming unfashionable. They had thick drugstore glasses and lightly patterned shirts usually finished off with a string tie or lariat. The women wore simple house dresses, the kind you might buy at the five-and-ten, and probably worked as waitresses at Smitty's, a coffee shop on Northeast Second Avenue that catered to day laborers and overweight middle-aged secretaries from the tax department.

Two or three industrial-strength metal fans pushed the humid July air around while black women in straw hats hummed softly, slowly fanning themselves with pieces of paper. A few minutes before the Reverend Busch took to the stage for her service, slightly somnambulant assistants casually wandered among the parishioners, holding large rolls of adding machine tape and a couple of those small yellow pencils that you would find in the library or in the betting section at jai alai. I raised my hand. My father gave me a look of approval that I was participating in the service. A bent-over assistant shuffled over to me and tore off about six inches of paper from the roll. I signaled for him to give a piece of paper to Maya as well. He then handed me two pencils and walked away.

“Write a question that you want Reverend Busch to answer,” I said, initiating Maya into my Sunday ritual. “Actually, she doesn't really answer your questions; the spirits do. They tell her what to say.”

“Like what? I don't know what to ask.”

“Anything. She doesn't care what you ask.”

“Do I have to raise my hand when she calls on me? Everybody's going to look at me.”

“No, no, no, just write it down. You're the only one who will know when she is talking to you. No one else. It's okay, really. Just ask whatever you need to know, and she'll tell you.”

“But what if she tells me something I don't want to know?”

Her question made me realize how different I was from her and everybody else at school. I considered communicating with spirits a normal part of one's daily routine. My father and I listened to them the way other people listened to the news. Whatever they had to say was a direct communication from God, not to be questioned but rather acted upon with all seriousness—or else. For me these spirits were like aunts and uncles. But Maya was scared.

“Look, I'm going to ask a question too,” I said, trying to encourage her. “After you write your question, you have to put your initials down. If you want, make up some initials so that even I won't know Reverend Busch is talking to you. It's like going to a psychiatrist, but you get all your problems answered in a few minutes. Just write it down. I won't look; it will be fine. It's good to get the spirits to talk to you. They can help you out.”

“But what if they—?”

“I promise, it's all okay. It doesn't hurt. I know you haven't done this before, and it may seem a little weird, but I do this every week with my father.”

“Every week? So what do you ask?”

“I don't know. Stuff. Stuff about my parents, stuff about you.”

“Stuff about me? Like what? What do they tell you?”

“I don't know. Stuff.”