Spiritual Autobiography 9

In June, 1972, age sixteen, I met Big Bird (my nickname for her), or, Colleen, a woman nearly a decade older than me who was visiting the House of Prayer. She was a radical leftist hippy turned Christian from California, though born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was quite a fascinating woman and I became a regular visitor in her communal house, a place she opened with great compassion and love to people from all over the continent and, by extension, from all over the world. She had a sharp tongue and a wicked, sarcastic wit, and we only sharpened each other's wits as we hung out together. I learned from her a lot about organic and vegetarian food, hospitality, kindness. Her many houseguests were fascinating, especially the ex-stripper from New England who took off her blouse and started ironing it one day during dinner in front of a boy from Montreal I had befriended and I. No, she wasn't wearing anything underneath, and yes we were embarrassed, so we took our plates to the back step where we finished our dinner. Big Bird named me the Impetuous Sixteen Year Old, which I suppose I was. One day I went for a walk along a secluded section of the beach nearby where a couple were openly, nakedly and flagrantly having sex. So I handed them a religious tract. She, on her back, had a look at it while her man was doing his business on top of her, then slammed it down on the sand, upon learning that it was something Christian, and swore at me in French. I just laughed and told them what they were doing was not kosher, not in public anyway. I returned to Coleen's house where she had a group of visitors. Oh, the laughter when I told them! Otherwise I spent the summer with my Christian friends, all over the place. We attended church services Sunday mornings and evenings. The Spirit's presence was very strong, and we sang, sang in tongues, prophesied, there were healings. Just a normal summer for a Canadian teenager. My mother meanwhile had undergone an abortion and was also hospitalized for other surgery. There was a woman dying in the next bed and she was comforting and consoling from her own bed the dying lady's next of kin. I began grade eleven in a different school. The kids in the local Christian club and I had nothing in common, and they disliked me intensely, not knowing whether they hated me for being a hippy or for being a fanatical Jesus Freak, maybe both. I had already been profiled in two local newspapers. I continued hitch-hiking, talking to people, I was shamelessly bold and friendly with strangers, some were lovelorn (and often very attractive) gay and bisexual boys with dreadful crushes on me and I felt...ambivalence. The House of Prayer moved into a Shaughnessy mansion and their name changed to Bethel House, Colleen had moved houses to another part of Kitsilano. I was a regular presence in both places. Bethel, in a Shaughnessy mansion made us kind of like Christian Beverly Hillbillies. and Tim, their son who was my age, also one of my best friends, and I with others often got up to some real high jinks. For example, there was an elderly fundamentalist lady, spittin' image of Granny Clampet in more ways than one, living there. One Saturday afternoon, just shy of my 17th birthday, Tim and I decided to have fun with water, smacking each other with wet paper towels. Jane, maybe three years older, joined in the fun. just like Goldie hawn from Laugh-In, only zanier. So, Jane filled a glass pitcher with water, and was standing on the grand staircase Granny was standing directly underneath her. Jane gave me the most wicked smile, and mouthed, should I or shouldn't I, or something like that. So, I shrugged my shoulders, and down onto Granny's grey head came a torrent of water. Granny looked at me and said, "Greg (my original name), give me your belt. So I took off my belt, handed it to granny, who went chasing up the stairs after a terrified Jane who just managed to get away. I lived in a state of near-perpetual joy and it was only after my mother sold the house, and we moved into an apartment, and then in June, the bomb fell. It would take me years to pick up the pieces again.