Sooner or later, if a machete-wielding wedding guest or a ‘heart attack’ in a shady flophouse doesn’t take you out, a Honda Dream will. I refuse to sweat through another bellowing nuptial and the only crystals I got are bath salts. So it was on the cards that, while crossing to the plonk shop as the sun hit the yardarm, I heard a throbbing engine and felt the heatstink of Hell draw nigh upon me. I verily nearly shat myself. This past CharmingVille sabbath, I turned to look Death in the eye.
Well, I would have had he been taller. And I’m sure the actual Grim Reaper doesn’t wear weeny penny loafers, nut-cracking cargoes and a salmon polo shirt with a popped collar. This clearly wasn’t the stygian master of my imminent demise, and it wasn’t a Dream. Mortality’s martinet was a scytheless, mid-life tinyman of barang extraction who could barely see over the handlebars of his aubergine candy-flake crotch rocket. This not only because he lacked critical inches where it matters almost most, but mainly because he was eyes-down, texting. This teensy plumpard organised his paltry existence barely perched astride a thousand wild-eyed, spittle-lipped horses, while I leapt for my life and into an oncoming Mormon.
Before I go on, I should confess that I’m an equal opportunity atheist of the first stripe. I’m scared of death too, but that’s no excuse to make shit up then kill people who don’t agree with you. Plus the Big Bang is not just an awesome boy band, although G-dragon wins over some misogynist, stick-in-the-mud beardy man every time.
What’s more, I like to see where my religionists are at all times so they can’t trick me into listening to that innocuous but tiresome preamble that invariably ends in an invitation to a) give money, b) go to a lame block party or c) make Jesus my personal saviour. Monks and Mormons are my kind of godbotherers because they make such distinctive fashion choices, so easily avoided if I’m not feeling up to Brother-baiting or a fruitless argument about the future of my immortal soul. Ditto Sikhs and Wiccans. Orthodoxy of any kind usually comes with easy-to-spot headgear and/or subtler signals of piety like goatskin underpants. I cross the street for inbound Amish.
Common-or-garden Christians are the most difficult to detect here in the Bodes, which is alarming since our Kingdom is bursting at the seams with pre-raptured do-gooders and pro-life proselytisers. Where I’m from it’s easy to nail a holy roller: they wear a lot of nubbly cardigans.
But here, unless you’re Khmer, it’s always too hot for chunky home knits (French people, come on now!). Which means I’ll be having a perfectly nice conversation with an admittedly softly spoken and earnest young person. A few ciders in and I think they’re actually interested in my bawdy life experiences and borderline genius. And then I notice their responses are suspiciously free of the kind of words I love to use. They say flip and heck and doggone it. Fucking bollocks. I’m stuck in a booth at K-West with a Pentecostal who’s thrilled about the second coming. I guess we have something in common after all.
Anyway. Hallelujah and, if you’re there, props to the person upstairs, because this Sunday’s Latter Day Saints came in the nick of time.
Elder Malachi remained crisp and decorous despite the unexpected circumstances. He was only a little startled: clearly we weren’t in Utah anymore. Yet his grain-fed, bicycled thighs steadied his own two-wheeler as I swooned in shock and lay momentarily cradled in his surprisingly studly arms. I confess that recovery took a little longer than strictly necessary.
Elder Trevor, my saviour’s neatly pressed sidekick, didn’t mince words about the now distant and oblivious Kwakka-straddling noblet. “Gosh darn it! Is he crazy? Or just Canadian?” I was thinking Belgian, but still. Meanwhile I counted my blessings, briefly indulging in a wholly unholy mental Missionary position with my street-side, sanctified Clark Kent. Squinting up into the noonday sun, I swear his backlit helmet looked just like a halo. Jesus Christ on a bike, there IS a god.