“Do You Fear Satan?”

The street preacher asked Simon in front of the University Co-op. It was a cold December day and Simon was about to go in the store to shop for books to give as presents. Simon stopped and stood on the wide sidewalk of Guadalupe Street. The preacher was wearing a black shirt with a white preacher’s collar. The bookstore was right across from the University of Texas.

“Why do you ask?”

“You look troubled,” the preacher said

“I’m squinting because I’m walking into the sun,” Simon said.

“You ought to fear Satan.”

“Why?”

“He’s all around. He’ll get you. Just wait.”

“He won’t bring me a cup of coffee?”

“Ah, a worldly one.”

“Why don’t you fear Satan?”

“I’m saved. I accepted the Lord Jesus as my savior.”

I am happy for you. Would you like a donation?

“For God’s work, yes.”

“You won’t be spending it on a bottle of Christmas cheer?”

“Please, sir. I do the work of the Lord.”

“I tell you what. I’ll give you five dollars. You can spend it however you like, my holiday gift for you. To get the five dollars you must keep quiet while I deliver my little lecture.”

“Here?”

“I’ve heard you speak out here to UT students many times. You drew some crowds, especially when you got to the whore of Babylon. Some laugh at you but you carry on.”

“The students are gone on break. How about ten?”

“Okay, ten. It’s my last offer. I got a busy day.”

“Ok, ten.”

“Let me gather my thoughts for a moment.”

“You want to do it around the corner?”

“No, here’s fine. I won’t be shouting. Listen closely.”

 I never imagined Satan or Lucifer, the leader of the angels’ revolt in heaven. No devils of any kind appear in my dreams from other religions. I was not brought up inside the Christian conceptual world.  

 All the evil I see seems made by humans, all the Hitlers and Stalins down the many rungs of history’s ladder. I am an agnostic Jew born in Austria who lost family in the holocaust. Now I’m a historian and teach World History at the building on the right across the street.

 When I was eleven in school in North Carolina, where my mother and father settled after the war, a child behind me at a park pushed me off a rise ten feet high onto rocks in a muddy stream. My hands and knees got skinned. When I turned to look up the kid was laughing and pointing.

 Much later, when in my late thirties, a few boys here in Austin lured my oldest son into a field under a lone tree. A teenage boy jumped down from the tree and beat up my eight-year-old boy.

 Less than an hour later, that same boy began to prance and taunt in front of our house. I went out and grabbed him by his long hippie hair and swung him around. Four years later, that boy committed suicide by a drug overdose, shutting himself in a closet. I learned his father had beaten and abused him sexually.

“That’s it? What’s the message?”

“What do you think?”

“Can I have the money?”

 The street preacher scratched his neck, sticking a finger under his white collar.

 “I’ll have to go inside to use my debit card. It’s a bit chilly out with the wind. Why not follow me inside? You remind me of a preacher that used to play poker in a room by the exit of the apartment where we lived when I first started teaching.”

“Sorry, I can’t go in. I’m banned from the store. I was giving away bibles. They said it interfered with business.

 “Just wait. I’ll bring you the money.”