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Most of the Edeners
were hung over. They
were irritable that they had no football fields, no hot sauces and no
coconut wine. Thus the effects of addiction withdrawal were felt for
the first time. Everyone blamed Cain for creating their problems, and
both pack mentality and political strategy were born.
Cain stood up to them
and told them he
would lead them to another
village and they would all become rich, for he had often visited
villages outside the Garden and was familiar with their ways, including
the concept of money, how to make it, keep it and take it away from
others.
He promised to
introduce men to the local
women and told everyone he had plenty of hidden coconuts fermenting in
various places. Many were willing to make him leader for that reason
alone.
At this point up
walked Able, tired, dirty
and disheveled. The people gasped for they thought he was the world's
first ghost, but it was not so.
"I was not dead, just
dead drunk, brother,"
Able said to his sibling. "Otherwise you would never have been able to
knock me out so easily," he
sneered.
Before another fight
could ensue, everyone
followed Cain to the next village. Here too they were told they would
have to fend for themselves. The
people pouted and wailed.
But Able said, "I see
peppers growing wild
in the forests. I'll lay claim to the land, cultivate it and be a
tiller of soil. When the peppers are full ripe I'll make the best hot
sauce and sell it to the people of the world."
"Excellent idea,
son!" shouted his father.
"I shall create a retail space from which we can sell your hot sauce."
Many people clamored
to be included and the very first hot sauce company and retail store
was created.
Cain sneered and
announced he had better
things to do. He built a
distillery and continued to experiment with fermenting different grains
and fruits to make beer, whiskey and wine. He employed many comrades in
his distillery and set some of them up in retail outlets to sell the
booze.
Now in this harsh new
world, people didn't
simply appear by the grace of God. They appeared through the act of
childbirth. This was painful and women
did not like it, for men took advantage of their delicate condition to
take back control of the world from the women.
Cain who set up both
whiskey emporiums and
barbeque palaces did quite well for a time, but was profligate and
squandered his money, staying drunk and frequenting other men's wives
so that he was often chased and reviled. After a time he got a bad name
and the people shunned him.
In his drunken
surliness he invented a
story about a fellow he called the Devil, blaming him for the expulsion
from Eden. This story was designed to make people forget Cain's own
iniquities. It worked pretty well. Soon people were looking under every
bush for the Devil, blaming him for all their problems. At first they
knew they were dodging responsibility for their own actions, but some
came to believe in the Old Scratch himself. Thus the history of the
world was rewritten.
As for Able and Adam,
they did real well in
the hot sauce business. Able became a master pepper grower and Adam the
acknowledged sales king of hot
sauce. They made a bundle when cousin Methuselah introduced the world
to football. They cornered the market on concessions at the games,
while Eve made her fortune training and providing cheerleaders for the
many teams. Cain created various forms of gambling on the games to
become the world's first bookie.
Adam and Able's
concessions were a little
slow until they discovered that cows liked to eat pepper plants even
more than pigs. This led very quickly to the invention of all beef
franks. With a little onion, ketchup and mustard on the newly named hot
dog (which is what Able said when he test marketed the item at a local
ball game) they made a fortune, and the real gold began pouring in when
they realized that something was missing, which they soon discovered to
be chili to put on the hot dogs. The addition of chili on the dogs
increased sales terrifically and enabled them to find other uses for
all the hogs and cows they were whopping in the head on a regular basis.
Adam lived to a ripe
old age and so did
Able. Their recipe for
longevity? Grow peppers, make hot sauce and eat plenty of it. Have sex
all the time and play and or watch lots of football. If you can do all
those at once, so much the better!
This then is the true
story of the fall
from grace, handed down with the utmost truth by my great grandfather,
Able himself.
Who am I? Oh, I am
Abraham, patriarch of the Jews, Arabs and just about everyone else too,
I guess.
Great grandpa Able
wanted me to be sure to
tell you that this business of associating hot sauces and spicy foods
with the Devil is a lie. Uncle Cain started that tale to try to make
Adam and Able's sales drop off because they were making more money than
he was with booze and gambling.
Note to my nephew
Lot: Begin phasing out
our retail hot sauce operations in Sodom and Gomorrah. The population
is more interested in Uncle Cain's
bootleg liquor and I don't approve of the people's uses of hot sauce!
THE END
Michael H. Jackson is a
free-lance writer and humorist from
Columbia, SC. He has been published to date in several magazines and
newspapers.
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Copyright © 2000 Michael H. Jackson.
All Rights Reserved.
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