---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... cc&d magazine (v207) (the April 2010 Issue) This is also available from our printer as a a $7.47 paperback book (5.5" x 8.5") perfect-bound w/ b&w pages

Order this writing in the book (bound) cc&d prose edition		order the 5.5" x 8.5" ISSN# book order the 8.5" x 11" ISBN# book

GENESIS 4

Dan Lewandowski

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.     2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.     3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.     4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:     1 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

    “Good evening,” Ms. Johnson said to her class, noting that tonight’s turnout was lower than last week’s, which was lower than that of the week before. This disappointed but hardly surprised her. Over time the effectiveness of any threat of punishment diminishes if it isn’t backed up with action. And everybody knew the cops weren’t about to waste time chasing after people – mostly kids – who defied court orders to attend parenting classes.
    “Will someone volunteer to re-tell the story we were supposed to read for today?” she asked.
    Jade, a seventeen-year-old whose advanced pregnancy strained the seams of her dress, volunteered. Unaccustomed to receiving attention of any kind, she took secret pride in being one of Ms. Johnson’s favorites.
    “There was this farmer,” she began, “who had two sons, one named Cain and the other named Abel. The farmer was having a birthday and his two boys decided to give him presents. Abel, who liked to take care of animals, brought his daddy a lamb he’d raised, and Cain, who liked to grow stuff, brought his daddy beans and greens and things like that – ones he grew himself.”
    “What kind of presents are those?” asked Clayton, another of the students. “It was all the old man’s stuff anyway, wasn’t it?”
    “Very good,” said Ms. Johnson, encouraging class participation. “Can anybody say what’s important about Clayton’s question?”
    Zelda, the oldest member of the class, suggested, “that Clayton don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’,” which got a big laugh from the rest of the class.
    “I just asked a question,” Clayton objected. “What’d I say wrong? Doesn’t the father own the stuff already?”
    “Well sure,” Zelda replied. “What’s any kid have that doesn’t belong to his folks? The point of this class, Clayton, is the daddy, what he’s supposed to do, what you’re supposed to do when you are one. Say your baby makes a little picture. He’s proud of what he’s done. ‘I made this for you,’ he says. So what are you gonna say? ‘That’s my crayon. That’s my paper. Get away from me, boy’?” which got another laugh from the class.
    Ms. Johnson, grateful to Zelda but also heedful of Clayton’s feelings, said, “All Zelda’s talking about here is being nice. You’re certainly correct, Clayton, that the lamb and the vegetables already belong to the father. But the boys are just doing the best they can. You could say that Abel and Cain aren’t offering their father the actual stuff, but rather the effort they made to raise good stuff. Understand?”
    Clayton gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
    “Good,” Ms. Johnson said. “Jade, please continue.”
    “So they bring their presents to their daddy and he really likes the lamb,” Jade said. “Pets it, holds it, thanks Abel up and down, tells him what a good boy he is, what a hard worker, how smart, all that. But he doesn’t go for the greens and stuff Cain brought. He just glances at ‘em and walks away, doesn’t say how good they look or tell Cain he’s done a good job or anything. Instead, he goes back to Abel and fusses over the lamb some more.”
    Ms. Johnson, reading the faces of her students, saw signs of recognition all over the room. Everybody present, apparently, at some time in his or her life, had made an honest offering to somebody else of something he or she deemed valuable – perhaps something as insubstantial as love – and had it rejected out of hand.
    “And then what happened, Jade?”
    “Cain got mad,” Jade answered, “and his father said something to him I didn’t understand.” She opened her lesson book to find the quote.
    Ms. Johnson paraphrased it for her. “If you do well you’ll be accepted but if you don’t, evil will try to get you but you must master it.”
    “I didn’t get that at all,” said Jade.
    “Anybody have an interpretation?” Ms. Johnson asked the class.
    “Sounds to me like the father’s telling the kid to stop begging for attention like some whiny little girl,” said Clayton.
    Zelda drilled him with a look of cold contempt. “Lord, lord,” she groaned.
    “What?” Clayton demanded of Zelda. “She asked what the father meant; I said what I believe. What’s wrong with that?”
    “Nothing,” soothed Ms. Johnson. “That’s one way of thinking about it. Anybody else?”
    “What I don’t understand,” said Jade, “is when the daddy says, ‘If you do well . . . ’. Didn’t Cain already do something good? It said in the story the vegetables were the best in the garden.”
    “Just means they weren’t good enough,” replied Clayton. “The kid thought they were good but they were really crap.”
    “All I can say,” announced Zelda, staring daggers at Clayton, “is I feel sorry for your babies.”
    “I know what you’re getting at,” Clayton shot back at Zelda. “You want this guy to tell his wimpy kid he’s the best thing since TV remote controls even though he doesn’t deserve it. The way I see it, the old man’s doing the kid a favor, getting him ready for the real world, where nobody gives a damn about your ‘self of steam.’”
    “But the story didn’t say anything about the vegetables being crap,” Jade objected. “I think you’re making stuff up, Clayton.”
    Clayton ignored her.
    But another student, Byron, who rarely spoke in class, suggested, “Maybe the father was just trying to get Cain riled up.”
    Pleased to hear another voice, Ms. Johnson followed-up. “Why would he do that, Byron?” she asked.
    “Don’t know,” Byron said. “But I had an uncle who used to do it to me all the time, said he was trying to teach me something but I could never figure out what.”
    “That’s it right there” piped Zelda. “That’s exactly what this story’s about – pure-T meanness. I understand about teaching lessons. I already got kids. I know when they need a swat. But this man in this story is doing nothing but sowing the seeds of hatred between those two boys.”
    “That’s what I think,” said Jade. “Even if he didn’t like Cain’s vegetables, he didn’t need to cut Cain dead like that. And even if the vegetables were crap, he could’ve at least told Cain so instead of chattering on about evil.”
    Ms. Johnson returned her attention to Clayton. “And what do you think about Byron’s observation?”
    Clayton took his time before answering, as if he weren’t sure whether he should speak at all. “The same kind of thing happened to me when I was a kid,” he said quietly, “except it was my mother not my father and I had a sister not a brother. Maybe it was because my pa beat her up a lot before he left but my mom just hated men and I was as close to one as there was in the house. I just couldn’t do a thing right, but my sister, she couldn’t do anything wrong.”
    “And how did that make you feel?” asked Ms. Johnson.
    “I wanted to kill her,” Clayton replied.
    “You wanted to kill your mom?” Jade exclaimed.
    “Nah,” Clayton replied. “My sister. I wanted to kill my sister.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...