Grand Theft in the Garden of Eden

A man walked into my bar last night, and ordered up a beer, a shot o' Jack t' side he said, and you better make it double

So I served him up his drinks and went back to polish glasses—thinking that his eyes they looked like trouble—

like a sky, deep blue with ashes blown 'cross the field between the day and gloaming.

He grinned a grin like a Cheshire moon, but It never touched his eyes, his eyes was sorely jaded, like those on a morning drinker, full of pain and faded hues

He drank his drinks one-two-three, ordered up another round, hummed a line of blues, then said to me:

I'm gonna smoke a cigarette, and I know it's against the law, so call the cops if you want my friend, but if you do I'll break your jaw.

but listen to me well he said, and I'll tip you double, and if you've got an ashtray too, then join me in a smoke, and we wont have any trouble.

I'll buy you drinks all night my friend and tell you about the joke that has me drinking to stop me thinking about the lie that made me who I am.

No one else was in the place, so I thought what the hell, pulled a stool o'er the bar and said to him

I'll set and smoke a spell my friend, and listen to your story—as long as you buy the drinks my friend—

the night was getting boring.

I poured an ale, and had a shot o' the good ol' Irish, then I lit a smoke and he said to me.

My name is Adam, friend he said it's long since I been fit company for either mice or men.

Long ago and far away he said, in the garden o' Eden, I had myself a wife and a friend and she was even fair indeed.

She t'was the best that's ever been, the mother of humanity, I can tell you so, 'cause I was there he said and my friend who was Odin, though over time in Christian lands they began to call him serpent.

He was always 't wiser man I, and nicer to the women, but long ago and far away he wore hooves that were cloven.

He traded them on five toed feet, he said, but that's another story. I'll tell that one some other day, if this one's not too boring.

I began t' think this man was cracked, but his story was alluring, and so that night we sat and talked and the whiskey kept on flowing,

we smoked our smokes, and drank our drinks and spoke of long ago, this man who said his name was Adam, and I believe he told it true.

He said that Bible is a lie, 'tis not what really happened, long ago and far away in his fathers garden.

'tis true, he said there was a tree what's fruit it was forbidden, alone of all the fruiting trees, that one they were not given.

Eve and he, and his friend, they frolicked in the grasses there in the father's garden, they ate and drank and frolicked there and never thought of sin, for men were men, and women too, had no need to make amends, for nothing that they do could ever be a sin.

They laughed and kissed and ran about all naked in the weather, and then to a cave they would away and sleep all piled in together.

He said that garden was heaven then no matter what the weather, but that tree he said, just wouldn't leave his mind, its fruit was dark and heavy then, its bark was smooth and kind to the touch of skin—

His father told him to leave it alone, he said, 'cause some knowledge, no man should have. But after awhile, a hundred years or so the fruit in that tree he said, just wouldn't let him go. It rode his dreams like a bike, he wondered what it might taste like, he wondered what it might do to him that made father so afraid,

His wife and friend tried to talk to him and found he didn't listen anymore.

Instead of going to the cave with them, at night to sleep and play, he'd sit beneath the tree each night, and stare up at the fruit, and think, try to figure out a way to climb it.

Because it was so smooth he thought, and the fruit so high, it would be hard to get he thought, but, there had to be a way, Ahhhh... he thought at last, one lonely summer day, a rope he made of vines, and tied to it a rock he did, to help it on its way.

He took the rope and rock that night after father went away, and swung it around his head he did, let go and it went high, and wrapped around a branch it did, and he began to climb. Into the highest branches he climbed that rope of vine, and bit into the fruit he did, when at at last he was beside.

And then, he said, he knew, just what it was he'd done, knew the truth of everything between the garden and the sun. He knew then why it was that fruit they were not given, and his father's wrath he feared, and hell, and heaven.

For he knew the nature of the evening star, and the pride of Lucifer, who he'd seen from afar.

Lucifer it seems was banished from the garden, but walk about the earth he did, and for that he was forbidden to talk to them in those old days, long ago and far away, but after the war in heaven.

Yes, his fathers wrath he feared, after eating the fruit of knowledge, and lies just came into his head, and so he was deceiving, and took the fruit back to the cave where his friends were sleeping. Its juice he spilled into their hair, and on their naked bodies he wrote there with the flesh of it runes and ancient follies, then he ate and drank the rest, and saw beyond the stars, and then into their sleeping mouths he put the last few pieces, and then he lay with both of them—for the last time.

In the morning he woke early, he heard his father coming, so he went out of the cave and told to him a story. The story that we have read, in the holy Bible, Eve and Odin took the blame, and said they didn't remember, they were asleep, and then they woke, covered in the fruit, but knowledge was in their eyes too—there was no way to refute his claim, and so they were together cast out of the garden, out into nasty weather.

A few years later, Adam said, one son killed another, and since then Adam said, he hasn't seen their mother.

It's not the eating I regret, he told to me last night, it is the fear that lead me to lie to Him on sight. It seems a thousand, thousand years since my wife and friend, were cast on out the garden, and I have not seen them for long since, and I never asked their pardon. Ten-thousand years, and a day and I haven't heard a peep from them, nor have I been able to sleep.