I Love Steak Brother
“God, I love steak, brother!” the man with a belly like a woman great with child said. “Ah, roasting meat! Raw!” as the aroma wafted skyward deep into the nostrils of God.
The two men roared with laughter at the thought of taking the meat from peasants by force. “Boiled, my ass! I’ll damn well take it when I want to and there’s nothing one of those dung beetles can do about it!”
“Scoundrels” whispered around corners and danced through windows, and lips turned upward at the stench. Men not quite antediluvian scowled nearly tripping over their chins. Good men, good women. “Priests my eye!”
More forks plunged to rob God.
“The Old Man’s senile,” one remarked “and fat” the other followed up, “and blind” thumbing their noses at a generation who knows nothing and is worth nothing.
The men did their job just like generations before, except now it was only a job—a lousy, stinkin’ job—but, with benefits.
An elbow to the elbow, “did you see that hot little one? I’m takin’ that…I’m takin’ that! I’ll deflower that right there, I will!” “You should’ve seen the brown-eyed cherub I had last week! Virgin!”
The Old Man heard from his chair propped against the doorframe. It was a place he often sat when sleep crept over his eyes like a nocturnal weight.
His sons were filthy.
The whole country knew they held esteemed positions but bastardized them.
“Might as well be a friggin country club over there,” the blacksmith growled and smashed the anvil harder than ever.
“Yeah, they’re special alright; they do whatever they damn well please!”
Blood dripped from the slighter brother’s mouth and cascaded down his chin into a miniscule pool on the gopher wood table.
“Why do you do such things,” the Old Man mumbled toward his sons.
“Because we can,” the fat one shot back with a vehemence that pinned the Old Man against the wooden frame.
The Old Man’s mind trekked back to a place that was once comfortable but a remote remembrance. “I would’ve never dreamed they’d end up like this;” and regret poured out of him like blood from the scape goat’s neck.
The Old Man slept and the slighter son sidled up next to Dainty at the tent door.
His putrid breath bathed the woman; a wheeze of hell.
His hand spooned her spine at the nape of her neck as an anguished chill crawled beneath her skin.
She shifted from her right foot to her left hoping to distance herself at least a little, but his knuckles pressed into her skin.
She’d heard of the other women who labored there, what the brutes had done to them, and a briny tear streaked down her cheek to the corner of her mouth; caught in heaven’s bottle.
He belched; she nearly wretched on him but caught the vomit in her hand as she scampered around the corner of the tent.
Now out of sight the pig had his way with her; and the Old Man slept.
The clod returned to the steak adjusting his crotch with a grimy hand.
Death’s coming” echoed across heaven.
The privileged always do that in religion, when God is forgotten; taking what they’re not entitled to, yet speaking for God, robbing men, ravaging women, helping themselves to the money bag.
Having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Denying its power and thumbing a nose at God.
Always right in their own eyes, stepping on saints and supposing they know it all.
“A god has come into the camp,” warriors roared. “Be men, and fight,” warned one as scores trembled.
The Presence of God moved; the parade led by charlatans.
The Gold glimmered in the mid-day sun, awashed with Heaven light.
He shifted his crotch again.
Then thirty thousand died.
A new servant stood at the tent free from fear, and meat boiled in a widow’s pot.
A sprinter to Shiloh; “Hophni and Phinehas died!” the blind Old Man cried, tumbled from his chair and met his sons on the other side.
