"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
Genesis 2.24
It's a played out verse just like the whole story...just like:
"Wives, submit yourselves to yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, s let the wives bo to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
Ephesians 5.22-33
I suppose I don't have that much of a problem with the whole idea of Eve coming from Adam's rib. Sure, it's demeaning in the sense that women are a sort of inferior by-product, but isn't it nice to think of man and woman as of the same original flesh, and the original man sacrificing part of himself for original, or perhaps subject #2, woman--the anatomy is off only slightly, but the modern-day equivalent would be woman ripping out the man's guts. Perhaps it is only inevitable that woman eventually make her way back to her origins in that supposed she-bitch (and now Demon Queen), Lillith, who told Adam to fuck off and make his own dinner since she was breathed life into the same nostrils made of dust and clay, yet she was no man's golem, if still God's fool like all the rest.
No, I suppose what really bothers me is that Adam names "woman."
"And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
Genesis 2.23
This bothers me because to name is to give meaning and to control that meaning. It is a power to name, and anyone who has read "1984" or Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" needs little further explanation. Note that the King James Bible mentions nothing of Lillith in its beautiful passages.
But don't take my cynicism and embittered jadedness to heart, I'm only riled up because I see a friend who has become a drowning man. Maybe, I should've started with Jonah or Noah (a sort of parable where Noah doesn't take God or any of his friends' advice), or maybe my friend should've taken his wife's last name because the way she wears his just isn't working out. It's a marriage of deception, control, and not-light-hearted games, such as I-Spy and Guess Who (is not getting sex until I get my way). My friend, Fast Eddie, is looking more like Cool Hand, although we've already progressed to the double shackles and the hopeless stand off in the church point of the movie. I've never thought of children, especially babies, in this manner, but I fear the first-born here will be the blind man's bullet, a sort of nail in the coffin you know. It's quite sad to see the guy that I've always called Fast Eddie, Cool Hand Luke, Dean Moriarty, that spirit of American youth and freedom, no matter how deluded/dilluted, drowning in a pool of his own making--I guess it comes with that territory though.
On the other hand, I've been fortunate to see my good ol' buddy Hank Chinaski settle down with his Baker Baby. They've only been together a little over a decade. I was a groom in their wedding a few months ago, and it was somewhat strange to be sitting there on the day of their wedding because it seemed as though it had already happened, that they had already been married long before even I knew them. I ended up having a panic attack, in fact, only hours before the ceremony, and I had to lay down upon the marital bed in the bridal suite for several minutes to calm my breathing and wait for the heart palpitations to subside. Later, as we waited in the park for the ceremony to commence, the sky blackened and the thunder rolled. I thought surely the union of these two heathens was bringing forth the rapture, and we'd all be left below with boils growing upon the skin in a lava river of fang-toothed demons over head...hell, if Lillith made an appearance then it would really be a party. But alas, merciful God showed up, and the sky actually cleared, the clouds broke, and there was a glorious blue sky and golden sun for the exact eleven minute proceedings of the wedding. Within minutes of the start and finish, the sky was black, but for those brief moments of blasphemy, with Hank C. and Baker B., it looked like a paradise, or as much as it can in Bloomington.
And as strange as it was to be there for those two, it was even stranger last week when I had another deja vu like experience. My friend Dirk had told me that he had begun ring searching in the spring, and several Wednesdays ago had apparently found it. He and Honey Bee were travelling to D.C. for the week I heard, and I thought 'Ah, I bet Dirk proposes.' No more than a day later, I received the news that he had in fact done so. Again, I felt strange as if this had already happened as after being together for more than seven years, Dirk and Honey Bee's relationship has been more like a domestic marriage than anything else.
We were at Jupiter's Pizza Parlor celebrating the other night when I arrived late from a movie and met the happily engaged couple. The waitress promptly arrived to take my drink order and began rattling off a number of specials on beers and her suggested favorites, etc. I ordered an Oktoberfest, and she whisked off to take care of me, while I sat and amusedly listened to Dirk and Honey Bee inform me that she hadn't taken care of them at all for the last hour that they sat. They thought it was because I was single. I laughed to myself as they suggested that I 'make a move.' And I laughed as they compared her to Fast Eddie's wife-bitch. She did, indeed, look very similar in her features and somewhat in her mannerisms, and not that I much entertained the thought of 'making a move' on the waitress, but these details immediately made that an impossible thought. At one point it was almost too much when she came to the table and asked if I was 'doing alright,' and I assured her I was. She turned, took two steps, and then turned back to ask Honey Bee if she would like a refill on her completely empty drink. Quite amusing, but the moment became quite depressing as talk then turned to Fast Eddie and Mrs. Fast Eddie.
I walked out of Jupiter's with little thought for the waitress. It's been months since I wanted someone really. All of this marriage stuff this summer--I was in one and attended another four, while now my cousin has just announced his engagement to the woman that I will be sharing a classroom with for the next three months, and Dirk and Honey Bee are making the whole thing official--is forcing me to think about the stuff a bit more than I have in the last few years. I've worked catering and as a result over a hundred weddings in the last three summers, which has numbed me to the whole thing a great deal. It didn't help that my recent ex at the time got me the job, and I spent four months in the wake of a bad breakup working that special day for those seemingly happy couples alongside the girl who had just ripped my guts out. I was sulking around a lot and mumbling things about divorce while I made sure to perfectly pour the champagne toasts so that the cheap fizz only just reached the lip of the flute but did not flow over the side.
Now, I feel much better about things. I'm saddened by Eddie's hell-on-earth, but very happy for Hank and Baker Baby as well as Dirk and Honey Bee. Several years ago, I would have thought Dirk and Honey Bee (though I would have named her Lily, that most submissive of flowers, then) were making a mistake, and then, I do not think I would have been wrong really. Today, it is quite clear that the two of them are going to be very happy together as, perhaps not one flesh (if that is the thing we're going for) but as close as you can or should want to get as two people coming together to make, not a perfect, one, but an agreeable one, a loving one.
Now, it must just be the work again of that merciful God, or perhaps a chance will of maybe still not a completely-broke man to make his move and save himself. It's time for Fast Eddie to move fast and get out, find one that is going to work before it's too late.
And it is said, and where it is said, it is written:
"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."
Matthew 5.31-32
But it hath also been said, and it has been written:
"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."
Bob Dylan
And I hath said, and I hath written:
Fast Eddie, in the times of Great Depression, many men would, unfortunately leave their wives and children, and hop trains across the country. Many left to find work, while many left only out of despair and embarrassment from their inability to provide as 'men' for their families. I say to you now, hop that train and get out. Ride the train to newfound freedom before you find yourself laying down upon the tracks--the cool steel rails and the warping wooden rib slats--because it's a slow train coming AND a hard rain's a-gonna fall...
AND it ain't you babe. Enough said.
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