Genesis

by Jack Geurts

  “Not so fast,” Laban says. Something Jake mentioned has given him an idea. “I wasn’t done with my proposal.”

  “Just give it up, man,” Jake says. “You lost. It was a nice try, but it didn’t work out. Nobody likes a sore loser, Labe. Don’t be that guy.”

  But Laban doesn’t back down. “If you don’t marry Rachel, you can’t have Leah, either.”

  Bride and groom exchange a worried glance.

  “You can’t do that,” Leah says.

  “Can he do that?” Jake asks the priest.

  This time, the priest says, “I think I’m gonna go,” and walks off.

  They turn back to see the shepherds approaching, drawing daggers.

  “I can do whatever I want,” Laban says. “Now, you either agree to the revised deal, or you fuck off back to Canaan on your own. What’s it gonna be?”

  Jake puffs his chest out. “And what if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll have Rach and the shepherds hold you down while I scoop out one of your eyes and fuck the eye-hole.”

  “Jesus...” Jake says.

  “Then I’ll scoop out your other eye and do the same with that one, so the last thing you see is my nutsack slapping you in the face.”

  “You know what?” Jake says. “Seven years isn’t such a long time, after all.”

  He promptly shakes the man’s hand.

  *

  Seven years later, Jake’s finished up his last day of work, and married Rachel along with Leah.

  Now comes the fun part.

  Allegedly.

  The whole reason Becca sent Jake back east in the first place was to find himself a wife (or two, as it happened) and get to work cranking out grandkids.

  So that’s what he does.

  You’d think that, from the past seven years he’d spent with Leah, he’d already have at least a few kids to his name.

  Not so much.

  Apparently, Leah was barren.

  Only, she wasn’t barren.

  God was just...well, playing God.

  See, the big guy had been watching this little family drama play out and decided Jake hadn’t been fucked with enough already.

  It could be argued that he saw how Rachel was being neglected and felt sorry for her, but you should know by now that God’s intentions are never that honourable.

  Despite his distaste for the man himself, God couldn’t argue that Laban’s plan was a stroke of genius. Get back at Jake by replacing a younger child with an older child. Why didn’t he think of that?

  So goddamn poetic.

  He cared less about the reason Laban deceived Jake – intergenerational punishment for some bullshit reason (what is this, North Korea?) – and contented himself with the end result, which was that Jake was being punished.

  After that blasphemous display of pissing on the makeshift altar in the desert, God was happy to watch Jake suffer a little bit longer.

  So, no matter how hard Jake and Leah try, no matter how much sex they have, no matter what time of the month or how many positions they do it in, they just can’t seem to get pregnant.

  But Rachel, within mere weeks of the nuptials, announces to the dinner table that she’s with child.

  That’s right, bitch.

  With...motherfucking...child.

  Leah glares at her across the table, and Rach just gives her a smug “how do you like that?” smile right back.

  Rachel cranks out four kids in no time flat. Their names are, in order: Reuben (Rube), Simeon (Sim), Levi (just Levi), Judah (Jude).

  I want you to remember these names – they’ll be important later on.

  Hint: they’re the names of the tribes of Israel.

  I guess that wasn’t really much of a hint – I pretty much just flat out told you.

  Moving on...

  Needless to say, the whole time Rachel’s been pumping out kids, Leah’s been fuming.

  One night, the sleep-deprived Jake is on his way to grab a few minutes of sweet unconsciousness, when Leah grabs him by the collar and shoves him against the wall, saying, “If you don’t give me a child soon, I’m gonna kill myself!”

  “Jesus!” Jake says, half-surprised by her sudden appearance, half-shocked by what she said. She’s wide-eyed, frenzied – the look of a person possessed by envy.

  Jake goes, “Look, you think this is my fault? We’ve tried everything.”

  “Not everything,” Leah says.

  She takes him into her room, where a maid is laid out naked on the bed, propped up on her elbows.

  I should explain...

  As each of his daughters was married, Laban had given them one of his own maids. Bilhah (Billie, for short) was given to Rachel, while Zilpah (or Zillie) was given to Leah.

  “You want to do a Hagar?” Jake says, recalling the method by which his good old granddad, Abe, had his first child, Ishmael – yet another person displaced by their sibling.

  Before Abe was aware that God was planning to ‘open Sarah’s womb’, as the needlessly-gross saying went, he panicked and banged Sarah’s maid, Hagar, instead, resulting in the birth of a son whom he later left to die, along with Hagar herself.

  Great guy, Abe.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Leah says. “Her kids count as my kids, seeing as she’s basically my property with no agency of her own.”

  “She’s right,” Zillie says, matter-of-factly. “Now are we doing this, or what?”

  Jake is so sleep-deprived already at this point that he can’t tell if arguing or having sex is the path of least resistance to him getting a few minutes shut-eye. In the end, he strips off his clothes and gets to work.

  Shortly thereafter, Zillie gives birth to two sons: Dan (no nickname necessary – maybe Big D?) and Naphtali (Naph).

  Now it’s Rachel’s turn to get jealous. Even though she has four beautiful, healthy children of her own, the most recent birth technically counted as Leah’s, so she...is...pissed.

  Ignoring the cries of her children who just want to be held or played with, she catches Jake off-guard as he’s heading to bed to get a few minutes shut-eye. Grabbing him by the collar and shoving him up against the wall, she says, “If you don’t give me another kid, I’m gonna kill you!”

  “Goddamn it,” says Jake, exhausted. “I can’t keep doing this. I don’t have any bodily fluids left.”

  “Then find some,” Rachel says. “You got some fucking to do.”

  She drags him to her room, where her maid (Billie) is laid out on the bed, waiting to be impregnated.

  “I’m still waiting for my shit to heal up,” Rachel says. “So get in there, chief. Make me proud.”

  Jake sighs, and starts undressing.

  I know this all happened over a number of years, but I like to imagine it as a montage of Jake being dragged from room to room, sleep-deprived and drained of all bodily fluids, forcing himself to copulate again and again like some sort of insomniac sperm-machine.

  It sort of dismantles the idea that all men want is sex.

  All single men want is sex.

  All committed men want is a good night’s sleep...and then maybe once or twice a week, you put on some Al Green and go to town.

  And if you’re a guy out there who thinks having (at this point) four sexual partners who know about each other – and are cool with it – is a good thing, you clearly haven’t been in that situation before.

  This isn’t recreational sex.

  It’s procreational.

  Big difference.

  He’s also got (at this point) six kids that need constant attention, feeding, diaper changes, you name it.

  Find me a guy in that situation who can summon the will to live, let alone the enthusiasm to have sex with four different women (with the stated intention of generating more needy, screaming miracles), and I’ll show you a liar.

  You also might find it strange that the cause of the sisters’ anger isn’t that Jake is sleeping with the other one, but merely the tally of children being had. What ca
n I say? It was a different time. They had different priorities.

  We (I’m assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that you, like me, are bound by the psychological shackles of monogamy) look at this situation and think, how can they stand being married to someone who’s fucking someone else? Wouldn’t that just drive you crazy?

  Apparently not.

  Apparently, all these sisters care about is getting more kids on the board than the other one. They’re even willing to throw their maids’ uteruses into the ring to win the fight.

  Rachel’s maid (Billie) ends up having another two kids: Gad (Josh?) and Asher (Ash).

  At this point, Jake’s really struggling. He’s basically tapped out, and needs a little pick me up. A little juice to keep him going.

  One day, Reuben, the first born (who I guess can walk already?), is out in the fields helping with the wheat harvest. He finds a couple of mandrakes – remember those things out of Chamber of Secrets? The screaming potato goblins? I’m not sure how accurate that depiction is, but...that.

  Their roots were thought to be powerful aphrodisiacs at the time. They were basically the oysters of their day, even though oysters are goddamn disgusting, but then again, so are the screaming potato goblin plants out of Harry Potter 2, so I guess it checks out.

  Reuben brings them back to his mother like the best little wing-man ever, and she tousles his hair and tells him to go play – she and his dad have got some fucking to do.

  Before Rachel can get a chance to use them, Leah enters the room and sees what she’s holding.

  A tense showdown.

  “Give me those mandrakes,” she says.

  “Fuck you,” Rachel shields the roots. “These are mine.”

  “Fuck you,” Leah says, starting to tear up. “You’ve already got four kids. I’m sitting over here pretending like my maid’s vagina is just an extension of my own. Everyone’s having kids except me. Come on, Rach, give me a break.”

  Rachel considers it. The hatred in her heart dissolves in the face of such a genuine emotional appeal.

  While she’s distracted, Leah’s fingers have curled around a clay jug and she hurls it at Rachel. It hits her in the head, shatters, and Rachel drops, out cold.

  Leah quickly drags the unconscious body of her sister out of sight, then returns to the kitchen with the mandrakes and distils them into a potent love serum.

  She goes to find Jake passed out in a rocking chair with a sleeping baby in each arm. She cobbles together an IV drip, using a needle made out of a very fine animal bone, a tube made out of the intestines of that same animal, and a fluid bag made from – you guessed it – that same animal’s bladder.

  Hey, at least she didn’t waste the poor thing.

  Leah pours the serum into the ‘IV bag’, stabs the bone needle into a vein on the inside of Jake’s elbow – no response from the corpse-like father of eight – then waits while the essence of mandrake begins to make the rounds in his circulatory system.

  Pretty soon, his eyes snap open.

  The kids are palmed off to the maid (they are hers, after all), and Jake and Leah begin going at it like a couple of teenagers.

  It’s at this point that God takes pity on the guy.

  He doesn’t want to just ‘allow’ Leah to get pregnant again, lest Jake think he’s going soft. But under the pretence of the mandrake serum (which was, of course, ridiculous, and unbelievably dangerous), God thinks it might be time to ease up on the old punishment factor. If Jake manages not to die of mandrake poisoning, he’ll finally be able to have a child with the woman he loves.

  Within weeks, Leah announces that she’s pregnant, and eventually gives birth to two sons, Issachar (Izzy) and Zebulun (Zeb). She also gives birth to a daughter, Dinah, who actually turns out to be a fairly prominent character in the not-too-distant future.

  I know! A prominent female character. Who’d have thunk it?

  Who have we had so far?

  Eve? Sarah? Becca?

  Okay, we’ve had a few.

  I’m doing my best to shed light on the women of this story, but it’s slim pickings, guys. Not too many chicas, and the ones we do find aren’t given a whole lot to do.

  Even Dinah gets pretty short shrift.

  But that’s the good thing about this story – I can twist it and shape it however I want.

  So don’t worry – I’m working on it. Not just for Dinah, but for the rest of the Old Testament. You’ll see what I mean.

  Now, where were we?

  Oh, yeah...

  So Leah’s finally got a few kids on the board – not as much as Rachel, and if you’re judging these kids based on their gender, as you better believe they were doing, then she really only has two-and-a-half kids.

  In the period we’re discussing, and for a long time after, girls are the equivalent of the foul-shot. That is, they only count for one point, where a boy counts for two.

  A boy who grows up to be a mighty warrior or a hero (or just a fundamentally-decent person) is a fade-away jump-shot taken from half-court, because as we all know, most people are vile cowards.

  A boy who grows up to be king is, to continue this very-appropriate basketball metaphor, the same as a desperate, buzzer-beating, one-armed catapult throw from the other end of the court.

  Rachel has another two kids after that – Joseph (Joey) and Benjamin (Ben, or Benji, depending on his mood) – bringing the grand total to a nice, even, lucky thirteen.

  You might be asking yourself: what kind of time-frame are we talking about here?

  Well, if the pregnancies had overlapped, then all of Jake’s children could have been born within a seven-year timeframe.

  That’s right.

  Seven again.

  What is it with this goddamn number?

  You know what, screw this – I’m asking the big guy.

  Hey God, what’s up with you and the number seven.

  God’s in the process of ripping a bong when I barge in on him. Seeing me causes him to cough up the lungful of smoke he just inhaled, and he waves me away, telling me to get the fuck out of there, he’s busy.

  Oh, well – I’ll try again later.

  You like that fourth wall breaking that happened just there?

  Wait, is that breaking the fourth wall?

  No, I think that’s when the characters talk to the audience.

  What’s it called when the narrator talks to his characters? Is there even such a thing?

  Hold on, I’ll Google it...

  Okay, I clicked on the first few results and couldn’t find anything. I could go further down the page, but I’m not going to.

  Also...

  Did I just invent a new method of storytelling?

  Holy shit, I think I might have.

  And you know what I’m gonna call it?

  Breaking the fifth wall!

  Alright...

  Hold on, let me just trademark this...

  There we go.

  Done.

  Breaking the Fifth Wall™.

  I mean, I could continue Googling to see if it’s already a thing.

  It wouldn’t take long, maybe a minute, tops.

  Ah, it’s not important.

  The important thing is, Jake did what he set out to do. He found a wife (or two), had a bunch of kids, and now, he’s ready to return home to earn the approval of his terrifying mother.

  Only thing is, Laban’s not going to let him go so easily...

  GENESIS 30-31

  Un-Sympathetic Magic

  After Joseph was born, Jake decides that thirteen is a promising-enough number to end on, and begins to plot his escape from Laban.

  He starts by being direct, going straight to the guy himself and being like, “Hey, man, I think it’s time I return to my mom and start getting serious about this whole father of a great nation thing.”

  But Laban, who’s busy in his workshop replacing one of the wheels on his wagon, replies in a whiny, sarcastic voice, “Oh, really, is that what you want? Does
the wittle momma’s boy wanna go home to mommy?”

  Jake sighs. “Look, I’ve been here almost twenty years, man. I don’t even know if my mom’s still alive.”

  Laban shrugs. “Hey, I get it. It’s hard out here for a pimp. Just admit you can’t hack it, and I’ll let you get back to your poetry, or whatever the fuck you were doing back in Canaan.”

  “I don’t know what you think Canaan is, but it’s pretty much the same as here. Everywhere’s pretty much the same as here. It’s all desert and tents and mudbrick houses. Everyone’s either a farmer or a herder or a woman...”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about, man. That attitude of yours.” He imitates Jake in the whiny, sarcastic voice again. “Everything’s the same. What’s the point of anything? Why are we here? Where are we going?”

  “I think those are legitimate questions.”

  Laban snaps, getting up in his face, like, “And I think you’re a pussy. We work. That’s all there is to it.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing. For free, I might add.”

  Laban holds up a finger. “For my daughters and your children. That was what we agreed on.”

  “That was what we agreed on before you tricked me and forced me to marry both of them. And now that it’s all said and done, I think I would’ve rathered just cold, hard silver.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry...” Again, with the sarcastic voice, a little more high-pitched this time. “I didn’t realise I was inconveniencing you so bad by giving you a family.”

  Jake sighs, exhausted by the conversation.

  “No, seriously,” Laban says. “You wanna go? Fine. Get the fuck out of here. And since you feel you’ve been so horribly cheated, I’m going to pay you for your efforts.”

  “You don’t have to...”

  “No, I want to.”

  “You don’t...”

  “No, but I really fucking want to. God forbid you should honor the deal we made...”

  “Again, you tricked...”

  But Laban speaks over him. “...and I won’t have you going around badmouthing me to every Saul, Abner and Jehoshaphat you come into contact with. Name your price.”

  Now, Jake’s feeling guilty – like he got greedy or something – when really, he’s just asking for what’s fair. He didn’t come here asking for anything – he just wanted to leave. But now that Laban’s stubbornly forcing him to accept payment out of some misplaced sense of pride, Jake figures he might as well cash in.