The Boble III: Stick and Unable
Chapter Two
“Sedate Mother”
Dad was in the garage with his heavy metal band again. Stick and Unable, the children in question at the end of the last chapter, shared a secret smile as they turned up the TV.
This was life after the Garden. Candi and Dick had moved into an expansive cave outside a major metropolitan city. Every day, Dick would commute to his cushy desk job at the Amalgamated Wireless Frames Company. The angels of Bob Heavens (where there is sausage located in subsection C of warehouse 42, please fill out requisition order 567 stroke B) had pulled a few strings to get Dick working again. To be honest, all those in Bob Heavens (where there is great sausage) felt a little guilty about what had happened. After all, if the Sacred Tree was such an awful thing, why had BOB put it in the middle of the garden? In a recent interview with Dave Newcomer’s zine, “Dark Age Press,” BOB tried to address some of these questions:
* * * *
Newcomer: Hello BOB, welcome to Dark Age Press, a literary zine for alternative culture –
BOB: Yeah, yeah.
Newcomer: Um… So one of the great questions concerns the Sacred Tree of Eternal Hemorrhaging. Maybe you can explain a little of that?
BOB: Like what? It’s a tree, it grows up. What do you want here?
Newcomer: Well, why the temptation in the first place?
BOB: I wanted to see if those fuckers would do it! It’s disgusting how even my creations disobey me!
Newcomer: That’s why you put the tree there? Because you feel betrayed by everyone?
BOB: No, I’m just trying to be indignant. To tell the truth, I didn’t realize the Tree would be that bad. I mean, I had the idea: Ultimate knowledge of good and evil bound into a pear…right? So I had that idea, and then, well, I didn’t think anyone would actually go for it. It’s like leaving a dollar on the hood of your car and finding it there at the end of the day. You ever hear about that? That works, you know.
Newcomer: So you didn’t expect False Rob to tempt the First Woman to eat the pear?
BOB: I try not to pay attention to what Rob does. I mean… Look, I’m just not associated with him, okay? I don’t care what he says about Homeroom. I was never his friend.
* * * *
On the weekends, Dick got together with his heavy metal buddies and pounded out some serious garage music. Want an example? Oh, baby, it’s in the original text! We have to translate it! MP3 version coming out soon!
“Enter the Serpent” by Dick
Enter the Serpent
Don’t eat the fruit of this one tree
for if you do
you’ll surely be
aware of all that’s good and EVIL
enter the serpent…
Well, it goes on a bit. That was their only song, actually. The drummer had a song – “Why I like Daisies (thrashcore version)”, but Dick insisted on “Enter the Serpent” night after night. He was a little obsessed.
Before band practice, Dick would come home and fight with Candi. In her later years, Candi had become a “pseudo-lesbian”. Stick and Unable tried to steer clear of them if it was possible.
Dinner was the worst time for the two boys. They would sit and listen as the nightly argument slowly grew into a heated shouting match. The last night things were ever normal was on October 30, 3984 BC.
Dick came home and sat down to a pot roast dinner, picking idly at his mashed potatoes while Candi served up the meal for her husband and the two boys, a dead cigar hanging out of her mouth.
“What?” Dick asked, “No pears for dinner tonight?” He grinned and winked at Stick.
“Don’t start…” Candi muttered.
Dick turned to Unable, who was staring down at his plate, “I should have called you Sly the Snake, boy.” He pointed a finger at his son, then turned to Candi. “What do you think, Sweetie. Name this one Sly the Snake?”
Candi sat down and shoved a fork into her slice of pot roast, “I’m really tired, Dick. It’s been a long day.”
“Not enough room for another dick in your day?” Dick asked cheerfully.
Stick and Unable stared incredulously at each other.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Dick said. “I know how it is…. ‘And Woman saw that it was so desirable,’” Dick stressed the ‘so’, stretching the word out for five extra syllables. “Little miss be like BOB and have knowledge. Little miss cover up her body. Little miss hide from BOB!”
Candi ground her teeth and glared at Dick, “I hate you so much…”
Dick was on a roll, though. “Little miss ‘Hey BOB, why not pass this off as hereditary sin and let us go?’, little miss ‘I’m so sorry, O BOB, I don’t want immortality, how about we just leave the Garden and call it even?’.” Dick pushed his plate away and stood up.
“All right, you bitch,” Candi rose as well, “How was I supposed to know?” She waved her arms in the air and stumbled around the room, “We’re naïve and innocent,” she jumped up onto the chair, “Then old BOB says, ‘So, you simple-minded folk, I’m going to put a constantly flowering tree right in the middle of your home. But don’t touch it, okay?’” Candi made a series of monkey noises, rolling her eyes and rubbing her head.
“Don’t you be disrespecting BOB in front of the boys.” Dick shouted.
“Yeah, yeah…” Candie sat back down, “I’ll respect the bastard from now on. Next he’ll probably let the Germans have a charismatic ruler during an economic downturn.”
“He would never allow such a thing!” Dick shouted.
“Right. I’ll owe you a coke if he doesn’t.” Candi stuffed some mashed potatoes in her mouth.
After dinner, Stick and Unable were free to play in the fields. They usually liked to lure the high school girls from the Land of Brood over to their camp. The Brood girls were all die-hard pagans, which meant they were sexually liberal. Ever since the whole Sacred Tree incident, BOB had laid down strict orders that sex was taboo. The Great Deity had been working overtime to create a sexual stigma, focusing his efforts on the female elements of the family (Candi, Aunt Jackie and Cousin Smithie the Pestilent). It had taken years, but BOB had managed to create a sense of “chastity” in the minds of his female creations. On April Fools, 3992 BC, BOB had decided to make his male creations promiscuous yet hateful of women who weren’t virgins. There was a brief explanation on the records that read: “Hah!”
Stick and Unable dodged all of this by hanging with the witches. On this night, the Night of murder, et cetera, the two brothers had set up a 3980’s Dance Party. They played the old hit “Walk Like a Sumerian” along with “When Doves Where the Only Food for my People” by the Sumerian King Formerly Known as Hig. The witches were digging it, dancing the night away and tearing off as much of their clothes as they desired.
There was a redheaded young witch all over Unable. When Stick saw this, he grew angry and jealous. Unable, who always appeared to be gay when you first met him, suckered the women into his bed again and again.
At about 10pm, on this momentous night of destruction, Stick went unto Unable and challenged his brother to a duel for the redheaded witch.
Unable, enjoying the party, laughed and grabbed his brothers’ hands, “My dear Stick, me thinks you are a little overmedicated.”
The witches giggled and then started dancing together. No doubt the younger brother would sleep with three women, again, tonight. Stick clenched his fists, for he knew that if Unable slept with three women BOB would be pleased. There was only one solution… It came to Stick as he watched his younger brother dancing with the heathens. He would make the ultimate sacrifice to BOB: The beauty and the power of Unable.
Stick dropped into the shadows then fled the room, the plans for the murder of his brother filling his mind.
At nearly midnight, Unable came looking for Stick. The girls were ready to go to a hotel or…well, anywhere, really. Unable caught up with Stick at the Old Fence separating the Garden from the World.
“Brother!” Unable shouted, clasping Stick by the shoulders, “Those bitches are hot, man. Let’s go teach them what it means to love BOB!”
“You’ve lined them all up, eh?”
Unable, sensing something in Stick’s voice, released his brother and stepped away. “Well, they’re taking off their clothes as we speak… I think we don’t have a choice but to act.”
“They aren’t virgins.” Stick muttered.
“No, brother,” Unable replied carefully, “That’s…why we’re with them.” He made a funny face, then grinned. “Would you like a virgin?” he shook his hands, “Sticky fumblings in the dark, lying like a log on the couch, not making any noise except to say it hurts? No, I don’t think so. You want a redheaded muffin of pepperminty goodness to climb on top of you and treat you like a bad boy.” Unable watched his brother carefully, “Work with me here. I have our best interests in mind.”
“You always get the good time, brother!” Stick shouted.
Unable stepped back a little further, raising his arms in fear and surprise.
Stick strode forward, “BOB loves you better because you always get the good time!”
Unable, now genuinely concerned, tried to smile and shrug this off. “I say, brother, the last time Mom and Dad heard from BOB was that postcard three years ago. I don’t think anybody’s competing around here.”
Stick reached down and picked up a stone. He stepped towards his younger brother and raised the stone high. Before Unable could react, Stick brought the stone down as hard as he could. There was a moment of purest white. Then Stick was looking down at his younger brother. The bronzed body was curled on the ground, blood flowing from a wound on his blonde head. Unable was dead.
Stick numbly walked back to the cave and stepped in, collapsing against the front door. Dick and Candi were still awake, watching a video.
“Hey big guy,” Dick said, “Where’s your brother?”
Stick had to think fast, “I… There was this huge dragon, and then this man with a…”
Dick muted the television and turned around to face Stick, “Where’s your brother,” he asked sternly.
Stick was silent. Then he fell to his knees and began to weep. The boy confessed to all his sins.
Ten minutes later, Candi, who was still watching the silent television, said through her cigar, “Why aren’t I surprised?”
* * * *
Stick was banished to the Land of Cannons (a theme park in the Lake District). He hung with some of the Brood girls, eventually taking a redheaded wife and working as a freelance writer for a health magazine.
Now, there is a question that we translators always asked in Religious Studies class: ‘Where’d all those other people come from?’ Well, we can now provide an answer.
In a recent interview with New Republic, BOB mentioned that he had actually created a number of other people and had neglected to check in on them. So, “in all feasibility, [Stick] would be able to locate and seek sexual favors from any number of exciting redheaded children created at some earlier date…” However, a majority of Bobists and Bobologians believe Stick practiced animal husbandry. “Those little Spider Monkey’s are surprisingly agile,” BOB later said on that topic.
Back at home, Candi and Dick decided to try again. They had another son, Walter. On his 17th birthday, Walter discovered that he was more comfortable as a woman. He put on Candi’s wedding dress and called himself “Beth”. This was the Lineage of Dick.
* * * *
So begins the begetting part of the story. It should be noted that begetting is done every day. The begetting begins here and continues through to the very end. The names change, but the theme remains the same: man meets woman, man overpowers woman, man dominates woman throughout long and tedious relationship. Throughout the story, the long lists of names have, mostly, been omitted. To give the reader an idea of the monotony of these early cases of spawning, the following has been included:
“Beth” begot Jeff
Jeff begot Tom
Tom begot Tom Jr.
Tom Jr. begot Tom III
Tom III begot Tom IV
Tom IV begot Tom V
Tom V begot a lot of other people named Tom until one of them begot Mandy, who, in turn, begot a Large Mongoloid, who, then, begot Nowaya…
Next week on “The Boble”:
You wanted a lot of rain? You got it, Bitch!