“Why the heck would I go to a reunion when there’s no famine in the land? We can get plenty to eat here at home!”
“I got a free condo on the Mediterranean,” coaxed Abraham.
“I tell you what,” said Lot. “If—I mean—Peradventure you can find ten who want to come to the reunion, I’ll come.”
“Peradventure ten!” screamed Abraham. I’ll be lucky if I get three!”
Abraham looked around the slovenly room and grabbed the first person he saw.
“Yeah!” said Lot’s deranged moony brother. “I will come with rejoicings!” He did not know how soon he was going to be signed-up for the next anger-management class. He would soon be using the dogs on the beach for target practice.
It was all downhill from there.
“Nay!” said the muddled melancholic sister. “I will not come. Peradventure you shut up!” She turned her face towards the wall and began to mutter.
“Nay!” said the scattered calamitous sister, “My camel’s got a flat. Peradventure you quit picking on me!” The tears welled up in her eyes and soon she was howling.
“Nay!” said the abominable glutonous perverse sister, “I am too fat! Everyone will laugh at me. Peradventure you give me back my cookies!” Then she began to scream: “Haste thee, escape thither from this reunion!” She ran for a knife.
I won’t destroy your reunion.” said Lot. “But I’m not coming.”
Abraham broke into a sweat. The hue and cry of this reunion had already waxed great. “Everybody is freaking out and we’re not even there yet,” he screamed. He would have to resort to lying.
“I know There’s no place like home,”(a) he said, his voice as raspy as a rusted-over garden rake scraped over cement. “All you gotta do is come for one day, and then you can leave.”
“Okay,” said Lot shrugging. “But ya gotta get out of this city before nightfall.”
“Arise, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of this reunion!” screamed the abominable sister, flailing her knife. Abraham quickly tied her hands behind her back and dragged her out of the room.
“Can’t you gag her?” asked Lot.
“I’ll do it,” said Lot’s deranged brother. “Whoop-de-do!” He stuffed his dirty head scarf into her mouth.
The howling sister was hiding in the corner buried under a pile of old blankets and stuffed dolls. Lot threatened her with a whip.
The muttering sister had chained herself to the wall. “No, I won’t go,” she said, starting to froth at the mouth.
“Up! Get thee out of this place!” screamed the abominable sister, having spit the scarf out of her mouth.
“Where’s my camel?” cried Abraham, tugging at the rope and wiping the sweat from his brow. The camel came running into the yard and kicked Abraham in the back.
Moments later he was urging Lot to whip his sisters and brother into a gallop. “Make ‘em run!” he yelled. “There’s no time to lose!”
“And by the way,” he yelled over his shoulder, “Don’t look back or you’ll be turned to salt!”
“Yeah, right,” said Lot’s wife.
Chapter Four
“The trouble about family reunions,” grumbled Sarah, “is that everyone brings their flocks and herds and the din is horrific! Not to mention the mess!”
There were children running everywhere, screaming and throwing rocks and making dents in Sarah’s furniture. They were doing camel-riding tricks on the backs of her favorite sheep. One of them tipped over three water barrels before she could stop him.
All their mothers ignored them while sitting in corners of the tent stuffing their faces with Sarah’s favorite chocolates. All the men were in the back pasture throwing horse-, I mean, camel-shoes.
Then on the afternoon’s outing into Hebron, the gate operators stopped Sarah at the entrance into Faery Tale Town. “You were barren for 100 years, lady. We don’t let babies and old hags in. Go home where you belong.” All the women laughed and pointed their fingers at Sarah. Most of them were relatives. The one laughing the hardest was Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar.
Sarah cried all night.
The next morning after Sarah had single-handedly fed breakfast to the dusty smelly mob of eighty-five, she spotted Hagar, the vixen, standing around at the well showing off Ishmael. Ishmael, the lout, was pointing his fingers and sniggering at baby Isaac.
Sarah’s eyes were blotchy and her hand shook. Suddenly she threw down her pot and shoved Abraham from the breakfast table. “You said this reunion was going to be fun!” she screamed.
“Liar! Liar! Liar! ”(b)
She whacked his nose with her dripping pancake ladle.
This old nagging hag isn’t going to get away with this, thought Abraham, wiping batter out of his beard. Not in front of all these men! “Sarah,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, “You’re a ninety-eight-year-old BOOB! When are you going to grow up?”
The men cheered. The women laughed.
“I should have taken a rock and killed myself years ago!” (c)
cried Sarah.
“That I should have this snotty handmaiden sniggering behind my back in my old age! Not to mention all your horrible family! Do something about it, Abraham. Or else!”
A horrific din erupted all over the breakfast table. Children threw uneaten lentil rolls. Lot knocked over the pitcher of goat’s milk as he struggled to his feet. Lot’s melancholic sister slapped his abominable sister. Babies shrieked.
“Get this scum outta here!” screamed Sarah.
I hate this reunion when I’m in it,” (d)
cried Lot’s deranged brother and stomped to his tent and pulled down the door.
“I hate this reunion when you’re in it,” (d)
cried Lot’s scattered sister to Abraham.
“That’s it! We are so not coming here anymore!” (e)
said Lot. He grabbed his children by their ears and dragged them from the table. “Get yer gear, you brats!” he yelled. “We’re bugging out!” (f)
Damn his wife for getting herself turned into salt. It was no fun packing up by himself.
Abraham surveyed the scene and sighed. Then he went to find Hagar. She and Ishmael were hiding behind the camels on the back lot. Ishmael had three half-eaten pancakes stuffed into his mouth.
“Here’s the situation,” said Abraham to Hagar, his left eye twitching like mad. A camel ran up and kicked him in the stomach. “This hurts me more than it hurts you—My wife’s come back—” (g) He found himself choking on his gorge. You’d think lying would feel okay by now. But no, dang it, the hag had NEVER been gone.
“What I mean,” he choked out, “is my wife hates you! And you know what? I hate you too! You and Ishmael have got to go.”
He handed her a flask of water and a loaf of Sarah’s bread, badly burned.
Abraham turned to Ishmael. He was a good kid, even if he was too stupid to ride goats. “You’re twelve years old now, Ishmael, old enough to be the man of the family,” he said. “Remember how I taught you to shoot snakes?”
At the gate Hagar turned around to face Abraham. She said, “You should be very glad I’m not 12. I was a very straightforward child.
When they were out of sight, past the first grove of heavy bracken, Hagar slid down into the sand and began to weep.
How was she gonna live in this crummy old desert? Sarah was old and ugly; she could live off tree bark in the years when it didn’t rain. Hagar was young and beautiful; she couldn’t eat roots.
She howled louder.
“Yo Mama, what you cryin’ fo?” said Ishmael, coming to her side, brushing the pancake crumbs off his cheeks. “Sarah ain’t never gonna slap yo face again--you’s a free woman now!”
Hagar pulled her face out of the sand. This dumb kid of hers had something here. She was free! For the first time in years she was free! She heaved Sarah’s bread in the brush and got to her feet.
“Come on, Ishmael,” she said. “We’re outta here.”
Chapter Five
Forty-year-old Isaac didn’t understand why his father Abraham was insisting he get married in the off-year for family reunions. He could understand why Abraham wasn’t traveling the 500 miles to his kindred to pick a wife for him—Abraham was getting awfully old and the journey would probably kill him. But he, Isaac, was young and strong. Why wasn’t he going?
“I just need to send my head servant,” said Abraham, his voice suddenly growly. “Trust me, boy.”
Isaac backed off.
There are some things you don’t tell your son until you’re about ready to die, thought Abraham. Stuff like family curses. That way he can’t be mad at you too long. At least while you’re with him. And Abraham didn’t want to explain to Isaac that any gathering with family from a long distance over deep water might be considered a you-know-what. Abraham was getting too old to dodge camels’ hooves.
And one month to the day that the trusted servant had set out—lo and behold—at the end of a gentle spring day, just as Isaac was rising from his evening’s meditation in the fields, Abraham’s servant crested the hill astride one very thirsty camel. And so, in the glorious panorama of the setting sun, Rebekah and a bunch of dirty snorting spitting camels rode into Isaac’s life.
Isaac quickly snatched up an armful of Palestinian rock rose and some of the fragrant grasses he often used to displace the unruly smell in the camel’s stalls. He presented them to Rebekah before she could dismount.
Yes, she was very fair to look upon; he could tell that even through her veil. She gave Isaac a radiant smile, because now that she was in the camp of her husband-to-be, some stupid servant would have to water all those wretched camels instead of her. It takes a dang long time to draw 20 buckets of water for each camel, she thought, and the brutes have a way of spitting at you if you’re not fast enough.
Rebekah became Isaac’s wife that very night, and Abraham celebrated the event by tying up all fifteen of his camels just outside Isaac’s tent.
“They’re yours now, son,” he said.
Chapter Six
Isaac lived for 180 years. Can you believe it? And other than that trip to the mountain with his dad and his one experience of out-running a famine, he’d seemed to live a charmed life. No wonder he was going to have trouble with his boys. Or his wife.
Just having the three of them together in one room was one long dog-fight. He couldn’t get through family home evening without one of them trying to beat the tar out of the other one.
And his wife was always taking Jacob’s side, even though Esau was clearly the better fighter.
What bugged him was when he had to pry Rebekah’s fingernails out of Esau’s head. Inevitably a crazed camel, incited by the riot, would stampede through the tent and half trample him to death before he could yank all five of her fingers free.
How could two boys who came out of the same woman only five minutes apart, be so different? Somehow it had to be her fault.
And then that stupid pottage day.
It all happened this way: Jacob wasn’t stealing the birthright, he was really stealing the birth-order because he was damn sick of being treated like the little brother who would never grow up even though he was 45-years-old, commanded the whole agricultural farm and had single-handedly taken all the goats to the damn family reunion for the last 5 years. “So there, Esau!” he yelled. “You be the Little Bro for awhile and see how you like it!”
It was early evening and Esau staggered into camp. With all his shaggy red hair, he looked more like an approaching wolf than a man.
Jacob was tending a bubbling pot over a neat little campfire. A yummy smell wafted on the breeze.
“I’m no Nimrod,” said Esau, drooping over his empty hunting sack. “And I’m dang hungry,” he said, his voice rising feebly. “Give me your pottage!” If he threatened to bash out the rest of Jacob’s cracked teeth, he ought to get results.
“It’s not pottage,” said Jacob cheerfully. “It’s chipotle—that new recipe I got at the family reunion last year. Yah still want it?” He stood quietly beside his pot waiting.
“No,” said Esau. “Give me your tots!” (i)
“Ain’t got any,” said Jacob, unzipping the pockets on his pants and turning them inside out quickly. “See?”
Esau kicked Jacob as viciously as he could, then said, “The world belongs to the meat eaters, Jacob, and if you have to take it raw, take it raw.”(j)
Raw indeed. Esau was going to get it raw and he was going to get it now.
“You don’t have any meat, Esau,” said Jacob watching his brother carefully, while gingerly rubbing his bruised flesh. “What are you going to do?”
Esau swayed visibly.
Jacob said, “You’re really hungry Esau, aren’t you?” In fact, if you don’t eat some of my pottage right now, you are going to die.”
Esau’s eyes glazed over.
All Jacob had to do was keep his cool and the birthright would be in the bag.
“You don’t want to die, Esau,” said Jacob smoothly. “And get eaten by the jackals, do you?” His voice was soft and low, the same croony voice Rebekah had used to put Isaac to sleep for years.
For the first time in his life, Jacob was leading Esau right by the nose. No expletives tonight, huh Esau? he thought.
Jacob dished up a bowl of fragrant pottage. He thrust the bowl under Esau’s nose: “I tell you what I’ll do.....
Forty-five years ago it had taken only five minutes for Esau to shove his greedy way out first from the birth canal. Now it seemed only right that it took Jacob just five minutes to fix the situation forever. He had Esau signed on the dotted line and face-down in the pottage before he ever knew what hit him.
Jacob laughed softly to himself as he strode back to his work in the fields.
Chapter Seven
Then came that fateful day when Isaac sent Esau out hunting. Rebekah looked around anxiously for Jacob. No where to be seen. She picked up her cell phone. The battery was dead.
Rebekah threw down the cell phone and smashed it with a rock. “The damn thing doesn’t work!” she screamed. She kicked up her skirts and ran for the back pasture.
“Jacob,” she screamed, “Get your hidee in here quick! Isaac is going to die next week. He just sent Esau out to hunt the final meat. I think he’s ready to give out the blessings.”
Rebekah made Jacob roll in the dirt and put sheep’s fur on his arms. Then he ran carrying his mother’s cheater food to Isaac.
“Here I am, Dad,” he said.
“Hmm...smells good,” said Isaac, grabbing at the tray. “Gimme the food!”
Nothing wrong with the old man’s nose, thought Jacob. Good thing he’s blind as a bat.
Jacob sat twitching while his father slowly chewed up the whole roasted lamb. What if Esau got back before Isaac got done? Darn those false teeth!
Suddenly Jacob could stand it no longer and yanked the tray off his father’s lap. “C’mon, Dad,” he said. “Bless me now!”
“Get your camel’s breath out of my face!” growled Isaac. “Don’t you think you could have a bath and a shave before the last time I bless you?”
“Sorry Dad,” said Jacob, remembering to make his voice sound deep and growly like Esau’s.
“Okay, Grampa,” said Rebekah, “Let’s get on with it, okay? The sun’s about to set.”
“Quit telling me what to do!” growled Isaac. “I didn’t get where I am today, without knowing how to bless my own boys,” (k) he said, sounding as vacant as an abandoned mine-field.
Hours later, when Esau returned with a dead wild goat, the deed was done. Isaac groaned when he discovered the truth and Esau sent up a howling and a crying that could have been heard in Hebron.
Rebekah cuffed him in the ear: “Quit yer yowling, Esau, You boob! When are you gonna grow up?”
Esau spotted his brother across the field: “Drop dead, Jacob!”
“A deal’s a deal!” screamed Jacob. But he was getting outta here fast. Mom was packing him off to the relatives for a few days until Esau cooled off. She had reined in their fastest camel from the behind the barn.
Soon Jacob was gone. It would be 20 years before he’d see his brother again.
By that evening, Esau was no longer ranting and raving. He had settled into a deep grey groveling depression. “You don’t understand, Dad!” he cried. “I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”(l)
“Yep,” said Isaac. “That’s what you get for killing innocent animals and cutting down trees. When are you gonna learn?”
On the way to the reunion, Jacob slept on a real rocky pillow and he had amazing dreams, mostly about what he was going to do when the reunion was over.
That night in bed, Rebekah whispered to Isaac: “Do you think I should have told him about the curse?”
In the morning Jacob realized that a camel had kicked him in the head.
Chapter Eight
It had taken Jacob seven long years to earn the dowry needed to marry his beautiful cousin, Rachel. The long awaited day had finally come.
“All’s fair in love and war,” said Laban, Jacob’s new father-in-law-to-be, when his wife was nervously ringing her hands in their tent right before the ceremony.
“Not to worry,” said Laban. “We’ve got lots of wine, don’t we?”
In the twilight, a small crowd of servants, a few stray sheep, and a lot of hungry villagers had shown up for the festivities. A hot dry wind was blowing over the desert, and the potted palms they’d brought in for the wedding were wilting. Laban cleared his throat.
“Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday,” said Laban as he looked over Jacob, his almost new son-in-law and his daughter, thickly veiled, completely silent standing before him. “Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...”(m)
His fingers began to twitch. He thought of Rachel tied up in her tent, and his wife scared as heck. But he was fortified by that half gallon of wine he’d drunk after dinner He straightened his shoulders and continued, “And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...So tweasure your wuv.” (m)
Looking around on this happy occasion, Jacob wondered why so few candles were lit tonight. And why, Laban, normally a pretty stingy host, kept handing him glass after glass of the yummiest wine he’d had in ages. It wouldn’t be long before he couldn’t see straight ...
In the morning there was a lot of screaming coming from the general vicinity of Jacob’s tent. Jacob emerged dragging Leah by the arm.
“You’re born into a family,” yelled Jacob. You do not join them like you do the Marines!” (n)
Leah ran sobbing to her mother. “He’ll come around,” her mother said. “When he’s got three-fourths of your father’s flock and half his gold.”
Leah cried: “That's not enough. Do you understand me? That is not nearly enough, Mother. I am a human being. Do you know what that means? It means I set a price on myself, a high high price. You may be surprised to know it, but I've got quite a lot to give.” (o)
Leah tore her dress, and started looking around wildly for the sackcloth. “I've got things I have been saving up my whole life,” she said, “things like love and understanding and, and jokes and good times and good cooking. I'm prepared to be the queen of Sheba for some lucky man, or at the very least the best wife that any man could hope for.” (o)
Half the servants had thrown down their hoes and were now staring at the spectacle. Leah’s mother eyed them nervously.
“Now that's my human history, and it's not gonna be bought and sold, and it's certainly not gonna be given away to any passing stranger.” (o)
Leah’s voice rose to a scream that certainly Jacob could hear across the camp.
“Let 'em talk,” Leah’s mother said. “I'll tell you one thing: you're gonna wake up in the morning smiling.” (p)
Hidden behind the five wilting palm trees in buckets, Jacob stomped into Laban’s tent. “What gives?” he yelled. “You promised me Rachel!”
“What are you belly-achin’ about?” countered Laban. “You couldn’t tell the difference until this morning!”
“Oh yeah?” said Jacob sheepishly. “Some camel must have kicked me in the head!”
“It’s not fitting that the youngest be married before the eldest,” said Laban. “Serve me another seven years and I’ll give you Rachel.”
“I want Rachel now,” growled Jacob, approaching Laban with clenched fists. This was a stance that had always worked for Esau. Laban, however, didn’t look impressed.
“Finish your honeymoon with Leah first,” said Laban. Jacob had been penniless, and a fugitive from his family when he first arrived. He was still only one man among all Laban’s men in the camp. Not much bargaining power. “Come back and see me in a week,” he said.
Jacob turned tail and stomped out. If he didn’t put his foot down, the abuse was never going to end. “No more green jello, Mama!”(q) he yelled when he passed the kitchen tent.
Chapter Nine
It took Jacob a long time to find Rachel. She was hunkered down in the back of her tent. Her face was tear-stained and blotchy. Her wrists were sore from where she’d been tied up last night. Jacob took her hand tenderly. “You’re why cavemen chiseled on walls,”(r) he said.
Rachel looked up sadly. “What do we do now, Jacob?”
“I’ve made a new bargain with your dad,” said Jacob. “I think he’ll let us get married next week. After my honeymoon with Leah.”
Rachel scowled and stood up with a huff. Did he have to remind her of that? She hadn’t slept a wink last night.
What is wrong with her? he thought. I’m doing the best I can..
That week alone seemed longer than the entire seven years that Jacob had worked for Rachel. Rachel wouldn’t eat, looked peaked, and started to lose weight. It was a good thing her father had agreed to only a week, or her young loveliness might have wasted all away.
Jacob looked tense and nervous and really confused all week. I mean, you get married to one woman and you wake up with another—that’s gotta cause some kind of mean neurosis.
Leah, bless her heart, stumbled out of the tent every morning and threw up. Soon her face was as pasty as the rest of her skin. Her eyes, the only pretty thing she had, looked like they were about to pop out of her head.
At noon on Saturday, Rachel met Leah in the middle compound. She snarled like a cat ready to pounce.
“You stole my husband!” she screamed, dropping her bucket of water with a lurch.
“He’s my husband first!” screamed Leah. “How dare you call me a thief!” She grabbed Rachel’s lovely arm and started pinching her black and blue.
“Ouch!” screamed Rachel. “Stop that! It’s not my fault I don’t want to share!” Rachel grabbed Leah’s thin wispy hair and tried to yank it from her head. Leah kicked viciously, trying to get free.
“Just because you’re prettier than me, Jacob hates me!” snarled Leah. “You’re going to be barren until the day you die!”
Slap! Scratch! Kick! Claw! Yank! Spit!
Jacob tried in vain to pull the two women apart. “Where’s your mother, that woman without a name?” he yelled, at wit’s end. Then he called to Laban. “Can’t she stop them from fighting?”
“They never fought before,” said Laban. “They were the mildest and sweetest girls I ever saw.”
“How come she doesn’t have a name?” asked Jacob, suddenly distracted.
“She was never part of the story before,” said Laban. “She didn’t need a name. And it’s been so long since I’ve talked to her, I can’t remember what it was.”
The screaming grew louder.
“Come on!” yelled Jacob. “You gotta help me!”
“Wife!” yelled Laban. “Get your carcass over here!”
When it was all over, Jacob pulled Rachel into the oak thicket. Took her by the shoulders and looked into her face, her beautiful face.
He’d learned a lot this past week: about love and deceit and the curse on family reunions that Grampa Abraham had once told him about in an unguarded moment. And about women screaming in the night because they are having nightmares that you don’t know—but just maybe—you might have caused. But how to explain it all to Rachel?
He said earnestly:
“Rachel I love you. Not…not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either. But love don’t make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. Stars are perfect. Not us. Not us. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and to love the wrong people and...and die…I mean the storybooks are bullshit! Now I want you to come with me and GET in my tent. C’mon. C’mon. C’mon…”(s)
“I can’t, Jacob,” said Rachel wringing her hands. “We’re not married yet.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jacob sheepishly. “Forgot that.”
He stood up quickly. “Where’s that jerk, Laban? He ought to be good for something.”
You’d be surprised how quickly Laban took care of that little marriage matter when he was afraid he was going to lose his ready-made slave.
Chapter Ten
You’d be surprised how fast the years go by when your wives are fighting day and night and you are spending all your energy trying to trick sheep and goats into bearing spotted lambs and kids. So it was more than a decade later before we arrive at the day that Jacob finally threw his bucket down in disgust. He strode to the middle of the kibbutz- compound and yelled for his wives and children.
Mostly they ignored him, but Rachel came running. Jacob began to yell: “I have been in Haran for the last twenty years! Don’t you think that’s a little too long for a family reunion, even for YOUR side of the family? I mean, I told my shrink and he said, “Twenty years! Are you crazy?”
Rachel threw up her hands. “Finally!” she cried. “How I’ve waited for this day. Can we sneak out without Leah knowing?”
“I’m not leaving my boys!” said Jacob. “Even though half of them are rotten already.”
“Oh all right! Have it your way!” said Rachel. “But since my father has cheated Leah and me out of our inheritance, I’m swiping all the family jewels. I deserve at least that much. All you care about are a bunch of spotted goats.”
“Where’s Laban?” he yelled. “I gotta talk to that jerk.”
“How many camels have to kick you in the head before you wise up?” said Rachel. “Let’s just get outta here!”
Finally Jacob cornered Laban on the far side of the compound. “This hast been an exceedingly long reunion and I am very wearied of seeing thy face!” he said.
Laban spat at Jacob, “You ungrateful little whelp!”
Jacob spat back, “Your whole bunch of pitiful goats would be dead by now if it wasn’t for me, you scummy, greedy man!”
“The heck I care!” screamed Laban.
Fifteen minutes later, Jacob went charging out of camp with his 1500 sheep and goats, his wives running, his boys running, and a bunch of wild camels hissing and spitting at his heels. He would have dug up the well and taken it with him too, but there wasn’t time.
I mean, I decided to dispense with that sneaking out in the middle of the night trash and getting chased by Grampa three days later. I mean, enough’s enough! Are you really gonna believe that Grampa didn’t want the reunion to end? After all that fighting and squabbling? Let’s just get it over with, for goodness sake!
And we’re just going to skip over the ridiculously silly bunch of gifts that Jacob sent to Esau on his way home to Hebron—all those potted palms, three-legged sheep, and that pack of spotted unicorns he corralled in the desert—just so Esau wouldn’t head him off at the pass and kill him.
I’m told that they fell on each other’s necks and wept, but you’ve got to wonder how deranged Jacob was after spending twenty years with his crank father-in-law.
Chapter Eleven
You’d think Jacob would have learned all about the ill effects of favoritism, but he’d waited so long for Joseph, that boy with beautiful eyes as translucent as glass. And most of his other boys were jerks.
He just couldn’t resist giving Joseph a lovely coat of many colors. Joseph was Rachel’s precious boy—Rachel, who he’d lost when Benjamin was born—and the child of his old age. And if he was going to miss Rachel every day for the rest of his life, he was going to spoil Joseph if he wanted to. Thus, the beautiful coat. And it may be that the coat tipped off Joseph’s brothers to what they already suspected—Joseph was the best birthright candidate they’d seen in many years.
Not to mention the fact that Joseph had an annoying way of trying to up-speak his brothers. So it goes down to that fateful day.
Jacob usually liked to keep 17-year-old Joseph close to home, where he could enjoy his sweet companionship. It was a great break from the constant squabbling and head bashing of the rest of the rowdy rabble. They were in the sheep fields 45 miles away.
But today Jacob said: “Go check on your brothers.” Gotta see what those jerks are up to, Jacob thought. I mean, he was old, but he wasn’t blind, not like Isaac had been. And he didn’t want any more weird women brought home, no more Canaanite daughters-in law. One of them talked Greek, or something. He could never understand her.
He had enough mouths to feed already. And those boys, they got mad so easily. Off to the village to kill everybody. They’d had to pull up their whole camp and move downstream because of that escapade.
“Oh, it’s like a reunion,” said Joseph happily. “I love reunions! At least I think I do, I’ve never been to one, have I, Dad?”
Jacob groaned. He wished Joseph hadn’t said that word. “No son, I don’t think so.” Joseph had been too young to remember. Should he tell him? Jacob looked up as his son left the room. “Umm...watch out for the camels.”
The only reason Joseph’s older brothers were 45 miles away tending sheep was to get away from Joseph. Joseph had such an annoying way of telling his older brothers just how rotten they were, and coming home and tattling on them to Dad. “Self-righteous prig,” Naptali had muttered just the morning they left home.
The journey seemed quick to Joseph, he was so excited to see his brothers. The spring wildflowers were blooming in the grasses, birds were twittering, and no vultures in sight. He had such a lot to tell them, he could hardly wait. There they were!
“I had a dream,” yelled Joseph, his melodious voice soaring high into the heavens. Actually, he was bounding through the tall grass to reach his brothers at the far end of the meadow, the afternoon sunlight hitting his beautiful coat of shimmering colors. He wished he had a platform to stand on so his brothers could hear him better. What a fun way to start a reunion! He could ask his brothers how they were doing later.
His brothers grabbed their clubs and started to growl.
Reuben jumped up, and said, “What a minute guys. Lemme talk to him.”
“You’ll never believe what I saw in my dream!” Joseph called.
Reuben strode forward quickly. Grabbed Joseph by the shoulders and clapped his hand over his mouth.
“Look around, Joseph,” he said. “This is the world. Join it!” He shook Joseph hard. “Stop swimming around in your mind. That’s a dangerous neighborhood that you should not go into alone!”(t)
But Joseph just couldn’t be shut up. “You’re all going to bow down to me!”
“Oh yeah?” yelled Simeon. “Listen to this little snot!”
“Our family has a long tradition of birthright stealers!” said Judah. “I say we get rid of this brat right now!”
“Yer gonna be crowbait!” yelled Issachar, pulling out his rattlesnake whip.
Reuben groaned. Have you ever noticed how you get the whole family together and it brings out the worst in everybody? All this showing off, everybody trying to talk at once, nobody knows how to act, everybody jockeying for position.
Reuben muttered, “Better keep this dream to yourself, Joseph.” He tried to lead Joseph away from his brothers.
“Wait a minute!” said Joseph. “Let me go! I know you’ll wanna hear this!” He broke free.
“Even the sun and the moon are going to bow down to me,” said Joseph loudly. “Whaddaya think of that?”
“Kill him!” yelled Gad and Asher.
Joseph’s brothers looked like a pack of wolves ready to strike.
“Quit showing off, Joseph!” yelled Judah. “You’re a seventeen-year-old boob! When are you going to grow up?”
“Get him! Get him!” screamed Zebulon, lunging for Joseph.
Reuben grabbed Joseph and shoved him into the pit to shield him from a dozen angry arms. Knives were coming out. “Get real, Joseph! No one remembers their dreams! I never do.”
“This little reunion is over!” yelled Naptali, the blood vessels in his neck about to pop. “Let’s tear up his horrible little coat.”
“I say tear him up first!” screamed Judah.
“Wait a minute, brothers!” said Reuben. “Just because Dad stole his birthright, and Isaac got his because Grampa Abraham threw Ishmael out in the desert to die, is no reason to think that Joseph is after ours.”
“Is this the first reunion game?” called Joseph from the bottom of the pit.
“We’re from a long line of swindlers!” cried Zebulon, quite red in the face. “I say we end it right now!”
“Lemme out!” yelled Joseph.
“You know that Dad gave him that fancy coat,” said Simeon, shaking his fists. “He never gave any of the rest of any old fancy coat. That damn coat has got to mean something!”
“Birth-order ain’t worth spit anymore,” said Judah. “The oldest is supposed to be the best, the smartest, the handsomest, and the only one to listen to!”
“The youngest is the dumbest and that will never change,” said Simeon.
And what do you know! Just at this auspicious moment, there was a gang of slave traders with spitting and snorting camels just coming their way. It couldn’t have been planned better.
“I say let’s send him to the family reunion in Egypt so we won’t have to go,” said Dan winking at Judah.
“Give him a one-way ticket with no damn refund! said Gad.
Tell him to hit the road or we beat his brains in,”(u) yelled Issachar, pounding one fist into the other and approaching swiftly.
Reuben got a thoughtful look on his face and said, “He could stake out a camp ground for us, by the Mediterranean Sea. There’s a great beach there. He can camel-pool with the Ishmeelites, that way we won’t have to spend any money on rent-a-camel. Got to keep these costs down, you know.”
While Reuben sat down by the oak tree to figure out the logistics, Judah slipped into the pit, gagged and tied up Joseph. Then the other brothers quickly and quietly pulled him out and dragged him over to the Ishmeelites.
“Put this in your craw, Joseph,” said Naptali, laughing in a maniacal fashion. “You’re going to a family reunion. And it’s gonna be loud, it’s gonna be long, and five hundred little brats are going to be screaming, whining, and complaining in your face, and it’s going to last you for the rest of your life!"(v)
“I’ll give you twenty pieces of silver,” said the head Ishmeelite.
“Get the carcass outta here!” said Judah grabbing the coins.
“What Reuben doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said Issachar.
They were gloating over the silver coins before Reuben even looked up.
Chapter Twelve
Joseph didn’t get to ride a camel to Egypt like his great-great-grandmother Sarah had. He walked every step of the way.
Joseph had a lump on his leg for each place a camel had kicked him. Every night at sunset the spitting and snorting began. Then it was only a matter of time before one of them broke ranks and laid into Joseph.
Joseph kept up his courage by making family reunion plans and thinking about the exotic dishes available in the sun-drenched Mediterranean: Athenian Pita Chip Salad with Kalamata olives and feta cheese, or Greek Artichoke and Lemon Rice Soup or Aegean Cherry Almond Empanada. When his mouth watered he could almost believe that the mean Ishmeelites had actually given him something to drink. He would figure out a way to siphon some water out of those huge tanks just under the camels’ skin, if he could just get himself untied and find some rubber tubing....
When Joseph arrived in Egypt, some huge hulk dragged him away from the smelly Ishmeelites and took him to the house of a man named Potiphar, or Pothead for short.
Joseph couldn’t understand a word these weirdly dressed people were saying to him. Especially the one who appeared to be Pothead’s wife. She kept following him around and talking non-stop. It sounded like complete gibberish.
It wasn’t going to be long until Joseph was elevated from dumb-camel-keeper to head-honcho-jail-bird. It happened this way:
“C’mere Joseph,” said Pothead’s wife, one lonely morning, languorously. “Lie with me.” She was bored and he was handsome.
Some things need no translation in any language. Joseph looked at her with horror.
“Get the heck away from me!” he said.
What was it with these Egyptian ladies? They had so much goop smeared on their faces that you couldn’t even tell what they really looked like. He wouldn’t be caught dead with one in a million years.
“Get the heck away from me!” he yelled again.
This made her mad. No man had ever refused her before. She reached out for Joseph’s coat and believe you me, he turned tail and ran for his life.
A jail term seemed preferable, especially considering the stingy food available at Pothead’s house—if he was sent to one of those posh Egyptian cells where you were fed on fat cow steaks every night, or was it corn? He really couldn’t remember.
As she chased him down the long corridor, her sandals flip-flapping on the stones, Joseph suddenly turned around and stuck out his camel-trampled foot.
She tripped beautifully and smacked her lovely face into the dirt! Joseph high-tailed it for the barn and hid under one of the camels.
Oh Pothead! It’s really too bad that you have to take the word of your wife over the two-bit house slave, even if you know your wife is lying and you happen to trust your servant more than you trust her. That’s why it’s so lucky for a woman to be beautiful, except that she never gets to sleep at night. And let’s face it, Pothead, you’re already a fat old, weak carcass of a man.
So Joseph got thrown in jail, but now he had plenty of time to plan his beloved reunion unmolested, so he was happy as a clam. That is, until the stupid Pharaoh had that famous dream that no one could figure out. He had to go and drag Joseph out of his cell to get Joseph to tell him what it all meant.
“You better get a lot of food packed away,” said Joseph, after he explained the whole thing. “Because when a famine hits, it’s only a matter of time before five million dirty hoards of people show up, most of them pretending that they’ve been invited to very long family reunions.”
“You do it,” said the Pharaoh to Joseph. And Voila! Joseph was promoted to head-honcho in the government.
Chapter Thirteen
Do you know how long it takes Mormons to practice Home Production and Storage? When the Egyptians heard it from Joseph, they started immediately. In no time flat, Joseph had the Pharaoh’s granaries packed cram full.
Then the dread famine hit.
“I toldja so!” said Joseph.
Two years passed quietly. Then came that really weird day. Was it a nightmare from his childhood? This ugly rabble the guards brought in looked a heck of a lot like what he imagined his long-lost older brothers would look like twenty years older and starved silly. All ten of them….
Joseph started to cry. You may think this was from joy, but the truth is that the brothers stank so much from their long journey and sleeping with the camels every night, that Joseph’s eyes watered from the sheer stench. Plus they had really bad breath from not eating for so long that it could be said to be equal in rankness to bovine flatulence.
Joseph wanted to hide. I mean, once people find out that you are the younger brother, they start treating you like spit. Would it happen all over again? It had taken Joseph a long time to work up from lousy house boy slave to number one famine planner in the pharaoh’s house.
However, it was immediately apparent that the brothers didn’t recognize Joseph. Maybe if he was real mean, his brothers would just go away.
So this is what he said: “Whaddaya want?”
“Corn! Corn! Corn!” they begged. “Give us some corn!” They wrung their hands and put on their saddest hound-dog eyes.
“You look just like the ravenous hideous boney cows from Pharaoh’s famous dream,” Joseph jeered, swinging his long beautiful robes.
“We’re starving,” they said. Gad choked down a hysterical giggle that threatened to burble up.
“Meybe I’ll give yah some food and meybe I won’t,” Joseph said as snottily and coldly as possible. “Why should I? What have you ever done for me?”
Then there broke out such a din of whining, howling, and loud-mouthed complaining, that you have never heard of. Joseph didn’t know a bunch of men could make so much noise. Then they began to grovel around in the dirt, rubbing their noses on the rocks.
Joseph would put a stop to this, this instant! Joseph yelled: “What is this? A stinkin’ family reunion? I’ll consider your plea in the morning.” He directed them to the ugliest, meanest shack he had in town, and said snottily:
“These are the simple rules for this condo: No barking, no growling, you will not lift your leg to anything in this house. This is not your room. No slobbering, no chewing, you will wear a flea collar. This is not your room. No begging for food, no sniffing of crotches, and you will not drink from my toilet. This is not your room.”(w)
“And furthermore, do not bring your goats into this condo.”
In the morning, the brothers were brought in again to Joseph. Their stench preceded them.
“You filthy vermin spies!” he shouted, covering half his face with thick linen. “Couldn’t you have taken a bath? How dare you come in here and beg for food!”
“We’re not begging,” said Reuben, as carefully and as politely as he knew how. “We’ve got money.”
“You got 20 pieces of silver for every bushel?” screamed Joseph.
The brothers looked at each other in horror. “No,” they said.
“Then yer beggin’!” yelled Joseph. “If you think you can march in here and just haul off my food, you’re even bigger dreamers than you look. Where you from? Canaan?” roared Joseph. “Of all the spit places to live! I was kicked by a camel once in Canaan.”
“We are twelve brothers,” said Simeon. “But one of us is dead.”
“I count only ten,” said Joseph. “Where’s your younger brother? If you don’t produce him, I’ll know yer spies!” Joseph said as coldly as snottily as possible. “Without him, I ain’t giving you spit!
Joseph pointed to the ugliest and the smelliest brother, which happened to be Simeon. “I’m keeping this one in prison til you get back.”
Then he noticed that all the rest of his brothers were bowed down again in front of him, noses in the dirt like kicked dogs. “Ya think if you all bow down to me, I’ll give you what you want?” sneered Joseph. “Hit the road or I’ll beat yer brains in,”(x)
he yelled.
After they had skulked out, whimpering, tails between their legs, Joseph said to his assistant: “Let me know the instant they get back.”
“Gotta go home and get Benjamin,” said Judah, as they staggered down the road. “Pops isn’t gonna like that.”
“Dad’s gonna croak!” yelled Reuben. “If you hadn’t sold Joseph this never would have happened!”
“Yer the one who said send him to the family reunion,” Judah jeered back.
So they whipped their boney, half-dead camels into a frenzy. They traveled day and night for a week They were so hungry, they ate up half their bag of corn on the way home.
“Dad on ice yet?” yelled Naptali as he limped into camp. Leah, crawling out to meet him, shook her head.
“We gotta go back to Egypt,” said Reuben when he finally found Jacob, far back in the tent, prostrate on his cot.
“No!” said Jacob, sitting up feebly. “You’re just trying to force me into going to this family reunion. It’s not gonna work!”
“It’s not a family reunion, Dad, it’s a famine. Remember?”
“Bring me some wine,” mumbled Jacob, his eyes rolling in his head. “I won’t go!”
“You don’t gotta go, Dad. We just gotta take Benjy.”
“No! No! No! You can’t take him to this reunion!” said Jacob, his lips as tight as polar ice. “I’ll never see him again!”
“Benjamin wants to know if he can bring his pet bird,” said Gad, coming into the tent . “You know that one he found at the oasis in Capri?”
“I ate it last night,” murmured Leah.
Jacob rent his clothes, sat in sack-cloth and ashes, and refused to be comforted. His sons and daughters pestered him all day and far into the night until finally he screamed: “I’ll never see Benjamin again! He’ll be gone, just like Joseph!”
You can imagine, by the time the brothers left, they were crawling out like worms. It had taken them twenty-two years to realize just how much trouble you can get into by selling your obnoxious younger brother without permission from your dad and then lying about it, for heck’s sake!
Chapter Fourteen
The story gets a lot happier after the eleven brothers get back to Egypt and Joseph actually sees Benjamin, the only brother he’d never been mad at.
“You stole my silver cup, you little boob!” screamed Joseph, when Benjamin was brought before him. “When are you going to grow up?”
The ten other brothers stood speechless, mouths agape. What were they going to do?
Finally Judah spoke up. “No he didn't,” he said. “I took it.” He twitched nervously.
Ten trained trick-camels ran swiftly into the room and began kicking all ten brothers viciously. Only Benjamin was left standing.
“It’s in his sack, said Joseph. “So he took it! Guess what! He’s gonna be my new slave! As for the rest of you, get your carcasses outta here! Now! Get going!”
“No, no, no!” said Judah, falling to his boney knees and bursting into loud blubbery tears. “If Bengy doesn’t come home, Dad’s done for! Annihilated, wasted, zapped, nuked, zippo, man! Belly-up in the Dead Sea. Defunct, down the tube, ex post facto. You understand me, dude? We’ll have to bury him, I swear. Take me for your new slave instead!”
Joseph stopped in his tracks. Maybe this hairy bum, prostrate on the ground before him blubbering, really was sorry for what he’d done long ago. Maybe they really had repented. Maybe now was the time to tell them all who he, Joseph, really was. Joseph looked down at his brother with his face in the dirt.
Or maybe he should let the camels trample them for a little while longer.
In due course, Joseph finally told them all who he really was. They were all lying on the floor from shock, believe you me. Except Benjamin, who got a bear-hug from Joseph and a lot of tears cried down his neck.
Then Joseph sent them all home to bring Jacob and the whole crew to Egypt to live.
That evening, as the sun was setting over the Nile, Joseph was sitting tranquilly on his verandah with his wife, Asenath, and his two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh. He said:
“You know those families where everyone is out of their mind, but at the end of the day, they’re your family, so you love them? Mine’s not like that.”(z)
Could it be that the curse of the family reunion was finally over?
But wait a minute....
This reunion is going to last 400 years!
It could get ugly . . .
Films Quotations Cited
(Some in pristine condition, others have mutated to suit the story.)
a Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, 1939.
b Carol Kane in The Princess Bride, 1987.
c Cher in Moonstruck, 1982.
d Anthony Franciosa in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
d Anthony Franciosa in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
e Marissa Janet Winokur in Fever Pitch, 2004.
f Henry Morgan in Mash.
g Cary Grant in My Favorite Wife, 1940.
h Ginger Rogers in The Major and the Minor, 1942.
i Bracken Johnson in Napoleon Dynamite, 2004.
j Paul Newman in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
k John Barron in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, 1976.
l Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Columbia, l954.
m Peter Cook in The Princess Bride, 1987.
m Peter Cook in The Princess Bride, 1987.
n Jason Bernard in While You Were Sleeping, 1995.
o Joanne Woodward in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
o Joanne Woodward in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
o Joanne Woodward in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
p Paul Newman in The Long Hot Summer, 1958.
q Kevin J. O’Conner in Peggy Sue Got Married, 1986.
r Greg Kinnear in As Good as it Gets, 1997.
s Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck, 1982.
s Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck, 1982.
t Donal Logue in Just Like Heaven, 2005.
u Dick Shawn in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1963.
v Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day, 1993.
w Tom Hanks in Turner and Hooch, 1989.
x Dick Shawn in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1963.
z Debra Messing in A Wedding Date, 2005.
©copyright Elaine C. Koontz, July 2006
