e got to spending a lot of time on Earth, God and me, watching to see how everything was turning out and just messing around. God planted hisself a garden over to the east and called it Eden and put a lot of good things in it, like almond and walnut and fig trees, and all kinds of fruit trees and berry bushes and lilacs to smell good and crape myrtle for color. And right in the middle he put in the Tree of Life and another tree I didn't recognize. Then he took that living image he had made of hisself and put him in the garden. And God named him Adam, because, God told him, "Adam means red clay and I that's what I made you out. Now, Adam, you're welcome to eat anything you find here except the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The very day you eat of that, boy, you gonna die."
"Wait a minute!" I said. "It ain't no such tree."
"It is now," God said.
And he had put it right where Adam couldn't miss it. "Now why did you have to go and do that for?"
"Seemed like a good thing to do," he said and then changed the subject. "You know, Gabe, we got to get us names for things. We can't keep going around saying 'the one there with the floppy ears' or 'that big old hairy thing yonder.' And something else we need to do is find a companion for Adam. He hasn't said so, but I believe he's lonesome. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. Let's set Adam down and have all the animals pass in front of him and have him put a name to each one. And you and me will set back and see if we can spot any that could keep him company."
So the procession begun and Adam, bless his heart, started with aardvarks and went on for hours and hours and finally ended up with zebras. When it was over, God asked if I had seen anything.
"How about that orangutan?"
"Are you crazy! Why, that thing's got bright orangy hair and a face that would stop a clock! No, I reckon I'll just have to make something."
So God cast a deep spell over Adam and took out a rib and made a creature like Adam but with some important differences. And Adam woke up and looked her over and done a little dance and sung a little song that went,
Flesh of my flesh,
And bone of my bone,
And never no more
Do I have to sleep alone
Cause I got me a woman
I can call my own.
Diggety dog, diggety dog, diggety dog!
And Adam said to the woman, "Madam, I am Adam." And the two of them, like all of God's creatures, was as naked as jaybirds. And like jaybirds and all the rest of God's creatures, they didn't give a fig.
