Chapter Three
One day I am selling furniture off a donkey cart at the main intersection on the South end of town and I hear all of this commotion down over the hill.
I look down and I see, what I can only describe as a band of drunk Bedouins (incidentally Bedouins don't drink) coming up the road. You could hear them giggling and you could certainly tell by the odor wafting around that they hadn't washed in ages. As I stood aghast, watching this group of men, women, children and who knows what approach from a distance, a local woman skipped by and said, "Jesus is coming" beaming from ear to ear as if something miraculous was about to happen.
What?
I hadn't seem My Brother in 3 years and there were two things that I was most certain about my brother. First of all, he was never popular with anyone, especially women and second, he'd never have the guts to show his face around here again.
As I pondered the meaning of it all I noticed that these people appeared to be quite happy, as if on some sort of medicinal herb or something. The women, oh my sweet ......<lost for a word here> ... they actually looked pretty fine for have seemingly spent years in the wild.
Then I saw My Brother and he saw me. "James" he said smiling, "how's mom?".
I paused. "Oh she's great, but what is this all about?"
"Isn't it great?" says My Brother. "We all live and love together, put down your material things and join us, you will never have to worry again".
I was now 28 years old and had a nice furniture business. Dad was great about getting my brothers and sisters to make cheap furniture look good and I was smart enough to sell it to people that didn't know me, so things were working out pretty well. BUT, I did have worries. I had taxes to pay, two mouths to feed, thanks to that Sarah chick lying about when her period was and a couple of small gambling debts that I wasn't sure how to pay off.
Living and Loving and Not Worrying kind of sounded too good to be true. Then again it was My Brother and as irritating and odd as he was, he never lied to me. Not to mention that once all these babes found out I was his brother, then I am sure that I would Live and Love and Not Worry second best of the whole bunch.
The clearance sale started at that moment and by sundown I had sold all of the furniture and the cart. The stupid donkey had run off somewhere in all the fuss, but I was sure that I'd find him eventually.
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