Free Garden of Evil by Graham Masterton

and think that dirt gets pushed around in a wheelbarrel, and who can’t tell kitty from pussy, for that matter.’
    The boy shifted in his chair and said, ‘I listened to the poem.’
    â€˜That’s good. It’s good that you listened. Listening is always a pretty good first step in learning something. What’s your name, son?’
    â€˜Rudy Cascarelli.’
    â€˜Any relation to the pizza-making Cascarellis?’
    â€˜Like, second cousins or something. I don’t know. My old man’s a bus driver.’
    â€˜OK, Rudy. You listened to the poem. What did you think?’
    Rudy Cascarelli stayed silent for so long that the class began to shuffle their feet and talk amongst themselves. At last, he said, ‘She musta done
something
. I mean the woman that wrote it, just because she don’t tell you in the pome what it was, that don’t mean she didn’t. Maybe she gave him this real crap sandwich to take to work. Like baloney or something. My old man hates baloney. He hit my mom once, when she made him a baloney sandwich.’
    â€˜Your mom made your father a baloney sandwich so he hit her?’
    â€˜Yeah. I mean it wasn’t a punch or nothing, more like a push, but she fell over and hit her head on the kitchen counter, so it looked like it was worse than it was, which it wasn’t. He told her, just because his name’s Italian, that doesn’t mean he likes Italian sausage. Like, he won’t eat nothing pink. If it’s pink, he won’t put it in his mouth.’
    â€˜Not gay, then,’ put in the Hispanic boy sitting next to Simon Silence. There was a burst of laughter from all around the classroom, but Simon Silence turned and gave the boy a disapproving stare that froze his face in mid-grin.
    â€˜What about you, Simon?’ asked Jim, walking up the side of the classroom until he reached the third row of benches. ‘Did that poem do anything for you?’
    â€˜Oh, for
sure
,’ said Simon Silence. ‘That poem clearly shows what happens when you disturb the natural order of things.’
    â€˜Unh? What do you mean by that? What “natural order of things”?’
    â€˜Who was Adam’s first wife, in the Garden of Eden?’
    â€˜OK . . . some legends say it was Lilith.’
    Simon Silence nodded. ‘That’s quite correct, Mr Rook – Lilith, who was fashioned out of the same clay as Adam, and not from Adam’s rib, as his second wife Eve was.’
    â€˜So what does this have to do with hitting women?’
    â€˜It has everything to do with hitting women. Why was Lilith cast out of the Garden of Eden? Because she was Adam’s equal, and refused to be subservient to him. And after she had been cast out of the Garden of Eden, she became the lover of the angel Sammael, sometimes known as the Angel of Death, and even God could not persuade her to return.’
    Jim said, ‘What you’re saying here, Simon, is that if Lilith hadn’t been booted out of Eden, and she and Adam had stayed together, men and women would have been equal, right from the get-go?’
    Simon Silence gave his radiant, illuminating smile. ‘Exactly, Mr Rook. The sexes would have been balanced, as they were meant to be. Men and women, good and evil, life and death. Very few people believe it, but if it hadn’t been for God, and God’s intolerance, and the ignorance of his priests and his earthly representatives, the world would have been a far safer and a happier place, all the way down the centuries.’
    â€˜Where the
fuck
you get all that from, man?’ asked DaJon Johnson, in bewilderment. ‘I thought I heard a poem about some dude disrespectin’ his old lady, not some Bible story. Or maybe I fell asleep there for a while. Maybe I went into some mini-coma and missed out on all of that Bible-y bit.’
    Simon Silence lifted his hand to him, like a priest giving him a benediction.