Adam's Apple: Recipes for Forbidden Fruit

Table of Contents

RECIPES FOR FORBIDDEN FRUIT

CHAPTER 1: NOT SO IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

CHAPTER 2: EARLY YEARS, MOTHER’S TEARS

CHAPTER 3: FATES COLLIDE, PATRICIDE

CHAPTER 4: ANCESTOR FROM HELL

CHAPTER 5: FAMILY REUNION

CHAPTER 6: PATER NOSTER

CHAPTER 7: CURRENCY CONVERSION

CHAPTER 8: THE CAMPAIGN FOR VIRTUE

CHAPTER 9: ABSTINENCE AT LAST

CHAPTER 10: EXPOSURES AND PECCADILLOES

CHAPTER 11: FACTIONAL BRINKSMANSHIP

CHAPTER 12: POSTMODERN PROPHET

CHAPTER 13: MASDEBATING MARVEL

CHAPTER 14: RECONDITESMOI

CHAPTER 15: RUBIS DE SON ÂNE

CHAPTER 16: RECONCUSSIONS

CHAPTER 17: EL NIETO HIJO

CHAPTER 18: DOPES HOPES

CHAPTER 19: TOGETHER AGAIN

CHAPTER 20: JIGGITY JIG

CHAPTER 21: POSITIONS TRANSITIONS

CHAPTER 22: INDECENT FORECLOSURE

GLOSSARY

CLAIRE’S APPLE JELLY CHEWS

MARGARITA’S SPICY COOKIES

CASA CORRUPTO SALSA

MARGARITA’S CARAMEL APPLE CRUMB PIE

JUMP-ME JADE’S APPLE WAFFLES

ROSA’S JICAMA-CITRUS SALAD

CHASTITY’S APPLE BEETS

XUĔ HO’S HONEY APPLE DESERT

WOMEN’S AMITY SOCIETY APPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

TAUPE COUNTY FAIR CANDIED APPLES

BALDY’S TURNOVERS

VOTE IBSEN WHOLESOME APPLE PIE

MOTHER BERNADETTE’S BARS

LA BAYE BUS STATION HOT CIDER

MARIA CHRISTINA’S MANZANA BEEF PICADILLO

MANZANA PESTAÑA DEL COCINA DELONZO

MARIA CALIDA’S PORK CHOPS CON APPLE SALSA

MAMA JADE’S BAKED APPLE CRUMBLE

MARIA CALIDA’S BROWNIES

BALDY’S TURKEY BURGERS

ADAM’S INHIBITION EXTIRPATION MARTINI

ABE JACK’S NO GAS BEANS

SIXTO’S COMINO POLLO CON MANZANAS

Recipes For Forbidden Fruit

This chronicle didn’t turn out the way Representative Ibsen wanted — not the ode to a statesman’s journey into distinguished public service he hoped to foist on the public, ghost written, emerging at the moment of cajolery like a deep pocketed donor at campaign time. Write it, he told me, "like Nixon’s Memoirs or Bush’s Destined for Destiny. Augustine’s Confessions?" I suggested. "What? No! Maybe Clinton’s My Life, but not so contrite." Told with sensitivity his story would serve as a guiding light, a bible, for others, he thought. Hah! Narcissism whomps truth upside the head and dances over the body. A bible? I don’t think so. Maybe a cookbook.

I have no problem with deception — people believe what they want in any case — when the purpose is to win approval, maybe a vote, maybe a strumpthump, but I’m not one to write a manual of morals and manners. I’d choke on the apocryphality and spit up chagrin chips. The world reeks with people who need to tell you how to live. I’m happy not to be among them. I don’t have the recipe for the good life, and, as you’ll see, neither does Adam, so I tell his story without pretence, au naturel, no lessons, no morals, no etiquette. With my refusal to fashion Ibsen’s Guide to Decorum, Adam withdrew his authorization from the project, of course, but no matter. The ghost in his confessional, I already recorded most of the details.

Adam’s is a peculiar tale to be sure, perhaps an unnatural one, and though it has no didactic value, it does have a point, as you’ll see when we get to it.

Incidentally, my editor insists I provide a glossary for words I made up. You’ll find it at the end. Also, the recipes are there. — Mooney

Chapter 1: Not So Immaculate Conception

Dictaboo 1:1

Pursue immorality,

Surrender to cravings weird,

Strive to avoid venality,

While you swing on Sigmund’s beard.

* * * * *

It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re a good guy. — Adam Ibsen

* * * * *

Adam’s mother, Jade De Castro, became pregnant at the age of fifteen by the hand (if that’s not too euphemistic) of Peter Puggs, the son of modestly successful grocer Shawn Puggs. Peter was nineteen at the time of conception and guilty of carnalling a minor, but Jade’s parents didn’t want the exposure prosecution would bring so they handled things. Besides, they blamed themselves for leaving this adolescent nymph, ebullient as a bone-starved lap dog, home alone while they eked out a living in the family’s dry-cleaning business.

One Saturday morning, moments after her father (Raul) and mother (Margarita) left for work, Jade examined herself in the full-length mirror on the door in their bedroom. She’d changed from pajamas (baggy and plaid) to nightie (pink, short, and frilly) featuring ruffled panties covered with red hearts. She shoplifted the set from the Valentine’s Day leftovers table at Penney’s and smuggled it home in her lunch box. Now she paraded back and forth in front of the mirror scrutinizing her butt from the side. The ruffles eroticushed her girlish curves with a full roundness that pleased her. With her breath coming in Lamaze pants she dialed Pugg’s Grocery and asked for Peter, whom she knew to be an experienced clitler from gossip she overheard in the girls’ locker room. Calling Peter meant reaching out across the freshman-to-senior divide, a bold venture when undertaken from the freshman side, but Jade’s lust eclipsed her fear of all such taboos.

Peter was restocking magazines, a weekly chore he enjoyed because he could peek behind the covers. He was reading the horoscope for his sign (Cancer) when the phone rang. ‘Analyze the consequences of your actions before doing anything today,’ it advised ominously. ‘In the fullness of time, the inconsequential becomes grave; the propitious, calamitous. Beware gifts unsought and unearned.’ He paused to consider the implications. Wow, he said, what gifts? His dark eyes, often a topic for lusty chatter in the girls’ locker room, darted across the page searching for elaboration. His lush eyebrows, which curled up at the outside corners when he neglected them, pulled together in bewilderment.

Peter! Phone! his brother Paul interrupted this promising line of thought from the back of the store.

Peter Puggs? Jade asked when he picked up the phone.

Yeah?

It’s Jade De Castro; you know, from school.

Algebra? Peter was finishing his third attempt to pass algebra, a subject he found challenging. His only strong subject was gym. Jade sat immediately in front of him and he spent many hours staring at faint images her underwear cast through the back of her blouse. He kept a log of dates and colors inside the back cover of his Algebra textbook — April 11, pink; April 12, white; April 13, BLACK, frilly! — Like that.

Do you deliver?

For old people.

A pause ensued while Jade built up her courage. Will you bring me something sweet?

Something sweet? Peter’s brain spun trying to connect sweetness to algebra to the nubile freshman who sat in front of him. He scrunched his forehead into a ravel of wrinkles and his dark eyes crossed slightly.

Bring me something sweet and I’ll give you something sweet in return. You won’t regret it.

Her body is maturing faster than her mind, Raul told Margarita as they drove to work earlier that day, accepting the modern era’s misperception that the two are different things.

After brief, awkward, and mute foreplay, effective on both lubrication and rigidity fronts, SubconsciousJade (at this point 85% id, most of that libido) took over her inner dialog, shouting, He’s hard down there! What should I do? ConsciousJade responded, though she already had an idea. Grab it! SubconsciousJade answered gleefully. The Peter-Jade coitus occurred moments later on the De Castros’ sofa. It was May 11, 1960. Ironically, the FDA approved the sale of birth control pills just two days later.

Raul and Margarita sent Jade to live with Margarita’s sister in Chicago to conceal her pregnancy from condemning eyes. This arrangement lasted six months until Aunt Rosa came home early to find Uncle Fidel hindbanging Jade as she stretched over the kitchen sink, fists clamped on the faucet knobs, hot left, cold right, legs planted broadly apart, her round belly shaking like Jell-O. Faster! Faster, Unkie Fidee! she bellowed in a breathy whisper the neighbors could hear. Sent home to La Baye in disgrace and left with no other place to hide, Jade mostly stayed in the house. Back in Chicago, Uncle Fidel slept on the couch for a couple of nights but soon bribed his way back into Rosa’s bed with chocolate and soft-spoken apologies. Rosa knew from experience that all men are weak and one couldn’t expect fidelity, only discretion. Being Catholic, Uncle Fidel knew that no sin is so onerous it can’t be atoned with a humble apology and appropriate sacrifice.

Overall, Jade’s pregnancy was uncomplicated. She delivered twins in February — one girl, one boy. Unknown even to her, though she might have suspected had she seen the babies, the second born was truly the son of Peter Puggs, while the first baby was the daughter of Paul Puggs, Peter’s older brother. If you’re an obstetrician, perhaps you know such twins result from a process called super-fecundation, rare in humans though common in house cats. If you’re a clergyman, perhaps you know such twins result from promiscuity, a sin but not one of the magnificent seven[001].

Paul Puggs visited Jade on May 15, four days after his brother dipped his stick in the same well, and only a few hours after Peter confided Jade was, horny as a homeless pussy in heat. Ironically, Paul’s visit came just two days after the FDA approved the birth control pill. Paul regretted yonijacking his little brother’s squeeze but figured Jade’s infidelity with him was Peter’s fault. If he wanted sexclusivity, he should have kept his fool mouth shut. Both brothers used coitus interruptus birth control, mistakenly thinking the Church approved and the Bible provided instructions [002]. Also, they were too cheap to buy rubbers.

Jade was unsure whether her babies’ father was Peter or Paul, but she told the hospital to put Peter’s name on the official records. She had to tell them something, and since Peter was the first spoon in the honey, she decided he was entitled. Besides, her parents threw a fit when she told them about Peter. They’d stoke out if she told them about Paul.

While Jade was staying with her aunt and uncle, her parents dry-cleaned the sofa cushions, having discerned the likely source of the stains and peculiar smell. At first, Margarita accused Raul of spilling beer there, but one evening while watching an episode of The Untouchables, the couple enjoyed a rare coitus spontaneous of their own on the couch. Margarita became aroused watching Abel Fernández in the role of agent William Youngfellow, a full-blooded Cherokee, second team All American, 1924, Carlyle University, largely responsible for the breakup of the Oklahoma City liquor cartel, though she would never admit it. Jade’s father found the voice of Walter Winchell stimulating, though he would never admit that. As the couple relaxed in post-coital euphoria, they realized the true cause of the stains on the cushion. They used a new cleaning agent their wholesaler supplied and the stains came out fine, but Raul was never comfortable sitting on that couch again. He could still smell something.

The hospital staff separated the twins from their mother immediately after birth and placed them in the care of their adopting mothers. Adam went to Claire Ibsen, wife of Calvin, a Presbyterian minister.

Why was the adopting mother, Clair Ibsen, (nee Frauduleux) adopting a child? A case of chlamydia rendered her infertile during the spring of 1953. She was sixteen years old and a high school student at the time. Partly because her symptoms were sporadic and partly for fear of her parents’ anger, she avoided treatment until the end of her senior year, by which time she had infected half the boys at Central High and earned the nickname Chlamydia Claire. She regarded her infertility as a lucky break until she was safely married to Calvin, since the FDA didn’t approve the birth control pill until she was twenty-four.

Claire met her husband-to-be at the 1957 homecoming dance at Voltaire College where she was a sophomore education major. He was the newly minted Reverend Calvin Ibsen, second-string pastor and education director at Rock of Ages Presbyterian. His first sermon, delivered when Pastor Ed Solarium was attending a bible studies conference in Cincinnati, explored the implications of Hosea 1:2 [003]. Calvin found his own pastoral musings so compelling that he set himself straightaway to marrying a whore, but one who might serve agreeably as the minister’s wife — that is, who knew how to conduct herself with decorum. He spotted Claire shortly after entering Brickhouse Gym, venue for the 1957 homecoming dance. The gym echoed with the pulsing sounds of the Stray Cats, a quartet (piano, drums, bass, guitar) situated on the makeshift stage at the end of the court. The moon stood still on blueberry hill, and lingered until my dreams came true, the piano player crooned into a rectangular microphone the size of a pound of butter as Calvin made his entrance.

Calvin wore a green V-neck sweater over a white shirt and butternut-squash-colored tie. He strode through the main door, passed the greeters’ table and looked over the others celebrating. He made a handsome though bucolic figure with his large-boned frame draped in his too-large sweater and wrinkle-free polyester pants. The overhead lights, designed for basketball games not homecoming dances, shown like suns and added a complementing luster to his unpretentious, raw-boned face. He was just beginning to sweat. His large but well-formed ears strained to pick conversations out of the background noise.

Claire stood out like a duck in a yard of chickens. Her lipstick alone, the color of the police-car lights and glossy as a magazine cover, set her apart from the other women. She was taller by a head than her companions, Julie and Sue, and the other young women who formed a covey on the edge of the dance floor. She tended to slouch but here stood up straight so she could see who was coming through the door. The intense lighting complemented her face, bringing out the rouge on her rounded cheeks and giving character to her small, slightly turned-up nose. She also wore a V-necked sweater, blue and stretched to accentuate her breasts, and tight-fitting black pants with the hems rolled up to below her knees. All the women wore socks, those in dresses over their hose, since heels weren’t allowed in the gym. She carefully assessed each male who came in. Alone? Tall enough? Not too heavy? Handsome? See the guy in the baby-poop tie? Claire’s friend Julie asked. He works in a bank; I’d bet my cherry on it. Claire and Sue chuckled at Julie’s wagering her long-gone hymen, though all three believed virginity was reborn in each new coupling, like a delicate crocus shoot in the spring, so long as one’s love partner was convinced. All three were expert at moaning, squealing, and acting as if they’d never had anything bigger than a pencil up there.

Banks have money, Sue observed and waited for the impact of this insight to settle on her companions.

Claire, as was her custom, pushed aside any deliberations and waved frantically at Calvin. If he’s a nerd, he’s yours when he gets here, she advised Julie. Calvin waved back self-consciously. Claire crooked her finger, signaling him to come over.

I’m sorry, he began honestly; I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.

What’s your name? Claire asked, taking his arm.

Calvin Ibsen.

Do you dance, Calvin Ibsen?

I’m not good at it, he continued his honesty.

Doesn’t matter; I love this song and you’re my shining knight; you’re my movie-star hero; you’re my only option right now. Let’s dance.

Claire liked Calvin right away, because she thought he was smarter than he was and because he was tall enough he wouldn’t be looking up her nostrils. She hated that. The couple danced until Calvin’s shirt stuck to his neck. Claire didn’t sweat. They drew two glasses of punch and slipped out to the courtyard. You’re actually a graduate of Voltaire? Back for homecoming?

Class of ‘55. Calvin ran his index finger around the inside of his collar, separating it from his neck.

And now you work in a bank?

No.

Didn’t you say you worked in a bank?

I’m a pastor at Rock of Ages Presbyterian.

A priest?

A pastor.

What are you doing at a dance?

Looking for someone special.

I’m special.

I can see that.

They were married two months later at Rock of Ages Presbyterian. The bride wore a lacy white gown garnished with powder pink accessories. The image of his new bride, her face hidden behind a gauzy veil, her dark eyes fiercely outlined and blinking back at him from under eyelashes the size of face-powder brushes, her crimson lips silently mouthing the I do, made Calvin’s heart sing and gave him an erection right then and there. The image of her new husband, his gawky frame wrapped in a rented tuxedo, his ears bracketing his newly clipped head like oversized mirrors on a pickup cab, his simple, gentle smile reassuring as a grilled cheese sandwich, made Claire’s heart content. He was clearly not someone who would make a stink. When she got tired of grabbing those ears, she could always sneak a battery-powered friend into the second rectory.

In the three years following the Ibsen nuptials, Calvin was promoted from half-pastor to full, the couple moved up to the first rectory, and Claire ‘discovered’ her infertility in a series of tearful encounters with gynecologists. Calvin, of course, knew that Claire knew of her condition before she married him, but he kept quiet about that. He expected such things from a whore. His only concern was Hosea 1:3 [004]. For her part, Claire knew that Calvin knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but she kept quiet about that. Sometimes it seemed that Calvin knew that Claire knew that he knew she wasn’t truthful, but he always found other things to talk about when talking was necessary. Successful marriages sometimes depend on mutual silence. Consider Adam and Eve, Franklin and Eleanor, Arthur and Guinevere, Ahab and Jezebel, John and Jacqueline, Joseph and Mary. The list goes on.

The taciturn and ostensibly happy couple took possession of their new son the day he was born, though he remained in the hospital three days while his pediatrician looked into corrective surgery for defects in the bones of his feet. In the end, he postponed the surgery until the boy was ready to walk. Later he determined surgery was unnecessary. We should name the boy Jezreel, Calvin told Claire as they peered through the large window into the hospital nursery.

You want people to think he’s a fruit? Claire responded prophetically. We’ll call him Adam after Adam and Eve in the Bible. Calvin titled his sermon two weeks before Adam and Eve: Original Sin or Original Opportunity [005]? and he thought that was the source of her idea. In truth, Claire was thinking of Adam Furieux, the French foreign-exchange student who infected her with chlamydia. Since that infection was the cause of her infertility, her infertility was the cause of her need to adopt, and Adam Furieux was the cause of the infection, he was the contributing father of the adopted baby, she reasoned. What could be more appropriate than naming the boy after him?

Calvin gave in to Claire, as he always did, and the baby’s first name became Adam. In addition, Claire gave in to Calvin, as she did when nothing important was at stake, and the boy’s middle name became Jezreel. Accordingly, the baby was christened Adam Jezreel Ibsen at his christening three weeks later. He was destined to become US Congressman Adam Jezreel Ibsen, but no one knew at the time.

In the middle of May during the spring after Adam was born, Calvin Ibsen planted an apple tree in the yard behind Rock of Ages Presbyterian. He chose a root-ball (not bare-root) Cortland to optimize survival, and standard-sized (not dwarf) to optimize longevity. He chose the churchyard over the rectory’s back yard because the tree would be better protected. Houses change hands and new owners might decide an apple tree was more trouble than it was worth. Rock of Ages would be, on the other hand, a rock. The tree would symbolize his son’s growth in the very shadow of the church. He didn’t tell Claire about the tree because she regarded gestures like that to be corny and the people who made them sentimental saps.

As Baby Adam sucked his thumb in the Rectory nursery, his apple tree awoke from dormant slumber to find itself bathed in sunlight. As he took his first steps the first apple blossoms joined the daffodils and tulips planted by the Women’s Amity Society in a churchyard symphony of color and hope. As he prepared for his first day of school the tree’s first apples finished ripening and were plucked by Rock of Ages gardener Emilio Trujillo. His wife, Margarita, was known for her spicy apple cookies [006].

Perhaps you’re wondering what became of Adam’s twin sister. We’ll come back to her presently.

Chapter 2: Early Years, Mother’s Tears

Dictaboo 1:3

Hope springs irrepressible,

When lust foments the swell;

But beware the inaccessible,

And know your devils well.

* * * * *

He who knows his mother's love and is secure in that knowledge will never know failure. — Sigmund Freud

* * * * *

Adam was a naughty boy, so naughty Claire refused to consider adopting more children. I wasn’t put on this earth to pamper bratty kids. He’ll always be a shit! she screamed when he was barely one. While it was too soon to pass such judgment and an open question what Claire was put on earth to do, Calvin had to agree, Adam was a pain in the ass. Claire’s prediction that he would always be one turned out to be accurate as well. At three years old, he peed through the stairway railing onto the bridge table set up for the Rock of Ages Women’s Amity Society. At five, he dispersed a neighborhood girls’ tea party by showing them his wiener behind a magnifying glass. Later that summer he stole a supply of his mother’s apple jelly chews [007] and set up trading them for peeks into the pants of neighborhood girls — three chews for a heinie; four for a wee-wee. At seven, he terrorized his first love by kissing rocks and pelting her with them as he chased her home from school. At thirteen, he hid a fart noisemaker under the coffin during a funeral at Rock of Ages. He activated the device when Calvin called solemnly for a moment of silence to mark the passing of our beloved departed [008]. At seventeen, he snuck a pig’s anus out of the biology lab and affixed it to the spout on the hallway drinking fountain. As you can see, his mischief became more scandalous as he grew older. Wait until you see what he does when he’s an adult.

Adam’s recurring naughtiness put his parents into fits of anger periodically and several times one or the other thought about telling him he was adopted, not homegrown. They never did. Whatever their failings, the Ibsens remained conscientious, long-suffering, though somewhat reticent, parents. That’s what the congregation at Rock of Ages expected. No one there knew Adam drew his blood from other than the Ibsen/Frauduleux font, although a few, especially in the Women’s Bible Study, wondered how Adam failed to inherit his father’s elephantine ears. Being Presbyterian, the Ibsens believed Adam’s misdeeds were inevitable and would one day sweep him to hell, while their own patience would transport them to heaven where their blessings would exceed their Earthly sufferings many times over.

When Adam was a young boy, Calvin popped into his bedroom one night a week hoping to secure his redemption through surrogate supplication. He stood at the foot of the crib (later his bed) and droned his appeals for forgiveness in the lifeless monotone he used to deliver his sermons, a recurring mosquito in the boy’s sleeping ear. Calvin knew himself to be a lousy father; he thought because he hadn’t provided the seed that launched the little tadpole. In fact, the cause was a combination of ineptitude and insouciance. These visits were his only sustained attempt to alter the boy’s unrighteous path. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, he began each session, crossing himself un-Presbyterianly. He’d continued by reviewing the boy’s misdeeds since his last visit and petitioning forgiveness. It’s wrong to steal your mother’s lipstick and waste it on the dog’s asshole, he whispered one night when the boy was four; mouthing sentiments the boy himself would never feel. And wrong to return it to her purse, he added to the confession. Worst of all it was wrong to tell your friends and bring them together to watch her apply her lipstick. I say this in your behalf: I’m a naughty, naughty boy. These visits had no effect on Adam’s behavior whatsoever. In fact, there were no indications he noticed them. Calvin, on the other hand, felt the ritual lifted the burdens of sin from his shoulders, and improved his prospects for eternal bliss once the current nightmare was over. He worried Adam’s sins would complicate his own postmortem processing, although he understood