The Omaha Sows were one of the most respected teams in all of professional football. More money was wagered each week on the Sows than on any other team. The sole reason for their success and popularity was their God, Gerry. Sure, everybody's got his pet God, I mean, the Christians have some and the Hindus and Moslems have others. Even the Republicans have a gaggle of deities for money, power, money, property, money and money. None of those pikers can compare with Gerry, the Great God of the Omaha Sows. One Wednesday afternoon five of your most influential Gods were playing poker. They were all, male, of course. One of the modern rules of Gods is that they must have peters, that's for pissing on larger stars. It's unclear if the peters are also useful for screwing. There aren't any girl Gods and sheep are at a premium in heaven. The poker game was going along about as usual: ante a few galaxies here, wager a few dimensions there. Then Gerry arrived. He was wearing his Omaha Sows sweatshirt - in a really big size (7 light-years) - not even one of your popular Gods may play poker naked. What would the crazy preachers say? Gerry was trying to drum up some bets for the game against the Vermont Syrups, Montpelier's crack maple team. Only Herb, one of the Christians' sneakiest and nastiest Gods, was up to the challenge. He figured that he had the fix in since he'd got the Syrups convinced that sex and pleasure were bad things. They were sure to be in a sour mood, looking to take it out on the Sows. If you even wondered why Gods have to be men, one of the reasons is the beard. Herb had a great beard! He bleached it pure white. He was a young God, so he hadn't naturally gone gray yet. The bleach did a swell job and he liked to wear pink and green barrettes to hold his mane in attractive clumps. Pink and green were the Syrups colors and, frankly, Herb was a sort of a pussy, always playing with dolls and flitting around like a San Francis hairdresser. Walt, one of the Islamic woman-hating Gods, was winning the poker game (they were suspicions that he marked the cards). He always seemed to win at least since they'd gotten the new mirrored table. The Gods were really happy that they had butts because they'd gotten chairs, too. They were super comfortable and it sure beats standing in thin-soled saddles for endless millions of eons. Whoever had come up with the butt design had a patentable winner. Hank, the Jewish God who was always cooking up wars and mayhem pretended not to approve. He pretended not to approve everything that he didn't dream up himself. Secretly, he was thinking about how nice he'd look with about six trillion miles of can draped gracefully over one of the comfy new chairs. He kind of needed something to connect his back to his legs, anyhow. There was nothing sissy about Hank, so he was a little hesitant about knocking a hole into any rump he might get. You know how nasty assholes can be to certain personality types. Still, what good was an ass going to be if he couldn't take a dump every few minutes? I wonder what Gods shit. As the hands wore on, Gerry and Herb made their bet, a drachma, and the Syrups got six and a half points. Hank was no fool when it came to hard, cold drachmas. He took a piece of the action, siding, of course with Gerry's Sows. Brawny men handling and brawling with one another seems silly and in questionable taste to most civilized beings. To a few primitive races, such queer conduct seems perfectly reasonable. One man chasing after and flopping all over another man was exciting to such species. They even found it attractive to see one guy humped up over the back of another fellow - go figure! It was all Rob's fault. Rob was another one of the Christian Gods, the sanctimonious one who always found fault with others. He was the kind of God who stuck his name into the names of the crazies who worshiped him: Robert, Robertson, Rob-this and Rob-that. The only reason that Rob lost at poker was that everybody else played so badly and didn't do what they were supposed to do. The fifth hand at the new mirrored table was Frank, sometimes called Frank-n-Flossy. He was one of the two-faced Gods who said one thing and did another. He loudly protested the superiority of the Vermont Syrups, but placed a tidy side wager on the Sows by three field goals. So, picture this, around the table were Rob and Herb, Hank (who, without a bottom, had to stand) and then Frank and Walt. Gerry was stalking around behind the players looking at their hands and making them uneasy. With the new mirrored table, there was no need to do much peeking, but nobody likes a God like Gerry looking over his shoulder. Walt won again and everybody thought he should quit carving his initials into the table with his scimitar each time he took a pot. It was ungracious. Besides the scimitar was so sharp that it kept carving up particles, planets and parsecs. The Sows were playing in the Vermont Megadome on artificial turf. At the end of the first half they were up by two TDs. At the end of the third quarter the score was 43 to nothing so the Sows put in their second string. I let it to you to figure out how they made 29 points in a quarter. But, the Syrups weren't whipped yet. They had a Hindu quarterback who worshiped Bonny-Ronny-Donny. We'll just call him BRD for short. BRD didn't play poker. He didn't bet and he didn't like football, but he had the most hands of any God in heaven, the number right after everything. Bonny-Ronny-Donny was the God of last Thursdays. Every last Thursday that ever was belonged to BRD, even the one when Mac O'Donnaldson had invented football for the then fledgling Mafia. On the artificial gridiron it might be Syrups against the Sows, but in heaven it was Gerry versus Bonny-Ronny-Donny. I won't tell you how it came out. That would just spoil it for you when you see the game. Then, the next Wednesday afternoon, when Hank hosted the poker game at his place, there were only four players and Gerry didn't come around looking for a wager. That week it was going to be a Monday night game. I'll just tell you this, Hank greeted his guests with a sporty new heinie, and his had hair in the crack and four archangels lined up in a row like choirboys. Suns were continually being born and falling to pieces among Hank's crack-mane. Planets were forever churning up and bumping together. Comets were squeezing out endless ribbons of cosmic fireworks. In all, it was a much more eventful rump than any God had designed up to that time. Make no mistake, the design and function of a butt is every bit as essential as the idea behind hadrons or quarks. There are no little miracles. There's an archangel for the front and one for the back and one for the right and another for the left. Then, there are also two secret archangels, one for up and the other for down. The angel who invented sows stood up and recited a poem in Greek. None of the Gods understood Greek, not even Hank. He thought that maybe that would be a good archangel to get rid of. Nobody was interested in sows anymore. The archangel who invented honey arose and recited his poem, The Fragrance Of Almonds And Milk. It was a love ode so it didn't go over very well. Only one of the Gods was much interested in love. The Christian ones were particularly hostile. On Monday night the Omaha Sows soundly trounced the Richmond marigolds. Gerry collected two drachma from Ralph, the American Indian God of gall bladders. He was a new God and not wise to Gerry's edge. While the game was raging in a furious passing dual during the last quarter, one of the marigolds was knocked senseless. In his delirium he was inspired to write a love poem to his Rebekka, a girl who grew fig trees and baked toll house cookies. The Fragrance of Almonds and Milk I'm excited to lust by the fragrance of my beloved. I'm soothed and reassured by the aroma of her presence. Like warm milk she smells And her hair like rosemary, Her face like almonds. I'm stirred to desire by the fragrance of my beloved. I'm lolled. I smile. We smile together. There are no small miracles.