Christian Clarity Review

The peppers are hot. Very hot.

The conversation is going back and forth over Scoville units and their connection to names.

They all know that names are funny things. In all of recognizable experience names are call signs more specific than you. Names are marks of individuality and general widgets that signal the emotional utility contained within the bearer to those who search for utility. Because of some invisible law of names and experience, they make you feel good or bad just to say or hear them beyond any physical realities of the bearers.

It is this last characteristic that all of them are seeking, as the name will serve as the initial selling point of the sauce. But it is also the last characteristic which is the limitation. There is hot. But then there is stepping over the line (no curse words are allowed in the name). Consumers have as many lines as there are mouths.

There are other hot sauces too. The bottles are lined up across the desk like ignorant cities waiting for the siege by a better Name. The other sauces have declared the rules of what sauce names have to be—at least to the educated consumer: the connoisseurs of hot; the demographic. The other names have been said first and have already staked their claim on the terra firma of hot sauce market share. There is “Hot as Hell”; “Acid Storm”; “Mike’s Mind Numbing Madness”; “Sergeant. Fury”; “Satan’s Scream”; “Cross Eyed Betty”, along with simple “S & P” and “Jermaine’s!” It isn’t as if the others have used up all the words of hot. Cool is strong and true and new. But most of the others have hot muscle names of broad appeal; beefy names of power: front rack names. Useful names.

They will have to compete with the names first and the flavors second. Competition among themselves has been the practice. Those other guys must have families too. And that’s how they got their names. They need a new name that breaks the rules, brings a better education and yet doesn’t step over the line.

Frank pours himself a cup of coffee. “How about “Hitler’s Breath” or “Saddam’s Sanity”? We could put a picture on the front of the old Iraqi information minister saying “It’s not hot at all!” Or we could go old school and name it something like “Honest Bill’s Hot Sauce” or just “Hot Sauce” –in black and white small print.

“How about Woosy? The sauce anybody can take? A drooped-eared cat on the front? Then why did we grow to the expense of growing Habaneros? It’s got to scream ‘Habanero’. Hot flavor.” Ben smirks.

“That has nothing to do with what I said. You know what I mean.”

Ben hears the names drift over him into the background as they speak. He looks out of the window at the field of peppers. Hitler’s Breath. Saddam’s Sanity. The Information Minister. Frank always has the gift: the big sack of words. It isn’t fair. Frank always says the necessary things at the speed of light while he is standing still.

Ben remembers years ago when Bobby Lee got married. They had trekked up north ( Maryland, Maine .. something like that ) and Frank had had the Ford Fastback. He had stayed out front because he also had the radar detector. Nine hours into the trip Frank had finally slowed down. Ben had gunned the old truck as fast as it would go and had passed Frank doing eighty, smiling to himself until the cop had pulled him over.

Two hundred and thirty bucks.

Frank hadn’t even gloated. “You never learn. I told you I was out front to look out for us and that when the Super Snooper went off I’d slow down. Why does it always have to be you against me? Why do you always have to be that way?”

It is hard to look back and understand he has grown only because it is witnessed by Frank as well. Ben wants to grow in private, to walk through seas of fire, come out on the other side as whatever he would come out as and surprise his older brother just once. He wants to out-bless his older brother into submission; not be clumsy in the say; make it all even and not offensive. Every body will win. Maybe even their souls.

They will acknowledge him.

But to Ben, names of product are exercises done on an emotional dart board at best.

Ben turns back to the conversation. “The Natural Way to Male Enhancement.”

Frank nods and smiles. “Satan’s Growth Hormone?” “The Devil’s DNA?” “The Cure for Baldness?”

They laugh spontaneously and see it as good luck. It is the most genuine humor they know. The laughter is a proof of movement because it is an accident. They don’t know why or what is moved. Nor do they care. They have heard it at other times through themselves and others. They hope it is a tool, like the tractor or the fence. They hope it works right now; a worm hole that lands them in a galaxy of sure-fire Name.

It has done its job, however it did it and moved them on from where they were.

In a different place, a different set of thoughts, but still the friend and confidant of the consumer, the new words come quickly for Frank. “Laughing Jim’s Hallucinogenic Throat Balm.”

“The original. Accept no substitutes.” Dad smiles from behind his paper and props his feet on the desk.

Frank throws his coffee into the rubber plant. “Well, we got time. Those peppers won’t be ripe for another two weeks and the paste has to age for at least six months.” He turns at the door. “Male enhancement. Good one, bro.”

He’s got so many he throws them away like cold coffee. The way he threw yours away.

After Frank has left Ben thinks of “Pure” and “Easy”. He writes “Easy” down carefully to see what it looks like in print and thinks of “Hot Sauce” in small, cursive letters underneath, then to the upper right side like a mathematical exponent. He sees “Five Acre Farms, A Family Business Since 2005, Gretna, Florida.” in tiny, plain text towards the bottom of a minimalist blue and orange label. A green glass, pepper shaped bottle. A cork instead of a screw top with a red wax, hand dipped coating like champagne or whiskey.

Theirs will be the best.

——————————–

Ecc 4:4 And I saw all labour, and all success of work, that it is man’s jealousy of his neighbour. This also is vanity and pursuit of the wind.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen