Roger Maxson
Pigs In Paradise
Behind the barn in the feedlot one of the Chinese laborers, the Taoist, removed a scalpel from its case and in one fell swoop, sliced the bull’s scrotum. As he spread the scrotum layers apart, the testicles slid out onto the ground. He cut them from the blood vessels and placed the severed gonads on ice in a cooler for safekeeping. A salve was applied to the bull’s scrotum to stop the bleeding and help heal the wound. The laborer took a large needle with thread and sowed what was left of the bull’s scrotum shut. Once everything was done and put away, the Thai laborer removed the burlap bag from Bruce’s head. He rolled himself upright and stumbled, as he tried to get up. He stood unsteadily on four legs, his head swaying from side to side. He stopped, and then took a few steps back, backing away from his tormentors.
A neighbor from the moshavim, a fellow moshavnik, said, “This is not good, Juan. Castrations are done within days, no more than a month or two after birth, not like this. This is unkind. This is cruel and unusual punishment.”
“He has caused a great deal of consternation.”
“How do you think he feels?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Perelman said. “It’s too late to salvage anything. Besides, an old seven-year-old bull, his meat is already ruined because of his balls, just as my moshav.”
“Then it doesn’t make sense.”
“What’s done is done,” Perelman said.
* * *
Later that night, Stanley stepped from the barn filled with trepidation not knowing what to say or whether he should say anything at all. Bruce stood motionless next to the water tank.
“You have no idea,” Bruce said when he saw Stanley.
“I hope I never do.”
“It’s the first step to becoming ground beef.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t want to.”
“I wouldn’t want — never want to know. I mean, it scares me.”
“They’ll turn you into dog food once they’re done with you when you’re old and no longer of use.”
“I’m sorry for you, my friend.” Stanley backed away three steps and turned to run as fast and as far in one pasture of a 48-hectare farm as any animal could.
11
The Promise of the End Comes to an End
Two months after Blaise gave birth to the red calf, Beatrice lay in the middle of the pasture struggling, kicking in an attempt to give birth herself as a silver Mercedes tour bus stopped outside the fence. A Catholic priest leading a group of teenage boys and girls stepped off the bus. They were there to witness the miracle of the red calf that would soon alter the course of human history once and for all. As it happened, they also arrived in time to witness the miracle of birth as the bay mare rolled on the ground in the pasture.
In the barn, Boris ministered to the yellow hen. He promised her everlasting life and coaxed her into prayer with him. This she gladly did. “Trust me,” he said, his tusks bleached white from the sun. “I am the way, the truth, and the light.”
“Bog, Bog!” She scattered to the rafters as the Thai laborer came rushing through the barn wearing a leather apron, carrying a blanket, and a bucket of splashing water. The hen thought that had been a close call as she came down from the rafters.
“Through me, you shall enter life eternal in the animal kingdom, which art in heaven. I am the door: by me, if any chicken enters in, she shall be saved.”
She clucked happily.
“I am the Shepherd you shalt not want.”
In the middle of the pasture, Beatrice continued with the struggle of giving birth. The Reverends Hershel Beam and Randy Lynn had returned to the farm in time to witness the birthing process. They watched from the road as the Thai laborer, his arm buried to his elbow in her birth canal, dislodged the umbilical cord from around the unborn foal’s neck.
“I don’t know about you, Randy, but I’m getting hungry,” Reverend Beam said. “Do you like Chinese?”
“Do I like Chinese? Yes, of course. I dated a girl in Tulsa once, and we used to go to this Chinese buffet all the time, but it wasn’t going to work. She was a Methodist and had it all wrong. I never went back to that Chinese restaurant, though, after we broke up. Call me sentimental, but I still miss her and dim sum.”
Reverend Beam laughed, “Yes, well, pray we find a buffet nearby.”
“Look,” shouted one of the teenage boys. In the pasture, the mare was on her side as the Thai laborer pulled the foal’s front legs and head out of her birthing canal.
“No, children,” the priest cried, “turn away!” His efforts to protect the children from the horrors of childbirth were in vain. They weren’t going anywhere just as the placenta burst and splashed against the laborer’s apron and he slipped and fell as the colt plopped out onto the ground beside him. The teenagers, usually a cool and indifferent group, applauded and cheered the sight of the newborn colt. He stood at first uneasily, but once he found his footing, he was snorting and kicking up dirt in the field and went to his mother to nurse. It had been an ordeal for all involved. Stanley came out of the barn, snorted, and galloped straight to the colt. He did not like his progeny. He did not like the colt suckling from Beatrice’s teats as he did. Stanley was not warm or paternal toward the colt. The colt was competition for the affection and attention of the other mares even though there were no other mares on the moshav. In a matter of weeks, though, his attitude toward the colt would change once the laborers rendered the strapping young colt a gelding.
“Look,” one of the kids shouted. The red calf appeared alongside her mother from the barn as cheers went up from all quarters. These children in the care of the church were impressed.
Blaise and Lizzy came out to see how Beatrice was doing and to meet the new arrival. Beatrice’s strapping young colt was prancing about in the full sunshine of day. Also, out in the full sunshine of the day, life went on for Molly, the Border Leicester, and her twin lambs as they played in the pasture alongside Praline, the Luzein, and her young lamb. As Praline grazed or tried to, her young lamb Boo chased after her, wanting to nurse from her.
“Oh,” said one young girl, “the lambs are so cute.”
“Yes, they are,” said the father, “but they are sheep, neither divine nor a gift from God.”
“I thought all animals were a gift from God,” said another.
“Well, yes, they are,” the priest agreed, “but unlike the red calf, they are not divine.” He wore a black cassock with a white cord around the waist and tied in a knot at the front. The reverend father continued, “No one saw the two mate. Therefore, it is believed the red calf may have been conceived through the miracle of Immaculate Conception.”
The teenagers were suspicious of conspicuous consumption or anything any adult told them. They were skeptical and questioned authority, their parents, and especially priests who promised a glorious afterlife next to Jesus in heaven. These children, as with children anywhere, wanted to live life now.
“That’s the consensus anyway,” the priest added. “After all, the red calf is a gift from God.”
“Father,” a young boy asked, “What’s the difference between mating and Immaculate Conception?”
The older kids laughed. The father smiled and said to the boy, “I’ll show you later.”
“Hello, Beatrice, how are you?” Blaise said.
“I don’t know, Blaise. If not for the farmhand, I don’t think he would have survived?” Beatrice licked her colt.
“But he did, Beatrice, and he’s a beautiful boy.”
“Yes, but without the fanfare you received with Lizzy.”
“Oh, please, Beatrice, honestly. Do you think I want any of this?”
Besides the priest and his dozen charges, the multitudes had come out of trailers and buses and tents to once again witness the red calf.
“They come in droves to see Lizzy, but no one seems interested in Stefon.” Beatrice led her newborn colt to the pond to wash off the afterbirth, and to receive Howard’s blessing. Lizzy followed them to the pond, and Blaise followed Lizzy. When Howard saw the red calf, he was joyous to see her and wanted to baptize the young heifer.
“What about mine?” Beatrice stamped her hooves and splashed water on the sunbaked clay that surrounded the pond.
“Yes, of course,” Howard said. He poured water over the young colt’s head and body, washing off the dried blood and after-birth that covered the colt. When Howard was done, he looked toward Blaise and her calf.
Blaise said, “Go on then, baptize away if you must.”
And Lizzy entered the pond, splashing alongside the newly baptized colt. Howard poured mud and water over the calf’s head and the red around her ears and head and nose came off into the water and a dark brown appeared around the ears and eyes. She waded out to the middle of the pond to her neck, and when Lizzy came out the other side, the red fur had washed away into the water, revealing the chocolate brown under-tone along her body as that of her mother’s, with only the slightest hint of red from her father the former Simbrah bull, Bruce.
“Look,” shouted the kids, and they saw another example of why they should not believe what any adult told them. The red calf of legend or wish-fulfillment was now gone and, in her place, a rather nice-looking, normal brown-toned, mostly dark chocolate, half-Jersey calf.
“She’s brown,” Beatrice reveled with pleasure.
“Yes, she is,” Blaise sighed. “Isn’t she beautiful.”
Cries went up from the multitudes as people fell to their knees to mourn, to moan, and to pray.
Cheers went up on the Muslim side of the border and rifle fire was heard in the distance, followed by calls to prayer.
Blaise’s darling little red heifer had waded into the pond, was baptized, and had come out the other side a lovely brown as herself. Blaise could not have been happier as all the fanfare began to wane and people drove off in billows of dust clouds to points unknown, and where she couldn’t care less.
As it happened, the American ministers also witnessed the promise of the end come to an end. Reverend Beam said, “Son, this is all the proof you need to know the Jews are cursed.”
“What do we do now, Hershel? Take it to Pastor Tim?”
“It’s nonsense in the first place. Jesus will return before these Jews ever get their red calf anyway. Besides, we just want it to happen so they’ll see once and for all the one true Messiah is Jesus, and it’ll be too late for them.”
“Should we pray on it?”
“We should be rejoicing. The Jews are cursed. It’s as simple as that and God has spoken and the world has heard. The Lord is upon us and his will shall be done. Yes, take it to Pastor Tim Hayward, gentleman farmer, and pray on it.”
Boris stood under the barn, hidden in the shadows of the pilings. Mel, along with the Rottweilers Spotter and Trooper, approached the boar from behind and startled him.
“Something must be done about the Large White.”
Boris choked and coughed. A yellow feather shot from his jaws. Mel and Boris watched as the feather twirled in the air and floated to the ground. Boris belched, “As the messiah, it cannot be expected of me to live on our daily bread alone.”
“You shall not go hungry doing the Lord’s work.”
“It is never-ending, tiresome work.” He spat.
“Thank you for your keen observation in stamping out meddling witches from our midst. You have done us a good service by ridding us of a nuisance.”
“It was nothing really,” Boris said, “mostly bone and feathers.”
“Never mind her,” Mel said. “Another reason to eliminate the Yorkshire Baptist as the heretic that he is. Why has the red calf turned brown after he’s baptized her? Ample proof he is a heretic, and as such must be dealt with.”
“He preaches abstinence, so why can’t we just allow him to fade away?”
“He needs to be made an example of, a warning of what will happen to anyone if he goes against the teachings of our Lord and Father in Heaven. As long as he remains standing, breathing, preaching against you, and your reign from the shade of the fig tree, you’ll neither have the animals under your control nor be recognized as their one true savior and messiah. He has to be dealt with or you’ll never bring all the animals to your ministry, or into the fold of our one true church.”
“We preach at opposite ends of the same pasture.”
“Bring your sermons into the barn, our church.”
“Thought the barn was your domain.”
“As far as you can see and beyond,” Mel said as he stepped out of the barn, “all is my domain and you are here out of my good graces.” He stood before Boris the boar, the savior of the animals.
“I’ll go to the monk.”
“You, foolish pig,” Mel said. “Go to the monk. He’ll live high on the hog and you’ll enter heaven through his backsides.”
The two dogs growled.
“At ease, you’ll have your day in the sun.” Mel turned to the boar, “Go and minister to your flock.”
“I will after my nap.”
The priest, indignant, led the children away. “Come on,” he said, “get back on the bus. The Jews are cursed. Fuck, we’re all cursed. We’re all going to hell in a handbasket. Oh, dear Lord, when will it ever end?” The priest and the kids got on the bus, and all the pilgrims left, disheartened, sad that they’d have to wait a little while longer for the return of Jesus and the end of the earth.
When the Chinese and Thai laborers saw the newly brown young heifer, they went to get the moshavnik.
“El hijo de puta,” Juan Perelman cursed, not wanting God to hear him, or at any rate not wanting God to understand.
The Chinese laborer who was also a gentleman asked his countryman and Taoist what Perelman had said.
“I’m not Filipino,” he replied. “I don’t know Spanish.”
12
Curses Revisited
When Rabbi Ratzinger returned, along with members of his congregation, he was prepared. His congregation opened umbrellas against the possibility of falling objects or projectiles. They did not need to worry, though, for none of the fowl was around to make an impact. They knew what had been done was done.
Not knowing this, the rabbi and company stepped cautiously under tightly held umbrellas through the cow-pod spewed minefield of the barn lot and approached the once-great bull at the watering tank. The rabbi intended to reverse the curse that he had placed on the bull, now steer, ten months and three days before. He wished to formally forgive the bull, now steer, of his sins, and to restore him to his former glory with the help of G-d, and a miracle. “We are sorry, dear sir, for the mistake made against you. Please accept our humble apologies, and give of yourself once again to the Jersey cow,” Rabbi Ratzinger said in earnest. “We resend the curse put upon you, and wish you only good, and to return you to your former greatness. You shall no longer suffer an eternity as a result of our insolence and intolerance. Therefore, it is no longer deemed an abomination against G-d, nor a deed punished, for all is forgiven. You shall once again take up your rightful place, and go where you please, and with your masculine pride intact do what you please with whomsoever you please, please. Hence, go forth once again recognized on this, the Perelman moshav, and all moshavim of your presence, and be fruitful and bear gifts of offspring, and to offer that progeny as an offering to the Jewish people, and the world. Let us pray for the safe return of the missing testicles to their rightful place and ask G-d for the forgiveness of those short-sighted enough not to have known the consequences of their previous actions and wrongdoings against this great creature. Oh, dear Lord, please, unto this bull we ask that you undo our wrongs, and pardon him, this great and powerful Simbrah Bull who is, now as then, without sin. May the Lord return his name under the sun, make his presence known again, his seed fertile, repair the cruelest of cuts, and repair him, and his undoing to his former self among his people, his fellow-creatures, particularly his fellow cows. May they love him from this time forth to eternity as we reverse all curses of the firmament which are written in the book of the law and forgive him his transgressions.”
It was believed by the faithful since the bull had once mated with the Jersey, and as a result of their labors had brought forth a red calf, they could again, as long as he was returned to his former glory with his gonads intact. Unfortunately, it was too late for any of that. Bruce stood between the water tank and the gate he had once broken through, and the fence which now he rested against.
Bruce yawned.
The two American ministers were amused. They stood at the fence near the road and, from a distance, watched as the reverse-the-curse prayer service took place in the barn lot. The old black and gray mule passed by inside the fence and grazed along the fence nearby. From the hayloft, Julius, while clutching a paintbrush in his left talon, saw the expressions that ran across the faces of the three laborers, which he noted, and would remember for another time, but for what he didn’t yet know.
The laborers, embarrassed, their heads tilted, sheepishly stole sidelong glances at one another, adverting the rabbi’s and each other’s stare, for they knew where those gonads had gone, and no matter how earnestly the rabbi prayed, or the male congregation rocked and wailed, no miracle was going to return those gonads to their rightful owner. They were not going to grow back, come back, or be returned, for the three laborers had feasted on the rich delicacy only a few weeks before. Not two shared among three but a platter of many. For their labors, the laborers had amassed an impressive assortment of sheep, pig, and cow testicles. Once collected, peeled, egg and flour coated, salt and pepper added for taste, they were deep-fried to a golden brown. Then as an appetizer as Rocky Mountain oysters, or as the laborers preferred, swinging beef tips, along with a cocktail dipping sauce, served before the main dish of roast goose. “I have one for you, Hershel,” the youth minister said.
“What’s that, Randy?”
“A joke, but Catholics don’t much care for it. It’s about their beloved Virgin.”
“Let’s have it,” Reverend Beam laughed.
“When the Archangel Gabrielle visited the young virgin with the proposition of becoming impregnated by the Holy Ghost, she asked, ‘Will it hurt?’ To which the Angel replied, ‘Yes, but just a little.’ ‘All right,’ answered Mary, the little strumpet.”
In some cultures, among certain peoples of the world, particularly those who lived along the Ohio River Valley and Appalachia in the Southeast United States, it was believed that ingesting cows’ brains or pigs’ nuts would make one smart. It was also believed among the people of Appalachia and along the Ohio River Valley that they were God’s chosen, and heaven was theirs alone.
* * *
Scrambled eggs in America
From the Ohio River Valley region and along Appalachia, a rich delicacy of calf brains was highly prized and often served with scrambled eggs. And bovine spine, brains, and gonads were often eaten, along with pig and sheep nuts, rounding out the top ten dishes that were believed to make a person smart, but with caution, not to eat too many. In this part of the country, regardless of the organ served, whether cows’ balls or brains, the dishes were often collectively called “cows’ brains.” Therefore, a dish of scrambled eggs served with cows’ brains was a euphemism used to protect their young against the nuts and bolts as it were of the vulgarities of the nuts and balls that were being served up on their platters.
As with many people across the face of the earth, the three laborers considered a battered platter of calf or pig or sheep nuts a worthy dish to ward off the ill effects of impotency. Consuming the gonads of a male mammal, it was believed, would repair the gonads of the male mammal eater. The three laborers ate plenty. They feasted on swinging beef tips, believing that the more they consumed the better the aphrodisiac. Therefore, as reality would dictate, Rabbi Ratzinger and his congregation, no matter how earnestly they prayed to G-d, no miracle was going to reverse the curse and return those gonads.
The American ministers, unlike the Asian or the nomad, knew they would one day enter the kingdom of heaven for a life spent groveling at the imaginary feet of Jesus. Unlike others, Jews, Muslims, or Chinese, the ministers knew not only did they have God on their side, but by virtue of their resemblance to the Lord, they were His precious chosen few. They were content, waiting for the triumphed return of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
“How could these people ever think they’d be allowed into heaven?”
“Who,” Randy said, “the Jews?”
“Any of ‘em,” Reverend Hershel Beam said. “I mean, where does it say in the bible any of these people, people heaven?”
“I don’t know, the Old Testament?”
“Well, it doesn’t. Take my word for it.”
“Well, then, thank goodness.”
“No, Randy, thank God.”
The Thai laborer, like his American counterpart, didn’t need an education he thought as he took a shovel from the shelf and commenced shoveling sheep shit from the stalls. Unlike their American counterparts, though, the laborers had most of their faculties and senses about them and were under no delusion of an afterlife in another realm. They weren’t even white, so how could they possibly even think they’d be allowed into heaven reserved for good, Christian folk anyway? Any good Christian Fundamentalist knew this, for the Bible told them so.
At the edge of the village, Muslim men sat perched on the hill overlooking the farm below with the sheep, and their little lambs, along with the goats, grazing in the fields, the fields of goat and sheep and little lambs, and knew where their next feast was coming from. It was the end of Ramadan and the eve of the joyous three-day celebration of fast-breaking called Eid al-Fitr, which meant trouble for the animals of the moshav, for the Muslims were in a charitable mood and hungry too. It was sundown. Several men struck matches to the ends of cigarettes.