Roger Maxson - Pigs In Paradise

“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.

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.