Roger Maxson - Pigs In Paradise

“My favorite Ara ararauna, and I didn’t care one iota what Mom and Dad thought.”

“As it should be,” Blaise said.

“What became of her?” Beatrice said. “I don’t recall?”

“She was stolen, taken from me, and shipped to the dark continent of America. She was such a striking beauty, too, with warm grey feathers, and dark inviting eyes. She was a real clicker, that girl, and could she whistle, " Julius whistled.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Beatrice said.

“I’m sorry, too, but we’re animals, aren’t we, some pets, others livestock. It goes with the territory.”

Blaise said, “So, what brings you out this time of day, Julius?”

“I’m a parrot, Blaise. I’m not a barn owl. I have friends to see and places to go.”

“Yes, well, after being gone for three days, I imagined you’d be in the rafters resting, or painting something. Not out in this heat.”

“As it happens, I’m off today to see an African Grey from the neighborhood.” Julius dropped to a lower branch, his blue feathers blending with the green leaves. “So, today’s visit will be something sentimental for me, and who knows, possibly the beginning of a long-term relationship. I don’t want to get my hopes up, though, not just yet. She may have already mated with another, which would serve me right for my late-night carousing. I’m just saying.”

“Your presence will be greatly missed,” Mel said. His irony was not lost.

“Why, thank you, Mel, but not to worry. I plan to be back in the old barn lot in time for the party, so save a dance for me.”

“There’s dancing?” Ezekiel said to Dave.

“Blaise, sometimes I think we’re an old married couple.”

“Because we think alike?”

“Because we don’t flock.”

“I’m a cow.”

“And he’s a mule,” Julius said, “and the only true non-flocker among us. It’s rather rude of us to even be talking about flocking in front of his Holiness, considering he can’t.”

“Jew-bird.”

“There he goes again trying to confuse the issue. He can’t argue the facts, so he attacks the messenger. In this case, and in most cases, I might add, it’s me. Don’t blame me for your predicament. I didn’t introduce your mother to your father, Donkey Kong. Oh, it was love at first sight when she got a load of that guy. She was a real Mollie, his mother.”

“What?” Molly the Border Leicester looked up.

“Not you, dear,” Blaise assured Molly.

“When you die, you’ll be a martyr to no one,” Mel said.

“When I die, I plan to be dead. Not leading the choir.”

“Atheist, Jew-bird.”

“Mel, Mel, Mel, a mule by any other name, say jackass, is still a mule.” Mel turned and broke wind as he sauntered off toward the fence line along the Egyptian border.

“You take after your mother too, especially from behind--both of you wear the same perfume! Just like a stubborn old mule, always has to have the last wind. What I wouldn’t give for a five-cent cigar. Be gone, you horse’s ass, or half a horse’s ass. The other half, I don’t know what you’d call that butt but cute. Speaking of his old black rump, I have a black bill. I use mine to pass knowledge and not fear or natural gas. I use my lovely black beak to do good in the world like climbing, breaking nutshells, and his nuts, whereas his rump--”

“You certainly do,” Beatrice said, not amused. “He talks, just not as incessantly as you.”

“Yes, he does out his black rump, but he can’t do both at the same time, walk and talk. It’s where we went to school.” Julius did a flip on a smaller branch, making it sway with his weight, his beak cutting into the bark. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have that cigar, after all. Lit up against his backdraft, it would have set off a small explosion and the neighbors would have gotten all giddy, and then the chanting, the chanting.”

Just then the call went out for afternoon prayers.

“Oh, will it ever end? We don’t stand a chance.”

Mel wandered along the perimeter fence line that bordered the Sinai Desert.

“Julius, you never seem to have much reverence for the elders, the leaders, our parents,” Beatrice said.

“Is it written somewhere that we should? I might be an animal, a parrot, but seriously, some of our elders would have us led over cliffs or to the slaughter through our holy reverence for them.”

“Is what you said about his parentage true?”

“What difference does it make?” Julius said. “His mother was a horse; his father a jackass, and together they had a darling little critter who grew up to take himself way too seriously, and now he’s an old mule, but from behind a real horse’s ass. Come to think of it, for a non-flocking mule, he certainly tries to flock everyone he can.”

Mel stopped at the back corner of the perimeter fence as a man in dusty brown robes stepped from a crevasse in the desert rocks. He looked hungry, weather-worn, and sinewy.

“Oh look, everyone! It’s Tony, the Hermit Monk of the Sinai Desert.” Mel stood at the fence as the monk came up to him. “They’re a fine pair, kindred idiots.” The monk reached over the fence and gave Mel a carrot and rubbed his nose. “Ah, isn’t that sweet,” Julius said, “just like two peas in a pod.” Julius rustled the olive branches, inspired. His face flushed pink from excitement. “Blaise, those two remind me of a couple of mallards.”

“Why is that, Julius, because they’re loons?”

* * *

Mel’s story as per Julius

“Before this moshav, it was pretty barren with no irrigation. One day a Bedouin Arab rode across the desert on a camel, leading a small caravan with a horse, donkey, and jackass as pack animals, Mel, his mother, and father. Even though Mel was quite young and small, he carried a substantial amount of goods. The Arab sold the goods to the Egyptians, and when depleted of merchandise and no longer needed pack animals, he sold Mel’s mother and father to his fellow Arabs. Oddly, no one wanted the young strong mule. He was strong, too strong, as it turned out. Thus, a djinn come out of the desert. Since he was an evil little djinn spirit, a demon-possessed mule-child, no one was willing to pay the price the Bedouin wanted for the muscular black mule. The Bedouin saw no choice. He removed the pack, and as he was about to shoot, out of the desert stepped Saint Anthony, ‘Alt!’

“When the monk offered to take the demonic little evil mule for an exorcism, the Bedouin lowered the gun. I think Saint Anthony, the Hermit Monk of the Sinai Desert, wanted someone to talk to. The Bedouin donated the mule, mounted the camel, and rode off into the desert, never to be seen since that time. The hermit monk took the little tike under his dusty robe and led him into the desert where henceforth from that day forth neither of them was ever seen or heard from again. Okay, so I made that part up. He took Mel to raise and to protect and to teach – whew, and did he ever! When the Jews settled and started moshavim in the area, this moshav was started. One day, fence and fence posts appeared from one end of the farm to the other end, and from the border to the road. The next day, when the fence went up from post to post, encompassing these pastures, Mel stood in the middle of everything, where he’s been ever since, in the middle of everything.”

“Really,” Beatrice said. “Is any of this true?”

“All I know is what I hear. Then repeat it. I’m like my father that way. We’re parrots and great gossips who can never keep secrets. Of course, it’s true. You see the hermit monk of legend, and his protégé, the mule pope of legend too, don’t you?”

“Where were you? Were you here, too, at the time?”

“Oh, please, this is not about me, but since you asked. I was but a little chick at the time, still in my cage, swinging on my perch, singing, learning art, philosophy, happy as a lark, living up there in the big house, when all of a sudden. I’ll save that one for another time. Let it suffice to say it had something to do with my singing. I can sing too. I’m talented and creative. I’m left-taloned. Jesus, thank goodness they were Commie-bastard unorthodox Jews or I’d be singing a different tune. Here’s one of my personal favorites,