Pigs In Paradise. Roger Maxson

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,