The Christmas Pig: A Very Kinky Christmas (3 page)

B
Y LATE THAT EVENING
the emissaries from the king were uncomfortably ensconced at The Mermaid, having safely traversed the little bridge on the road to Long Lama without meeting Death. The bridge bore an almost uncanny resemblance to the one in Benjamin’s painting, so much so that they’d ridden across it rather quickly and gingerly. Now they were seated by a small fireplace in the little pub drinking pints of bitter and negotiating with the Viking over a small cart sturdy enough to carry the boy and his uncle to the court of King Jonjo.

“That cart will slow us down a great deal,” said the White Knight, “but clearly the boy cannot travel alone with us. I’m not even sure it gives him enough time to finish the painting by Christmas.”

“Don’t worry,” said the Black Knight. “He’s a fast worker, according to his mother.”

“She’s not his mother,” said the Gray Knight, with a mischievous smile. “His mother, remember, was a mermaid.”

“Aye,” said the Viking, staring somberly into the fire.

“And what, pray tell,” asked the White Knight of the Viking, “was your occupation before you became the proprietor of this establishment?”

“I was a sailor, sir,” said the Viking, as he continued to stare into the flames. “Then for a time I was a lighthouse-keeper.”

Each knight privately remembered his own vivid dream of the night before. Each knight quietly reflected upon the Viking’s red beard and the red-haired lad they’d soon be accompanying to the court. Collectively, the three knights felt a chill run swiftly up and down their chivalrous spines.

“Be gentle with that lad,” said the Viking. “He paints with a steady hand, a clear head, and a singing heart. But what the lad may paint today, so I am told, may well become your tomorrow.”

The next morning, according to the agreement the knights had made with the Welch family, Uncle Floyd, Aunt Joan, and the boy, Benjamin, showed up at The Mermaid in a flimsy wooden trap pulled by the old white mare. Fortunately for all concerned, neither the old mare, the broken-down trap, nor the frail and somewhat emotional Aunt Joan would be traveling to the court. It was a daunting journey for the most hardened of travelers under the best conditions. Someone from the family had to accompany the boy and someone had to stay behind to help run the farm. The road was not a friendly place for women or children. Nevertheless, Aunt Joan remained quite concerned about the boy leaving home.

“Now, dear,” said Uncle Floyd soothingly, “we can’t keep the lad on the farm with the critters forever. It is time for him to see the real world.”

“Why,” asked Aunt Joan quite reasonably, “must anybody have to see the real world?”

This was a question the farmer could not readily answer, as he took the boy’s little suitcase out of the flimsy trap and placed it into the sturdy wagon bound for the road. The boy sat next to his aunt and did not appear to be prepared to be going anywhere.

“Don’t forget that this is a great opportunity for Benjamin’s talents to shine,” said Uncle Floyd. “It is also the only chance we have to keep the farm from being taken away from us. If that were to happen, we’d all have to live in the real world.”

“At least we’d be together,” said Aunt Joan.

The three knights and the Viking observed this little drama not unkindly as they prepared the horses and the wagon. None of them had ever had his own family and, knowing the ways of the real world as they did, they each knew it was unlikely that they ever would. Instead of wives, they would have their journeys. Instead of children, they would have their dreams. The real world, they had learned, was not so good and not so bad after all.

For his part, Benjamin could not take his eyes off the Viking. The knights, even with their newly refurbished colorful plumage, held little interest for him. The town of Long Lama likewise did not seem to pique his curiosity. Nor did he appear eager to leave his place beside his Aunt Joan to mount the wagon with his Uncle Floyd. No amount of coaxing was able to move the magical boy.

“We’re off to rather a slow start,” remarked the Gray Knight wryly, as he fastened the girth of his horse.

“Come, Benjamin,” said Uncle Floyd, as he patted the seat beside him in the wagon. “This is a chance to show the world your talents, my lad.”

Benjamin did not glance at his uncle. He instead watched the Viking as the burly, bearded man strode purposefully back into the pub.

“Come on, Benjamin,” said Aunt Joan encouragingly as she got up and walked over to the larger conveyance. “See, I’m placing a large bag of oatmeal into the wagon for you.”

The boy did not move a muscle. He sat alone on the seat of the small wooden cart like the stubborn, petulant young child that he was. But in his mind there was neither stubbornness nor petulance. In his mind was a thought he could not have articulated to another human being. The thought was,
There is a light shining over the waves.

“Shite!” said the Black Knight. “We may have to transfer the little bugger by force.”

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” said the White Knight. “The lad might gaze at you with those strange blue eyes and decide he wants to paint you as the court jester.”

“Which is what all three of us will become,” said the Gray Knight, “if we don’t deliver him to King Jonjo pretty quickly.”

The situation, however, was soon to be remedied. The Viking came storming out of the pub with his red hair flaming behind him and his big beard bustling and moved toward the larger conveyance in which Benjamin’s uncle was already sitting. In the Viking’s large hands was a small tablet.

“Now, my lad, I have sailed the seas of this globe but never have I been privileged to travel on a journey over the land for all the miles you are about to undertake. I have only gone part of the way.

“In my hands I hold this sketchbook in which I have never sketched a whit because, of course, I cannot draw. Will you do a favor for me, lad? Will you sketch for me the things you see on this great journey? I must stay here with The Mermaid. But you can bring me back the people, the animals, the towns, the wondrous sights that your eyes will see so that I, too, may see them upon your return. Will you do that for me, my lad?”

Without further coaxing, the boy slid off the seat of the small trap and climbed aboard the wagon next to his uncle. The Viking handed Benjamin the blank sketchpad along with a pencil but he did not attempt to touch the boy. Indeed, he already had.

W
ITH TEARS IN HER EYES
,
Aunt Joan waved goodbye as two strong horses pulled the cart carrying Floyd and Benjamin on the long journey to the royal court. The White Knight led the little procession while the Black Knight and the Gray Knight rode alongside the wagon, almost as if they believed their precious young passenger might try to make a break for it. It was, indeed, the furthest thing from Benjamin’s mind. He had not even waved goodbye to his Aunt Joan. He had not, of course, ever waved goodbye to anyone.

Uncle Floyd was a very strong and positive-thinking man. As he smiled and waved goodbye to his wife, he fully believed the pilgrimage to the court of King Jonjo would be a great success. The boy was exceedingly talented. This much he knew for sure. The amount of the commission of which the knights had spoken would be just about enough to bail his little family out of debt and save the farm from foreclosure. But this was nothing, thought Uncle Floyd, as the wagon jolted and swayed its way out of the town of Long Lama, compared to what this journey might mean for Benjamin’s future. If the king liked the boy’s work and became his patron, the young lad could be assured of fame and fortune for the rest of his life.

But as Aunt Joan patted the old white mare and watched the cart with Benjamin roll out of sight, she was not so sure. He was a good boy, she knew that. He also had a blindingly brilliant talent that, she supposed, should not be hidden from the world. On the other hand, she feared very much that that same world might destroy her son.

And yes, she did consider the boy to be her son even though she quite well knew he wasn’t. He was a child of the dust and the rain and the sea. Sometimes she almost believed he’d never had a mother. He seemed like such an ancient soul, carved out of the Rock of Ages and given to her by God Himself.

So different from other little boys, she thought wistfully, as she headed back toward the farm. Even as a babe, he’d never laughed, never cried. In his ten years of life on this green earth, she realized, she’d never witnessed any display of emotion at all from the child she and her husband had named Benjamin. And yet, he was so sensitive in his odd way, so intuitive. He didn’t miss a thing that was going on around him, his paintings showed that. He just could not or would not communicate with any other living soul. He was not kind or unkind, polite or impolite, sad or happy. He was none of the things you might say about a young boy. He was like a star, so far away you could never tell what he was thinking, so close you could almost touch him.

And yet. And yet she knew he loved her. She knew like every mother knows and every lover knows, even if it is not true. He was a good lad with a good heart, wise beyond his years from reading and watching his little world go by. It was all there, all right. All there inside his unknowable mind like so much undigested food for thought. Did he love her the way she loved him? Probably not, she suspected. Maybe Benjamin didn’t love. Maybe Benjamin was love.

Benjamin liked the Gray Knight the best. This had nothing whatsoever to do with the knight himself or the manner in which he’d interacted with Benjamin. Gray was merely the world in which Benjamin lived, the color with which he was the most comfortable. And colors, as any artist will tell you, are the brick and mortar of survival in an essentially colorless world. Gray, of course, is rather unusual. It would not be the color most artists or most people would pick as their favorite. It is an in-between color for in-between people who have already seen the light and are not afraid of the dark.

The Gray Knight was not aware that the little fellow favored him. If he’d known this information, it probably wouldn’t have meant much to him. The golden era of knighthood, of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, had been over so long that nobody knew for sure if it had ever really happened. People were becoming mildly bored with knights. Knights were merely another group of misguided individuals drawn to an occupation they were hideously ill-suited for, especially if they were wearing armor and it was raining. What the hell, thought the Gray Knight, chivalry was getting a bit rusty as well.

“What’s the kid been doin’?” asked the White Knight, who’d drifted back beside him.

“Scribbling in his tablet,” said the Gray Knight.

“Just scribbling in his tablet? Just like he’s doing now? Doesn’t he ever look around to see the scenery?”

“Nope. He’s been just like you see him, head down, scribbling in his tablet.”

“What do you think he’s drawing?” asked the White Knight.

“I’m not going to ask him,” said the Gray Knight. “He might look at me with those eyes and turn me into a pillar of fire.”

Uncle Floyd did not want to disturb the boy while he was working either, but for a very different reason. He believed that to interrupt an artist at work, whether he was ten years old or not, could hinder the creation of beauty in the world. His son, and he considered him that, was a genius of the first order. The boy would show him his work when he felt it was ready. To stop him in the middle might be distracting him from creating a masterpiece.

Uncle Floyd, however, was not above surreptitiously sneaking a peak at Benjamin’s work every once in a while. Now he was startled to see that the lad was busily putting the finishing touches on what appeared to be an inn called the Pregnant Sweetheart. The inn was surrounded by tall fir trees and situated next to a beautiful lake. In the lake were a large number of ducks, swimming and frolicking as the evening fell.

Uncle Floyd peered intently at the road ahead. He looked to his left and to his right. Nowhere could he see a sign of fir trees or a lake, much less the Pregnant Sweetheart. Even the topography of the land seemed different from Benjamin’s drawing. Possibly, the child had read about such a place in one of the books he was always reading, thought Uncle Floyd. But that also seemed unlikely. Very unlikely, indeed.

All day the wagon clattered and splattered along the still muddy road until by late afternoon the hot sun had baked everything back to dust again. Up hills and down went the little entourage, stopping only briefly to water and rest the horses. When Benjamin was not busy drawing, he sat very erect in the seat beside his uncle, never turning his head to either side, seemingly scanning the far horizon. What the boy was seeing or what he was looking for, no earthly mind could tell. He just sat there, staring straight ahead, perhaps hypnotized by the hours, perhaps mesmerized by the miles. And yet his mind was traveling faster than the fastest steed could run.

He was seeing Jesus washing his wounds in the lake with all the ducks swimming and flapping their wings in joyous circles all around him. He was seeing his Aunt Joan watching by the little window in the kitchen, waiting for his return. He was seeing the White Knight with his hands all dripping with red blood. Whether he imagined these things, whether he simply saw them in his young, febrile mind, whether they came to him or he came to them, even Benjamin did not know. All he knew was he wanted the world to be good.

Although he could clearly see images of his Aunt Joan missing him, to be truthful, he did not really miss her. He had never in his life missed anyone. He did not know what missing was. Even his interest in the red-bearded Viking was more of an instinctive thing, possibly a scientific inclination, having observed that both their hair was red and the eyes of both were blue. Something had pulled him toward the Viking but now it was gone. Now he was watching the ducks swimming in circles in the lake, round and round in beautiful, perfectly round circles of blue inside his eyes.