Fortuna and the Scapegrace

by Brian Kindall

  So one could plainly see that casting a prayer was a more problemated enterprise than it at first appeared. One needed to be politic and humble. One needed to be sincere and worthy and big-minded. It was a lot to conjure from one’s coalesced disposition. It was, frankly, a hell of a lot to think about. My head began to ache with the challenge. But as I considered the disturbing consequences of not asking for divine involvement, I realized it was a challenge I had need to accept.

  “Dear God,” I sighed. “Dear, dear God.”

  I glanced over to make sure Molly was out of earshot. Then I bowed my head and, with some hesitancy, formed the words of my appeal.

  “Oh, all-seeing omnipotent wonderfulness and munificent benefactor on high, on low, and all around in this middle area, too, hallowed be thy name… erm, or, if you prefer, thy various names. In all my lowly and sin-ridden unworthiness, I now appeal to you from bended knee.”

  I feigned to drop my spool and then kneeled to pick it up, remaining in a genuflective attitude of respect.

  “I would not seek to waste your time, Oh Holiest of Incalculable Sanctity, and will try to be succinct in my unscheduled interruption of your busy day. Please understand that I would not venture to bother you if I did not feel this intercourse could ultimately prove beneficial for us both.

  “As you doubtless already know, I am in somewhat of a fix. Unfriendly forces would seek to do me damage, and although I am grateful for the unanticipated opportunity of employment upon this fine sea-going barque, it, one must admit, lacks variety in places to hide, and options by which to outrun one’s enemies.”

  I bobbed my head and continued.

  “Now here is what I am proposing,” I whispered. “You preserve me, and I will, in turn, do whatever it is you have in mind for me by way of predestined servitude and reasonable acts of heroism. In spite of past evidence indicating otherwise, I will be the near-epitome of worthiness and will not generally resist your plan for me. I will do my utbest to be prudent, put aside my oftentimes-barefaced wickedness, and remain attuned to your scheme for my life as it would best serve you.

  “Now I do not mean to be so prideful as to dare assume you are one with whom to forge a pact – as you are large and all-powerful, and I am so pathetically mortal and measly small and sniveling. I intend only to convince you that I am going to do my damnedest… um, if you will pardon my French. I will listen for your voice and seek your intentions for me with an unsurpassed devoutitude. That is – if you see fit to save me from pending extermination. Otherwise, understandably, all deals are off.

  “In short, I ask, give me signs, and I will surely follow them. Help me out, and I will do my paltry best to help you.”

  I chewed my lip, considering what I might have neglected to include in my entreaty, and decided that I had pretty much covered all points pertinent to the situation.

  “So, well, anyhow,” I murmured. “Thanks for all you do. Amen. So be it, and sincerely yours. I await your prompt reply.”

  I stood, my spool of twine clasped in my hands before me in the attitude of a penitent monk clutching a holy talisman, bracing myself for the divine response that was surely soon to come.

  I waited.

  I held myself poised, my ears attuned, my eyes open wide like windows.

  The ship swayed and rolled on the wavy sea.

  I do not know exactly what I expected. I suppose I presumed I would straightaway be sent a guardian angel. That is how it always worked in the stories my mother read to me as a youngster. That is how it was in my dreams. This seraph would no doubt be exquisite, with long-flowing hair and sporting a sublime smile as she rode a sunbeam down out of the parted clouds. Her robe would flutter and flow and cling to her curvaceous heavenly form. Yes. The insides of her pale ankles would likely show, and perhaps a flash of her bulging, deiformed cleavage.

  But no such lady appeared.

  I gazed into the piece of sky from where she would most likely make her entrance.

  Just rain.

  “Hrmph!”

  Sometimes the gods can be so self-occupied. They forget we are all down here cowering within the pressing parameters of our mortal framework, just doing our best to get by. Is it any wonder our faith in them should periodically lapse?

  “Well, anyway, God – at your earliest convenience.”

  At that, my ball of twine was yanked from my grasp.

  “Wha…?”

  It tumbled onto the deck and rolled away, unraveling.

  I turned to see what had caused this and was surprised to find a black and white nanny goat standing behind me. She had long, curved horns. She held the loose end of the twine in her mouth and was chewing it the way a person might gobble up a long noodle. It vanished an inch at a time into the bucktoothed pinkness of her masticating maw. She nipped it off, licked her rubbery lips, and grinned at me.

  “And who, do tell, are you?”

  “Blah-ah-ah-ah.”

  The she-goat stepped forward, affectionately rubbed her neck against my arm, and then kissed my hand. This caused a tingle to run up my backbone.

  She seemed curiously familiar.

  I wiped the goat slobber from my knuckles. “Do I know you?”

  “Blah-ah.”

  I took this for a possible yes but could not at once venture as to where we might have met before. She wore a leather collar with a piece of frayed rope hanging from it under her throat. Her eyes were the color of sand, and it was upon noting my bulgy reflection in those glossy spheres that I had the sudden and upsetting thought – Oh, my! This goat might well be a reincarnation of someone I had known in my sordid days as Didier Rain.

  I gulped compulsorily.

  “Heh-heh,” I blushed. “Well, how have you been?”

  She bent and began once again to nibble at the end of the twine.

  Right then, Bosco and another man came into the sail room.

  “There she is!” crowed the crewman. He was markedly less kempt than the other sailors, with sideburns sprouting like weeds from his cheeks, and his soiled trousers rolled up past his calloused knees. His toenails were black under the edges. His lower lip was fat and split and hard to look at without flinching.

  “Horny bitch!” he said and stomped over to me and the goat.

  Bosco followed at his shoulder, half-bending under the close ceiling.

  The man stood with his hands on his hips and glowered at the goat. “Just like I told ya. She gets loose ever' time I turn my back.”

  Bosco thoughtfully rubbed his chin.

  “She eats up the ropes to her cage.” The man spat arbitrarily to the side.

  I disliked him at once.

  “I say we cut her throat and cook her up.”

  “She belongs to the Shiny Redemption,” said Bosco. “It’ll do no good to killy her up and cause us troubles with the churchy peoples.”

  Sweet Molly came over to listen.

  “Well, I don’t want nothing more to do with her,” said the crewman. He held out his arm and showed Bosco a crescent shaped scab on his elbow. “She bites like a pissed off whore, and she won’t let me come in behind her without kicking my face.”

  “Does she have a name?” I asked.

  The man glared at me. “No! She ain’t got no name!” He spat. “She’s a goddamn animal!”

  This struck me as a flagrant case of the pot deriding the kettle for being black.

  The goat stepped forward and leaned against me, rubbing her neck against my thigh. The gesture looked to be one of long-held friendship.

  Bosco laughed. “Well, she takes a likey to you, sir.”

  I patted the nanny’s back.

  The man spat once more. “Well, he can sure as hell have her!” And then he marched off cursing.

  Bosco considered, and then turned to my boss. “Molly, can you letty your helper go for a time?”

  Sweet Molly appeared crestfallen, but gazing around the sail room, with its diminishing piles of work, the androgynous hulk conceded that my employmen
t there was finished for the time being.

  Bosco turned to me. “And do you have know-how with goaty girls and giving them care?”

  I considered lying, as goaty girls and me suffered a generally disreputable and humiliating history. But upon considering that the alternative probably meant rejoining my dreadful cohorts out in the rain, I admitted with ersatz enthusiasm that I did indeed know a thing or two about tending to beings horned and hoofed.

  “Well, then,” said Bosco. “Takey her back to the hold and milky her up for the preacher’s lunchy meal.”

  “Will do,” I said. I grabbed the goat’s collar and led her away. I could not rightly say why, but as we staggered down that heaving, rain-washed deck, I found myself compelled to speak gently to the animal at my side.

  “That you go through life nameless seems a wrong I feel we should promptly right.” I looked down at the goat as she looked back up to me. “Even God’s lowliest and most denigrated creatures deserve a personal tag by which to be known.” Again, a familiar weirdliness passed between us, prompting me to quiver in my shirt.

  “Blah-ah-ah.”

  I stroked the goat’s shoulder. “I could not agree more.”

  And then, with an out-of-the-blue inspiration, I snapped my fingers. “Say!” I said. “Henceforward, let us call you Angeline.”

  ANGELINE’S CAGE HAD ORIGINALLY been fashioned of wooden slats lashed together with ropes. A poor design. As the goat had an insatiable hunger for hemp, the tethers had been gnawed through at once, leaving the enclosure to collapse all down around her in a lumbersome mishmashery of boards. I was largely inept as a carpenter, but this particular puzzle looked simple enough for me to solve. I went to the ship’s toolkit, found a hammer and some nails, and then pieced the slatted crate back together in a less digestible manner. I then lined the airy enclosure with fresh straw.

  “What do you think of that?”

  If goats can smile, Angeline did.

  The nanny took to her reconfigured home with all the musterable alacrity of a delighted ruminant. She pawed at the straw with a hoof, and then nestled into her bed, munching on scrap pieces of rope reminiscent of the way a lady might luxuriate in her boudoir with a tray of tasty bonbons. Angeline watched me as I then set about tidying up the corner of the hold where she was housed. Her former butler had been remiss in his duties, and the floor all around was littered with goat pellets, soiled straw, milk dribbles, man spit, and pungent puddles of ungulatory urine. I swept the mess into a box and tossed it overboard. Then I toted buckets of seawater below decks and mopped the flooring until it gleamed.

  A silver pail hung from a peg on a post and I went and examined it. No doubt this was the receptacle into which I had been charged with extracting the nanny’s lactatory bounty. I took it down and placed it in the center of the floor. I regarded Angeline.

  “Well,” I said sheepishly. “Shall we give it a go?”

  The goat wasted no time in her reply. She scampered from her cage and positioned herself expectantly over the pail.

  I saw that her bag was swollen and tight, her spigots sticking out like four ripe fruits.

  “Well, you appear quite ready for a bit of relief.”

  “Blah-ah-ah.”

  I dropped to my knees beside the goat. I blew breath into my hands, and rubbed them together. Then, somewhat bashfully, I took hold of her teats.

  “Blah-ah!” she blurted, and quivered.

  “Beg your pardon. They should warm up directly.”

  She reassured me with another bleat, and so then I set to work.

  The first streams of milk whispered into the depths of the pail – tug-hiss – tug-hiss –

  Angeline relaxed.

  Cloud rocked contemplatively over the waves.

  The earth turned on its axis.

  To ease the strain on my lower back, I let my forehead rest upon the nanny’s flank.

  Although it is no doubt a common enough occurrence round the world, milking another sentient being is, if one stops to consider, somewhat intimate. I felt this intimacy descend upon me rather profoundly with Angeline. One minute we were complete strangers, and then in the next I was engaged in wringing at her private parts. If she had been a member of my own species, I would either have had to be a nursing babe, a doting husband, or would have had to pay a whore’s ransom for the privilege. And yet the line between all those experiences seemed somewhat blurred there in Cloud’s poorly lit cargo hold. A familiarity passed between the goat and myself that did not seem so different from the sort one thinks of passing between a child and his wet-nurse, or a man and his sweetheart. I considered the slim discrepancy between the concepts of husbandry and husband.

  Hmmm.

  And furthermore, hmmm.

  Now hold on, Newfangle! I warned myself. Is not that exactly the kind of muddled etymological cogitating that led Erstwhile You to so much heartache and confusement in your poetical days?

  “You are a man,” I muttered. “And she is a goat. Black and white and plain and simple.” Although honestly, one would have been sorely pressed at certain points in my former life to find any difference between those various oppositions in my own character.

  Tug-hiss – tug-hiss –

  You need to rise above, I advised myself. Remember your more-or-less promise to God. You must needs transcend.

  Unfortunately, the concept of transcendence was more difficult for me to entertain than one might expect. For I had always suffered from a general tendency to see things from all sides and angles – from far below, as well as occasionally on high – like some great transparent eyeball – and this had typically led me to erroneous, if sagacious, interpretations of Nature’s varying situations, as well as inspiring from me many a higgledy-piggledy villanelle.

  Tug-hiss – tug-hiss –

  “So how, Mister Hoper Man, do you propose to rise above?”

  It occurred to me that Angeline had in some way come to my rescue. Without her, I would doubtless be groveling out in the elements with the Smiths and Joneses. Maybe I could now return the favor. I figured I knew as much about the animal sides of menfolk as anyone, and something told me that the she-goat’s virtue was in jeopardy. Admittedly, the words goat and virtue joined together seemed somewhat oxymoronical, no doubt a result of the species’ association with things pagan, most especially that ol’ orgy-master Pan. Still, this was a ship filled with men, at least some of whom surely dabbled in the lascivious pursuits when given half a chance, and outside of the buxom wooden figurehead at Cloud’s prow, a greased knothole, or an anatomically carved rutabaga, few were the feminine outlets for such a man’s festering virility. A recipe for desperation if ever there was one. And a surefire threat to Angeline’s moral integrity.

  It is a test, I realized, put before me by God to see if I am worthy of my afore-requested favoritisms. An opportunity to right some old wrongs. An arena in which I am now given chance to practice my chivalry with a lower form of life before being sent on to other more grandiose feats of gallantry and fame.

  Tug-nothing – tug-nothing –

  I peered down into the pail of milk foam under the goat.

  Tug – Tug –

  Angeline’s udders had withered; I had milked her dry.

  I placed the brimming pail out of the way and then stood. I needed to elevate the moment so that its import would resound through my being and take hold in my fortitude, just to ensure I would not forget what I was up to. I moved in front of Angeline and dropped to a knee, bowing my head toward the floor.

  “I will be your Galahad, My Lady – your honorable knight and protector.”

  Angeline regarded me as I kowtowed.

  She hesitated, then stepped forward.

  I lifted my gaze and saw my own close reflection in the glistening orbs of her sand-colored eyes. She leaned and nibble-kissed my lips.

  Her whiskers tickled my nose.

  The moment was one of sacrosanctity and veneration mixed, as it admittedly was, with a touch
of brazen earthiness tossed in for good measure.

  I continued kneeling before my provisional angel.

  One felt the gods grinning down upon us.

  “Blah-ah,” sang Angeline. “Blah-ah.”

  And then, with a beatific grimace and stamp of her hoof, she discharged a stream of licorice-black pellets onto my freshly washed floor.

  A SLATE PLACARD HUNG on the door of the guest cabin. It read – Past Link. I took this to be abbreviational for Pastor Linklater, and so, after running my fingers through my hair, and giving my face a hasty spit bath, I rapped my knuckles against the wood.

  A moment passed in which could be heard some muffled kerfuffle on the other side, and then the door opened a crack, revealing the ghostly phizog of said-listed occupant.

  “Yes?”

  I smiled and held up the pail and a pewter mug. “Pardon me, Parson. It is I, Hoper Newfangle, fetching you your milk.”

  He studied me quizzorily, then the pail. “Milk?”

  “Yes. From the Shining Redemption’s nanny goat.”

  Perplexity wrinkled his brow.

  “You have not been receiving your daily portion?”

  He made a face and shook his head.

  “Well, there must have been some misunderstanding with the previous milkman. (The split-lipped lout!) But henceforward I will ensure that you receive the gifts proffered you from your church’s animal. I apologize for not remedying the situation earlier in the voyage.”

  He tipped his head, absently regarding the frothy pail in my hand.

  The ship swayed and creaked.

  He braced himself against the doorframe, but otherwise made no move.

  “May I bring it inside,” I offered, “and serve you while it is still warm?”

  “Oh, of course.” He opened the door. “Please come in.”