With our shepherd’s staffs, we herd the goats to a field next to the farmyard by the Big Tree—a hollow fiscus tree hundreds of years old. Shebina often tags along to protect us from mean neighborhood dogs. This is our favorite part of the day. For two hours, all we need to do is make sure that none of the goats wander too close to the neighbors’ vegetable patch by the creek. Other than that, we have complete freedom. No adults.
Out here, under the morning sun, we can talk about whatever we want, laugh, jump off rocks, slay dragons, call down fire from Heaven to burn our enemies, fight pirates—and there is no one telling us, “Stop laughing. Are you being foolish? What are you talking about? That’s foolishness!”
I make up wild pirate tales, and Patrick willingly acts out his part. Our staffs are excellent props; they can be anything from pirate swords to Moses’s rod to a royal scepter. Also, they’re good for digging under rocks to find squirmy bugs. But our favorite story to play is Heaven’s Girl, a series of comics that Grandpa’s written especially for us children.
Heaven’s Girl is our superhero and teen model. In the illustrations, Marie Claire, aka Heaven’s Girl, is fifteen and dressed in a see-through toga that barely covers her bum. She’s beautiful and carries a shepherd’s crook—an End-Time prophetess with supernatural powers. We wait with eager anticipation for each monthly installment, which arrives with the adults’ Mo Letters. The story begins a few years into the future, in 1989, at the start of the Great Tribulation described in Revelations, a final reckoning whose date has been prophesied by Grandpa. Heaven’s Girl is captured and gang-raped by a troop of Antichrist soldiers before they toss her into the lion’s den:
“It sure seems like a waste to feed such a pretty girl like this to the lions!” one of the soldiers said to his companions.
“You know what, I was just thinking the same thing,” another one added.
“Yeah, why should the lions get to enjoy her before we do?” several of them piped up! “What do you say, Commander, how about if we have a little fun with her first?”
Heaven’s Girl submits willingly to the rape and whispers in the soldiers’ ears about Jesus, which makes two of the soldiers feel guilty. They come back to rescue her from the lion’s den, but when they arrive, they find her unharmed. Jesus gave her the strength to lift the heavy stone that covered the exit and escape. The soldiers convert on the spot and join her as disciples, helping her escape into the wilderness.
Over and over, Heaven’s Girl escapes the Antichrist, using sex to survive and gain influential protectors, leading God’s people and performing the miracles of Moses: starting storms, calming storms, calling fire, blinding her enemies, all with her shepherd’s staff. Thrilling! Patrick and I read each story over and over until we nearly memorize them. They are much more exciting than the Picture Bible we’ve read a million times.
After we role-play the latest installments, it’s time to bring the goats back from grazing. Then the real work begins.
Patrick and I grab a heavy shovel and bamboo broom and drag a dirty wicker basket that’s as high as our waists. The shovels are as tall as us and made all of iron, so they are hard to lift when empty, much less when full of cow manure. We have the least coveted task of mucking out all the animal stalls.
Some of our rich System friends bought a donkey and pony for their kid but soon discovered they were not equipped to handle them, so they gave the animals to us.
Sammy, our unusually large pony, is easy enough. Patrick, Mary, and I have been learning to ride on him. But our donkey, Don Quixote, or Mad Max as the boys now call him, is no little burro that went to Bethlehem, no sir. He is all muscle, with a tummy like a barrel. His back is higher than my head, and he has short, rough gray hair. And he is mean as a snake. He’ll bite anyone who gets in range.
We also have three Australian quarter horses that my father got from the Macau Jockey Club when they retired. Shadow, a sweet, calm horse; Marcus, cantankerous and crafty; and Taurug, a huge dinosaur of a beast who enjoys taking an occasional nip at passersby.
We don’t enjoy mucking stalls, but we don’t dally. We are racing the sun; after 10:00 a.m., no one can work outside in the blistering heat without getting sunstroke. We quickly shovel out poop from the horse stalls and lay fresh straw for them. But handling the cows isn’t as simple. They don’t poop out neat little balls of grass like the horses. They always have the runs. It comes out in a dark liquid stream that spreads into a round, ripple-y patty the size of a big pancake. If they’ve just done their business, you’ll never scrape it up. Just turn the hose on it full blast. But when it sets for a while, it forms a crust on the outside that holds it together. If the cows don’t step in them or smear them around, they’ll form into nice round patties, and we can test our skill.
Spotting my target, I tip the edge of my shovel under the lip of a patty, making sure the center is right in the middle. Then I scoop, with an unhesitating, smooth move, like ripping a tablecloth out from under a table of dishes. Shkeerrit. With the satisfying sound of iron moving across concrete, I have the entire patty in the shovel. Patrick cheers as I dump it into our basket, which we drag around after us, cow to cow.
When Patrick and I finish, we haul our baskets into a corner, where they’ll sit until the Friday manure run, using a cart that Uncle Jeff and Uncle Ashok built for Mad Max to pull. The cart has two big wheels, a front bench seat for the driver, and two hard wooden benches in the back along the sides.
On Saturday and Sunday, we take the donkey cart to the main road in front of Hac Sa beach, where the city’s #21A bus arrives, and give out free rides. Most of our passengers are locals from the city escaping to the beach for the food stalls that pop up along the road with ice pops and meat sticks. When people get in the cart, we give them posters about Jesus and try to get them to say a short prayer to ask Jesus into their hearts. It’s not easy to talk to people about Jesus when they are squealing with excitement at the cart’s movement; for most of the local children, this is the closest they will get to a live animal. So, we just give them posters and tell them to pray later.
Patrick and I have finished our chores and are just about to head back to the house when I’m knocked onto my butt by a gallon of water. Blinking my eyes open through the streams, I see Nehi and Caleb on the roof with an empty horse barrel, laughing themselves silly. I spot Patrick running for cover, which leaves me alone, exposed. Locking my jaw and squinting my eyes, I plot revenge. Water fights are frequent and have the bonus of keeping us cool in hundred-degree heat. No crappy squirt guns for us. The holder of the farm hose was king, but we will fight with jugs, buckets, and horse barrels.