The Legend of Bastien - Chapter 17 – They Don’t Teach That in School – Part 4 of 4

 

The Legend of Bastien

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 17 – They Don’t Teach That in School – Part 4 of 4

 

July fourth dawned hot and humid, but that didn’t stop the festival atmosphere that the entire town seemed to feel.  Even rain rarely shut down a festival completely and there was no rain in the forecast for that day.  Just heat, and plenty of it.  The first band of the day was in full swing on the village green by nine in the morning, and there were people dancing the moment their first tune started.  Before long, the entire village green was packed with people.  All of them having a great time.

“Where’s Chrissy?” Billy asked angrily.  Not seeing his play toy or even Judy and her family.

“I guess he’s not here yet,” his father replied.

“I’m tired of waiting!” Billy said.  “It’s been over a month!  Almost two months.  He belongs to me!”

The sheriff looked at him but said nothing.  He was having trouble understanding why Billy was still so focused on Chrissy.  It made no sense.  Every time he thought about it, he realized how wrong he had been back in January by not butting a bullet into the boy’s head when the problem first started.  It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Tess wasn’t working at the Johnson’s house that day.  Almost nobody was working that day.  Instead, she was desperately wandering the green, looking for her son…and hoping at the same time that he wouldn’t appear.  She couldn’t imagine how bad this was going to be for him.  Her only saving grace in this was that hopefully, after today, it would all be over.  At least the part of her son being a chicken.  Hopefully!  In Bastien, you never knew about things like that.

“Tess!”

Tess looked up to see Betty heading for her.  The two women hugged.

“I don’t see you anymore,” Betty said.

“No.  They pick me up early in the morning and I don’t get home until late every day.  And so far, this is the first day I’ve had off.”

“And how about Chrissy?”

Tess paused then said.  “Don’t ask.  Please…don’t ask.”

It was about eleven in the morning when the sheriff noticed Deputy Mike’s truck pull up to the edge of the village green.  He didn’t miss the small closed-in cattle trailer Mike was towing behind his truck either.  As Mike and his family got out of the truck, he went over to talk to him.

“You about ready with this?” Tom asked Mike.

“All set,” Mike replied with a grin.  “I think you’re going to love what Judy’s done with him.  And I’ve got to admit.  She’s done a first-rate job of it.”

“Good,” Tom replied.  “I can’t wait, and Billy’s been hollering all over the place that he wants Chrissy back, so I think the sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Mike replied.  “Besides, with as hot as it is today, out here in the sun, I’m not sure how long Chrissy can hold up.”

“Why?”

“I’ll leave that for the surprise.  I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

The sheriff laughed.  “I’ll go find Billy.  How do you want to do this?”

“Do you want Billy to be on the stage announcing things again?” Mike asked.  “Or do you want me to do it all.”

“Is it anything that Billy can’t do?  I think it would look better if he did at least something with this.”

“That was our thought too,” Mike replied.  “And no, Billy should be able to handle most of it with no trouble.  But there are a few things I’d like to tell everyone that should only make the entire thing better.  When I’m done, I’ll hand the microphone back to Billy.  When you’re ready for us to start, just have Billy announce that we’re ready to show him off.  That’s about it.  Judy’s got something special planned with it, but the rest should be simple enough.”

“Okay,” Tom replied.  “I’ll find Billy.”  He turned to Judy.  “Good luck.”

It was about five minutes before the song ended and Billy took the stage, once again grabbing the microphone and everyone’s attention.  “Hey everyone,” he said.  “Judy Johnson has finally finished what she was doing with Chrissy and she’s ready to show him off.  If you remember, Chrissy was too chicken to try and insult me again, and Judy claimed she could show you all just how chicken he really is.  Now I know nobody has been allowed to see what she’s done with him, not even me, so I think it’s about time we all found out.”  He looked over toward Judy, standing at the back of the trailer behind her father’s truck.  “Judy.  Are you ready?”

Judy raised her arm in the air and let out a whoop of delight.  She and her father pulled the back of the trailer open, and Judy ran inside.  A few seconds later, she was back, pulling on a rope, but what was attached to that rope caught everyone by surprise.  To all appearances, it was the biggest chicken anyone had ever seen.

“Damn!” Billy exclaimed, not even believing it himself as he watched Judy, literally jogging, forcing Chrissy to run after her, while he flapped his big wings and squawked like a chicken.

Judy ran Chrissy through the crowd and across the entire front of the stage area before turning around and running him back in the opposite direction.  She turned him again and brought him back to the middle where everyone could see him clearly.  By that time, her father had taken the stage and the microphone. 

“What do you think of Chrissy?” Mike said into the microphone on stage.  “I don’t think anyone can get him to be more of a chicken than that.  In fact…Judy, show him how Chrissy has been eating since he left here a few months ago.”

Judy pulled a pouch of chicken feed from her waist and reached her hand in.  She pulled some out and held it low to the ground, right in front of Chrissy.  They had purposely not fed Chrissy that morning, and he was ready to drop from starvation.  All his attention was on that chicken feed and getting something, even that, into his stomach.

Judy bent down and made a small pile of it on the ground.  This was something that she had been doing with Chrissy for only the last week.  Chrissy, still focused on getting something to eat, flapped his wings for balance and immediately dropped to his knees.  His beak went to the ground over and over again as he lapped up the precious food for his stomach.  Everyone saw how Chrissy absolutely attacked it, his beak going up and down as he tried to eat it as fast as he could.

When Judy reached her hand into the sack again, Mike announced, “What Chrissy is eating is regular chicken feed.  The same thing we feed all our chickens.  Since we took Chrissy back in May, chicken feed is the only thing Chrissy has been allowed to eat, and since his arms have been pretty much nonexistent since then, the only way he’s been able to eat, is like a chicken.

Judy pulled a third handful of the chicken feed from her pouch and put it on the ground and Chrissy continued to eat it as fast as he could.

“Chrissy has been eating like a chicken and living like a chicken since May,” Mike explained.  “We even built him a big part of the chicken coop, complete with a nest for him to sit in while he sleeps…sitting up like a chicken.  In every way possible, Judy has tried to make Chrissy into a total chicken.  I don’t think there’s anything anyone could possibly do to make him even more of a chicken than that.”

“Wait!” Judy yelled excitedly as she stood up.  “There’s one more thing.  Even better!”

“Better?” Mike said, playing along with his daughter.

Chrissy had finished eating, and Judy pulled on the rope, forcing him to flap his big wings for balance and get back to his feet. 

“Watch this!” Judy said loudly for everyone’s benefit.  She pulled Chrissy a few feet toward the side of the stage, then turned to him and put her hand out flat toward the ground.  “Lay!” she commanded.

As Chrissy had been taught for the last few weeks, he squatted down and concentrated hard on what he was doing.  He pushed against his backside carefully until he felt one of the eggs she had put up inside him come out.  He squawked loudly, flapped his wings, and stood up again.  There were loud mutterings of amazement from the entire crowd.  Judy grabbed the egg, held it up, and squeezed, breaking it, and letting the contents drop to the ground.  The muttering from the crowed turned to laughing.

Billy grabbed the microphone from Deputy Mike.  “Hey!” he said loudly into it.  “Now that’s something you don’t see every day!  They sure don’t teach that in school.”  The crowd laughed again.

Judy pulled on Chrissy’s rope and ran him to another spot in the crowd.  “Lay!” she commanded.  Once again Chrissy flapped his wings, squatted, then flapped them again and stood up, revealing another egg for Judy to pick up and break.  Again and again, she led him around then made him lay his eggs.  Six eggs in total, while everyone laughed, not believing it. 

Chrissy was just glad all the eggs she had shoved up inside him just before loading him into the trailer that morning were gone.  That was one major bit of discomfort he didn’t need.  His bigger bit of discomfort though was starting to really hit him.  His chicken suit was hot.  And Judy had kept him running around, making him even hotter.  It was just another reason for him to pray that his ordeal would soon be over.

“I’ve got to admit,” Billy said over the microphone, “I think Judy did one first rate job with Chrissy.  I never would have imagined she could do something that good and go to that extent.  What do you say everyone?  Give her big hand!”

While everyone laughed and applauded, Judy held Chrissy’s rope and bowed and curtsied all over the place.  When the music started playing again, she slowly led Chrissy around through the crowd to show him off or answer questions.

Yes, the crowd had all laughed.  Most of them were still laughing.  But at the same time, knowing what they did about Chrissy, most people felt it was simply disgusting. 

One other person wasn’t too pleased by the display either.  Evelyn.  Evelyn was boiling mad.  She was going to kill Judy for what she had done.  And now she had to find something even worse that she could do to Chrissy, because she knew without a doubt, that Judy had just moved into the number one spot to someday become Billy’s wife, and she wasn’t going to allow that under any circumstances.

“Disgusting!” Betty muttered quietly to Tess.  Tess said nothing about it.  What could she say?  She and Betty just stood back out of the way and watched as Judy led Chrissy around between all the people, showing him off.

As the day grew warmer, and with none of his usual bottles to drink that day, the heat was really building up inside Chrissy’s chicken suit.  He was beginning to feel weak and faint from it.  Unfortunately, so far, it didn’t look like Judy was ready to stop showing him off anytime soon.

While Chrissy was being circulated around through the crowd, Billy went directly to Deputy Mike, who was talking with his father.  “I want him back!,” Billy said angrily.  “Now!  Just the way he was.”

Mike looked to the sheriff, then back to Billy.  “Sure, Billy,” he agreed.  “But even if we start right now, it’ll take us the rest of the day just to get that costume off him.  And then he’s been kept that way so long it’s going to take more time before he’s completely normal again.”

“I don’t care.  I want him back!”

Mike looked at him for a moment, knowing the sheriff would have his back on this.  “Will sometime tomorrow be alright?  We can’t get him out of that suit any sooner.  Some of it is literally glued onto him.”

“Billy!” Tom said to his son.  “You can wait!”

“Fine!” Billy conceded.  “But you better have him back and ready to do business tomorrow, just as usual.  And you can start by bringing him to the sheriff’s station, where I’ll be waiting.”

There was a small commotion in the middle of the green.  The sheriff and Mike both looked to see what was going on.  People were shouting.  A few women screamed.  “What the hell is that?” Tom said.

He and Mike ran right to the source of the problem.  When they got there, they saw Chrissy laying down on the ground.  Mike quickly checked his eyes.  “Shit!” he said.  The heat’s getting to him.  I was afraid of that.  Someone get me some water – fast!”

A bottle of water was delivered, and Mike literally poured it into Chrissy’s open beak.  It was the first water, or anything other than the nutrient drink that Chrissy had tasted since it had all begun back in May.  It took a few minutes, but before long, he was able to get Chrissy sitting up again, then finally to his feet.  “We’ve got to get him home and cooled off,” he said.  He looked to his daughter.  “I think it’s time,” he said.  “Let’s get him out of here.”

Tess was going crazy with worry seeing her son pass out like that.  She tried to get near him, but another of the deputies held her back.  She was so glad to see him finally sit up, then eventually get to his feet.  She wasn’t happy to see them lead him away by that rope around his neck, but at least they appeared to be leading him back toward the trailer.  A minute later, she watched as Mike drove off…and she wished like anything she could be there to watch out for her son, even if she wasn’t allowed to do anything.

The judge walked up and stood next to his son as they watched Chrissy being led away.  “I heard Billy wants him back right away,” the judge said.  “And in a way, I think it’s a shame.  We could have just stuck him in a chicken coop somewhere and forgot about him.  Haul him out once in a while for an object lesson and that’s it.”

“I’d still rather put a bullet in his brain,” Tom replied.

“The better option,” the judge agreed.  “But for some reason, both your mother and your wife seem convinced that we can’t…yet.  Myself, I don’t buy it.”

“Me either,” Tom replied.  “But I’ve got to live with my wife.”

“Huh!” the judge grunted.  “I live with Olivia.”

“Yeah, but you two hardly see each other.”

“True.  And that’s just the way I’ve always wanted it.”  He nodded towards where Mike had just driven Chrissy’s trailer away.  “And that’s the situation that Billy is probably going to wind up with someday too.  As much as I hate to say it, what Judy did was damn impressive.”

“I’d have to agree,” Tom replied.  “Alicia and I simply got lucky.  I liked her, and she liked me.  End of story.”

 

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Tess was beside herself with worry about Chrissy.  After he was driven away from the village green she went straight back to her simple little house where she sat and fretted with worry.  Was he okay?  He had to be!  He had to be just fine, because he had to live! 

It was late at night when her front door suddenly opened.  She saw Deputy Mike walk in…with his arm around her son, who looked…not good!

“Chrissy!” she exclaimed as she jumped up and ran to him.  Whether the deputy liked it or not, she grabbed him and hugged him tightly.  Her son had lost a lot of weight over the last six weeks and he stood there as if in a total daze.

“I suggest you get him something to eat and drink right away,” Mike told her.  “It took us forever to get all that stuff off him, and the glue Judy and Liz used was really tough to get off.  Oh, and you might want to get a proper diaper on him first.  I could be wrong, but he seems to have even less control than he did when we first took him.”

Tess now backed far enough away that she could see what he was wearing on his emaciated body.  The only thing he was wearing was a makeshift diaper made from an old towel.  And the front of it was wet.  “Come on, Chrissy,” she said gently as she put her arm around him and led him to his bed.  While Deputy Mike watched, she removed the makeshift diaper and put a cloth diaper on him along with some plastic pants.  Chrissy still seemed to be in a complete daze. 

“Got some coffee or anything?” Mike asked as Tess started pulling one of her lightweight nightgowns on him since it was now too hot for his usual flannel pajamas.  “The sheriff wanted me to stick around until you put Chrissy to bed for the night.”

Tess wanted to scream.  “Are you going to make me punish him too?” she asked angrily.

“Not tonight.  That will start again tomorrow night.  Everything starts again tomorrow, just like it was.  I’ll be here at ten in the morning to pick you and him up.  I’ll take him to the sheriff’s station and you to my house.  Everything just like before.”

Tess didn’t say it, but her only thought was that it wasn’t like before.  She was now Liz Johnson’s maid instead of the bank teller.

While the coffee was brewing, she sat Chrissy at the table and fixed him some leftovers from her refrigerator.  The food seemed to bring him out of his stupor enough that he ate it all as fast as he possibly could.  It was the first real food he had eaten in a long time, but the entire time he ate, he never looked at anyone or said a single word.

While Deputy Mike watched, she took him back to bed where she laid next to him and fed him a baby bottle of milk.  She finally hugged and kissed him again and pulled the covers over him.  He still hadn’t uttered a single word, and that worried Tess more than ever.

It was the first time an almost two months that Chrissy had laid down to sleep.  Laying down felt so good, and he was so exhausted.  As sleep overcame him in a drastic rush, his thoughts were still where they had mostly remained since he had been taken from the village green earlier that day.  It was all he could think about.  He wanted to die now, more than ever.  After what he had just been through for the last six weeks, he didn’t know how he could live with himself anymore.  He just wanted to die and be done with it.  But…his mother….

He was out like a light before his mother left the room.  The oblivion of sleep overtook him.  After so many weeks, his sore arms bent back into their chicken wing configuration, and he slept – lying down.