The wealthy boy did not seem arrogant or mean, so the poor boy sat down on the grass next to him and listened to the beautiful song of the singing mans in blue.
His female man seemed quite affected by the music; her eyes were closed as she listened, and her hips moved back and forth. The boy shouted a command, and she sat, but even while sitting, her hips continued to move.
The wealthy boy smiled at the female man. “She likes it. Maybe she is in heat.”
The poor boy said, “What is in heat?”
“I’m not sure,” the wealthy boy said, “but I used to have a female man who acted that way when they sang, and my parents said she was in heat. And then they had her fixed.”
“What is fixed?”
“I don’t know,” laughed the wealthy boy. “But after she came back, she cried every time they sang. I think it has something to do with babies.”
“Babies?”
The wealthy boy pointed to her moving hips. “She’s a female man. She can have baby mans.”
The poor boy hadn’t thought of that, but he liked the idea.
“She’s the best fighter in the whole world. She’ll have lots of fighting baby mans.”
The wealthy boy nodded. “I saw her fight. She’s very good.”
The poor boy nodded. “She’s the best in the world.”
“Is she going to fight at the circus?”
“My father wants her to, but my mother says no.”
“She should fight. She’s good. She would win.”
“She beat seven in a row today. She beat them bloody. She knocked their teeth out. But my mother says it is cruel.”
The wealthy boy grinned. “Yes, I saw it.”
“Would you like her to fight one of your mans?” the poor boy offered.
The singing mans had stopped singing for some time now, and two of them were sitting on the grass listening as the boys talked.
The wealthy boy shook his head. “No, no, no, these are not fighting mans. These mans are very delicate. The circus pays us to have them sing.”
The poor boy laughed and said, “Coward.” But he said it in a way that was friendly and not mean.
“My sensitive and delicate little mans would be eaten alive if they tried to fight yours,” laughed the wealthy boy.
“She would eat them for lunch,” laughed the poor boy.
“I didn’t know mans were cannibals.” The wealthy boy snorted with mirth.
“She only eats sensitive and delicate singing mans dressed in blue,” kidded the poor boy. Then he said, “Where is your other man? Isn’t one of your mans missing?”
The poor boy was right. The one with the lidless eyes was missing.
And the wealthy boy asked the poor, “Where is your man?”
The poor boy turned to the empty space beside him. His female man was gone.
A short distance away, concealed by the rise of a low hill, their two missing mans were found, but entangled in such a way as the poor boy had never seen. The pale-skinned man in blue with the nearly lidless eyes was riding the back of his female man, who was emitting a rhythmic, shushy breath through her mouth.
The poor boy asked, “What are they doing?”
“I don’t know,” replied the wealthy boy, “but I don’t like it. I think she’s hurting him.”
“But he’s on top.”
They watched for a few more seconds until the man with the lidless eyes contorted and began to groan. The female man closed her eyes and yelped, burying her face in the grass.
The two boys had seen enough. They shouted harsh commands and spanked their mans, separating them.
Then they replaced their loin pouches, said goodbye to each other, and went each to his own home.
That evening, the boy was wroth with his female man.
When she came to him with big, apologetic eyes, he shook his head. When she came to him and rested her head on his chest the way she did when she wanted to be petted, he pushed her away.
When she brought the small singing harp into his room, he said, “Okay, girl, you want to be friends again? Okay. Good girl.”
And in the boy’s bedroom his female man played the small singing harp and made it sing. He did not know why, but she was playing the same song over and over. He did not recognize the tune, though it was beautiful and vaguely familiar.
Evening became night, and eventually the boy fell asleep.
It was only the next day, as he was on his way to school, that the boy realized the song that she had been playing was the song he had heard the three mans in blue singing earlier that day at the field.
She began to change after that, but the boy did not notice until a month later.
Her diet had shifted. She was eating more often — she was stealing their food. She would even steal a piece of dried meat from the cupboard once in a while, which was cannibalism. She was gaining weight.
He took her to the field on a day when there was no school, and she lost two fights in a row.
He found a stick and spanked her with it to make her fiercer. He made her growl and show her teeth. He sent her into two more fights and she lost them both. Four in a row. That had never happened before.
“Maybe you’re sick,” he told her as he walked home holding her hand. Her eye bruised, her nose leaking blood, she was too exhausted to flinch when they were pelted with pebbles and provoked with jibes and hoo-haws by the wealthy boys who had triumphed at last over the poor boy and his mighty champion.
As tears spilled from her emerald eyes, the boy promised her, “You’re sick, but when you feel better we’ll be back. We’ll teach those guys a lesson.”
Yet her tears kept falling. He had never seen her like this.
He gave her what he thought was ample time to heal — a week — and he took her to fight again. But she had lost all interest in fighting and refused to do it.
He spanked her with the stick to make her fiercer, he even poked her with the stick, but she let the other mans pummel and scratch her flesh until she was shedding blood along with her tears. She would not lift a hand to her own defense. Each time the boy was forced to stop it by crying surrender. It was another bad day at the fights. She lost three in a row that day.
The wealthy boys cackled with glee and pinked their tongues rudely as the poor boy walked his badly beaten fighting man home in a hail of pebbles and hoo-haws.
And she was playing the small singing harp every evening in his room — the same song the three singing mans in blue had sung that day at the field.
When he went into the backyard to feed her one morning before school, she was not there.
He went to her sleeping tent under her favorite tree, and she was not there. He went back into the house to look for her because on evenings when it was cold, she would come inside and sleep under his bed or under the couch in the grand room near the fire. He looked everywhere in the house, and she was not there.
He said to himself, Now, I hope she didn’t jump the fence again.
Puzzled, he went back outside, and she was in her tent as if she’d been there all along.
She was grateful for her food, which she devoured, and then she held out her bowl to him for more. He replenished her bowl with vegetables and grain, and as he watched her eat, he said, “I see you’re very hungry. I guess you jumped the fence to go look for food. Don’t do that. The authorities will pick you up. You’ll get in trouble. If you’re hungry, come into the house and wake me. Okay?”