Coop_ A Year Of Poultry, Pigs, And Parenting Part 6

At the far end of the valley I begin the looping climb back, topping out in a patch of popple. And now I'm crying. I wish he had let me know. I wish I could have seen him one more time. The usual selfishness of grief. I am not angry, I am yearning. Overhead the tree trunks fork their dusty white bark into sunlit greenery, the newborn leaves limp and luminescent somewhere just short of chartreuse. A s.h.i.+fting scatter of light plays across my head and shoulders, and I am grateful for the cathedral feel of this place. Grateful that I might grieve in natural sanctuary.

I have a good sweet weep. Then I walk back to the house. I want to hold Jane. Feel life in my arms.

A few days later I am on my way out the door to hook up the electric fencer. Anneliese is on the couch with Amy. They are reading Beetle McGrady Eats Bugs! Beetle McGrady Eats Bugs! "Stink bugs taste like apples!" says Amy. "I'll take your word for it," I say. "Stink bugs taste like apples!" says Amy. "I'll take your word for it," I say.

I've mounted the fencer on a post inside the pole barn, to keep it out of the rain. The power unit is an unremarkable plastic cube the size of a half-pint ice cream box. When I plug it in, a pinpoint green light glows on and off, indicating that the fence circuit is complete. The fencers of my childhood were more the size of a twelve-pack, and were commonly housed in stylized tin shrouds. One resembled the front fender of a Ford Fairlane. Another of my favorites was dusty blue with a silver-riveted logo plate and a fat orange indicator light that eased languorously from lit to unlit. I used to stand in the barn at dusk staring up at the deliberate amber blink and imagine the unit was an advance robot broadcasting homing pulses to the distant mother s.h.i.+p. Dad's first fencer was called a Weedburner, an apt name considering that shortly after he plugged it in, flames swept the pasture and there were fire trucks in the back forty. In a nod to my father's frugality, years later I would be out fencing and find myself threading the wire through partially melted insulators remnant of the fire.

Unlike many a curious farm boy, I swear I have never peed on an electric fence. I am told this blows a very specific fuse. Perhaps the act prevents prostate cancer-a longitudinal study is in order, challenge number one being the location of subjects willing to 'fess up. I do remember walking down the barnyard lane with a steel can of Off! Off! and trying to see how close I could run it past the fence without making contact, a diversion that lost its appeal when I got knocked to my knees. To test the steadiness of his hand, my brother Jed once formed a circle around the wire with his fingers and took off walking only to zap himself flat, establis.h.i.+ng that neither his intellect nor his fine motor skills would qualify him as a brain surgeon. One of the Carlson boys used to check to see if the fence was energized by slapping at it with his open palms. He swore that if you touched it quickly enough the shock was minimal. We a.s.signed him special powers until the day he mistimed his swat and his hands clenched around the wire in an electrified spasm. The current would break just long enough for him to begin unwrapping his fingers, then the "on" cycle would hit and his hands would seize into fists again. Hearing the howls, his father ran to detach him. and trying to see how close I could run it past the fence without making contact, a diversion that lost its appeal when I got knocked to my knees. To test the steadiness of his hand, my brother Jed once formed a circle around the wire with his fingers and took off walking only to zap himself flat, establis.h.i.+ng that neither his intellect nor his fine motor skills would qualify him as a brain surgeon. One of the Carlson boys used to check to see if the fence was energized by slapping at it with his open palms. He swore that if you touched it quickly enough the shock was minimal. We a.s.signed him special powers until the day he mistimed his swat and his hands clenched around the wire in an electrified spasm. The current would break just long enough for him to begin unwrapping his fingers, then the "on" cycle would hit and his hands would seize into fists again. Hearing the howls, his father ran to detach him.

On one of my prior Farm & Fleet runs, I purchased an electric fence tester consisting of a slim grounding wand connected by a coated wire to a plastic paddle tipped with a copper terminal. You stick the wand in the dirt and touch the terminal to the wire. There are four indicator lights mounted in the paddle; the more zap your fence generates, the more lights are illuminated. Sadly, despite the fact that I quite uncharacteristically read and reviewed the written instructions during both the installation of the fencer and the wiring of the three ground posts, I can only get two of four lights to illuminate. I recheck the wire from fencer to the farthest termination point-all clear. I recheck the ground posts-everything is in order. Still only two lights. I have no idea if that's hog-worthy.

In the end, I test it the way the old-timers taught me. Plucking a leaf of green quack gra.s.s, I grip it between my thumb and forefinger way back at the stem end and lay the pointy end across the wire. Then I slowly push the green blade forward until I feel the first faint tingle. What you've got here is an organic rheostat. As the quack blade advances, the resistance decreases, and you get a better zap. How far you keep pus.h.i.+ng is up to you. When my knuckles are about four inches from the wire it feels like someone is snapping me in the wrist with a rubber band. I figure that'll hold pigs.

My plan had been to get back at the work waiting in the office, but I dive straight into fencing the garden. The rabbit population around here has been exploding. With no barrier they'll decimate our vegetables. And the planting season is nearly upon us. At least these are the things I am telling myself. There is some truth to it, but there is an unquestionable element of escapism. When I get way behind on deadlines and responsibilities as I am now, I rather perversely throw myself into physical labor, which yields palliative sweat and tangible progress even as I fall farther behind.

While shuffling through a pile of mail and miscellaneous papers beside the telephone today, I came across some scribbled notes. They were in Anneliese's hand, and appeared to be the rough draft for a set of talking points: tired baby/tired mom/7-year-old = frustrated mom...things you can do... tired baby/tired mom/7-year-old = frustrated mom...things you can do... The subsequent notes essentially sketched out something that Anneliese brought up recently, saying she appreciates everything I am doing to pay the rent and prepare for having animals, but sometimes she wonders if I'm using work as a hideout. It made me crabby that she would even suggest such a thing, because of course it is true. I can provide plenty of justification-a man must Provide, soon I'll be on the road again, yada yada-but there is no question I find refuge in the work, and I'm not sure I've got it in me to change on that front. I love to put my head down and bull. The subsequent notes essentially sketched out something that Anneliese brought up recently, saying she appreciates everything I am doing to pay the rent and prepare for having animals, but sometimes she wonders if I'm using work as a hideout. It made me crabby that she would even suggest such a thing, because of course it is true. I can provide plenty of justification-a man must Provide, soon I'll be on the road again, yada yada-but there is no question I find refuge in the work, and I'm not sure I've got it in me to change on that front. I love to put my head down and bull.

Amy appears, apparently still ruminating on the bugs of Beetle McGrady. "Mommy says when she was in Mexico she ate a taco with crickets!" She is bursting with wonder and admiration. I wonder how often Anneliese wishes she were back in Mexico or even her Talmadge Street house and not saddled with an irritable self-employed scribbler wiring slapdash pigpens up a dead-end road.

Plunging into the garden plot, I rip up last year's weeds and clear the overgrowth from the perimeter. Then, using a posthole digger, a level, and a two-by-two tamper, I set the poles (salvaged from where I found them leaning in a corner of the pole barn) solid and square in the dirt. Next I dig a trench so I can bury the bottom few inches of the fencing to prevent the rabbits from tunneling under. After stretching and stapling the fencing in place, I fill the trench and stomp the dirt down flat all around. Lastly I rig a gate. I keep my head down, working steadily, sweating and not stopping. There is far more in play here than work ethic. A teacher of psychology once reviewed my behavior over the long term and pegged me for bipolar-it strikes me that this desire to hide out by hooking oneself to the plow may be nothing more than the manifestation of mania. I once knew a woman whose manic swings drove her to don scarlet clothes and makeup and dance the downtown streets, whereas your manic Scandinavian will dig postholes.

With the garden enclosed, I bring out the rototiller. For the next half hour I wra.s.sle it back and forth until the patch is fluffed and soft and ready for seeds. Anneliese has been reading up on reduced tillage, mulching, and cover crops, and we intend to move that way, but for now the plowboy in me is soothed by the pillowy look of the churned earth. I step back for a moment to take it in and am heartened by the solid set of the posts and the taut lines of the well-stapled wire. I am forever cobbling things together-it feels nice to look at a job and think it might last. Amy has stripped down to her underpants, lain flat out in the fresh-tilled soil, and is sweeping handfuls of dirt over her legs and tummy. I start to tell her no, then walk away and leave her to it, one of the better decisions I've made all day.

I store the rototiller and walk into the house, dirty, sweaty, thirsty, hungry, and surprised to find several hours have pa.s.sed. Upstairs I can hear Anneliese pacing and Jane crying. I wash up and take the baby. Laying her belly-down along the length of my forearm, I grip her torso with my hand. We call this the football hold, and it is the one thing I seem to be able to do well, babywise. Her arms and legs dangle awkwardly, but she nearly always settles and quietens, and does so now. Perhaps it is simple syncope. Soon she is asleep.

My mother-in-law and sister-and-law are in the kitchen making venison stir-fry. When it's ready we eat on the deck overlooking the valley. Jane is awake again and happily gurgling. We're letting her air her little hinder out, and she celebrates her diaperless freedom by peeing on the tablecloth. A minor diversion compared to this morning, when I was was.h.i.+ng her on the changing table and with neither wink nor warning she ejected a rope of p.o.o.p that arced into the wall six feet away. A true hydraulic marvel.

After the hot, sticky afternoon, storms have begun working either side of the valley and pus.h.i.+ng a cool breeze before them. It's nice, all of us out here together, eating and talking, laughing with the baby. I get going on the pigpen, or the garden fence, and from some imaginary omniscient perch I look down and see a man toiling on behalf of his family, forgetting that sometimes what the family needs is a man sitting still.

In the summer of 1989 I lodged with Tim's parents for a stretch. I was trying to become a writer at the time, and began every morning in the front room, drinking tea beside a glowing coal grate and clacking away on a manual typewriter lent me by Tim's mom. Tim had only recently moved out, and his turntable and a collection of vinyl alb.u.ms remained on a low shelf beneath the windows that opened out to the street and front garden. Slice by vinyl slice, I worked my way through the music. Last night while writing under deadline, serving the clock more than the muse, I procrastinated by going online to track down a copy of Marillion's Misplaced Childhood Misplaced Childhood, an alb.u.m I hadn't heard since those mornings on Longford Road. The tears came at the chorus of "Lavender" ("Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green..."), but they were tinctured with grat.i.tude that a song might so wholly transport me back to my friend.

And so this morning I spent an hour in the pole barn digging through the boxes where my music CDs have been stored since the move. Box by box I flip through the jewel cases, scanning the spines and pulling anything that evokes our long-gone days: the Waterboys, from my first visit in 1984. Simple Minds, for whom the Waterboys were opening the drizzly day we saw them in Milton Keynes Bowl. Avalon Avalon, by Roxy Music. Pink Floyd's Animals Animals and and The Final Cut The Final Cut (Tim put me onto these after finding me listening to (Tim put me onto these after finding me listening to Dark Side of the Moon Dark Side of the Moon for the sixth day in a row). Siouxsie and the Banshees. The Cure (thirty seconds into "Plainsong" and I am alone in the Longford Road front room at 3:00 a.m., staring out the window at yellow lamplight reflected on wet tarmac, the rain gone to mist). I pull a Bronski Beat alb.u.m so I can revive the wash of summer traffic and the scent of daffodils weaving through the second-story window of my British bedroom, matched forever with Jimmy Somerville singing "Smalltown Boy," his voice plasticky on the clock radio beside the bed as I wrote in a notebook and listened for the sound of Tim's car pulling in the drive. for the sixth day in a row). Siouxsie and the Banshees. The Cure (thirty seconds into "Plainsong" and I am alone in the Longford Road front room at 3:00 a.m., staring out the window at yellow lamplight reflected on wet tarmac, the rain gone to mist). I pull a Bronski Beat alb.u.m so I can revive the wash of summer traffic and the scent of daffodils weaving through the second-story window of my British bedroom, matched forever with Jimmy Somerville singing "Smalltown Boy," his voice plasticky on the clock radio beside the bed as I wrote in a notebook and listened for the sound of Tim's car pulling in the drive.

By the time I head back up to the office, the stack is such that I must steady it with my chin.

It's a fine line that separates wallowing from remembrance, but as I listen to the music for the rest of the day and into the night, I don't care. Track by track, I am back with Tim, riding shotgun in the left-hand pa.s.senger seat, strap-hanging on the Tube through London, or simply scuffing home from the local. It's a mind trick, and I'll take it. When the three-chord stomp of "Rollin' Home" comes thumping from the speakers, we are together again, driving back from a Status Quo show at the National Exhibition Centre, smiling young men on the road to who knows.

He wanted you to remember him as he was. A cliched phrase intended only for my comfort, I thought when I read it in the e-mail and heard it on the phone. But the music is working on me, and I'm beginning to understand. I'm thinking of Tim, dying in that room I knew so well. How in all our years of coming and going, we made it a point to never say good-bye. He knew if he called me about the cancer I would want to come over. If I had come right away, there might have been time for a few more nights, or a few more miles, but it would all be building to the inevitable stilted good-bye, my very presence reminding him he was bound to die. If I had gone over in the later stages, he would have been too far gone, in too much pain, and I would have done him little good. If I was unprepared for his death, I am just now realizing he wanted it that way. Tim fooled me. Fooled me beautifully, and gently. A cliched phrase intended only for my comfort, I thought when I read it in the e-mail and heard it on the phone. But the music is working on me, and I'm beginning to understand. I'm thinking of Tim, dying in that room I knew so well. How in all our years of coming and going, we made it a point to never say good-bye. He knew if he called me about the cancer I would want to come over. If I had come right away, there might have been time for a few more nights, or a few more miles, but it would all be building to the inevitable stilted good-bye, my very presence reminding him he was bound to die. If I had gone over in the later stages, he would have been too far gone, in too much pain, and I would have done him little good. If I was unprepared for his death, I am just now realizing he wanted it that way. Tim fooled me. Fooled me beautifully, and gently. He wanted you to remember him as he was He wanted you to remember him as he was, and I will, and do, because he gave me no other choice. He did not choose his death, but he chose his exit.

In a feeble effort to hold up my end of the domestic partners.h.i.+p, I am doing the dishes after supper and notice Amy wandering out the driveway with the dogs. In ten minutes she returns. Standing with the door open, she says, "Do ants have protein?"

"Yes, they do," I say, turning from the sink to look at her. "Why?"

"Because I ate one."

"Really!"

"It tasted sour."

So she chewed it, then.

The days have cycled through. The maple buds have unbundled. The hills are a green divan b.u.t.toned with cl.u.s.ters of bloom that foam up apple-tree pink and chokecherry white. After lunch I am trying to allow Anneliese a nap. She is upstairs, and I am downstairs with Jane across my lap. The deadlines have stacked up, so I am also trying to write, the computer balanced on my knees. But of course I can do little more than study the baby. Her sleepy tics, her bursts of rapid eye movement, her bow-perfect lips, her candy-floss hair glinting auburn in the sun. Her nose is resting on her knuckles, and her head rocks slightly with each breath drawn. I am playing music on the laptop: Innocence Mission. The volume is way down. The song sounds tinny and faint. I am studying Jane's impossible ear-this perfect miniature conch, a leaf just partially unfurled-when the final chorus repeats, barely audible: "this is the brotherhood of man...this is the brotherhood of man...this is the brotherhood of man..." When I turn my eyes to the valley below the big window, it is beautiful for a moment and then all the blooms and green dissolve in a watercolor wash.

After a suitable interval, the guinea pig whistles and flips his purple plastic igloo.

CHAPTER 6.

Today a dog bit me grievously upon the a.s.s. I apologize for the salty talk, but it was a galvanic moment. grievously upon the a.s.s. I apologize for the salty talk, but it was a galvanic moment.

I was wrestling a pig at the time.

So-two firsts in one day.

I have had my heart set on owning pigs for a while now, but as with so many of my projects, reality has taken a backseat to cogitation. A lovely thing, to sit back and ponder what One Shall Accomplish without having to actually lace one's boots. To price sausage makers prior to carrying a single bag of feed.

Farmers though we are, my family is short on pig experience. Dad didn't care for the smell of them, so we never raised any. Most of the farmers around here used to keep a sow or two, but they were being slowly phased out in favor of cows and crops by the time we came on the scene. I have a fragmentary memory of peeking into a penful of piglets over at the Norris North place when I was a toddler. Dad may have lifted me to look over the barrier, because I retain an omniscient perspective of the litter startling below me, shunting away in a single flowing motion, like a school of frantic pink minnows.

My sister Kathleen and her husband Mark have raised a couple of pigs each of the last few years. Mark does the butchering himself, using his skid-steer bucket to hoist the carca.s.ses for the evisceration and skinning. My brother John hasn't raised pigs for a while, but he often tells the story of the first pair he butchered. They were brothers from the same litter and had shared the pen every day of their lives. On butchering day John shot the first pig between the eyes, and by the time it hit the ground, the other pig was licking up the blood and nibbling at the bullet hole. John used to raise his eyebrows and reenact the scene as if he were the bemused survivor: "Huh! Fred died!"

Then, half a beat later and still in character, he'd brighten: "Let's eat 'im!"

My youngest brother Jed raised pigs for several years but recently sold them all with the exception of his favorite sow, Big Mama. The sow hasn't farrowed for a while, but he keeps her on pension because he doesn't have the heart to s.h.i.+p her. Big Mama is approximately the circ.u.mference of a backyard LP tank and nearly as long. These days she is docile and grunty, but when she was younger, Big Mama had a litter and began to savage them. Our family grew up reading the wonderful James Herriot veterinarian books, and someone recalled a story from All Things Wise and Wonderful All Things Wise and Wonderful in which an old farmer dealt with this very problem by procuring a bucket of ale from the nearest pub and letting the pig drink herself docile. in which an old farmer dealt with this very problem by procuring a bucket of ale from the nearest pub and letting the pig drink herself docile.

Having neither pub nor beer at hand, the boys sent Dad to town for a twelve-pack. This was great fun in light of Dad's teetotaling ways, which had become quite public a few years back when one of the inc.u.mbent town board members encouraged him to take his turn as a public servant and Dad agreed, but first vowed he would never sign a liquor license. No problem, said the official, only two of the three people on the board are required to sign. Dad was elected to the board, and sure enough shortly thereafter one of the other two board members needed a liquor license. Ordinances stipulate that you can't sign your own liquor license, so Dad was on the spot. He didn't sign. So you can appreciate the murmur when New Auburn's one-man temperance union approached the counter at the Gas-N-Go and plonked down a case of Ol' Mil. I imagine the word reverberating up and down the street: "Seriously! Bob Perry! Swear t'G.o.d! Hittin' the barley pop!" "Seriously! Bob Perry! Swear t'G.o.d! Hittin' the barley pop!"

But the sow guzzled the beer, and it did the trick. With half a jag on, she let the piglets nurse in peace. Everyone was happy: the sow got a snootful, the piglets got dinner, and my brothers got themselves a good story to tell. As did the garbageman, when he dumped Bob Perry's recycling bin the following week and noted a smattering of crushed beer cans.

In all the buildup to getting pigs I have pretty much exhausted the reserves of my brothers and brother-in-law, peppering each with question after question regarding the housing, care, and feeding of porkers. Fortunately they are men of patience who furthermore have learned over the long term that their indulgence will be amply repaid by the quality of entertainment provided by my incompetence once I get rolling. These are men who can build things and fix things. I am convinced they frequently convene outside my presence to compare notes and shake their heads in wonder. They have so far stopped short of poking me with sticks.

So I have been talking pigs for months. But now the time has come. I had visions of myself trundling the pigs home in the back of Irma, my 1951 International pickup, but I still haven't fixed the carburetor, so I will take my mother-in-law's Chevy. Amy clambers happily into the truck beside me.

The last time I visited Equity Cooperative Livestock Sales, I was the same age as Amy. Dad didn't come here too often. He usually s.h.i.+pped cows and calves with a hauler, and when he had lambs to sell he drove them to the stockyards in St. Paul himself. (Sometimes I got to make the trip. I remember sitting beside Dad as the truck labored east on I-94 and he taught me to identify the make of the oncoming big rigs by the shape of their hood ornaments. We'd keep a running tally in his pocket spiral notebook. It's a game I still play and have taught Amy, but consolidation has taken most of the fun out of it-whither Autocar...Marmon...Diamond Reo?) But when it came to cull ewes, they weren't worth the s.h.i.+pping cost or the mileage to Minnesota, so he'd bring them to Equity. Plus, he told me recently, the sale barn provided a day of cheap entertainment for us kids. Like the zoo, with no admission fee or cotton candy vendors.

Today the rigs-mostly dusty four-wheel-drive pickups hooked to aluminum goosenecks-are of a different vintage, but they clog the parking lot in the same arrangement I recall from thirty years ago. When Amy and I step out of the pickup the gravel is white in the sun. All the empty trucks and trailers lend the lot a detached stillness, implying as they do that all the action is inside, out of sight.

I have arranged to meet a man named Kenneth Smote. Kenneth's last name always conjures some past-tense act of G.o.d. In fact, Kenneth is an atheist goat farmer and retired former chair of the local university psychology department, and father of my dear friend Frank. Over the years Kenneth has bought and sold goats at the sale barn, so I am hoping he can guide me through the process. Between critters, I envision an energetic discussion of fixed action patterns, specifically as they relate to the principles of imprinting as proposed by Konrad Lorenz-even more to the point, what are the odds that any given feeder pig will develop a lasting attachment to my favorite rubber barn boots? While we wait outside for Kenneth, I tell Amy that the sale barn used to be located well out into the countryside. The barn itself has not moved, but now it is within hollering distance of a mall. To the unexpected wrinkles of existence add the fact that slaughter hogs are available three minutes from Victoria's Secret.

Kenneth arrives in a worn gray Nissan sedan. An erudite man of comprehensive intellect known to write pleasantly eviscerative letters to the editor of the local paper, Mr. Smote nonetheless cuts an unprepossessing figure and comports himself likewise. He presents himself this morning in green coveralls, a c.o.c.keyed St. Louis Cardinals ball cap, and a wispy beard. After a pleasant h.e.l.lo and introductions-he and Amy have not met previously-we walk through the gla.s.s double doors of the foyer and up the steps to the sale ring.

Dad was right about the sale barn as entertainment. The minute I hit the steps and smell the manure and sawdust, my pulse quickens. The seats are stair-stepped around three sides of the ring nearly to the ceiling. The front row seats are cus.h.i.+oned and fold down just like in a movie theater. The auctioneer sits ensconced in a stagelike enclosure with a microphone propped before him. There are cows in the ring when we enter, and we watch for a while to get a sense of the rhythm of the sale and figure out the bidding. Each cow comes in through a gate on the left, takes a few turns around the dirt while the auctioneer recites salient details, and then the bidding begins. The tension and gaming of the bidding charges the room. The rattle and rhythm of the auctioneer creates a breathless momentum, and now and then over the more organic scents we catch the smell of hot dogs and onions sold at the cafe downstairs. The bidding culminates, the winning bidder's number is recorded, the cow exits stage left, another enters stage right, and the drama begins anew. I've been to a fair amount of farm and household auctions in my day, but this was different. I couldn't keep track of the bidding, or grasp the process. We watch them sell cows for a long time. Then I take Amy out on the catwalk.

The catwalk is accessed through a door situated on the upper grandstand level. When you pa.s.s through the door and step out on the expanded steel grate you are essentially backstage, overlooking a vast holding area. Leaning over the pipe railing, we can see cows, calves, sheep, and goats. We look for pigs but don't see them. Finally, when we have traversed nearly to the end of the elevated walkway, we spot a pair of gigantic mama pigs, and a single litter of teensy ginger piglets. Trouble is, I'm looking for feeder pigs. They run about forty pounds. These big pigs are too too big, and the piglets are too small. And I have no idea what that size of pig is worth. Or how I bid for just one or two. I don't want to wind up with the whole batch. I did get a bidding number before I came in, but I realize I don't even know what to do if I win the bid, and Kenneth says it's been a while, so he's not sure either. Then I'm making my way back up the catwalk when I come nearly face-to-face with an old nemesis. The ex-boyfriend of a former flame. A man who makes me angry and queasy all at once. Worse, he is a crack cattle jockey with a sharp eye-he makes a living buying and selling livestock, and is utterly at home in the sale barn. The only thing worse than meeting a man you despise is meeting him in his triumphal arena with your daughter at your side. I cannot tell a lie, I am suddenly happy no feeder pigs are available. I have every excuse to scuttle on out the door and back into the light. I thank Kenneth for his time, bid him good-bye, and walk back to the truck with Amy. On a farm not far from here, I have seen a sign: "Pigs for Sale." big, and the piglets are too small. And I have no idea what that size of pig is worth. Or how I bid for just one or two. I don't want to wind up with the whole batch. I did get a bidding number before I came in, but I realize I don't even know what to do if I win the bid, and Kenneth says it's been a while, so he's not sure either. Then I'm making my way back up the catwalk when I come nearly face-to-face with an old nemesis. The ex-boyfriend of a former flame. A man who makes me angry and queasy all at once. Worse, he is a crack cattle jockey with a sharp eye-he makes a living buying and selling livestock, and is utterly at home in the sale barn. The only thing worse than meeting a man you despise is meeting him in his triumphal arena with your daughter at your side. I cannot tell a lie, I am suddenly happy no feeder pigs are available. I have every excuse to scuttle on out the door and back into the light. I thank Kenneth for his time, bid him good-bye, and walk back to the truck with Amy. On a farm not far from here, I have seen a sign: "Pigs for Sale."

I start the truck and we head that way.

The "Pigs for Sale" sign is still up, but there is no one home. I call the number on the sign. A man answers. No more feeder pigs, he says. Sold out. But try the guy over there on Randall Road. We drive on over. The farm is well kept and tidy. A man is mowing the lawn. "Guy up the road said you had some feeder pigs," I say after he shuts the mower down. "I do," he says. "I was just gonna send 'em to the sale barn tomorrow."

We walk into the barn through a pa.s.sageway beside the milk house. There is a doghouse at the entrance, with a big old c.o.o.nhound sitting at the door. He is secured with a heavy chain, but seems friendly enough, so Amy and I stop to pet him. He wags his tail and licks my hand. The barn is as neat inside as outside. The walk is limed, the farrowing stalls are clean, and the watering system is neatly plumbed. A good setup. Amy spots a sow with a litter of teeny piglets and naturally shoots right over there. "Oh, they're so cuuute cuuute!" she says. The feeders are in a pen on the other side of the barn, maybe six or eight of them, vigorous and alert. "Whaddya wantin' for 'em?" I ask, trying to sound all farmerish and hip. Inside, I am ridiculously nervous. Cripes, I've never bought livestock before. I wouldn't know a good pig from a bad pig if you hit the highlights with a laser pointer.

"I'm thinking forty-five bucks apiece," he says. Nervous as I am, I have been checking the market reports lately and know he's right in line. And if the state of the operation is any indication, these are fine pigs.

"I'll take two," I say.

I back the truck around to the pa.s.sageway, which reminds me of the tunnel leading to a football stadium. The farmer has stepped into the pen and begun cornering pigs with a wooden door, holding it in front of him as he advances until he has one trapped in the triangle. Good in theory, but they are zippy little critters, and it takes some grabbing and lunging before we get the first one.

We each grab a hind leg, carrying the pig down the walk and out the pa.s.sageway head-down. The moment a pig's hooves leave the ground it screams as if it is being scalded and will not stop until it has all four feet planted on a firm surface. In lieu of side racks, I have bent a cattle panel into a U-shape and secured it in the back of the truck with bungee cords. Hoisting the pig up to the tailgate, I am just reaching to lift the cattle panel when I feel a gigantic pinch on my b.u.t.t, followed immediately by the sense that a great weight is hanging off my back pocket. At first I am so busy wra.s.sling the pig, it doesn't register. But then the weight combines with the pain to buckle my knees, and I look over my shoulder. What I see is that hound-now transformed into a slavering Baskervillian meat grinder-masticating a Double Whopper's worth of my left b.u.t.t cheek.

I utter an oath. One of the big ones.

Then I reach back and punch the dog in the nose. Hard. I have to use my left fist because I am fighting to hold the pig hock in my right. I smack the dog again. And then again, even harder. My fist is pistoning. Finally he turns me loose. I go right back to wra.s.sling the pig. The second we get her inside the panel she goes quiet, snuffling at the bed liner like she's been there all afternoon. For all their screeching, pigs have a remarkable off switch.

My b.u.t.t feels like it got sent to the laundry and run through a pressing mangle. It hurts so bad I can't walk right. The farmer is looking at me quizzically. "Dog bit me," I say.

"Whaaat?" In all the pig-scuffle, he didn't notice. "He's never done that before!" says the farmer, and based on his look of genuine dismay, I believe him. I figure it was us hauling that screaming pig past his nose that got the dog worked up. Probably triggered some primal killing neuron. Confronted with a stranger pilfering a protesting pig, the dog just snapped and went after the most prominent target.

Obviously embarra.s.sed, the farmer helps me load the other pig. We skirt the dog widely. My b.u.t.t has developed a bone-deep ache, and I hitch my giddyup to avoid contracting the glute. I nonetheless manage to keep up the small talk as we go around to the front of the truck and complete the transaction. Using the hood as a desk, I write out the check. I ask the farmer if I need to worm the pigs. He says he would. I ask him what kind of feed he's using. He tells me and fetches half a bag to get me started. I write the check out for an extra five bucks, and we're on our way.

The pigs ride home easy. The cattle panel works perfectly. I look back several times expecting they will be alarmed or skittering around, but they are riding happily, their snoots angled up and out to take in the view, their ears flapping in the wind.

When I get home, the b.u.t.t pain is unmitigated. By craning my neck I can see tooth holes in the canvas, but no blood, so I go about unloading the pigs. I have been told they are remarkably adaptable animals, and they are proving it. Backing the truck up to the pen, I go after some wire and fencing pliers, and by the time I return they're snoozing like they've never had such soothing accommodations. "Can I mark them?" asks Amy. At first I don't see what she's getting at-then I recalled her helping Grandpa Bob mark the lambs. "Sure," I say, and she runs off for her carton of sidewalk chalk. She is back quickly, scruffing the chalk across their backs so now they each have pink and green stripes. I have to grab them by the back legs to lower them from the truck and they screech again, but go quiet as soon as they make contact with the turf. Scuttling off, they stand motionless in the shoulder-high burdock, grunting quizzically, first one and then the other, back and forth, as if they are having a conversation. Amy points to the one farthest away, a barrow. "That one's Wilbur!" Then she points to the gilt. "And that one's c.o.c.klebur!"

Old-timers will tell you it's a bad idea to name your butcher animals. I lower myself gingerly down to one knee-my hinder still feels like I sat on a sea urchin-and make sure we have eye contact.

"You know why we have these pigs, right?"

"Yes?" There is a little question in her voice.

"In October we will butcher them. We'll cut them up like we do the deer. They'll be our food. It's OK if you name them, but remember they are not pets."

"That's OK."

I hope so.

The female lowers her nose first, scooping tentatively at the dirt with the ridge of her snout. When she raises her head, she is balancing a tablespoon dollop of soil above her nostrils. And this is the trigger. Both pigs drop their heads and begin scooping dirt wholesale. The innateness of it is fascinating; all their young lives spent on a grate or concrete, and given five minutes with the earth, they tuck into it as if born to it-which of course they are. Amy and I watch them with delight as they snuffle and burrow. At one point the female roots her snout deep into the earth and plows straight from one side of the pen to the other. She turns around. Surveys her work for a moment. And then, with an all-or-nothing flop, she drops lengthways in the furrow, rolling back to rest on the cool dirt, blinking with satisfaction at the open sky.

I wander up to my office in an attempt to get some work done, but I keep rising from the desk to gaze out the window at the pigs, like the kid at Christmas who keeps returning to the garage all afternoon to verify that the s.h.i.+ny red bike is really, really there really, really there.

It's hot out, and I'm worried they won't drink, so I walk back down and tweak the valve a few times so water drips in the dirt. I'm hoping they'll smell the moisture and get the idea. I'm also not sure how to introduce them to the feeder. I got the pig feeder free from my brother John. It's basically a tall, rectangular galvanized box with a roof-shaped lid. The lid tilts back so you can fill the box with feed, which then spills into troughs on either side courtesy of gravity. The troughs are covered by a series of segmented trapdoors. The pig merely noses the lid up and out of the way to eat, and when the pig leaves, the door drops shut to protect the feed from rain and small varmints. At first I prop the trapdoors open, but when the pigs nose in, a couple of the doors bang shut, causing the pigs to squeal and bolt. Eventually I open just one trapdoor, and when they get snooted in and start eating, I lower the lid gently on their brows. When they pull out, I open the door and repeat the process. After about three tries, one of the pigs raises the lid without a.s.sistance, and from that point on the buffet is open.

When I stop by the next time, they are snuffling inquisitively at the watering nipple. Finally one pig accidentally b.u.mps the spring-loaded pin and a few drops of water release. Pouting her lower lip, she catches a drip. Then she noses the pin again. On about the third try, she opens her mouth and clamps it over the nipple, releasing the water to flow freely down her gullet. Soon they are taking turns at the nozzle.

I return to the office. I manage to get a little work done, but I have to lean forward to keep the pressure off my throbbing hinder. By suppertime not only has the throbbing failed to recede, it has developed a specific rhythm, at which point it strikes me that if your average cogent person found a loony bluetick c.o.o.nhound dangling off his f.a.n.n.y by its four main teeth, he might have already taken time to inspect the damage.

I toddle off to the house.

Alone in the bathroom, I back up to the mirror and drop my shorts. And what I say aloud is, "Holy Shnikies!"

The greater portion of my left b.u.t.t cheek is obscured by a hematoma the size of a personal pizza. The hue of the relevant skin is something along the lines of stomped blueberries. In a nod to symmetry, a quadruplicate set of puncture wounds brackets the bruise as neatly as the four cardinal points of the compa.s.s. First thing I think is, I gotta SHOW this to somebody! I gotta SHOW this to somebody!