The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories Page 15

  Fall, he thinks. Definitely time for a fresh start.

  Meanwhile Klein and Agent Betsy have found each other. It happened early in the prom, he came busting out of the woodwork in his C-3PO mask and they knew each other at once, which means they were dancing close by the time Johnny gave Evie the tinsel crown which nonetheless snagged what was left of Trinket’s girly heart. But it felt so good, slow-dancing with Harry, that Betsy hardly minded. She thinks. She and Harry danced straight through until daylight filtered through the shattered glass overhead and then fell down on a pile of coats. After the weeklong siege, they are too tired to do anything but talk.

  He says, “This was supposed to be our big moment.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was.” Looking around at the littered ballroom, the debris of a thousand high school kids’ hopes, she says quietly, “Is it always like this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, no denouement and no real resolution, no clinch and no ticker tape parade.”

  “Probably. But you’re wrong about the clinch.”

  “So there’s that,” Betsy says, beginning to smile.

  “Yes,” he says, tightening his arm around her wiry little back. Even though there is only one prom, there is always a next time. “There is.”

  In the tinsel archway looking back, Johnny tightens his hold on Evie’s hand until she squeaks. In this light Trinket looks like, she looks like a … She doesn’t, but now that he knows Trinket is really Agent Betsy, who is thirty-five years old, he can write the thought that will make sense of this. What, me care about that old hag?

  Oddly, the mothers in the building do not leave the building, even though the matter of the riot is settled and by Presidential order, the mayor’s threat is no longer a threat. They’re bopping around among the crates and blocks of heavy equipment on the ground floor because like it or not, this thing has brought home the fact that they still care. They miss their kids, they really do; they miss these near-adults their babies and they miss having them at home but now that push comes to shove they are conflicted and confused. Homesick for the way things used to be and fully aware that once puberty hits, nothing is ever the same, they can’t decide whether they should stay and see their sons and daughters, at least to find out how they are doing, or whether they should avoid the aggravation (what if h/she wants to come home? what if h/she doesn’t want to come home even if I beg?) and go.

  Meanwhile, in the military it is axiomatic that there’s always one in every organization that doesn’t get the word. Ace Mackenzie hunkers down in the ventilator system directly over the girls’ locker room. Eventually the revolution is going to boil in here and he can swing down and take control of the sub-group that brings down the leaders of this fucking riot and when he does that he’s going to take out all the troublemakers and bring this place to order, and when he does …

  He doesn’t know, but he can think about it. Right now he has nothing but time.

  —Dogs of Truth, 2005

  Piggy

  Theron swore it. A great winged figure swooped out of the sky one night and threw itself on Duchess, the old Percheron.

  Theron ran in the house as soon as it happened and tried to tell his Daddy, but his Daddy just pushed him aside and said “Don’t talk dirty,” and that was the end of it until the mare foaled the next year. The colt was pink, plastic pink, like the thumb-sized baby dolls in the ten-cent store, and Theron’s Daddy had to look close to see the light planting of white hair. The mare’s pink baby was round as a couple of barrels, and when he finally got up he teetered on legs too spindly to support a puppy dog. Right off the Pinckneys named him Piggy.

  Mostly, Piggy was Theron’s pet. Before Piggy came, Theron didn’t have anybody in the crumbling old house. There was nobody to talk to but his mother and nobody to play with but the twins, who were too small even to sit up alone, so he just naturally took to Piggy, and pretty soon he was keeping Piggy right outside his bedroom window, in a stall made by the caved-in part of the porch. Theron stuffed hay between the carved railings so Piggy could eat lying down, and he hung a grain bucket from one of the marble pillars, where Piggy could poke it with his nose. His mother gave him a big flowered bowl her granddaddy had used to make punch in, so when Piggy wanted water he wouldn’t have to go all the way down to the trough.

  Cold nights, when winter was frosting the marsh grass, Mrs. Pinckney would look out the window at Piggy shivering, and she’d get a quilt or Mr. Pinckney’s Navy parka and throw it over Piggy in his stall. Sometimes she’d let Theron go outside and sit with him, and Theron would light a little fire right under Piggy’s nose.

  The night of the hurricane, Mrs. Pinckney made Theron bring Piggy inside the big double doors to take shelter in the living room, and after that Piggy used to spend a lot of time inside. Mrs. Pinckney would send Theron after him whenever Mr. Pinckney was shrimping out of Port Royal or spending his money in Beaufort, the nearest big town. He had clean habits when he was indoors, and he’d fold his legs under him by the fire with his head in Theron’s lap, and blow little noises through his nose at Luvver and Fester, the twins. Mrs. Pinckney would sit in the chair that Theron’s great-great-great-great had brought with him all the way from England, watching Theron tying knots in Piggy’s yellowed mane, and she’d think how nice it was for Theron to have a pet. Daytimes, when Theron was gone, Piggy used to call to her, and many’s the time when she sat on the porch rail, just looking at him. He even tried to follow her a couple of times, getting unsteadily to his feet, but she made him keep to his stall and wait for Theron, because he belonged to the boy.

  Theron’s Daddy felt differently about things. He never went near the stall when he could help it, and the very mention of Piggy made him mad. He had a right to be galled. He’d been pouring grain into Piggy for years, hoping he’d get strong enough to pull a plow, or at least to take the twins out in a basket cart, but Piggy went all shivery every time Mr. Pinckney brought the cart around and his legs buckled every time Mr. Pinckney tried to put the harness on. Mr. Pinckney would swear at him and then Piggy would have to eat some more so he could get his strength up again. Even Theron couldn’t get him to move. At first Mr. Pinckney put up with it because Piggy was just a colt and the rest of the family liked him a lot.

  But by the time Theron was fifteen Piggy was five years old and Mr. Pinckney had had just about enough. He was eating more grain than Duchess and Rollo put together and he hadn’t done a lick of work in his whole pink life. Theron got up one morning to see his father sitting on the porch rail and looking down at Piggy, who was all curled up like an oversized tabby cat at his feet.

  “Mornin, Theron,” Mr. Pinckney said.

  “Mornin, Daddy.”

  “I was just lookin at Piggy here,” Theron’s Daddy said, and Theron’s heart sank.

  “Yes, Daddy,” Theron said, and he perched his behind on the porch rail and looked at Piggy too. Piggy lowered his white eyelashes and gave him a yellow look.

  Mr. Pinckney settled his bristly chin in his collar. “Piggy’s eaten enough of my grain. I’m gonna call the dog warden tomorrow and have him put away.”

  “The dog warden.” Theron looked hurt.

  Mr. Pinckney poked Piggy with his toe. Hairless, porcine, Piggy was nibbling thoughtfully at his hoofs. “You call that thing a horse?”

  “Piggy’s a good horse, Daddy,” Theron said.

  His Daddy jerked his head at his old coon hound. “So’s Archambault.”

  “I mean it, Daddy,” Theron said. “You just give me a chance with him and you’ll see.” Theron mumbled some words around in his mouth till they tasted right. Then his face lit up. “I bet I could have him broke for ridin by tonight.” He ran his fingers through Piggy’s sparse yellow mane. “You been sayin Mama shouldn’t have to walk all that way to town. Piggy could take her.”

  “That’s right, Eldred.” Theron’s mother shook Theron’s feather mattress out the window by their heads. She didn’t care one way or the
other about riding him, but Piggy was a special friend of hers.

  Archambault came up and licked Piggy on the nose.

  “OK,” Theron’s Daddy said. “You get him broke by tonight and you can keep him.”

  “Gee, Daddy.” Theron was already coaxing Piggy to his feet. “Hey Luvver,” he said, and he gave Luvver the special look that meant he’d better hop to it or he’d get what for. Between them, they got Piggy hove to and headed for the back field. Theron was walking in front, pulling Piggy along, looking proud as Lucifer, and for a minute Piggy was really picking up his feet instead of just dragging them along. “You just wait, Daddy,” Theron said. “He’ll be broke in before you can get to Beaufort and back. Won’t he, Luvver?”

  Five minutes later Luvver was back. He tugged at his Daddy until Daddy gave him a bucket of grain. “Piggy sat down,” he said.

  They held the grain out in front of Piggy until he followed it to the pasture. Then they let him lie on his side and eat grass while Theron rode Luvver around and around, pretending to go on all fours, to give Piggy the idea. Then they got him propped up on his four legs and Theron put Luvver on his back. Piggy sat down. Luvver slid off, hollering, “Hey hey, that’s the way,” and Theron took him by the collar and said, “Don’t be fresh.”

  Next time he slid off, Luvver hollered, “I’ll use force, you dumb horse,” and “He’s too fat up where I sat” the next. Each time he said something he’d hit the ground and look foolish for a minute, and then he’d start swearing at Piggy to beat the band. When Theron shook him he’d say, “Piggy made me say it. I had to talk like that.” Theron just said, “Aw Luvver, don’t be dumb,” but the next time he slid off, Luvver said, “I went dump and hurt my rump,” and Theron told him to get back to the house and send Fester out instead.

  While he was waiting for Fester, Theron jacked the back end of Piggy up again and pushed him sideways so his belly was over a rock and he couldn’t sit down. It was near noon and Fester was slow coming, so he decided to mount Piggy himself. Piggy looked around at him with an injured expression as he scrambled up on the fat back. Then Piggy shimmied his bald rear quarters a bit, trying to sit down, and he curled his lip at Theron when he found he couldn’t sit down because of the rock. His eyelids drooped and he whuffled as if he’d been betrayed.

  “There, there, Silverhair,” Theron said, and patted him on the neck. Then he reared back because a crawly feeling had come over him and he didn’t know from one minute to the next what he was going to say. Piggy tried to sit down again and before he could stop himself Theron was poking him with his heels and spouting:

  Come on horse,

  I got no other.

  Gotta break you

  For my mother.

  It scared him so much that he scrambled off and ran halfway across the field. Piggy didn’t look any different. He just stood there watching Theron, wiggling his hind quarters and trying to get his middle off the rock. Theron snuck up on Piggy, from the wrong side this time, and got on again. He sat there for a minute, feeling different about Piggy and the field and the day, and suddenly something started prickling inside him and before he could help it he opened his mouth and sang out:

  Life is real, life is earnest

  And the grave is not its goal.

  Dust thou art, to dust returnest

  Black as the pit from pole to pole.

  And it was so beautiful that Fester almost caught him crying when he appeared suddenly in the field.

  “Hello, little fellow,” he said to Fester, who thumbed his nose. Then he slid down off Piggy because he couldn’t trust himself to go on. “You get on back to the house, hear? I don’t need you here. And you tell Momma and Daddy to come on down here just before it gets dark.” He made a shooing motion. “Git.”

  As soon as Fester had gone he went back to Piggy and looked long into his yellow eyes. Piggy just breathed in and out, not much caring, and let his lower lip droop because it had been a long hot day.

  “What you got in you, horse?” Theron said, and when Piggy wouldn’t even turn his head far enough to nuzzle Theron’s hand, Theron climbed up on him again to see if that strange feeling would come back. As soon as he got on the whole field seemed to turn all green and shimmery and the sky was changing colors like a piece of mother of pearl. He shook his head because all sorts of strange things were buzzing around inside, and before he could stop himself he was talking out loud again, in words that sounded even fancier than the poem they were reading that year in seventh grade. Theron just threw back his head and listened to himself, talking long, rolling musical lines about things he’d never heard of in this world, and he kept it up until he felt Piggy shaking beneath him, getting tired, and then he tumbled off and led Piggy under a shade tree where they could get some rest.

  When Theron’s mother and Daddy came down to the field that night, there was Piggy, standing up straighter than he ever had in his fat life, and Theron, looking tall and proud, was sitting on his back. He stayed up until he was sure they’d had a good look at Piggy and then he slid down and said, “See, Daddy? He’s broke. He carried me just fine.”

  Mr. Pinckney was just about to open his mouth and say, “If he’s so well broke in, let’s see him walk,” but Mrs. Pinckney was grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him away, saying, “That’s wonderful, Theron,” with every step she took. When they got out of earshot she told Mr. Pinckney it didn’t really matter if Theron had propped Piggy up on a rock. If he cared that much about Piggy let him keep him, and if she saw the dog warden even drive past in his pickup truck she was going to forget the marriage vows and fill Mr. Pinckney full of shot.

  Theron came back from the field so late that his parents were already in bed. His mother had left a plate of hoppin’ john on the table, but he was too stirred up to eat. He went to bed instead, murmuring verses over and over to himself, so he’d be able to remember them the next day.

  Everybody thought Theron was in school the next morning, like he ought to be, but when Luvver and Fester started playing hide-and-seek, and Luvver left Fester hiding his eyes on the tree counting to a million and two, he took off for the back field to find Theron sitting on Piggy in the middle of the field, waving his arms for all he was worth. Luvver said why wasn’t he in school, but Theron just said something he couldn’t understand and gave him such a ferocious look that he turned and ran for home. He didn’t even tell Fester about it when Fester finally found him hiding under the marble-topped pier table, where Theron’s Daddy kept his boots.

  Long and fine-ringing words were swimming in Theron’s head when he came up for dinner that night. He came late, about six, and everybody but his mother was sitting out on the front porch. Theron slid around to the kitchen and pulled up at the table while she had her back to him, working at the stove.

  “Mama,” he said, and she jumped because she hadn’t heard him come in at all. “Mama, don’t you think this is beautiful?” and then he said a long, musical piece that ended:

  Footprints in the time of sands …

  Hugging his skinny shoulders, trying to hold the words within himself because they warmed his insides.

  His mother touched his head affectionately. “You better eat your grits.”

  His father wouldn’t even listen.

  Theron cornered Luvver outside the cold-house after school the next day, and said poetry at him and said poetry at him. Luvver was quiet enough, and Theron’s heart lightened, until he saw that Luvver was quiet mostly because he was picking his nose.

  He kept pretty much to himself after that, going down to the field as soon as he got home from school. He was quiet and edgy most of the time, thinking about the poetry that would come to him as soon as he got on Piggy’s back. Piggy still hated standing up, but he seemed to know how much pleasure it gave Theron, because he stood patiently as long as Theron wanted him to.

  Once Theron came home from school to find his mother on her knees beside Piggy, running her fingers over his balding neck. She looked u
p at him and said, “Is there something special about Piggy, son?”

  He said, “I tried to tell you, Mama. He makes poetry come.”

  “These things I hear you say in your sleep?”

  “I guess so, Mama.” He wished she would let him go. He wanted to get on Piggy’s back again.

  “It was real strange,” she said thoughtfully. “He almost tried to get up a while ago. He kept poking me with his nose like there was something he wanted me to do.”

  Not long after that Theron built a lean-to down by the field and moved Piggy out of his stall on the porch for good. He snuck out of the house with a Queen Anne chair and a pile of quilts and a Holland vase to make the place look pretty, and he fixed up the shack. When fall came, he used a lever to roll the big rock in the door of the shack, so that they could sit there most of the day, Theron mouthing poetry and Piggy drowsing a little, one hip dropped, listening to Theron’s voice. His Daddy was off with the shrimp fleet, looking for better waters, and there was nobody to bother Theron about how much time he spent down at the field.

  Daytimes Piggy would let Theron ride him, and some new lines would come to him as he sat, and evenings he would talk to Piggy, reciting as many lines as he could remember, and Piggy would lie on his side with fat flanks heaving. He’d put his muzzle in Theron’s lap and look up at him with yellow eyes. One of the twins would come down with a little pail of supper and Theron wouldn’t have to go back to the house until late at night. Sometimes his mother would stop him in the halls and look him in the eyes and try to talk to him, but he’d say, “Night, Mama,” and go to his room. In bed, he would cross his feet and look at the ceiling, calling the lines as they came to him. Soon there were so many crowding in his mind that he was afraid he’d forget some, and he took to writing them down. He moved into the shack that October, and he and Piggy lived quietly in the haze of autumn, with words flying around their heads like dandelion puffs in the sun.