Shy (20 page)

But oddly enough, I was still horny.

We stashed the vegetables on the back porch, drank another crockful of poisonous milk, and headed for the barn.

“Let’s check on Grace,” Frank said.

I was too tired to ask who Grace was. Couldn’t have cared less. All I wanted to do was burrow into Frank’s crotch, root around for a while, then sleep for a week. But it wasn’t meant to be.

On the opposite side of the barn from Samson were more pig pens. Unlike Samson, these pigs were cute and not intent on killing us, which was a nice change. They stood about a foot tall and were running around, snorting, and humping each other and frolicking like a schoolyard full of kids. There must have been forty of them. When they saw us approaching their pen, they all came running, galloping along like a tiny herd of buffalo. They stuck their snouts through the fence to say hello. They were white and fat and cute as hell. Little pink ears. Little curly tails. Little distended bellies.

Frank saw my infatuated expression and gave out a sigh. “Tom, I hate to tell you this, but these guys will be slaughtered in about five months so don’t get too attached.”

“What,
all
of them?”

“’Fraid so.”

I was slowly coming to the conclusion that the chuckles in being a farmer came few and far between. “So which one is Grace?” I asked, resigned.

Frank pointed to a row of ramshackle huts at the back of the pen. “Grace is back there. She’s having trouble farrowing. It’s one of the first things Pop told me when we arrived. We’ll see how she’s doing, but I have to warn you, we may have to intervene.” And for some reason, he looked appraisingly at my hands.

I had no idea what “farrowing” meant, but I sure didn’t like the sound of that “intervening” part. Or the way he was sizing up my hands. What the hell was that all about?

“Let’s have sex instead,” I suggested without much hope. At least I
knew
what sex was all about, or I liked to think I did.

“Later,” Frank promised with a naughty little smile, chucking me gently on the chin and taking another swift glance at my hands. The next thing I knew we were wading through a mob of tiny pigs, shin-deep, heading toward the back of the pen. “We’ll take care of Grace then we’ll feed these little guys.”

Frank peeked into three hog houses before he found the right one. We didn’t bother knocking, I guess one simply doesn’t. We ducked our heads and scooted inside all doubled over because the roof was only about four feet off the ground. The hut was dark and sweltering and smelled like a hog house, natch. If you’ve never smelled one, consider yourself lucky. I won’t ruin your run of good luck by explaining it to you. Let’s just say a whole truckload of those little Christmas tree deodorizers you hang on the rearview mirror of your car wouldn’t have made a dent in that god-awful stench. Not a dent.

Grace was a full-grown version of the little fat guys outside. Not quite as cute, but still a large improvement over Samson. At least she didn’t have any tusks and she didn’t look like she wanted to eat us. In fact, unless my imagination was playing tricks on me, she seemed inordinately glad to see us. She was lying on her side in the corner, and her belly was bouncing up and down as she fought for breath. Her eyes were big and round and panicky. There was a bloody mass of some really disgusting matter dangling out of her rear end. After seeing that, I figured I would never eat again.

I hated to say it, but Grace looked considerably worse than I did, believe it or not.

“Oh man,” Frank sighed. “This is going to be a problem. Stay with her. I’ll be right back.”

“Say what—” But Frank was already gone. Not knowing what else to do, I squatted down by Grace’s head and tentatively patted her forehead. She closed her eyes as if she liked being touched so I tickled her ear. “How are you feeling?” I asked, trying to be sociable. “Seen any good movies lately?” She grunted and gave a snort.

Encouraged by Grace’s receptive manner, I was just about to give her stubbly chin an affectionate tweak, when she let out a feeble groan and another glob of bloody tissue oozed out of her rear end. It looked sort of like a magician pulling a long red scarf out of his sleeve. Except for the squishing sound. And the smell.

I almost fainted.

Grace started panting again, and thank God Frank chose that moment to crawl back through the hog house door. He had a bunch of rags in one hand and a huge dirty jar of petroleum jelly in the other.

“That’s a big-ass jar of lubricant you’ve got there, Frank. We gonna fuck?” I asked it without much hope. I didn’t figure my luck was running in that direction, and I was right.

“I’ve never done this without Pop around to help,” Frank said, “but I think I know what to do. Take your shirt off, Tom. Your hands are smaller than mine.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Uhh—”

“Slather up your arm with jelly, and then I’ll tell you what to do.”

“Uhh—”

“Don’t worry if they bite you. They don’t have any teeth.”

That got my attention. “Who? Who don’t have any teeth?”

“The baby pigs.”

I looked around the hut. “
What
baby pigs?”

“The ones trying to get out.”

I looked down at Grace. “You mean trying to get out of
her
?”
Suddenly I knew what “farrowing” meant.

“They probably just don’t want to face the world. They’re all comfy and cozy in there. Or maybe one is turned sideways and blocking all the rest. We won’t know until you’re in there.”

“Until I’m in
where
?”

He pointed to Grace’s hind end and the horrendous glop of crap dangling out of it. “In there.”

And suddenly I understood. Everything. I grabbed Frank’s shoulders and made him look me in the eye. “Frank, I can’t go in there. What if I hurt her? What if my hand gets stuck and I have to walk around with Grace on the end of my arm for the rest of my life? I can’t even reach in and pull that little packet of turkey guts out of a Thanksgiving turkey without barfing. Last year I had to get Miss Wiggins to retrieve it. Please, Frank, don’t make me do this.”

Frank gave me a shake. “If we
don’t
do it, Grace could die. And all the little pigs too. Come on, Tom. Help me out here. Your hands are the right size. Mine aren’t. They’re too big. You
have
to be the one to do it.”

Then he kissed me.

I narrowed my eyes and kissed him back, but it was a pretty perfunctory kiss. I wasn’t happy.

Grumbling, I peeled off my shirt and Frank scooped up a handful of petroleum jelly and proceeded to grease my arm from fingertips to elbow.

“Feels funky,” I groused, and Frank smiled.

“Lie down behind her,” Frank said.

“What, in the mud?”

“Yes.”

So I did, grumbling even louder.

“Now, just go to it,” Frank said. “Stick your hand in there. Think of it as fist-fucking. Make sure you go in the right hole.”

“Huh?” Then I saw what he meant. “Oh yeah.”

So I did that too. Or tried to. I picked my hole very, very carefully, don’t think I didn’t, but still the “fist-fucking” analogy wasn’t working for me, so I imagined myself sticking my arm through a big fat white gooshy coat sleeve. It worked. I was up to my wrist in no time. In the proper hole too, thank God. I didn’t much care for it, but Grace didn’t seem to mind. Go figure.

I burrowed my arm into the moist heat of Grace’s twat a little farther and then I felt it. Something hard. Something moving. Then I lost it. I pressed my cheek into Grace’s butt and dug my arm in deeper, groping around with my fingers, seeking, seeking. And there it was again. It felt like—a chin. A tiny chin. I prodded it with my finger and it bit me.

“Yeeouch!”

Frank grinned. “Found ’em, huh?”

I nodded. Frank was right. Whatever was nibbling on my finger didn’t have any teeth. Had some pretty good jaw pressure though. Desperate to get my hand out of there as soon as possible, I wrapped my fingers around that tiny chin and without any further ado, gave it a yank, praying to God the head wouldn’t come off in my hand. Out came the cutest, tiniest little pig you ever saw in your life. All of it. In one piece. And alive. I don’t know which of us looked more surprised. Me or the pig. I just lay there in the mud and laughed, he was so cute. Then, to my astonishment, out slid another. And another. And still another. Apparently pig number one had been blocking the road for everybody else. Before Grace was finished, I was lying in the mud with nine little piggies flopping around my head, trying to walk, trying to nibble my nose, giving out weak little squeals, rooting through my hair looking for a nipple, jostling for position.

I was elated and disgusted at the same time. It was an odd feeling. Elated by the lives I had saved and disgusted by the mud and the Vaseline and the pig poop and the afterbirth which was still sliding out of poor Grace’s rear end, and disgusted too, by the fact that that same said rear end was still only inches away from my nose.

I looked up into Frank’s beaming face and grinned. “Wow.”

“Wow indeed,” Frank laughed. “Just look at ’em go.”

All the little pigs got their GPSs up and running in no time. They unerringly scrambled over Grace’s back legs and wended their way toward her double row of teats, all swollen tight with milk, having given me up as a lost cause, I guess, since I didn’t have any chow to offer.

I was as tired as I had ever been in my life, but happy too. And proud. Even
with
all my injuries. I lay there in the mud and gazed one last time at all the little lives (and the one big one) I had saved, and it was then that Grace decided to stretch her aching muscles after everything she’d gone through. She gave a kick with her back leg and caught me smack in the eye with her hoof. It was like being whapped in the head with a hammer. I saw stars. Lots and lots of stars. Big fat ones.

I was still cussing when Frank hauled me out of the hog house, tsking and apologizing as if he was the one who had kicked me in the head. I was dripping afterbirth and pig poop and three or four pounds of mud and stunned senseless by the pain, not to mention wondering if I had an indelible cloven hoofprint embedded forever in my face and worrying if I would ever be able to see again out of both eyeballs at the same time.

While Frank watched in horror, the eye swelled shut and turned black in twelve seconds flat. Twelve seconds. He timed it.

I
WAS
sitting in the middle of the pig pen with the first herd of little pigs, all bumping into each other and squealing for their dinner. Somehow they weren’t quite as cute as they had been earlier. Now they were just annoying. I guess the pain of being kicked in the head was making me grumpy.

I tried to put on a brave face and be butch about the whole “kicked in the head” thing, but it was an uphill battle. I’m not built for butch. I’m built for snits and tirades and pouty little sympathy ploys, none of which are to be found on the standard farmer’s playlist of top ten character traits. At least I didn’t cry. And God knows I wanted to. I couldn’t play the social anxiety card either. That doesn’t work with hogs.

“Think I should go to the hospital, Frank?”

“I don’t know. Are you thinking straight?”

“As straight as I ever did.”

Frank looked like he was trying not to smile at that. “Then I think you’re fine. Maybe we should put some ice on your injury though.”

Poor Frank. He looked closer to crying than I was. At least I think he looked that way. I could only see through one eye, and that one had mud in it.

I wasn’t sure what part of me hurt the most. My arm, my ear, my eye, or my ego.

“Which injury?” I observed drily. “We can’t put ice on everything. Let’s just finish the day’s work, then if I’m still alive we can try to put me back together. Okay? Besides, ice just keeps things from swelling and turning black. My eye already did that, didn’t it?”

“It sure did,” Frank declared with enough conviction to make me wonder what the hell I looked like. If Joe had used a little common sense and put a mirror in the pig pen like he should have when he built the place, I could have seen for myself what sort of condition I was in, but of course he didn’t. There is never a mirror around when you need one. Never. I guess pigs don’t primp. Or farmers.

“Then let’s get back to work,” I said again. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be just fine.” Geez, I sounded like the brave little toaster. Just before it blew up.

“Are you sure?” Frank asked.

“Yes. I’m sure. At least I’m not horny anymore. Grace and her magic hoof fixed that problem.”

Frank nuzzled my neck, nibbled on my good ear, and laid his hand on my crotch in a friendly manner. The only uninjured part of my anatomy jerked awake, lifted its little head, and tried to peel open my zipper from the inside.

“Well, maybe she didn’t
completely
fix that problem,” I rasped, and Frank smiled.

“Thank God,” he said, sounding like he meant it. He was obviously enjoying the feel of the bulge growing in the crotch of my pants. He gave the bulge a final pat. Sort of a fond farewell for the time being.

“All that’s left is to feed these little guys,” he said, looking down fondly at the sea of squirming, oinking pigs jostling and squealing around us. “Why don’t you perch yourself on the edge of the fence there, Tom, and watch. Won’t take long.”

Frank gave me another tiny chuck on the chin, although he didn’t really make physical contact. He was probably afraid my damaged head would fall off. “Good man,” he said, by way of encouragement.

“Thanks.” I rolled my good eye around inside my aching head and clattered to my feet like a bucket of bolts. “Let’s get it over with then. I don’t think I’ve got much time left.”

Frank laughed and helped me climb the fence. “I love you,” he said as I settled myself on the top board like a true cowpoke. “And don’t fall off the fence.”

“Shut up, Frank,” I said, and he very wisely did.

E
VENING
shadows were crawling across the grass as I limped my way toward the farmhouse with Frank at my side. Pedro met us at the back gate, took one look at me, and ran back into the house. So much for loyalty.