Coop

by Michael Perry

  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 shipped 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 shipping 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 God. 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 cockeyed St. Louis Cardinals ball cap, and a wispy beard. After a pleasant hello and introductions—he and Amy have not met previously—we walk through the glass 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 cushioned 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 café 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 pass 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 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 passageway beside the milk house. There is a doghouse at the entrance, with a big old coonhound 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!” 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 passageway, 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 passageway 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 butt, followed immediately by the sense t
hat a great weight is hanging off my back pocket. At first I am so busy wrassling 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 butt 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 wrassling 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 butt 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 embarrassed, the farmer helps me load the other pig. We skirt the dog widely. My butt 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 butt 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 Cocklebur!”

  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 shiny red bike is 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 assistance, 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 bumps 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 coonhound dangling off his fanny 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 butt 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 compass. First thing I think is, I gotta SHOW this to somebody!

  I call Anneliese from the kitchen. She is used to indulging my fascinations—that is to say, the woman can stifle a yawn—but it cheers me to report that when she sees the bruise, her eyebrows shoot right up. I have her bring me the digital camera so I can get pictures. This I accomplish by twisting around and shooting at the moon in the mirror. You festoon up a blemish of this caliber, you want some documentation for the possible grandkids.

  I dither over whether to call the farmer back to see if the dog’s shots are up-to-date. I don’t want to bother him or get him worked up. It seemed pretty clear to me that the dog had been whipped up by all the excitement. People who excuse biting dogs rank high in my pet peeve list, but I truly believe this incident was an aberration. Then again, there are specific drawbacks to rabies—or hydrophoby, as the cowboys in Louis L’Amour books called it. On the other hand, my puncture wounds are relatively superficial. In the en
d, I just tell Anneliese to pack me off to Urgent Care if I start walking into walls or slobbering. For legal purposes I should say that if you find yourself in similar circumstance, I cannot recommend that you follow my health-care decision-making tree. At dusk I check the pigs one last time. They are lying tight against each other, settled in for the night. I go back in the house and climb the stairs, kiss Amy good night, pause at the crib and listen to Jane breathe, and then crawl in beside my beloved Anneliese. As I pull the covers up and roll gingerly over to sleep on my unbitten side, I think, Yessir—we’re in the pig business.

  Jane has enough muscle tone now that I can prop her up in the old green chair across from my desk and write while she grins at me. It’s pretty handy really—she can’t crawl, so she’s pretty much stuck wherever I stick her. She grins and slumps, and every now and then I give her a boost. I can usually get ten or twenty minutes in before her face clouds. Then I have a series of stair-stepped actions I implement to postpone the ultimate inevitable monsoon. First I turn the stereo on, normal volume. This captivates her for another five to ten minutes. Then when her brow begins to furrow, I crank the volume. She seems particularly soothed by Steve Earle’s thumping version of “Six Days on the Road,” which buys me three minutes and eight seconds of additional productivity. Finally, as a last resort, I pull out the guitar and sing some of my own stuff. I sit on the footstool so we are face-to-face. Jane grins and coos for about two minutes, at which point she finds my oeuvre derivative, and her lip begins to square off.

  There is this stage—right when she is transitioning from verklempt to full-out bawling—when her lower lip widens and rolls out, but instead of a rosy little pout, it locks into a position so straight-edged you could grab the kid by the feet and use the lip to strike off wet concrete. One day when she was going from happy to sad I shot the entire transition on a digital camera just so I could document the geometric rigidity of it. I realized halfway through that I was behaving on a par with the heartless producer who films the crying kid cast to demonstrate inferior products in a diaper commercial, but I kept snapping anyway.