by Paul Griffin
“Name’s Lorenzo Ventura, and I’m racing Marty.”
The man checked me off his list. “Where’s the dog then?”
“Well, sir, this is Marty.”
“The pig?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Yessir,” Double said, putting his hand on my shoulder and standing as tall as he could.
The man leaned back and scratched his beard. “I don’t know as we ever had a pig in the dog race,” he said.
“Is there any rule against it?” Pal said, dagger-eyed.
“Well, I don’t believe so,” the man said. “Tell you what, we had a pet coyote run once.”
“There you go then,” Mr. Lee said.
“We made him wear a muzzle just in case,” the man said.
“Marty’s more likely to lick than bite,” I said.
Marty did a play bow, and then he nudged the man’s hand with his snout.
“He wants you to pet him,” I said.
The man did, and Marty rolled over like a dog for a belly scratch. The man smiled. “I think we might have the makings for a fun race here. I don’t see any harm in letting him run. You know it’s five hundred smackaroos to enter, right? Plus a hundred-dollar no-aggression deposit. I trust you when you say he’s no attack dog type of pig, but if he so much as nips another contestant, you forfeit that hundred bucks, understand?”
I knew about the no-aggression rule. I wouldn’t have let Marty race otherwise. “You take cash?” I said.
“Depends on if it’s real or not.” He rubbed the bills between his fingers. “That’ll do nicely. Bring Marty to the chute over there. We’ll be getting started shortly.”
16. THE LONG SLIDE DOWN
The course was on the football field. So many people crowded the fence, I couldn’t see daylight between them. I waited with Marty in the chute and checked out the other dogs—the dogs, I mean. It occurred to me that nasty old Mason might enter Keeth for the amusement of terrifying the crowd with a bloodbath.
This bunch of pups was all tail-waggers, about thirty dogs total. Some had been entered for a joke. How’s a stub-leg Dachshund going to outrun a Great Dane? The laughing was louder than the cheering. Then I realized, everybody was laughing at Marty.
I kneeled at his side and whispered, “No matter what happens, boy, I’m so proud of you.”
He licked me upside my face.
The bell rang and the gates opened.
Those dogs left Marty in the dust.
People wolf-howled and jeered him, but he kept to his business. He ran hard as he could for the first bridge where two dogs had stopped to sniff each other’s butt. Another stopped to lap puddle water. Marty trotted past them, over the bridge, into the funnel tube, which scared away another dog.
I huffed and puffed to keep pace alongside Marty as he approached the traffic cones. The officials disqualified three more dogs there. One skipped the cones entirely. Another got into a wrestling match with a cone. Another stopped for a wiggly back scratch in the grass. But not Marty.
He trotted through the cones, head high, eyes front. By now people were on his side, and it was like that Rocky movie, except they were chanting, “Mar-ty, Mar-ty, Mar-ty!”
Another dog went after a chipmunk.
Another jumped over the fence.
Another shimmied under the one-foot hurdle when he was supposed to go over it—you’re outta there! Marty cleared it with a dainty hop.
So it went toward the slide. It was from the fun house, a long wavy ramp. The dogs were in no hurry to go down. They sunned themselves on the deck at the top of the slide.
Marty climbed the hay bales to the top. He sat and looked out over the fairgrounds and wagged his tail. I screamed, “Come on, Marty! C’mon boy!”
“Mar-ty! Mar-ty!”
I pointed to the finish line, where people waited with treats. “Marty, cookie!”
He dropped to his belly and slid down. His bulk stopped him just short of the end of the slide. He shook himself off and trotted toward the final straightaway.
Now that they saw the slide wasn’t the end of the world, five dogs scrambled down it. Four flew past Marty for the finish line. The fifth, a floppy-eared hound, wanted Marty to play with him. He looped circles around Marty like a satellite. Marty kept going—until somebody threw a bunch of hot dogs onto the final stretch.
No way was Marty going to pass that up, but neither were the four dogs in the lead. They came back for the frankfurters and hunted the grass for any they might have missed. Marty ate on the way, galloping toward the line. Now everybody was screaming his name.
My 220-pound pig was in the lead, with thirty yards to go!
Twenty . . .
Fifteen . . .
Ten . . .
The four dogs who had packed up charged past Marty and over the line.
Marty and his floppy-eared satellite were five yards from the line when the hound circled in front of him, a couple of feet shy of the finish, and then circled behind him.
Marty crossed the line, and an official draped a purple ribbon with 5’s on it over that beautiful pig’s neck.
I fell to my knees and hugged him. Pal kissed him, Mr. Lee slapped my back, Double was hollering I don’t know what because I couldn’t hear anything with all the cheering. Then one voice rang louder than the rest: “No sir, that ribbon’s mine!”
He was the owner of the floppy-eared hound who’d just missed the fifth-place prize, whatever it was. “This is a dog race,” he said. “No pigs allowed!”
He tried to take the ribbon from Marty, but the officials pushed him back. “The time to complain was before the race, not after your dog lost it,” one of them said.
“If I had my rifle I’d drop that pig,” the man said.
“We’re having a fun time here,” the head official said. “Let’s all be happy about the money we raised for the hospital, Taylor.”
Mr. Taylor.
I knew he looked familiar. The Taylors’ mailbox was less than two miles down the road from Maple Clutch, but the old man was such a hermit, I hadn’t seen him in years. I knew his sons, sort of. The Taylor brothers were a lot older than I was, but I’d see them hanging out in front of the liquor store, catcalling at the women who passed by.
“You stole my prize, boy,” Mr. Taylor said.
“Let’s go, son,” Double said.
“Renzo!” Chip-tooth Loretta Frietas just about tackled me. “Thank you!” she said. “If a pig can place in a dog race, anything’s possible. I’m totally going out for volleyball again. They turned me down three times already, but as the saying goes, the fourth time’s a charm.”
It was actually the third time’s a charm, but I said, “Hey Retta? You’ll make it this time, I have a good feeling.” I did, too.
The mayor called me to the stage and gave me the prize Marty won, a widescreen TV.
“That one goes for $419.99 at the Wal,” Double said. “They’ll let me return it no receipt, take it down ten percent for the restock, add the tax back in, you’re walking out of there with $400 cash money in your pocket.”
“We only lost a hundred bucks!” Pal said.
“Yesss!” I said.
Her dad hugged us, and Double hugged some lady he didn’t know, and everybody was hugging everybody.
Juliette was a rust belt town like Kishux Falls, and people were struggling—but not today. Today they had hope. They had Marty.
Out of thirty-some contenders in the dog race, he came in fifth, and he wasn’t even a dog. More than that, he was the first one brave enough to take that long slide down.
He was looking up at me. His eyes caught the light, and they were gold brown.
“You did great, boy,” I said. “You are great.”
“Mar-ty, Mar-ty!”
Mr. Taylor was giving me some mean eyes, and then he tu
rned them to Marty.
The clock tower rang three times. The public address system crackled. “Folks, make your way to the music stage. We’re opening up the mike this afternoon, with a special invitation to newcomers.”
17. PIG BOY
If the crowd liked an act, they clapped along. If they didn’t, they catcalled.
You’d never know Pal had to sing in front of these thousand picky music fans in a couple minutes. She whistled and hooted and cheered the other musicians. I wanted to run away.
The stage manager came for us.
A drum roll started up. It was the blood in my ears. I couldn’t remember the chords I had to play, the lyrics, the song.
The emcee rang a cowbell. “Please welcome Paloma Lee and Lorenzo Ventura!”
Pal whispered in his ear.
He nodded. “I meant to say the one, the only, Miss Paloma Lee and Lorenzo V!”
Somebody yelled, “Hey, that’s the pig boy.” His buddies chanted, “Pig Boy, Pig Boy!”
The audience shot back with “Mar-ty, Mar-ty!”
Marty was right up front with Double and Mr. Lee. He stared into me, tail awhirl.
I wished Mom were here to see the crowd calling his name. Saturdays she taught English as a new language in the church basement. Truth told, I never asked her to come watch me play anymore, not after I overheard her tell Double that with a guitar I looked and sounded too much like my dad.
Pal winked at me. “Renz, we’re soul surfers, right?”
A soul surfer didn’t care if he lost a competition, or if he won it. He surfed for the joy in it, to feel the spirit of the wave rising in his heart. My legs shook as I strummed.
Pal stepped up to the mike and said, “This one’s for . . . well, you know who you are. Even if you’re not here, you’re here.” She touched her heart. She sang:
I used to walk alone
Empty with the wind
Hard to hold the sun
Needing to begin
The moon was my comp’ny
My true nighttime friend
Nights providing comfort
Nights without an end, and
I
Love
You
I love you
Night becomes the day
Day comes like the tide
Washing all adrift
Casting all aside
Then you come to me
Why I dare not ask
Holding out a sunbeam
A chance to know my past
Everyone was stock-still, except for Pal. She swayed as she sang with her eyes closed, the sun on her face.
Now my days and nighttimes
Both will be the same
I’ll spend them all with you, calling out
I
Love
You
I love you
You’ve heard it said, “The crowd erupted into applause.” No, it was more like they suddenly remembered they were alive, and they screamed to tell the world they were here.
And then it happened. Something that would happen a lot when Pal sang in the fairs and halls and stadiums that would come after this one—I was sure of it. They called out to us, “Again! Encore! Again, again, again!”
We were barely offstage when Loretta Frietas rushed us. “Pal, you guys need a fan club.”
“I know,” Pal sighed.
Richie Calvo jumped on my back. “My boy Renzo! My boy!”
A woman pushed toward us. She was from the city for sure, in her slacks and high heels. “Lorenzo and Paloma—Miss Paloma, I’m Cassie Lorraine from The Pittsburgh Jamboree.”
“Nuh-uh,” I said.
“Nuh-uh,” Pal said. The Jamboree was the biggest Friday night live amateur radio broadcast in the world, or at least southwestern Pennsylvania.
“Are your parents here?” Ms. Lorraine said. “You need to be on the show.”
Double and Mr. Lee made their way to us. Marty wiggled himself between my legs.
“Mar-ty, Mar-ty,” Cassie Lorraine said. “You’re so talented, Lorenzo. An animal trainer who can play a fine guitar.”
I was daring to believe that it was real after all, the dream.
California.
Hollywood, Malibu, the Pacific.
We’d all be there together. Pal and me, Double and Mom, Mr. Lee and Bella . . . and Marty.
18. IS HE FRIENDLY WITH STRANGERS?
The rest of the show was awesome, and then we headed for the parking lot. “You’re limping, Double,” Pal said. She made herself his crutch.
“Limping?” Double said. “I’m flying. This was one special day.”
“Tell you what, it was,” Mr. Lee said.
Marty nudged my pocket for his tennis ball. He liked to bounce it and catch it.
“Is he friendly with strangers?” somebody behind us said.
The Taylor brothers, one longhaired, the other shaved bald. “Congratulations,” Longhair said. “Sometimes you have to tip your cap.”
“Sometimes you do,” one of their buddies said, except he didn’t tip his cap. He wore a no-sleeves T-shirt to show everybody he spent his days in the weight room. The bunch of them were slit-eyed from too much beer. I smelled it in the wind.
The bald one—his face softened. He squatted and said, “C’mere, sweet boy.”
Marty trotted to him, tail wagging, and then that Taylor kicked Marty hard enough to make him squeal.
I hugged Marty to me. I couldn’t breathe, I was so mad, so paralyzed. Pal was yelling who knows what. Double and Mr. Lee held her back.
“You got a moon of a head on you, Pig Boy,” the muscly one said. “Don’t he look like a tard though? You owe Mr. Taylor a TV, melon head.”
“He’s twelve years old,” Double said. “You’re a grown man. How’s about you act like it?”
They kept following us. “Him and that pig have the same size head, right?”
“Gentlemen,” Mr. Lee said, “kindly stop harassing the boy—”
“Or what?”
“Cowardly sheriff’s stepping to you, Taylor.”
“Go back to China, man.”
“He’s Korean American, you idiot,” Pal said.
“Pal, let’s go,” Mr. Lee said, hurrying us toward the truck.
“I may even pray for those boys tonight,” Double said. “You imagine waking up and having to be them?”
I pulled down the ramp for Marty. Pal and I followed him into the truck bed. Mr. Lee flipped up the gate.
Pal was crying mad. “How could you let them talk to you that way, Daddy? You needed to set those boys straight.”
“They would have listened, you think?” Mr. Lee said. “I’ve learned there’s a time to fight and a time to let it wash off. Now, you all did so well today, and we can’t let them ruin that. You looked like your mom up there, Paloma. Like you would’ve been just as happy to sing if nobody was watching. You got swept up in it. You too, Renzo. It was a sight.” He got into the cab with Double, and we drove off.
“You got a droopy booger in your nose,” Pal said.
“Where else would I have it?” I wiped it away with my sleeve. I was so ashamed. Mr. Lee was right, about knowing when to fight. I should have stood up for Marty. If my dad was here, he’d have wasted that Taylor crew.
Pal nudged me. “Hey? We’re going to Pittsburgh.” She put up her knuckles for a bump, and I bumped her. Marty bumped her too, with his hoof. He leaned into me, and he was shivering as bad as I was. Soothing him soothed me. His fifth-place ribbon flapped in the highway wind, and the good feeling started to come back. There was no way Mom would make me give up Marty now, not after the way he’d shined today.
19. PUTTIN’ DOWN THE OLD FOOT
Mom was at our rickety kitchen table again, papers everywhere,
60 DAYS PAST DUE, FINAL NOTICE, PAY NOW! “Well?” she said.
“He won fifth place,” I said.
She looked up from her laptop.
I smiled so wide, my face hurt. I saw Double’s dentures end to end too. He straightened Marty’s ribbon. Marty bounced his tennis ball.
“Fifth place isn’t winning,” Mom said.
I told her about the TV, how we’d get $400 for it.
“Now that’s a deal,” she said, “spending five hundred to make four.”
“I need to put down the old foot on this one,” Double said.
“Before or after you get your knee fixed?”
“Marty’s family.”
Mom pecked at her laptop.
“Well?” Double said. “Can we keep him or not?”
“Now you’re asking?” Mom said.
“Well—”
“Well?” She glared at Double for a second, then turned back to her papers.
“He stays then, and that’s that,” Double said unsurely. “C’mon, Renz. Let’s wash him down in the barn. He’s dusty from the wars, our porcine gladiator.”
“Marty, Bell, let’s go.”
When we were safely outside, Double and I silent-howled. We bumped chests like morons at a Steelers game, Touchdown! Marty ran circles around Bella.
“Renzo, come back here!” Mom called from the kitchen.
“Uh-oh,” Double said, and he beat it out of there with Bell and Marty.
I went through that door wincing. “Yup—yes?”
“One false move, and I’m hauling him to the butcher,” Mom said. “And that includes peeing on my begonias.”
“He’ll only pee on trees from now on, I swear.” I made to scoot.
“Renzo? How’d it go today?”
“I told ya. He got fifth.”
“With the open mike, I meant. You and Pal sang, right?” Tap-tap-tap on that laptop.
“We did all right, Ma. We’re gonna be on the Pittsburgh Jamboree next month.”
She stopped tapping. “Why, that’s something, Renz. Something big for sure.”
“Mom? Maybe you could come watch us.”
“Well, I, it’s just so hard to get away on Fridays, with the bingo going on at the church, you know? All those old ladies, Mrs. McGrath and such, not a one of them can drive. I’ll be chauffeuring them to their funerals.”