by Angel Colon
I'd been friends with Grady Puttman since junior high, and while I knew his family well, I'd always steered clear of their business. They were a wild bunch that treated the law like it was a set of playground rules to be broken as the mood struck. It wasn't like I was a choir boy, but I always figured if you kept your head down and worked hard, you could make do without resorting to their way of life.
That was before I lost my job at the hardware store. The owner, Lou, said business was down, told me he'd give me a call when things picked up again. I figured things had gotten better when I saw Lou driving around town in a brand new truck. But so far, I still hadn't gotten that call. Lack of money and the desire to keep a roof over my head that wasn't made of cardboard made me a little less high-minded about what sort of work I did.
When I pulled up in front of Grady's house that morning, he was already outside. He hopped in, and as I pulled away from the curb the first thing he said was, "Uncle Boots needs a new pig. One of his bunch died."
"That's nice," I said. "Any particular reason you're telling me this?"
"Thought since we were going to be running errands for him anyway, we could maybe swing by Sumner's and pick it up."
This was how Grady did things. He made everything sound simple and casual, like it had just then occurred to him that we could add pig hauling to our list of chores.
"You already told him you'd get the pig, didn't you?"
"Don't be like that," Grady said.
"Like what?" I asked. "You knew all along you were going to ask me this. Why the hell you got to wait until now to bring it up? Now we have to go back and get your trailer."
Grady shook his head. "Tires are flat. That's why I didn't get it already."
"How are we going to haul a pig with no trailer?"
"Uncle Boots says he ain't full-growed yet. It's just one little old pig. We can put it in the back seat."
"Hell no."
"C'mon, Billy," Grady said, a whine creeping into his voice like it always did when it looked like things weren't going to go his way. "You're right. I already told him I'd do it. I can't show up without it. That would be bad for me. Real bad."
Grady wasn't exaggerating. Uncle Boots might be a cute-sounding name, but there wasn't anything cute, or even halfway nice, about the man himself. Boots was getting on in years, but that just seemed to make him meaner. As far as the authorities could prove, he was a retired farmer, but everyone knew there wasn't an ounce of meth cooked, a bet placed, or a piece of ass sold in Pulaski County that wasn't approved by Boots.
I truly did not want to put a pig in my car, but then I also didn't want to be the one to disappoint Boots. Grady, the sonbitch, knew this and was putting me on the spot.
"Why don't we make the rounds first, then come back for the pig?"
Grady at least had the decency to look embarrassed when he said, "I already told Sumner we were on our way."
"You are a pure-dee asshole," I said. A minute later I turned down the gravel road that led to Dwight Sumner's hog farm.
When Sumner—carrying a sharpened stick—brought the pig around front, I had the sudden urge to smack Grady in the mouth. I'm no expert on pigs, and I can't say for sure that it was full-grown, but it damn sure wasn't little. That thing weighed three hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce.
The pig stopped a few feet away from us. I noticed that Sumner kept his distance even carrying that stick.
"Morning, boys," Sumner said. He was chewing a plug of tobacco so big you could have played softball with it, which made his words come out a little slurred.
Grady and I said good morning.
Sumner nodded toward the pig. "This here's Tulsa."
"Why you call him Tulsa?" Grady asked.
"Because he smells like Oklahoma."
Tulsa looked from me to Grady then back at me again, like he was sizing us up. I guess he decided neither one of us was worth his time, because he grunted and threw himself over on his side fast enough that Sumner had to jump back to keep from getting his feet crushed.
"Fucker," Sumner muttered. I saw him sort of raise the stick, think about giving a jab, then decide against it.
Even Grady was surprised at Tulsa's size. "Damn, hoss. It's a little bigger than I expected."
"Tell me it is," I said. "There's no way that thing will fit in my car."
Sumner said, "Will if you take out the seat."
I shot him a look that would bubble asphalt, and said, "Thanks."
Sumner spit a stream of tobacco juice and smiled at me.
Grady was quick to jump on the idea of taking out the back seat, and between the two of us, we had the job done in a just a few minutes. Next I voiced my concerns about the mechanics of getting the pig into the car.
"Oh, that's easy enough," Sumner said. "S'why I brought the stick."
With both of the back doors open, Sumner climbed into the car. He leaned forward and extended the hand that held the stick so that it was just an inch or two away from the pig.
"You boys best back up a step or two," Sumner said. "And on my say so, shut that damn door in a hurry."
Grady and I moved around to the front of the car. For his part, the pig snored loudly, lost in dreams of wet mud and lady pigs. Sumner took a deep breath, got his feet situated for a clean and hasty exit, then drove that stick about a half an inch into Tulsa's ass.
Several things seemed to happen at once. Tulsa lurched to his feet and charged into the car just as Sumner stepped out of the far door and slammed it shut. Tulsa let out a shriek that could shatter glass and ran head first into the closed door. Grady and I were watching in stunned amazement, and it took a moment for me to realize Sumner was yelling at us.
"Shut it! Shut the goddamn door."
I snapped out of my daze and shut the door just as Tulsa turned his bulk around to make his escape. He pressed his snout up against the glass and smeared a gooey mass of pig snot across the window.
"That was close," Sumner said. "You'd let him out of there we'd all been in a world of hurt."
I watched Tulsa flailing around in the back, running from one window to the other, still squealing and flinging snot.
"Now what?" I asked. "I'm sure as hell not getting in there with that thing."
"Just give him a couple of minutes," Sumner said. "He's got a bad temper, but a short memory. Once he settles down you should be fine."
"Should be?"
Sumner shrugged. "Ain't nothing in this life certain."
"That's reassuring," I said.
Sumner, who didn't give two dry-fucks about reassuring me, turned to Grady. "You tell Boots this squares us."
Grady nodded. "I'll tell him, but you know Uncle Boots."
Sumner spit a brown glob onto one of my tires. "Yeah, I know him."
Sumner's tone suggested he didn't like what he knew. We stood around for a couple of minutes watching my Oldsmobile rock from side to side with the pig's shifting weight.
Grady said, "Sort of reminds me of taking Lacy Bolls to the prom. She weighed about the same and was almost as loud. But I didn't have to jab her with a stick to get her in the backseat."
Grady laughed at his own joke. I was quiet. I knew for a fact that Lacy Bolls had slapped his face, taken his car and left him to walk home, but I didn't see that any good would come from bringing that up.
After a bit, the car stopped rocking—and while I couldn't see in due to the slime-smudged windows, it seemed safe for Grady and me to get inside.
Riding around the countryside with a pig in the back made for a long morning. For one thing, there was the smell. The only way to describe it is to ask you to imagine the worst smell you can possibly imagine, then add pig shit. We rolled down the windows, but that didn't help—plus the wind irritated Tulsa, so we had to roll them back up.
That was the other thing. Whenever something upset the pig, which was often, he squealed and bit the back of my head. Not a full-son bite, just hard enough to yank out some hair. My scalp was burning
and the back of my neck was wet. I didn't know if it was blood or pig spit, and I didn't want to reach back and check for fear of losing a finger.
The collecting itself was easy enough. Grady and I weren't leg-breakers, and this wasn't that sort of job. There were a few dead-drops, and the rest were straight hand-overs. These were all long-standing arrangements with Boots, and nobody was looking to cross him.
When we got to Rascal's Saloon, I was relieved. It was the last pickup on our list. I felt half-sick from the stink in the car, and I was looking forward to a cold beer.
Inside, it was dim and cool, and best of all it didn't smell like a pig's ass. The only other customers in the place this time of day were two guys playing pool.
The bartender was named Tuttle. He was a big guy, round and bald and jolly. He met us at the bar and slid a fat envelope across to Grady before we could settle our asses on the stools.
"What can I get you boys?" Tuttle asked.
"Couple of beers," Grady said. He made the envelope disappear.
Tuttle went away, then came back and set two cold bottles before us. That was when the smell hit him.
"Christ a-mighty," Tuttle said. "You boys go swimming in a sewer?"
I felt my ears turn hot, but Grady just shrugged it off. "Hauling a pig."
Tuttle nodded, grabbed a rag, and moved further down the bar like there was an urgent mess to be cleaned.
Grady and I sat and drank our beers, breathed the clean air.
"You see who's playing pool?" Grady asked. He was purposefully not looking in the direction of the pool table.
"Didn't really notice," I said.
"It's Jimmy Salva."
"Deputy Salva?" I asked. I glanced over to make sure I hadn't said his name too loud.
"Not anymore," Grady said. "He got a little too forceful with a girl didn't want to suck her way out of a speeding ticket. Turned out her daddy was a lawyer from Kansas City. Salva's lucky he only lost his job."
"I heard rumors," I said. "Didn't know if they were true."
"They're true," Grady said. "Question is, what's he doing here?"
"Looks to me like he's playing pool. Is that a suspicious activity?"
"If we'd just finished bucking hay, no. But since we just finished collecting sugar for Uncle Boots, it does make me wonder."
"Wonder what?"
Grady didn't answer. He waved at Tuttle who, reluctantly, stopped polishing the bar and came over to us.
"What's Salva doing here?" Grady asked.
Tuttle glanced over at the pool table. "Looks like he's playing pool."
Grady sighed, frustrated at being surrounded by idiots. "No, I mean…does he come in here much?"
Tuttle thought for a second. "Not really. Been coming in this time of day for about two weeks. I figured he was killing time now that he's out of work. Why? Something wrong?"
Grady finished off his beer, set the empty bottle down. He slid off the stool and motioned for me to follow. I took one more pull from my beer and left it on the bar.
"Next month," Grady said to Tuttle.
Tuttle nodded wearily. "Yeah, next month." Prompt as everybody was when it came to paying Boots, there didn't seem to be a man jack among them who was happy about it.
The hot sun had warmed the car considerably, which did not improve the smell. My stomach churned as I slid behind the wheel.
"What was all that talk about Salva?" I asked. I had to talk loud because Tulsa had gone to sleep, and his snoring was loud as a chainsaw.
Grady kept his gaze on the front door of Rascals. I joined him in staring, wondering what the hell we were looking for. A second later, Salva and his pool-playing buddy came out and headed for their car.
"Let's go," Grady said. "Now."
I started the car and we pulled out of the lot. The car bounced through a couple of potholes and the pig woke up. That was good news on the snoring front, but bad news for the back of my head.
"You going to tell me what's going on?" I asked.
"I think we might be in store for some trouble," Grady said.
"What kind of trouble?"
"The being robbed and killed by an ex-cop looking to make an easy score kind of trouble."
"Goddamn, I hate that kind of trouble," I said. "What can we do about it?"
"How fast can this thing go?"
"It'd go a lot faster if we didn't have three hundred pounds of bacon in the back."
"That's what I was afraid of," Grady said. "Are they following us?"
I looked in the rearview mirror, but all I could see was Tulsa staring back at me. The side and back windows were so gummed with various pig-produced substances that they might as well have been painted over.
I glanced in the side mirror. Sure enough, a car was coming up on us fast. I could see Salva at the wheel, his buddy in the passenger seat. It looked like the passenger had a shotgun propped up in the seat beside him.
"They're back there," I said.
"I knew it," Grady said. He sounded almost excited at the prospect of being right. "That fucker's probably been hanging out at Rascal's just waiting for pickup day. Probably knew that was the last stop on my route and figures this for an easy payday."
"Maybe we should just give him the money," I said. "We can't outrun them, and we don't have guns."
"Giving them the money won't help. I'm pretty sure they don't intend to let us walk away from this. They can't risk us telling Uncle Boots who they are."
I was about to argue with Grady, tell him that surely Salva wouldn't just kill us for some money. Right then I heard gunshots. In the side mirror I saw Salva stretching his arm out the window and firing away. Another shot and I felt something hot and wet splash across my face, then a heavy weight slammed against the back of my seat and knocked me forward.
"They got Tulsa!" Grady said. He was turned sideways, hunkered down in his seat and trying to make himself a small target.
There was a louder blast, which I figured to be the shotgun, and I felt one of the back tires go. Tulsa's weight against the seat kept me pushed up against the steering wheel and made it impossible to keep control of the car. It slid sideways, bounced in and out of the ditch, then back in again before we came to a stop.
It took me a second to clear my head, and by that time Grady already had his cell phone out. I heard the other car pull to a stop behind us.
"We're being hit," Grady shouted into the phone. "About three miles away on Route 2. It's going down quick, so come a runnin'."
Grady dropped the phone in the seat and we both got out, hands in the air. Salva's car was about ten yards away. The two men got out and approached us cautiously. Salva tucked his gun into his pants, but his partner kept us covered with the shotgun.
"You two step to the back of the car, put your hands on the trunk," Salva said.
We did as he asked.
"This seems awful cop-like," Grady said. "You sure you're not getting this confused with your old job?"
"No confusion," Salva said. "This job has better benefits. Like being able to shoot assholes who run off at the mouth."
"I'd like my silent nature to be noted," I said.
"I shoot the quiet types too," Salva said.
"Well in that case, go fuck your mother."
Salva slapped me in the back of the head. It hurt a lot more than it should have due to all the pig bites and pulled hair, and I was pleased to see Salva make a disgusted face as he wiped his slime-covered hand on his pants.
"Hand over the money and we'll make this quick," Salva said.
"Ain't that what your mother said?" Grady asked.
Salva reared back and gave Grady a kick in the ass. There was enough force behind it that I halfway expected Grady to cough up a turd, but instead he just slumped against the trunk and groaned.
"The money," Grady said.
Grady fumbled around and pulled the envelope he'd gotten from Tuttle out of his pocket. He didn't bother trying to hand it to Salva, just dropped it on the road
.
Salva picked up the envelope, took a quick glance inside. "That's good for starters, but I know there's more than this."
Grady let his head hang over the side of the car and made puking noises, but nothing came up. He gestured vaguely with one hand, like he was doing some half-assed version of sign language.
"He's telling you it's in the car," I said. "Behind my seat."
Salva pulled his gun from his pants and pointed it as us. "Check it out, Dooley."
Dooley held his shotgun at the ready and moved around to the side of the car. He tried to look inside but gave up after a second and opened the back door.
From where I was standing, I saw Tulsa's head drop and dangle from the open door. There was blood on the side of his head and a ragged stub where his ear had been.
When considering final words, I believe we all hope to say something meaningful, wise, maybe even a little poetic. But we get what we get, and what Dooley got was, "I'll be damned. Looks like you shot a pig."
When Dooley followed up his statement about pig shooting with a sharp poke from the barrel of his shotgun, it was enough to wake Tulsa and send him into a rage. The bullet that tore off Tulsa's ear must have knocked him senseless, but it didn't kill him.
He lunged from the car and knocked Dooley to the ground. The shotgun fired into the air and Dooley screamed as Tulsa chomped and tore at his crotch. There was a peculiar, outraged quality to Dooley's screams. They were the cries of a man being violently disabused of the notion that no matter how poorly his day went it would not end with his wedding tackle being eaten by livestock.
Tulsa pulled his blood-covered snout from the hole he'd made in Dooley just as Salva stepped into his line of sight. The pig squealed, and charged. Salva let out a yell and began firing in a panic. His first two shots hit Dooley, who jerked a couple of times and went quiet. I'll say this for Salva, he didn't stay panicked for long. He lined up and emptied his gun into Tulsa, but it didn't even slow the pig down.