by Paul Griffin
“Sure, son, you pick,” the dad said.
I nodded at Ray-Ray, belly up in the older girl’s arms. “I think he picked you.”
“Those stripes are the cutest,” the mom said.
“The stripes are quite special,” Mom said. “We have to charge a premium for the striped ones, I’m sure you understand.”
Marty watched as they took Ray-Ray to their car. He oinked from the gate and squealed very quietly, and I guess that’s how pigs cry.
By mid-January even crazy little Eddie was adopted, and it was just Bell and Marty. He was as big as she was now.
I’d never seen Bell so sad. Marty tried to cheer her up with tricks I taught him. He did the triple rollover, and Bella whimpered. He pounced on his squirrel toy and brought it to Bella for some tug-of-war.
She slumped next to Double on the couch and sighed.
Marty dropped his head. I pulled him close and scratched his chest. He thumped his back hoof on the den floor.
“Is that pig scuffing my floors again?” Mom called from the kitchen. “You get that animal out to the barn, Renzo, or we’ll be having boiled ham for dinner.”
“Now, now,” Double said, flipping through the Wanted ads.
“Why does she have to be like that?” I said to Double.
“What’d you say about me?” Mom yelled. “Daddy, what did Renzo say about me?
“Ben Suarez is looking for a chainsaw,” Double said. “I tune up that old Craftsman, we get fifty bucks for it.”
“We’re not keeping that pig past spring. Lorenzo Ventura, do you hear me?”
Double stroked Bella’s forehead, but she wouldn’t open her eyes. “We have to fix this poor girl so she can’t have any more pups,” Double said.
“Mom won’t let you, I bet.”
“Now what are you saying about me?”
I followed Double into the kitchen. Mom looked up from her cooking, mishmash soup made from the week’s leftovers. It sounds gross but it actually tasted pretty good. Marty loved it, anyway. “I’ve never seen a sadder pair of conspirers,” Mom said.
“I’m taking Bella to get fixed,” Double said.
“You are not,” Mom said.
“It’s a heartbreaker for her every time she has a litter,” Double said. “We don’t make hardly any money on those puppies anyway, by the time we’ve fed ’em ten weeks.”
“We cleared three hundred ten dollars this last round,” Mom said. “Where are my Tums? Ugh, this pig, sniffing at me all the time.”
I clucked my tongue, and Marty came right over. He sat and gave me a hoof. “I swear he’ll be learning to bark soon,” I said.
“Did that pig eat my Tums again?” Mom said.
“Marty?” I said. “Woof. Woof.”
Bella woof-woof-woofed, and Marty groink-groink-groinked.
“Diabolical,” Mom said. “The apocalypse came and went without anybody telling me.”
“He might be the smartest pup we ever had,” Double said.
“He’s not a pup,” Mom said. “He did eat them. Look, the wrapper’s in his shoe pile. Why do we let him steal our shoes anyway? You boys better hope that pig sells for good money.” Mom slapped the countertop. “Daddy, I know that look. Don’t you start about keeping that crazy-minded pig.”
“C’mon, Renzo, let’s get Bell into the truck.”
“C’mon, Marty, let’s go for a ride.” He trotted alongside me. “I’ll bring you back some Tums, Momma mia.”
“Oh and that’ll just make everything all right.”
As the truck pulled out I looked back to the house and saw Mom at the kitchen sink window. Her lips were moving, but she had no phone to her ear. She was praying, and I wondered what for.
PART 2
Spring
12. PEANUT BUTTER AND THE MAGIC NOSE
By April Marty was twice Bella’s size. They snuggled on the couch and watched me make peanut butter sandwiches for school. Marty drooled.
The stairs creaked.
“Marty, down,” I whispered.
He hopped off the couch just before Mom rushed in. “I suppose that big fat dent in the cushions was made by the Holy Ghost,” she said. She filled her to-go cup with coffee. “Must you let the pig lick the spoon? And there you go again, wiping it on the bread.”
Marty stood on his hind legs to reach the counter.
“Renzo, make him get down. That’s funny to you, huh, a counter-surfing pig? Look at you, grinning like your teeth aren’t crooked.”
“Down, Marty. Sit.”
He sat.
“See?” I said.
“I see ham hocks,” Mom said. She checked herself in the hall mirror. She had an interview at the Pizza Emporium for nightshift hostess. “Ugh, my hair now with the humidity, all wound up like a travesty of corkscrews.”
“You look nice,” I said.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, trying to flatter me into letting you keep that pig. First day of summer—”
“He’s off to auction, I know, I know.”
“You think I’m happy about it?” Mom said. “Lookit, I’ll grant you he’s smart like a dog and maybe even sweet as one too, but Renz, we need that money. Double’s seventy-five with a bad knee, doing that Wal-Mart restock four days a week.”
“I know.”
“When he’s not at the Wal he’s in the orchard, and when you’re not in school, you’re up there with him. Still we come up short each month. Mortgage, taxes, repairs, second mortgage—”
“Mom, I’m sorry you got left with this mess, okay? I’m sorry Dad got killed and you got stuck with me.”
She whip-turned from the mirror and glared at me. “Stuck with you? You’re the reason I keep keeping on.” Her face softened, and now she just looked tired. “We’ll give him a couple more months with Bella, your Marty there, and then it’ll be time to let him live out his purpose.” She popped a Tums as she left.
Marty licked the peanut butter jar clean. “Marty,” I said.
He tipped over and played dead, except his tail was still wagging.
“You won’t stop until I laugh, right?” I was already laughing, and then I stopped. I didn’t like the play dead trick anymore.
He followed me to the door and tried to sneak out with me. “Nope,” I said, and he moped into the house. Halfway down the hill I looked back. He was at the window, watching over me.
Pal was waiting for me at the cafeteria bulletin board. She tore a flyer from it and stuck it in my face.
It was for the cinco de mayo festival, a list of attractions, the Tilt-A-Whirl and Ferris wheel, the mini pony ride, the dog race, and then the jamboree, open microphone.
“You swore,” Pal said.
I nodded.
“Yo, check it out,” somebody yelled. “There’s a pig at the window.”
“Oh boy,” Pal said.
“Oh no,” I said. I ran into the courtyard to stop Marty from climbing through the window. Half the cafeteria followed me. Marty put on a show, first some tail chasing, then Frisbee fetch, then his trademark triple log roll with a big wet fart thrown in. That one earned him a meatball hero. He demolished it in seconds.
Everybody was laughing. They weren’t laughing at him either. They were with him all the way. He’d infected them with his happiness.
“He tracked you good,” Pal said.
“They can smell from five miles away,” Richie Calvo said. “My uncle’s a pig farmer. That’s a hog you got there, Renz. Put a tag through his ear before somebody mistakes him for feral and shoots him for his meat.”
The lunch lady was coming, walkie-talkie at her mouth.
“Marty,” I said, “time to run.”
13. MUD
Mom paced the front yard, phone to her ear. The screen door was bent open.
“Here he is now,” Mom said. “It’ll never happen again, I assure you.” She crossed her arms and scowled at me. “I’d haul that pig to auction today if I thought I’d get a fair price for him.”
“It wasn’t that big a deal,” I said.
“You cut school. You ran when the lunch aide said stop. Max Hawkes’s mother wants him tested for swine flu. Don’t roll your eyes at me. You want to end up in juvenile detention? See if the Army takes you then.” She hurried up the porch steps.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Did you get the job?”
“They said it was more for a teenager, seeing as it’s minimum wage.”
I fixed the screen door, then I raked the wildwood leaves that blew through the orchard no matter the season. Marty wrecked every last pile.
The peach trees were another story. They hadn’t blossomed yet, a bad sign. I found rot on a wilting branch.
Pal came uphill with her guitar and mine. I’d left school so fast, I’d forgotten it. I’d almost lost the truest way I could know my dad.
Pal sat back against a tree and strummed. Marty plopped his giant head at her feet as she sang:
Every time you walk away
Every time you walk away
Every time you walk away
Walk away
Walk away
Every time you hold me tight
In the deepest darkest night
Every time you hold me tight
Hold me tight
Hold me tight
Every time you call my name
It just never sounds the same
It sounds like a dreamed-for name
Call my name
Call my name
“For your mom?” I said.
“To her. Renz, let’s go to the safe place.”
The safe place wasn’t a place. It was a thing we did since kindergarten. I sat with her and leaned in until our foreheads touched. We closed our eyes, and we didn’t have to talk. As long as Pal and I stayed best friends, we could figure out anything, even a way to save Marty.
I felt another forehead on mine, and there was Marty’s muddy snout.
“Hi, peanut butter breath,” Pal said.
He nipped her sleeve and nudged her toward a mud puddle.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said.
Marty belly-flopped into the puddle. He shook himself off, and now we were shot up with mud freckles. We chased Marty and each other with mud bombs. We were laughing so hard, I didn’t hear our old tractor mower chug-a-lugging uphill until it was on top of us, practically. Double named the mower Buck, because when it wasn’t conking out, it was bouncing you every which way.
Bella climbed down from the trailer bed and stretched out in a sun patch. Double had Gatorades for us. “Nothing like a mud fight to set things right,” he said. “You all are smiling like you won the Powerball.”
“It beats crying,” Pal said, crying now. “Double, how we gonna save Marty?”
“I’ve been wondering the very same thing,” he said. He threw a chewed-up tennis ball. “Go on now, Bell, get it.”
Bella yawned and lay back in the grass. Marty flew downhill. He fetched the ball and dropped it at my feet.
“Most pigs would eat a tennis ball before they brought it back to you,” Double said. “There’s got to be a way to make money off that somehow, his fetching, and then your mom’ll let him stay for sure.”
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the way to save Marty. Watch this.” I whipped the ball past a short stack of peach logs. Marty hurdled them like a horse in one of those fancy shows where they jump hay bales and zigzag through the hedges. I was hooting. “Don’t you see?” I said.
They didn’t.
I hunted my pockets for the cinco de mayo flyer and showed it to Double. “We’re gonna race him,” I said.
“Course we are,” Double said. “Where we gonna race him again?”
“In the dog race.”
Double squinted. “Thought you said the dog race there for a sec, Renz.”
“Yup.”
“Well, at least my hearing aid’s workin’.”
“Hold on,” Pal said. “You want to enter Bella in the dog as in D-O-G race, right?”
“Bell won’t even run to her food bowl anymore,” I said.
“At top speed Marty doesn’t run ten miles an hour!”
“Pal’s right,” Double said. “Those dogs will outrun him triple speed.”
“On the straightaway,” I said. “Most of the course is obstacles. More than speed you need smarts. The dogs are mostly old farm hounds out for some fun. Last year half of them didn’t even finish. The one went swimming in the steeplechase water, and then it turned into a pool party, remember?”
“I don’t like watching those things,” Pal said, “all those drunk jerks yelling at the dogs.”
“It’s not greyhound racing,” I said. “It’s a goof to raise money for charity.” I pointed to the flyer. “What’s that say about prize money?”
Pal read, “Three thousand dollars for first place.”
“That’s way more than we’d get for him at auction,” I said.
“It also says it’s five hundred to enter the race. He’ll end up costing us money.”
“I can get the five hundred for us,” Double said. “They’re always asking at the Wal if I want overtime.”
“Thanks, Double, but I got it, or most of it. With grass-cutting season coming, I’ll have enough by the cinco de mayo.”
“Your college money, you moron?” Pal said. “Mom’ll kill you if you spend a dime of it.”
“He’s gonna win,” I said. “I feel it.” I knelt and Marty came to me. He rested his forehead on mine.
“Renz, do me a favor,” Double said. “Let me be the one to ask your mom.”
“If you insist,” I said.
14. A FROG’S NETHER REGIONS INDEED
We were coming downhill from the orchard when Mom drove up. She’d brought Mrs. McGrath, our accountant.
Mom eyed Pal and me. “Mrs. McGrath, how do two smart children trip into the same mud puddle?”
There were half a dozen grocery bags in the truck bed. “Marty, I need a delivery,” I said.
He opened his giant mouth, and I hung a bag on his jaw. He trotted the bag up the porch steps and came back for another. He sat at Mom’s feet and offered his hoof. He wagged his tail so hard, he shimmied. He cocked his head, his slobbery tongue sticking out his mouth.
“Why, that pig thinks he’s a dog,” Mrs. McGrath said.
“I don’t like the looks on any of your all’s faces,” Mom said.
Double laid out our plan.
Mrs. McGrath said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such a thing as that anyway. A pig in a dog race? Oh no, I don’t think so.”
“Mrs. McGrath,” Mom said, “will you kindly tell these three lunatics we don’t have five hundred dollars to be gambling away on a crackpot pig?”
“The whole fair’s a fundraiser for the children’s hospital,” Double said. “If we lose, the money goes to the kids. And anyway, Renzo wants to put up the stake himself.”
“With his college money? Pop, you can’t expect me to let the boy throw away his savings like this? What kind of lesson is that to teach him?”
“Double, I don’t suppose I should butt in here,” Mrs. McGrath said, “but your all’s money really is tighter than a frog’s nether regions.”
“A frog’s nether regions indeed,” Double said. “The lesson here is you do all you can to protect your friend.”
“A pig for a friend,” Mom said. “You might as well set fire to that five hundred dollars. Paloma Lee, earn yourself a seat at the table and start peeling those potatoes.”
“You got it, Momma.” Pal followe
d Mom and Mrs. McGrath inside with a thumbs-up to me.
“Was that a yes?” I said.
“Close enough,” Double said. “You think he can do it, though, Renz? You really think Marty can win?”
He was peeing on Mom’s begonias, lifting his leg just like a dog. Bella groaned.
15. CINCO DE MAYO
At sunrise I was in the kitchen toasting a waffle. The dog race was just a few hours away. After that I had to play my guitar for a thousand strangers.
I wondered if my dad ever got scared, playing for a big crowd.
Bella barked to warn me of an intruder at the side door. Marty was right behind her.
Woof-woof, woof-woof-woof!
Oink-oink, oink-oink-oink!
Pal let herself in, humming. She stole my waffle and covered it with Hershey’s. “I can’t wait to get up there in front of all those people,” she said.
“We better get in one last practice run.”
“Get your guitar then.”
“No, I mean for Marty.”
I’d laid out a mockup of the racecourse with bales and zigzag trails marked off with rolls of POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape Mr. Lee donated to the cause.
Marty hurdled and climbed and wove through the obstacles in record time, until he got to the last hitch, the slide. It was from a swing set I found in a dumpster near one of John Mason’s construction sites.
Marty climbed the straw bale steps to the top of the slide, and then like always he sat and stared out at the mountains.
“When the time comes, he’ll do it,” Pal said.
“Marty, come on, boy,” I said.
He wouldn’t budge.
The rides spun and whirled all across the five-acre lot behind the Juliette water tower. Double and Mr. Lee came with Pal and me as we walked Marty up to the entry table. I had Marty on a leash, and people were snickering.
“And how can I help you, son?” the man at the registration desk said.
