by J. C. Burke
‘No.’
He puffs out his bottom lip and nods. ‘Is good. Is good.’ He seems satisfied about something. What, I have no idea.
I follow him around the corner and down the lane that leads to the back of the butcher’s. The Pigman is wearing steelcapped boots. Each time they hit the pavement I think of Billy Marshall’s brown boots. They remind me why I’m here, doing this. It gives me strength. At last I feel like I’m running the show.
‘You take other clotheses,’ the Pigman tells me.
‘Hey?’
‘Clotheses.’ His hands sweep down his body but I’m the one who speaks the language and I know what ‘clothes’ are.
Thankfully, Glen the butcher appears from behind the swinging plastic doors at the back of the shop. He’s wearing white overalls and a plastic mould around his shoulders that looks like a bib. ‘Aha, Damon.’ He nods to the Pigman, then says to me, ‘I couldn’t work out who Miro was talking about.’
‘Demon.’ The Pigman points at me.
‘Yeah, mate. Now I know who you mean.’
‘He no bring clotheses,’ he says to Glen.
‘Don’t worry, Miro. I’ve got something.’
‘Thank you, Glen.’
‘The tight-arse should’ve got you here an hour ago. He was back from the hunt before three,’ Glen says. He turns around and calls, ‘Hey Miro? You going to get him started in the garage?’
‘Yes,’ he answers. ‘My hand no good.’
Glen chuckles like the Pigman and him are in a conspiracy. ‘Ah, the old hand excuse. You’ve hit the jackpot, mate,’ he says to me. ‘You better come and gear up.’
Soon Glen and I are walking through the plastic doors in matching white overalls, except mine are at least a size too small in the body. They have my nuts pushing up towards my bellybutton. I wonder if my voice will squeak.
‘You’ll be wanting these,’ Glen whispers. ‘And Miro won’t give you none.’ He has shoved a pair of rubber gloves into the cuffs of my overalls.
‘Damon’s going to have to work fast,’ Glen tells the Pigman. He’s tapping his watch. ‘The chiller’s due in forty-five minutes. Terry won’t hang around.’
‘No problem, Glen. Okay, Demon …’
‘Damon,’ I mutter through my teeth.
‘… you come with me.’
There’s a door that leads to another door and we enter a room that’s like an enormous refrigerator. The Pigman switches a blue fluorescent light on to reveal an assortment of animal parts hanging off rails that line the ceiling and walls. The room is freezing, yet the scent of the red meat seems to warm the hairs in my nostrils. I practise mouth-breathing and try not to think about the meatlover’s pizza I ate nine hours ago.
A badge is sewn onto the Pigman’s hat. I decide to study that instead. It’s quite a design: a skull and crossbones surrounded by two eagles whose wings are spread like fans. Letters, some like English letters but upside down, encircle the design. I decide it’s a motto for a football club. Europeans are crazy about their soccer.
‘No look in light,’ the Pigman snaps, pushing his hat back so that the badge is almost out of view. ‘Is bad for eyes. Special light to make no, no …’ He clicks his fingers, searching for the word. ‘No barkatearea for meats.’
‘I was looking at your hat,’ I tell him. I point to his head. ‘What does that mean?’
The Pigman gets a silver knife with a black handle then switches the light off and walks out. I follow, waiting for the explanation. But he says nothing, as if I had never asked the question.
Outside, the Pigman’s truck is parked further down the lane. I hadn’t noticed it before because the back tray has been reversed into a garage.
‘I have four pig,’ he tells me, as we squeeze around the side of the ute and under the roller door. ‘You take gutses out.’
I don’t know what I was expecting but four hogs hanging from their hind legs, their front limbs stiff and pointing into the air like they’ve been caught sleepwalking, isn’t it.
The pizza drops further down my guts.
‘They are okay for you,’ he says. The Pigman’s taken a knife sharpener off a stainless steel table and is placing a bucket next to the first grunter. ‘No so big, so no good for me, but is okay. They good for you. For one time. Come, come,’ he says, beckoning me over. ‘You watch.’
The Pigman looks as though he’s conducting an orchestra as he sharpens the knife with grand arm-swinging and slicing. My mind is busy adding up the factors – pig, knife, bucket plus the rubber gloves in my pocket – this isn’t looking good. I’m here to learn about guns not evisceration.
I stand behind the Pigman. The animals look fake even with their throats slit. They’re stiff and still like props from a movie set.
‘Move, boy!’ The huge hand reaches behind me, takes a palmful of white overalls and, almost castrating me, pulls me around the other side of him. ‘You in light. I no want to chop hand.’
I adjust my pants and go back to mouth-breathing.
‘I shoot three hour ago,’ he says.
Suddenly the Pigman hits his chest and then the animal’s chest. ‘Is like brick. See, feel.’ This time he grabs my hand and whacks it bang in the middle of the carcass. It feels like I’ve connected with a concrete wall. ‘Hard. Yes?’ He takes my finger and grips it so tight that I can’t even snatch it away as he guides it between the boar’s hind legs, tracing my fingertip around its balls then back down the torso. ‘Is tough, see.’
The Pigman picks up the knife. Without one polite word of warning he thrusts the blade under the boar’s tail and begins to cut. ‘Tight you hold,’ the Pigman says, gripping the pig’s tail like it’s all that’s keeping him on his feet. ‘Knife sharp but some pig are tough bastards. You big boy, Demon, you be okay. You strong man, yes?’
Somehow my head nods even though I am spellbound by the way he’s started to dip his hand into the gaping hole, pulling out parts of its anatomy while his mouth stays open and talking. ‘You use side of knife. Yes? You not make big mess. Godon –’ he makes the same ‘pfff’ sound with his lips – ‘Godon, all time knife go too far. You cut heart, bladder. Pfff!’ It’s the same sound but the volume tells me it means something quite different. ‘Bloods, shitses, piss all everywhere. Big, big mess. No good for meat.’
His hand cups a mass of grey and pink tubular glug that’s bulging out of the boar like it’s a sausage making machine. It’s disgusting but I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s growing bigger and bigger. Now it’s more like the Pigman’s delivering an alien monster into the world.
He begins to whistle. I count and try to concentrate on the vaguely familiar tune but just when I’m in a rhythm and feeling stronger on my legs, he shoves his bare hand inside the boar and digs out the remaining tangle of glug. It slips through his fingers and into the bucket. Larger pieces land with a thud and for that second I lose the tune altogether. Inside my head I count louder – nineteen, twenty, twenty-one … I’m trying not to look down at all the jelly bits hanging over the rim of the bucket, but the reflection of their slippery skin glistens against the concrete floor.
The Pigman lights a cigarette and picks up the knife again. I swallow hard as I watch his elbow move in and out of the pig and I wonder how I am going to get through this. I’ve got no problem hoeing into a burger while blood and guts spray and splatter all over the computer screen. But this is different.
The boar is deader than dead. Of course I know that, but a voice is rabbiting on in my head: Can it feel anything? What if it can? How can we be here one minute, alive and breathing, and then dead? How do we really know it stops just like that? What if it doesn’t?
A bloody finger pokes me hard. ‘Boy, you must watch!’ Now the Pigman’s elbow completely disappears inside the gaping hole that once held a stomach and intestines. ‘Terry need to see organ. Okay? Hearts, lungs, livers,’ he lists, as he pulls out gelatinous lumps in different shapes and tones that dangle off a slippery white cord. ‘You mus
t be careful. Very, veeery careful. All good if no wormses. No disease. Terry need to show …’
The roller door groans and a cool breeze enters the garage. I turn away from the hanging carcasses, hungrily gulping mouthfuls of fresh air.
‘Hello?’ Miro calls.
Glen’s voice answers. ‘Terry will be here in twenty, Miro. He’s passed the Mereton turn-off.’
‘Sheeeet,’ the Pigman utters. ‘Quick, I watch, Demon.’
The Pigman’s steelcapped boots slide the black bucket towards the next victim. ‘First time, I look.’ His hand – covered in red specks of jelly – is pushing the handle of the knife into mine. ‘Come on.’
I want to ask him if I can put on the gloves. I want to tell him that I’m not good at this type of thing. That all I want to know is how to shoot straight with a rifle because I’m not sure I can handle the thing in my wardrobe.
‘Come on!’ The Pigman shouts. He takes my fist and thumps it between the next boar’s back legs, almost smashing my knuckles through the flesh. ‘Up. Up! Hard … now cut.’
The tip of the knife just touches the skin. I’m hanging onto the tail while the Pigman’s voice is getting louder and louder. ‘In. In! Push!’ My nostrils fill with air. I picture Billy Marshall and thrust the knife in but the blade slips in easier than I expect. Billy Marshall’s face disappears and a thought crashes through my head: Just say the pig’s not dead?
‘Good, good. You strong boy. Now hold like …’ It’s difficult to breathe and the Pigman’s body leaning over me is blocking all the air. My hand is shaking. I know what I have to do, but I’m not sure I can. The Pigman’s wrapped his fingers around mine. His grip is tight. The calluses along his fingertips scratch against my skin. ‘Hold like this, boy,’ he says, and before I get to the count of three we are dragging the knife down the boar’s body.
By hog number four my head is spinning and my stomach is heaving and groaning with pain. My last mouthfuls of meatlover’s pizza landed in the bucket three seconds after boar number two’s guts slopped in there.
Me and the pigs look like we’ve stumbled into the chainsaw massacre. My white overalls are splattered in every secretion known to man. The sleeves are dyed red past my elbows. But underneath all this, a layer of sweat is seeping right through my clothes, leaving me damp and cold.
It’s like I’m back in the bush – lying on the cold ground, my schoolbag beside me. Flattening my body into the leaves, and swallowing the vomit that’s squeezing up my throat while the man’s shallow breaths disappear into the air and his blood creeps towards me.
The Pigman’s boots echo through the garage. It makes me think of Billy Marshall stumbling through the bush, the twigs and leaves snapping and crunching twice as loud when his good foot hits the ground.
Quickly I slide the bucket towards number four. It’s the last one and the smallest. One hand takes hold of its little tail while the other holds the knife. I count to five, bracing myself for the stab.
‘Demon?’ the Pigman calls. ‘Demon!’
I drop the tail and grab onto the back leg, my hand sliding onto its pink skin. It feels warm, soft, like it’s alive.
‘Demon, you must go. Now!’
‘I think, I think …’ I’m trying to speak but the Pigman is reaching out to me, his fingers claw at me, undoing my buttons.
‘Go now, boy!’ I have dropped the knife. The Pigman is pulling the overalls off me. I’m hopping on the spot trying to get my foot out of the pants. ‘I give to Glen,’ he says, dragging me towards the door. ‘You go. Now!’ But I push against him because I’m not interested in whatever illegal business they have going on, I just want to feel the pig’s skin one last time.
I’m shouting. ‘It’s, it’s …’
‘Demon, you finish. Go! You come see me to get money. Tomorrow.’
Maybe I got it wrong? I was too afraid to touch the man in the bush. Too afraid to lean down and listen for his heart beating. Maybe he just looked like he was dead?
WHEN I GET UP THE day is warm and I stumble out looking for a drink. In the lounge room the soapies have whisked the old girl away. Waxen faces take up every centimetre of our giant plasma screen. I feel like a peeping Tom standing here in my pyjamas, a step outside the doorway, watching Mum’s lips move with the actors’ every word.
‘I can’t do this any more, Chancellor.’
‘I know, my darling. I know.’
Mum lets out a sigh and wraps her arms around her shoulders.
‘Them two used to be married.’ She says it out loud. ‘But Chancellor, he think she died in the hotel fire.’
Mum is talking to me. Her head hasn’t moved but she knows I’m here.
‘You was up early this mornin’.’ She takes a sip from a mug. She’s still not looking my way. ‘I seen Moe’s mother at the mini-mart. She says she saw you in the bush this mornin’. She was walkin’ the dogs.’
‘What!’ I can’t help it. I’ve said it too loud.
‘I’m only tellin’ ya what she said.’
‘Nothing’s private around here,’ I mutter, because I know that’s what I’m meant to say.
‘What were ya doin’? Dora takes them dogs out real early, before six.’
‘I couldn’t sleep. So I went for a walk.’
‘Ya see those Marshall boys arguin’? Dora says she’s surprised the whole town didn’t wake.’
I sink into the armchair next to her.
‘Did ya?’
I shake my head, though it hardly moves. It feels like my jaw is locked closed. ‘Where?’ My voice rumbles through my teeth. ‘Where’d she see them?’
‘Down the back of the bush, near the old school.’ The ads are finished. Mum is thumbing the remote trying to get the sound back up. ‘I should take this back. It never bloody works.’
Staying seated is killing me. What I’d like to do is chuck the remote to the other side of the room, grab Mum by the shoulders and shake her until she spits out every last detail. But calm is the key. So I lean over and carefully take the remote out of her hand. ‘I’ll fix it,’ I say.
Mum sits back into the couch.
My lips feel like plastic as they stretch over each word. ‘What time did Dora see them?’
‘What? Ya mean them Marshall thugs …? Damon!’ Mum squawks. ‘I’m missin’ the show.’
This time I stand up and hold the remote near the TV, keeping my finger on the mute button. ‘What time did Dora see them?’
‘How would I know! She said it was after she seen you.’
‘So she saw me first?’ I force myself to yawn. I need to soothe my tone, give the impression I’m not that interested. ‘Yeah? And they were down by the old schoolhouse?’
‘What the bloody hell is wrong with the remote?’ she whines. ‘This TV is bung. I knew I shouldn’a pay all that money.’
‘It’s probably just the batteries in the remote.’ I need Mum calm and focused. ‘I’ll IQ it for you, okay? You won’t miss a thing.’ The set-up menu comes onto the screen. It settles the old girl a bit. ‘So who was fighting?’ I ask.
‘Fighting?’
‘Which Marshall boys?’
‘Oh. Dunno. Can’t remember.’
‘Was it the older two?’
‘Mmm, maybe. I think she said it was them two. Apparently the cops turned up,’ she replies. ‘Is my show recordin’?’
‘It’s recording.’
‘Damn it. I’ve missed some,’ Mum whines.
‘So the police turned up?’ I ask. ‘It must’ve been bad. The Marshalls have more pull around here than the cops ever have.’
‘They say some of ’em new cops are gonna clean the place up, ya know.’
‘And you’re certain Dora said they were down by the old schoolhouse?’
‘Yes!’ Mum screeches. ‘Now mooove!’
I’m still holding the remote. It’s so clear what I have to do.
‘Mum, I think I should go down to Mereton and get G Brothers to take a look at it.’
‘So it’s not the batteries? It’s the whole TV? I knew it. Take it back!’
‘Yeah,’ I say and go back to my room.
I’m pacing back and forth, from the wardrobe to the window, from the window to the wardrobe. I’m having difficulty making sense of what I’ve heard. It’s all too much to swallow and now the clock is ticking louder.
I pull out the exercise book and scan the updated list.
It’s time to attempt step four again – ‘look into renewing firearms licence’. I dread it. But I have to go back. The Pigman won’t hire me unless I have one.
I log on to the Mereton Shooting Club website. Their safety awareness course is running this afternoon. I read the site’s clumsy wording while imagining Tits on Teeth sitting on Jeff’s lap, typing away. She’s probably a prick tease too.
Three o’clock. That’s the time, then.
My foot has started tapping on the floor. It’s like it’s disconnected from my body. I watch my toes bouncing up and down on the carpet yet I can’t make it stop. So I look away, count to five, then in one held breath I hit ‘make booking’ and enter my details. I press send and breathe again, which is when my foot suddenly stops.
A bovine groan escapes from the back of my throat. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. I’ve fired a rifle before and I was hopeless. But I know without a doubt that I’d be more hopeless with a semi-automatic in my hands.
I’m up pacing the room again. How am I going to make it to three o’clock? Mum’s surprise piece of information has the panic churning my guts. It never really stopped, but I thought I’d salvaged some control.
This morning when I left the butcher’s I was so careful. The dawn light may have aided my disguise but I still checked every street before I crossed it, every corner before I turned it.
When I reached the edge of the bush I stopped for a rest because I felt safe there. It was walking through town that I considered the biggest risk. Not in the bush. Not again. Not before the day had even started.
