by Bill Crider
“That there won’t be a sports program,” Bunni said. Her eyes were wide with the enormity of it all. “That football and basketball and . . . and everything will just be . . . gone!”
“You can’t be sure about rumors like that,” Burns said, feeling like a slimy worm. “Something like that couldn’t happen just over the weekend. Something like that would take board approval.” He stopped. He didn’t know what else to say.
George decided it was time to speak up. “We heard that Dean Elmore is going to take the idea to the board and tell them that the school can save a lot of money if we do away with sports.”
The kid had a pretty good source of information, Burns had to admit. “Taking it to them and getting their approval are two different things,” he said. “I imagine some of the board members are old football players themselves, and most of them probably like coming to the homecoming games. Elmore won’t have an easy time of it. Assuming, of course, that what you heard is true.”
“It’s true, all right,” Bunni said. She clenched her fists on her nicely rounded thighs. “I really do hate that Dean Elmore.”
Burns was surprised. He’d certainly never seen Bunni express so much emotion before, not even when they’d discussed Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in the American literature class.
“Is there anything we can do, Dr. Burns?” George asked.
Burns sat silently for a minute. If he did anything at all to help these students, he would get in serious trouble if Elmore found out. But what the hell. “Write this down, Bunni,” he said. “I’m going to give you a list.”
Burns and Earl Fox were sitting in the history lounge, smoking L & Ms, when Dorinda Edgely opened the door and walked in.
She looked like a pig.
It wasn’t her figure, though the orange and black polyester pants she wore, and probably had been wearing since about 1974, were stuffed to the bursting point with her bountiful self.
It wasn’t the fact that her blonde hair seemed to have been styled by the very man who created Miss Piggy’s “do” for “The Muppets.”
It wasn’t the rosy pinkness of the flesh of her chubby face and double chins.
No, it was none of those things.
It was the snout.
Dorinda Edgely was wearing a snout, which would have been right at home on the Practical Pig in the Disney cartoon. It was pink and wrinkled, and it had two black nostrils painted on. It was attached to Dorinda’s face by a thin black stretch band, like the kind that Burns had once used on Halloween to hold his Lone Ranger mask.
Around Dorinda’s neck was a piece of white string, from which a sign was hanging. The sign said HELP ME KISS A PIG in purple block letters.
Dorinda held a tin can from which the label had been removed. She rattled it at Burns and Fox. Burns could hear the sound of coins clattering around inside the can. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew out a puff of smoke.
Fox, meanwhile, had dropped his cigarette to the floor as soon as the door had begun to open. It had rolled aside a few feet, and Fox completely ignored the fact that it was there at all, even though it was sending up a steady stream of smoke. “Hi, Dorinda,” he said. “You’re looking great!”
Dorinda stopped shaking the can.
“I mean, you’ve got on a great get-up! Doesn’t she Carl? Isn’t that great? It’s great! What’s it for?”
“The contest,” Dorinda said. “Surely you’re aware of the contest?”
“Oh, sure!” Fox said. “The contest. We know about the contest, don’t we, Carl?”
As a matter of fact, Burns did know about the contest. Every year a member of the faculty got to kiss a pig in the student dining room at noon on a Thursday. For this privilege, the faculty member had to raise more money than any other faculty member entered in the contest. Though the money went to a scholarship fund, Burns had always declined the honor of entering. Kissing a pig in front of the students was not his idea of a good time.
“Sure,” Burns said. “We know about the contest. How much money have you collected, Dorinda?”
“I haven’t counted it,” she said. “But I hope to have a little more when I get out of here.” She looked pointedly at the cigarette burning on the floor.
“Absolutely!” Fox said, fumbling in the back pocket of his faded bell-bottom jeans for his billfold. He pulled it out, looked inside, and extracted a wrinkled dollar bill. “Here,” he said, extending it toward Dorinda.
Dorinda took the bill and looked expectantly at Burns, who took another defiant drag on his L & M. “Is Dean Elmore entered this year?” he asked.
“Why?” Dorinda countered.
“Don’t worry,” Burns said. “I’m going to give my money to you, not to him. I was just wondering.”
“All right then,” Dorinda said. “He’s entered. He beat me last year, but I plan to beat him this year.” She held her can out toward Burns.
Burns dug in his pocket for some change and came up with two quarters and a penny. He dropped them in the can. “Good luck, Dorinda. I really hope you win.”
“Thanks,” she said. Having gotten what she came for, she left the history lounge, not even bothering to shut the door.
Burns got up and closed the door himself, giving Fox time to step on his still-smoldering cigarette butt. “You’ve got to get a lock for this thing,” Burns said.
“That woman has no respect,” Fox said. “All I can say is that I feel sorry for the pig if she wins.”
“And what if Elmore wins?”
“Then the SPCA will descend on us in all its fury, and rightfully so,” Fox said. “Because the pig would probably die instantly. Can you believe what he did to Thomas last Friday?”
“After a few years at this place, I’m no longer surprised by anything at all,” Burns said, “but that did seem particularly brutal.” He dropped his butt into the Diet Coke can, which by now was beginning to get quite full. “Time to get a new ashtray. And speaking of last Friday, has anyone been called in for a conference with Elmore? I’m interested to find out what his ‘secret plan’ is.”
“Ah,” Fox said, reaching for the L & M pack. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask. I had my conference this morning. I expect that you’ll be called in pretty soon. I know the whole thing, and I think it just may be the one thing that will surprise you, even after all these years.”
“So tell me.”
Fox lit the cigarette and took a drag. “Well,” he said, “it’s like this . . .”
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