Pig Boy (9 page)

‘Yeah?' The Executioner sniggers. ‘Hey Prophet, you shoot over Cleopatra?'

Cleopatra666's shriek is blasting through the headset like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard.

‘Piss off,' I snarl.

‘Me and Prophet? Get real.' Her game hasn't finished. The mocking tone still dances in her voice. ‘Prophet couldn't handle me. He's too much of a pussy. Aren't you, Prophet?'

My fingers slip and thump on the keyboard. I charge down the staircase into enemy territory. I can hear my breath heaving through the headset as every jerk in view goes down in my shower of fire. I finish them off with the chainsaw until their blood and innards are splattering on the screen.

‘So who's the pussy now!' I shout as I buck myself out of the chair. I yank off the headset and chuck it to the other side of the room. It hits the blanket covering the window then bounces across the floor.

I'm tired of people fucking with me.

THE BUTCHER'S IS CLOSED UP and dark, exactly as it should be at 3.55 am. I sit on the edge of the footpath and wait. It's cold but not unbearable like it would've been just a couple of weeks ago. White vapour floats between my lips as if I am harbouring a mouthful of dry ice. I hollow my cheeks and feel my jaw click as I try to form smoke rings like the old girl's.

When I left the house, Mum was still mouth open, hand dangling off the arm rest, her snorts and snuffles vibrating along the couch. I took the doona from her bed and laid it over her. It wasn't because I didn't want the cold to wake her. It was because I didn't want her to get cold. I'm certain.

The old girl will never know that part of why I'm doing this is that I have to protect her as well. Teasing me about my mother ‘the sow' was new territory Curtis Marshall and Darren Geraghty stumbled on by chance, way back at the start of Year 8. It put her on their radar and she's still on it.

‘Damoink oink oink oink oink oink!' Curtis Marshall had chanted from the top of the Strathven pool diving board.

I'd been trying to train myself to ignore the taunts regardless of whose mouth they came out of. Instead, I'd imagine whichever offender it was tied up and sitting before me, while Archie's power drill whirred across their face.

But that strategy didn't work this February day, when it was 44 degrees Celsius, because my mother had to go and dip herself into the piss-infested local pool.

The ‘oink oink' suddenly stopped as Curtis spotted Mum behind me.

‘Hey, take a look,' he announced to Darren Geraghty. ‘The sow is here. Everyone, the sow has arrived …'

It didn't sound that bad to the untrained ear. Curtis could have got away with it. But I heard him. I knew what he meant. The tips of my fingers burned. I needed to wrap them around his throat and choke the words, and his big brothers weren't around to stop me.

Patiently I waited for his toes to lift off the edge of the diving board. I jumped in after him, then kicked up until I floated just below the surface. I watched while his body rose slowly from the bottom of the pool. I concentrated on my bubbles as I counted to five, positioning myself so that my hands would catch him on the way up.

It was so easy. He didn't see me or, under the hazy blue and tangle of other swimmers' arms and legs, didn't realise who it was. Like a hungry shark my fingers locked themselves around Curtis Marshall's throat. He tried to push me away but my grip only tightened. By the time we reached air we were like a rolling ball splashing across the surface of the pool. Within seconds, the lifeguard and Darren Geraghty were on top of me. That night I thought about telling Archie what'd happened. But what good would that do? He didn't have the size, or guts, or back-up, not against a Marshall. No one did.

So it was over, for Curtis Marshall that is. Just another day of fun at the pool. But for someone like me it'd never be over. All it did was give me one more reason to hate.

‘I did the sow last night. You should've heard her squeal,' was the message Curtis Marshall passed around class on Monday morning. Every dirty pair of Year 8 Strathven hands fingered that bit of paper before it got to me.

Then four years later the phone calls started. I'm not sure if Curtis Marshall was involved. But what I did know was that, regardless of whether they were the wannabes or the real deal, none of them would show my mother any more mercy than they'd show me.

‘Boy? You have come.' The Pigman is standing at the corner. Under the streetlight I see that he's wearing a black felt hat that dips in the middle, the corners standing up on either side like cat's ears. ‘I am at back of shop. You hear noise?' he asks.

‘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 must 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?