Pig Boy Read online

  I cannot believe the Pigman and I are having this conversation.

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ I bark. ‘This’s not the time for a photo opportunity! Just kill the fucking thing and bloody hurry up. My arms are about to break.’

  ‘No,’ he answers. ‘You will shoot, Demon.’

  ‘No! Okay. No. N. O!’ I shout. ‘All right? Now do it. I can’t hold on forever and neither can the dogs. Get on with it!’

  ‘Demon, I think …’ The Pigman is standing behind me, chatting as though I’m holding a ladder or some other inanimate object, not the back legs of a kicking, snorting, pissed off 100-kilo boar whose hoofs are narrowly missing putting a hole through my chest. ‘… I think he in many fight this boy, look at him, Demon. Bullet hole, many, many mark on skin. But I no think he so old. You shoot. Please. Please? It great photo.’

  The Pigman holds out a pistol that resembles John Cannon’s Remington revolver.

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Take.’

  ‘No! No.’

  ‘Take and shoot, Demon.’

  ‘No.’

  The Pigman sucks in his breath, then pushes me out of the way. Within a second his massive hands have thrown the beast to the ground. He serves it a single shot in the head. Then without a word he storms off back up the hill.

  ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ I’m staggering away from the boar, which is now convulsing like an overweight epileptic. ‘Hey?’ I yell. ‘Would you like to tell me what the fuck your problem is? You’re the pig shooter, not me.’

  Slatko collapses onto his haunches and pants. Sara wades into the waterhole and that’s when I notice he’s limping.

  SARA IS CURLED UP IN the Pigman’s arms while I attempt reincarnation on the simmering coals in the fire pit.

  ‘Dig pot into heat,’ the Pigman tells me. ‘You make water warm. We wash and I sew injury.’

  There’s a gash that starts at the end of Sara’s neck and travels down to the top of his left front leg. Through the matted, muddied fur it looks almost like a paper cut, but the wound is deep. The boar’s tusk could almost fit in there.

  Slatko is guzzling a bowl of water, oblivious to his mate’s condition. Carefully, almost with fairy steps, I carry Sara’s water bowl over to him. His head, flopped in the crook of the Pigman’s arm, looks small and frail.

  I place one palm over the other, making the shape of a cup, then I scoop up a fistful of water and hold it to Sara’s mouth. His tongue uncurls into my hand and slowly he begins to lick.

  ‘That’s a boy,’ I say, tilting my palms to make it easier for him. ‘Drink it up.’

  ‘He like, Demon,’ the Pigman whispers. ‘Try one more.’

  Again I scoop a handful and hold it for Sara to drink. It tickles, his tongue dry and prickly against my skin.

  ‘The pot should be heating up,’ I say.

  ‘Good. Good,’ the Pigman replies. ‘Water only bit warm, not hot. Hot is bad.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You hold Sarajlije. He will be cross. I get ready.’

  I crouch next to the Pigman while he transfers the dead weight of Sara into my arms. His fur feels cold, as if he’s been sitting in a fridge.

  ‘There’s a blanket in the tent,’ I say. ‘Can you get it?’

  Gently I lower Sara into my lap where I can nurse him better. A tiny yelp escapes before his body sinks into mine.

  The Pigman returns with the blanket and drapes it over my shoulders.

  ‘Not for me!’ I snap. ‘Put it over Sara.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you cold.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m freezing but I’m not the one who’s lost the blood.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’

  ‘Idiot,’ I mutter under my breath. Then I feel the Pigman’s coat land over my shoulders and his palms patting the fabric across my back.

  ‘Now you not be cold.’

  I open my mouth because I want to say ‘thank you’ but the Pigman is walking over to the ute and getting in. He starts it up. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t, I …’ The gears make the crunching sound they do when in reverse. ‘… I didn’t.’ My knees jerk against Sara’s head and he yelps. But I sink back into the ground when the gears change again and the ute rocks forward. He’s not going anywhere. He’s just changing the angle. ‘I, I didn’t mean to be rude,’ I whisper.

  I watch, careful not to disturb Sara, as the Pigman reverses, changes gear and rocks forward again. Inch by inch moving the ute around.

  Suddenly the spotlight throws its beam over the ute’s cabin and across the dirt until it’s so perfectly aligned on Sara and me that it’s blinding.

  ‘Is okay, Demon?’ The Pigman calls.

  I give him the thumbs up and the engine’s cut. My hand covers Sara’s face like a shield and he noses his way deeper into my arms.

  ‘Hey boy. You were awesome with that pig. You held the big bastard tight for me. Thank you, buddy. I owe you,’ I say to him. ‘In the end, he came off worse than you. We should’ve cut out those big tusks, made a trophy with them. I know a girl who’d like it.’

  Sara’s breath is light and fast. I count it, willing for him to be all right.

  The Pigman carries half the contents of the ute with him – a metal box under one arm, a bag and bucket in the other. An assortment of ragged towels are draped over his shoulder. ‘I am ready,’ he says, dumping the stuff on the ground, opening a lid, spreading out a towel and filling the bucket with water from the fire.

  ‘First you hold Sara still while I wash injury.’

  Sara winces and pushes his head against me as the Pigman dabs and wipes along his fur. He rinses the towel and cleans again, all the while humming a tune that gradually renders Sara into a floppy four-legged ball.

  The Pigman burns the tip of a needle then waves it in the air a few times like he’s casting a spell.

  ‘Hold head bit more,’ he tells me. ‘I start up here.’

  In one hand a needle and thread sit between his fingertips, while the other holds Sara’s fur, pinching the sides of the wound together. With his nose slightly tilted and his lips just apart, the Pigman begins to sew.

  ‘How’d you learn to do that?’

  ‘Pff, where is doctor in war,’ he answers. ‘Nowhere. No hospital, nothing. So we make things ourselfs.’

  I watch the needle curve in and out. I’m spellbound by the enormous hands effortlessly weaving such delicate work.

  ‘Did you have to stitch people up in the war?’

  ‘Yes. Many time.’

  ‘Did you drug them up first?’

  ‘Of course.’ He grins. ‘Rakija. Best for pain.’

  ‘How long did you fight in the war?’

  ‘Almost four year. Then American come in and bomb shit out of us.’

  ‘Did you lose many family? Or friends?’

  The Pigman pulls on the stitch and for the first time Sara yelps.

  He rubs the dog’s face and Sara looks up at him. ‘Yes. Yes. All finished, Sarajlije.’ He goes and smoothes out the ratty towels near the fire. ‘You give me too much trouble,’ he says, as he lifts Sara from my arms. ‘But soon you be chasing pig again.’

  ‘Yeah? You think he’ll be okay soon?’

  ‘Sarajlije always be okay. He look after himself. No one can get to him. At least he think this.’

  ‘Yeah?’ His words make me think of Pascoe. ‘But we held the boar down okay, didn’t we, hey?’

  The Pigman walks into the scrub without answering. Before I can ask him the things I want to, like where he got the pistol and did he think I held the boar well and does he think I’m a loser because I didn’t shoot it – is that why he was mad and stormed away?

  Sara curls up into the towels. I stretch out next to him and stroke the side of his face. The more I stroke the softer his fur feels until it’s almost slippery like silk, like Mum’s satin pillowcase. It doesn’t bother me when the old girl and I have unfinished words. So why is it different with the Pigman? Why does it make me
feel exposed, like I’ve forgotten to put on clothes?

  I shut my eyes and try to remember how Mum’s pillow-case smelt. It had such a specific scent: deeply sweet, almost pungent, except for a hint of smoke that lingered on the surface. When I’d get my hands on that pillow, I’d bury my face into the silk, searching, running my nostrils along the fabric until I found the spot, usually near the middle, the spot that smelt exactly like her. I would breathe it in as if it was her skin, as if she was actually there with me. Once I must’ve cared what Mum thought of me. But I can’t remember when.

  I stand up quickly. I can’t stroke Sara’s fur any more.

  There’s a space in me. It’s a dead space. I know that, because I can’t feel anything. But that’s what hurts, the nothingness. It’s agony.

  The Pigman calls to me. ‘Bring bucket here, Demon.’

  I pick it up and toss the dirty water into the bushes.

  ‘What you do?’ the Pigman barks. ‘I want to take wash.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get you some more. It was filthy.’

  ‘I not tell you to make rid of water.’

  ‘It’s “get rid” of water,’ I hiss. ‘And I was only trying to help.’

  ‘In war, water has to …’

  ‘Look, your war isn’t my problem!’ I spit, throwing the empty bucket at his knees. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  THE MAN COMES TO ME in my dreams. There’s a paper bag over his head and far away I can just hear a mobile ringing. He’s watching me through the bag. I sense it. The knowledge sits on my shoulders – it’s heavy and I can’t move. But I want to because he’s started to cry. Sobs reeking with fear cling onto the air. Louder, deeper – they are taking up every bit of space, squashing, smothering the oxygen until I can’t breathe. I’m trying to move. I’m clawing at the sound. I need to hold onto something so I can get away from him. I’m sucking at the air yet I can hear myself shouting over his noise. I’m saying, ‘I can’t help you. It’s not my problem …’

  Inside the tent is so black I can’t even see my hands splayed across my face. I lie here trying to make him go away. Twice now I have seen those eyes. Twice they have looked into me, bored a hole right through my forehead making sure I will never forget.

  I begin to count. When I get to twenty his face will go away. One, two, three. I am up to sixteen when I hear a sound. It’s not quite a groan. It’s more like a grunt struggling to free itself from a body that won’t let it.

  I peer out the gauze window. The Pigman is crouched by the fire. His arms are wrapped around his chest. He lifts his head to the sky, his back arches as if he’s about to howl at the moon, then suddenly his body contracts into a ball and I hear the sound trying to escape again.

  It’s like the Pigman and I shed our skin at night. We unzip our wounds and let our secrets out to play. Then in first light we zip them back up and resume our face for the day.

  The man I spied last night by the fire is not the man I see now. This man stands tall, he holds his shoulders back, his steps have meaning.

  The Pigman is walking a circle around me, inspecting my form as if I am a bull on display at a country show. ‘You not hold so hard. And put, put against shoulder more.’ He taps at my hands, which hold the grey rifle against my shoulder. ‘You hold too hard and boom, you will fly backwards like drunk farmer again.’

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ Three times I’ve missed even getting near the can he’s set up for target practice. Now he has me standing here, doing nothing but holding the rifle while he yells at me to relax.

  ‘Demon, relax!’

  ‘I’m trying.’

  ‘You hold baby, Demon?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Baby? You hold baby?’

  ‘What the hell has a baby got to do with anything?’ I mutter.

  ‘With baby,’ he begins to say. His arms are crossed against his body and he rocks from side to side. ‘You hold strong so no drop but you no hold tight.’ His arms squeeze against his chest while his face turns crimson. ‘No hold like this or you hurt baby,’ he gasps. ‘Gun is same. You hold like baby.’

  I’m racking my brains trying to think of when I’ve held a baby and I realise that I haven’t. I wanted to hold Mum’s hairdresser Pat’s new granddaughter but it was a few weeks after Year 10 camp and the old girl wasn’t going to let me hold anything except my head in shame.

  ‘So take big breath and relax shoulder, Demon. Come on, biiiig breath.’

  I fill my nostrils with air.

  ‘No!’ the Pigman scoffs. ‘You no relax.’ He is pinching along my arm. ‘Why? Why you no relax? Is it because it make you think of your father? Why you want to hold gun so tight all time, Demon?’

  It doesn’t feel like I’m in charge unless I hold the rifle tight. That’s what I want to tell him. When my grip is loose it feels like it’ll drop itself out of my hands and start firing random shots along the ground.

  When Archie’s pistol fell out of my trackies and bounced towards Bridie’s pink slippers, I remember thinking: Just say it’s loaded? Just say it goes off and shoots her? Because I know that no one would’ve believed me when I told them I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.

  ‘Demon.’ The Pigman keeps saying my name. ‘Demon. Demon, ti si isti kao on. Ti si isti kao on.’

  ‘You know it’s rude to say things that I can’t understand.’ On all fronts, the Pigman is irritating the crap out of me this morning. ‘I can’t just bang on in some other language. So why should you?’

  ‘I no always understand you. You Ozzie speak so fast …’

  ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘What were I saying?’

  ‘Yes. Ti si itsy something or other!’ I snap. ‘At least have the courtesy to tell me.’

  ‘Kerr-tess-ie?’

  ‘Like manners,’ I tell him. ‘It’s bad manners to – oh forget it, you’re full of shit.’ I pull my shoulders back and concentrate on the rifle. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m all relaxed now.’

  ‘Your feet.’ The Pigman lightly kicks at my boots. ‘You stand bigger. This foot in front. Like more space. Not like girl.’

  I widen my stance. ‘Okay?’

  The Pigman holds an imaginary rifle. ‘Now you take breath in.’ He snorts the air into his nose. ‘You tell your mind to, to make focus. Finding target.’

  I am doing the actions with him.

  ‘You breathe out. Haaaaaaaahhhhh. Make eyes on target, hold breath and shoot.’

  Bang! The bullet flies over the can and into the scrub again.

  ‘Better,’ he tells me. ‘You no move so much.’

  ‘But I’m not hitting anywhere near the target.’

  ‘Try again,’ he tells me. ‘Watch target leettle more before shoot. And not, not so fast on trigger. Slower like squeeeeze.’

  I shift my weight from foot to foot. What I really need to do is jump up and down, loosen my muscles, try to get some oil running through them but I’m too bloody nervous when I’m holding this thing. My body seizes up. All it senses is that there’s a murder weapon in my hands.

  ‘Come on, Demon. Take breath. Concentrate!’

  Imagine you’re The Prophet, I tell myself. The Prophet can pick off anything that moves. He’s a mercenary. A warlord. Do it like him. Do it like Cleopatra666’s watching you.

  I stand firm, resting the rifle against my shoulder. In one swoop I fill my lungs with air. Focus. Positively identify the target. The can disappears into Pascoe’s face. I stare for a second before I realise it’s him. Slowly I exhale, hold, then squeeze.

  Bang! I miss again.

  ‘Shit!’ I curse.

  ‘It okay, Demon.’

  No it’s not! I want to shout. It’s not okay. There’s nothing okay about it.

  ‘Give to me,’ the Pigman is saying, unbuttoning his shirt and rolling up the sleeves.

  Carefully, I lower the rifle and go to open the action, like the safety awareness course taught us, but before I get a chance the Pigman snatches the rifle. I take a step back, a bit too
quickly. But I can’t take it back and I’m embarrassed as the Pigman ‘pfffs’ away at me like I’m a poor excuse for a man.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumble.

  The Pigman is frowning at me. This is the moment. He’s about to ask me what I’m doing here. ‘Demon?’

  ‘Yes?’

  But the Pigman raises the rifle, saying, ‘You relax, you look, you wait and –’ Peeoooww! The can collapses. He pulls back. Peeoooww! The can jumps. Peeoooww! It jumps again. ‘See,’ he says, turning to me with a grin. ‘Relax and slow.’

  ‘Relax and slow,’ I repeat.

  ‘You will learn, Demon. I am good teacher. Now we get out of heat.’ The Pigman hangs his shirt over his head like a veil. ‘Too hot to be out here.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Too hot.’

  In the daylight his tattoo doesn’t look so awesome. It’s actually a pretty botched job. The design is a cross, like a holy cross, but the horizontal line that cuts through is wonky and dips down towards his left nipple. In each quarter of the cross is the letter ‘C’. They’re not uniform in size and some of them are back to front like the writing on his hat.

  ‘Hey, what’s it mean?’ I point. ‘I reckon I’ve seen that tatt, that same design in a movie,’ I tell him.

  He slaps his hands across his sweaty skin like he’s been caught naked.

  ‘What do the Cs mean?’

  He’s trying to put his shirt back on but his arm is caught up in the sleeve. At last he answers, ‘Is from my flag. Samo sloga Srbina spasava,’ he recites. ‘Only unity saves the Serbs. That what it mean. My friend, he like brother to me. He make on my birthday. Very, very painful.’

  ‘Did you drink your rakija?’

  The Pigman smiles. I think it’s because I’ve pronounced the word so well.

  ‘I drink everything,’ he answers. His eyes are closed and his hand sits flat against his heart. ‘We at nightclub. We go to make party in town near my village. It was spring. I smell mint which make me happy and girls, dancing, good music, so happy …’ He is almost rocking from side to side. ‘Was wonderful birthday. I am twenty-two. My mother, she say “you come home with wife” but I come home –’ his fist thumps the centre of his chest – ‘with this and soon war, it come to my village. No more dancing.’