The squeal pierces the quiet Sunday afternoon. Unmistakably swine. I lift my head, wipe my bottom lip with the back of my hand. The muted television screen shows swaths of bright green grass, shorn close. Few things in life are better than floor napping in front of televised golf.
I heave myself up from the thick ivory carpet. At the window to the backyard I bend a mini blind. In the reflection I see indents from the carpet formed a grid pattern across my cheek. My son-in-law Bruce finds my floor napping alarming. “I thought you were dead, Mildred!” He’d slapped his cheeks after disturbing a particularly delicious nap. “Imagine finding your mother-in-law dead in front of the television.” I’d laughed, squeezed his chin between my fingers. “Can’t all be so lucky, Bub.”
Day-old party detritus litters Linda and Bruce’s backyard. Two yellow crepe streamers, shriveled from the morning dew, now dried and hard of heart, trail from a hedge. A Strawberry Shortcake mylar balloon, three-quarters inflated, is caught in an upper branch of the oak tree. A pale pink pig, no bigger than a terrier, pushes dirt in the doorway of the dog house.
Yesterday Bruce grinned broadly as he nestled the piglet in the crook of his elbow, big red bow around its neck. “A pretty pink pig for the princess.” The guests – mostly childless friends of Linda and Bruce – hooted with laughter, slapped their knees in disbelief and patted Bruce on the back. Bruce didn’t meet my eye. He crossed the line. He knew it. God only knows where he got that pig.
I held Linda close, grabbing her arm just above the elbow. “You can’t keep a pig here,” I hissed.
“Relax, mom.” Linda bumped me with a bony hip. Peach sherbet sloshed out of my cup. “We’re keeping it at Lester and Sue’s.” Linda snapped a photo of Bruce holding the pig next to Sascha, three years-old yesterday. Sascha didn’t seem to care about it one way or the other.
I rolled my eyes. “Lester and Sue agreed?” I asked. “In advance?”
“Driving out tomorrow.” Linda ducked her chin in concession. “Sue can’t say no to Bruce.” True enough. Sue Smith’s soft spot for dreamers is ten acres wide. Lester and Sue’s place north of town is clogged with Lester’s half-completed projects. Nobody’d notice an extra pig. “Think you could watch Sascha? After church?”
I mopped sherbet off my hand with a thin party napkin. “Of course I will.”
A gentle thud from Sascha’s room. I release the mini blind and pad down the hall. The kitchen clock shows twenty minutes until she’s due to wake up from her afternoon nap. Craning my neck around Sascha’s half-open door, I find my granddaughter caught in sleep. The sheets are thrashed at her feet. Dark baby hair at the crown of her head is matted with sweat, cheeks mottled with red, mouth open. Her chest rises and falls under a Snoopy t-shirt. Popper the springer spaniel is curled in the corner of the room. He opens and closes one eye, satisfied I’m no threat to his human.
A Beethoven symphony erupts from the hallway. I race to the front of the house, pulling the front door open before the offender can ring the doorbell again.
“Shhh! You’ll wake—” I pause, disappointed to recognize the short, stocky man halfway down the sidewalk. His back to me, I make out the ringed outline of a Skoal can on the left pocket of City of Crawby-issued workpants. The single City of Crawby Animal Control truck is parked at the curb, windows down. “Randy. To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask. “On a Sunday.” Randy Russel turns toward me, his barrel chest wrapped in an orange t-shirt that reads “Animal Placement Specialist.” He had the t-shirts printed himself. Randy and I are co-workers. I’m the City Comptroller. He’s the dog catcher. Randy doesn’t like people using the term ‘dog catcher.’ “Surely strays observe the Sabbath?” I tug the gold chain around my neck. “Unless they’re Catholic. Could’ve gone to mass yesterday.”
Randy spits tobacco on the front lawn. His right thumb is hooked through a beltloop, fingers tapping the outside pocket. “Mildred,” he huffs. Randy’s disappointed to see me, too. Randy’s had a thing for Linda since they were in high school. Randy wouldn’t have given my granddaughter a pig on her 3rd birthday. Never charmed anybody a day in his life.
“What’cha need, Randy?”
Randy stuffs his hands in his back pockets, broadens his chest and rocks forward in his Redwing boots. “I’m here about the pig.” He launches another wad of chewed tobacco into the grass.
“Excuse me?” This isn’t fair. I’ve agreed to babysit while Linda and Bruce are out looking for a home for a pig Bruce had no business getting in the first place. And now, Randy Russell, who I see several times a week as it is, is already on the case? I’ll be damned if Randy Russell catches me in the middle of this half-witted scheme. I cock my left ear toward Randy. “Pig?”
“Linda and Bruce have a pig in the backyard.”
I cross my arms and hunch back into my torso. I took up community theater the year Linda left for college. In 1978 I played the role of Mildred Wild in the Crawby Theater production of The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild. Mildred playing Mildred. That was satisfying. “Someone called in a pig? Here?” I give a sympathetic frown and slowly shake my head. “I don’t think so. Thanks for checking, Randy.” I step backward into the house. “I’ll see you at work.” I pull the door closed behind me.
“Hold up now.” Randy’s lips twitch. Another tobacco propulsion. “I heard it myself.” He tosses his head toward the truck. “Driving by.” Randy’s not supposed to drive the City truck on weekends.
“Sascha’s asleep. Let’s pick this up tom—”
Another squeal – louder, more urgent – cuts me off. A yelp from Popper follows. No nap for Grammy Millie.
“That pig.” Randy’s his index finger points high overhead, as if he’d cued up the squeal himself.
“Well that’s a surprise.” I pull my chin back, widen my eyes. I step out onto the front porch and down the steps.
“Livestock in the city limit’s a three hundred dollar fine.” Randy’s arms are at his sides. The tremor in his right hand is so slight, I wonder if Randy’s noticed himself. “Maybe three hundred dollars is no big deal for you folks. . . ” Randy rubs the heel of one scuffed work boot against the toe of the other. “Where I come from it’s a lot of money.”
I look Randy square in the face. I’m not taking the bait. Around here, most of us come from the same place. This place.
“Gammy Miwway!” Sascha. From the backyard.
“Let’s check this out.” I hitch my thumb toward the sound. As if it was my idea to enlist Randy’s help.
I take my time stalking over the gravel driveway in bare feet. “Bizarre,” I mutter, catching up to Randy waiting for me at the gate. I lift the latch and push the gate open.
Sascha stands on the deck, naked aside from the peanut butter smeared across her cheeks and forehead. “Gammy! Opper ace!” Grammy, Popper chase. Sascha points a wooden spoon toward the far end of the yard, where a chain-link fence separates it from Yupon street. Popper’s cinnamon speckled rump twitches high above her head. The dog’s nose is wedged deep in a hole under the fence. Sascha uses the wooden spoon to excavate more peanut butter from the jar, shovels it into her mouth.
I put my hands on my hips, make a show of taking careful inventory of the backyard. Crepe streamers? Check. Balloon? Check. Pig? No pig. “No pig back here, Randy.”
Randy’s head snaps to the right. He spits tobacco again.
Desperate grunting joins Popper’s whining. On the other side of the fence the pink butt of a pig, no bigger than a terrier, scampers north on Yupon. A three-legged lab mix is in pursuit.
Randy’s hand, the one that trembled minutes ago, is clenched into a fist.
“Must have a sixth sense, Randy,” I shout to be heard over Popper’s whining as I make my way toward the trembling dog. “Who’d have thought – a pig loose in town?”
I grab Popper by the collar, bend low to drag him up the deck stairs. I shove the dog through the backdoor, closing it quickly behind him. “Think people’d know better. Such a steep fine and all.”
Randy’s mouth twitches. He spits into the grass twice. Both hands are clenched into fists.
I take the peanut butter from Sascha. She continues licking the wooden spoon. Randy looks toward the gate, then back at me. His fists open and close, surely miffed to have come so close to catching Bruce with a pig in the backyard. “Boss makes any noise about the overtime, you have him call me.” At the word overtime, Randy runs toward the gate, flinging it open before rounding the corner toward his truck.
Flies scatter from a pile of pig manure on the deck. I cross the lawn to retrieve the crepe paper streams, wad them into a ball and toss it onto the deck. I reach for Sascha, carry her on my hip through the still open gate. From the side yard, I point out Randy’s truck to Sascha. It’s stopped a block down Yupon street, yellow lights flashing. Randy’s orange torso dives headlong into an azalea bush. He’ll get his pig, just not from me.
Kelly Turner writes contemporary, upmarket fiction about intergenerational friendships between bold women. Her short pieces have been published in The Dillydoun Review and Written Tales. She has a PhD in Social Psychology and works as a scientific grant editor for a university in Zurich, Switzerland. She lives in Houston, Texas.