The Pigman (14 page)

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks onto the pillow as I remembered the condition of Mr. Pignati’s house. Would he think we had forsaken him and deliberately ripped his wife’s clothes—viciously broken the pigs? I wanted to phone him and say, Mr. Pignati, we didn’t mean things to work out like that. We were just playing.

Playing

Play.

I couldn’t get the word out of my mind. I remembered a cat playing with a rubber ball somewhere… a kitten a girl friend had gotten for her birthday… and it was hiding behind a chair leg eyeing the ball… stalking it. The kitten knew what it was because it had been toying with it all along, but now it attacked, claws drawn, trying to sink its teeth into the soft rubber.

“Look at the kitty playing with the ball,” the girl’s mother had said.

The cat attacked the ball as if it were a living thing. I remember thinking it was practicing for when it might have to kill to survive.
Play
was something natural, I remember thinking—something which Nature wanted us to do to prepare us for later life.

“I am a handsome European businessman, and you are in love with me!”

“Stop it, John.”

“Come to me, my darling, one kiss is all I ask!”

“Please stop….”

“You look beautiful!”

“Do you mean it?”

A boy with a moustache, a girl with a feather.

Then I fell asleep.

“Lorraine” I heard my mother call. I opened my eyes just enough to see her standing over me in her white uniform. The morning light was painful.

“Those nylon stockings you brought home—”

“What about them?”

“You didn’t do anything
bad
for them, did you?”

“No, Mother,” I said, burying my head in the pillow and wondering at just what point that little thought had come to her. She came in and out of the bedroom several times, and I pretended to be asleep. Just before she left for work she said loudly, “Don’t think I’m through with you yet. You get this house cleaned up, and I’ll want to talk to you when I get home.”

John gave the one-ring signal about eleven o’clock, which was much earlier than I had expected because I thought he’d still be unconscious. We met at the corner. He looked very disheartened.

“My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”

“He’ll forget about it in a day or two,” I reminded him.

“I know.”

We walked down Victory Boulevard toward Tony’s Market because he wanted a pack of cigarettes. Josephine Adamo passed on the other side of the street, and she yelled, “Some party!” She had left before the fight, and you could tell by the expression on her face that she hadn’t heard about it yet.

“What did they do when the police brought you to the door?” I asked.

John picked up a handful of slush and started molding it into an iceball.

“My mother started her high-frequency cackling, but it was Bore who got on my nerves. He just came to the top of the stairs, and I could hardly hold my head up to see him. My mother was on her hands and knees, wiping up the snow I dragged in on the skates. Bore didn’t even look mad. He looked sick and old. Then he went back into the bedroom without a word. This morning at breakfast he said they’d have to send me to a doctor.”

He threw the iceball at a telephone pole, but it missed and hit a parked car.

“Was Mr. Pignati all right?” he asked sheepishly.

“What do you care?” I said with an edge to my voice so he’d know I blamed everything on him. Then I was sorry I’d said it.

“I just wondered,” he said, looking away and raising his eyes to the sky where a jet was roaring over. We finally got to the store and stood by the telephone booth having a Coke. John smoked a second cigarette, and then somehow we got enough nerve.

“Hello, Mr. Pignati?”

There was a long pause, although you could tell somebody had answered.

“Mr. Pignati, this is John.”

There was an even longer pause, and the artificial enthusiasm John had put into his voice trailed off. “Are you there, Mr. Pignati?”

“Yes—” came this weak voice.

“Lorraine and I want to apologize for having that party. We had only invited two people, but those others stopped by, and before you knew it things got out of hand. I mean, Lorraine and I will pay for everything.”

I gasped audibly.

John started again. “Are you still there, Mr. Pignati?”

“Yes.”

“Would you let Lorraine and me come over to help clean up? Please?”

“No… it’s all right….”

“Mr. Pignati, we feel terrible,” I said into the mouthpiece and then handed it back to John. I felt on the verge of crying, thinking of the broken pigs.

“Mr. Pignati, we’d really feel better if—”

“I cleaned most of it,” he said slowly.

“Mr. Pignati, are you there?”

There was another pause.

“Yes….”

“Lorraine and I want to know if you’d like to go to the zoo this afternoon. We thought we could meet you around one o’clock near the entrance. You know, right by the sea lions?”

Another pause.

“We could go and feed Bobo,” John said. “Have you been down to see Bobo yet?”

Another pause.

“No….”

“He must miss you, Mr. Pignati. No kidding. The way you used to feed him every day. What do you say, Mr. Pignati?”

As we waited for an answer all I could think of was Conchetta’s ripped dress—the one Helen Kazinski had demolished. It must have been a shock to come home from the hospital and find something like that.

“All right…” Mr. Pignati said sadly.

We got to the zoo around twelve thirty, and I didn’t think the Pigman was going to show. I really didn’t. We sat on the same bench as we had last time, the one near the front gate that lets you watch the sea lions. I had my Ben Franklin sunglasses on again, and it wasn’t even sunny out, but I figured they’d be good because I wouldn’t have to look right into anyone’s eyes. One of the attendants was washing the sea-lion manure off the middle platform of the pool, and at least he was able to do that with a certain degree of proficiency. When it came to feeding them he had no imagination, but that particular task he was up to.

“He’s not coming,” I said when it was five minutes past one.

“Just wait. He’ll be here.”

No customers were over by the peanut stand where that same old woman from the last visit was giving me the evil eye. Worst of all, she was putting peanuts into her mouth at the same rate Jane Appling had devoured the chocolate-covered ants. She really looked like the wrath of God, and I was too scared to go over and buy a package of peanuts for myself.

“I’ll get some peanuts for Bobo,” John said.

“And me!” I yelled after him.

About ten minutes later a taxi pulled up in front, and the Pigman got out. There was no smile on his face. He walked very slowly, and he had lost so much weight. It was pathetic, that’s what it was. Absolutely pathetic.

“Hello,” John said cheerfully, covering his own surprise at the change in the Pigman’s appearance.

“Hello,” Mr. Pignati said, forcing a slight smile. You could tell he was glad to see us, but I knew he was very sick. He certainly had forgiven us for anything we did over at the house or else he wouldn’t have come—so I figured he was just weak from his heart attack and the hospital. Naturally we decided to take the train-type contraption out to the monkey house.

“I bought peanuts for Bobo,” John said, proudly waving the bags. I had already started eating mine.

“I have some… money,” Mr. Pignati said, reaching a hand into one of his pockets.

“I have it, Mr. Pignati,” John insisted, giving a dollar bill to the man in the ticket booth.

We squeezed into the last car, and the same blond boy was driving again. There was quite a wind even though it had warmed up enough to start the snow melting, and it made the frilly canopy on the cars snap loudly. We didn’t say anything more—Mr. Pignati wedged right between us—as we rolled along the bleak pathways of the zoo.

We went by the bald eagle, the white-tailed deer, the tahr goats, the lions, and the striped hyena. They all seemed to be frozen—giant stuffed animals, unable to move. Then came the tigers and bears, the two hippos who were inside for the season, and the eight-ton bull elephant, the only part of which we could see being the long trunk protruding from the doorway of his barn. Even the alligator pond had been drained.

“Bobo will be glad to see you,” John said finally.

Nobody answered.

We pulled the buzzer for the guy to stop the contraption at the primate house, and John had to help Mr. Pignati get off.

“Easy now, Mr. Pignati.”

“Thank you.” The Pigman smiled, and you could tell he was anxious to see his baboon.

“Bobo’s going to be so happy to see you,” I said, trying for another smile.

All the outside portion of the monkey house was closed, so we went inside, and it was obvious that even in the winter those apes desperately need deodorant pads. Even Limburger-cheese spray would’ve been an improvement.

We started walking down the long chamber with all the cages on both sides, and the only other people there were an attendant hosing out the gorilla cage and some woman holding a two-year-old baby.

I stopped and watched the man at the gorilla cage while Mr. Pignati and John went on to the next one, which was Bobo’s. Right away I noticed something was wrong because the two of them started getting nervous and looking all around the place. Mr. Pignati went up to the rail and started calling, “Bobo? Bobo?”

The man cleaning the gorilla cage shut off the water and started to roll up the hose when he heard Mr. Pignati calling. I moved up and could see the cage was completely empty, but I thought they had just moved the baboon to some other cage. I knew he wasn’t on the outside part because it was too cold.

“Bobo? Bobo?”

“Bobo died last week,” the attendant said, still rolling up the hose.

“The baboon?” John asked.

“Yep. Can’t say I felt particularly sorry about it because that baboon had the nastiest disposition around here.” The attendant wiped his nose on his sleeve and continued rolling up the hose. “Did an autopsy on him, and it looked like pneumonia.”

Mr. Pignati kept staring into the cage, and we stood motionless for what seemed like an eternity.

“Mr. Pignati,” John said softly, “we’d better leave.”

“Bobo….”

I could see the blood vessels on the side of Mr. Pignati’s neck pulse as he raised his right hand to his face. I was thankful I had my sunglasses on because I didn’t want to see his eyes. I mean, I just didn’t. Even John just stood there not knowing what to do.

“Had a Woolly monkey down the end that died from pneumonia too,” the attendant muttered, almost to himself.

As I started moving away and heading for the door John went to Mr. Pignati and just took his arm lightly, trying to turn him away from the empty cage. I saw the Pigman open his mouth, and then his hands started to shake. He went to grab hold of the railing, but let out a tiny cry almost like a puppy that had been stepped on by mistake. I can still remember the sound of it, and sometimes I wake up from a nightmare with it in my ears. It was like a high-pitched scream, but it came from deep inside of him, and before John or I knew what had happened, the Pigman dropped to the floor. It seemed as if the monkeys knew something had happened because they started making noise and pulling against the bars. I thought they were going to tear them out of the frames, and I wanted to put my hands to my ears to shut out the jungle that had surrounded us.

Mr. Pignati was dead.

W
hat happened?” the attendant asked in a scared, dumb voice.

“Call an ambulance!” I yelled. He looked at me for a moment as though what I said was too complicated to understand, and then he was off.

“You’d better get out of here,” I said to Lorraine. When I touched her she burst into tears and ran out of the monkey house. If she had gotten involved as a witness after all that had happened, I knew her mother would’ve shipped her off to a Tibetan convent for ninety-six years.

The lady with the baby in her arms just sneaked out a door. You could tell her motto was “When trouble strikes—vanish.” Then it was just me on my knees next to Mr. Pignati, and just as suddenly as the monkeys had started screaming they shut up. One tiny monkey with yellow frames around his eyes pressed against the bars of his cage to watch me take the Pigman’s wrist. I felt for a pulse, but there was nothing. Lorraine had dropped her sunglasses, so I crawled the short distance over to them and back to Mr. Pignati’s side. When I held one of the glass ovals near his mouth, there was no breath to cloud the surface.

Did you have to die? I wanted to bend down and whisper in his ear. They say when you die your brain lives for awhile longer, and maybe he could’ve heard me.

A small trickle of saliva had started from the corner of his mouth, and I placed my handkerchief against it and turned his head slightly. What would there be to say even if he could’ve heard me?

“Is Mr. Pignati all right?”

“What do you care?” Lorraine had said that morning.

But I did care. She thinks she knows everything that goes on inside me, and she doesn’t know a thing. What did she want from me—to tell the truth all the time? To run around saying it did matter to me that I live in a world where you can grow old and be alone and have to get down on your hands and knees and beg for friends? A place where people just sort of forget about you because you get a little old and your mind’s a bit senile or silly? Did she think that didn’t bother me underneath? That I didn’t know if we hadn’t come along the Pigman would’ve just lived like a vegetable until he died alone in that dump of a house?

“Do you think you’d like to go to the zoo with me tomorrow, Mr. Wandermeyer and Miss Truman.”

“Please….”

“Please.”

Didn’t she know how sick to my stomach it made me feel to know it’s possible to end your life with only a baboon to talk to? And maybe Lorraine and I were only a different kind of baboon in a way. Maybe we were all baboons for that matter—big blabbing baboons—smiling away and not really caring what was going on as long as there were enough peanuts bouncing around to think about—the whole pack of us—Bore and the Old Lady and Lorraine’s mother included—baffled baboons concentrating on all the wrong things.