Chapter One
Dad Was a Porker
Mam says that Dad was pigflesh and pigmind, a huge mucky
porker what nabbed her by force, then jogtrotted off beyond
the farlands when he understood what had been hatched. She
cursed of a thick sable stripe what grew, she says, full stretch of
his bony back and pearly underfur, layered below bristling skin
what she named brutesigns. But I am in memory of a tickly
jacket beside my hogface, unclammy energetic hands with
blondie hairs creeping up on wrists and loud laughs what went
far high and lowdown like music. The only porky thing of Dad
was the sucking snore he gave fell asleep sideways on the sofa.
I am in memory of him until I was twelve birth days gone, after
that he was not. Mare says my head is bulky, as a hog’s on account
of Dad was pig. She says my brain is mush, like pigslops,
on that purpose.
“He was a no-good swine, a pig of the highest order,” she
shouts when whiskey has her.
Times when I had less years on me she would step me, unclothed,
up on chairs to scout for sable and pearl fur and she
would scrub at my hide for undergrowth. There was blood
pressed out with these scrubs and I dropped stealthy tears
within pillows and jumpers so as not to stir her more. Hogboy’s
voice was not a welcome thing any much time, but less once
pigdad was no more.
I believe there is prospects in Mam’s words of my pigness
because my head is fat and squashed, with a snout, and heavy as
a pig’s must be, with eves as gobbets of coal. Though there isn’t
trotters or a curlicue tail, I some times splat down to run free
with piggywigs what I love, as they is brothers and sisters in my
tribe, and because they love me full on. And one long time back,
I made dreams of my very own furbristle tail what swished and
throbbed as the hearts of birds in humanpig hands.
Pigs and me have understanding of our lacking of limits,
eves lock up on certain sounds or the twirl of air with movements.
A sharply dab of rear trotter tells pigs is uneasy, a quick
paddling by front hooves makes sign of pleasure. Snorts and
snufflings have especial own meanings. How much, high-low
pitch, deepness and tang all speak differing things. I hear of
sadness within my tunnel ears, I share their joy fullness and they
hand up big love.
Jack Plum is my given name. Sharp and sweet, Dad said, as
the freshly plucked apple. I am the ten-to-one Mam can not
walk. I am the blame of her wobbly legs and such constant pain
what nags at her back like rats’ teeth crunching at bone. I came
out of her most wrong-arse first, elbows angled up, fists stuck
at the forehead, ripping flesh, wrenching innards with my big
broad head-snaffling at her breasts like the hungry litter. I
never cried as baby, Mam says, only screeched and grunted and
snuffled, and trotted on all fours from three months of ageing.
Someplace, way within this massive head space, I still catch
echoes of dadsongs about long-gone times when pigs did fly.
The songs have words of giants what walked up on Earth and
suffering little children being saved by a tidal wave. His
songvoice was deep, deep as the old well in Farmer Cotton’s far
field, on the cusp of the farlands, and tart like lemonbuns
Grandma used to churn up before she got to live with Jee Sus.
There lurks a small slice of dadvoice within the hogskull what
rocks me into sleep many nights when rest is extreme hard to get
or the troublesome hogbrain can not find comfort any where.
The lemonbun Grandma was of Dad’s stock and was not to
be welcomed in our homespace, so Mam said often when her
spitting tongue was out and about.
“She’s a wild pig, too, a mad sow,” Mam would shout in
the warpath voice if Dad said Grandma lemonbun should
come to visiting. And his face would fall down to gloomy folds
and he would bite at his lips till blood leaked off and I would
watch and give wishes for loving to find some path to come up
between them.
When Dad was awayoff with his butchering job, Mam
whispered the nasties into my hogboy ears. She liked to spread
hatewords like Dad spread butter on morningtoast, thick and
melting in. I would close my inside ears off and think into a
differing space where her voice was blunt like rain on high
shed roofs. Some times, in this space, I got to see bright-lit
flames sparking from out her head.
Dad had give me tellings about Mam’s sourness in a young
age. He told of sickness what blanketed her since my hatching
and how she would not have doctors what she hated. Deep
pression, he named it but impressed up on me not to take hurt
or bother from her malignancy on account the troublesome
stuff was not of my making. That was the broad time what I
took notice how people’s talk does slip out in differing ways. If
it spurts the side ways it is mostly cross or full with spite or misery,
but if it flows frontwise it is mostly true and honey.
Often, when Dad made the return from his butcher days,
Mam would screech the “reek of death” was on him and name
him “walking bloodbath” and tell him to go from her. That is
when he and me would take our selves below, to cellar ground,
to prank with my trains. Dad had made up a showering box
there and a cupboard for fresh clothes to linger in. These times
he would make his radio songvoice, along with the scrub-a-dub,
and I did manage tracks and stations for some trains all by my
own. Sometimes the slithersounds would come down at us, from
voices within Mam’s TV, dropped between flooring boards, and
just some moments, we got to hear Mam’s laugh. Then me and
Dad would splat hands because a small goodness had turned up
to brighten life.
Before Dad was gone he unfurled plans for our yet-to-come
time and made work on the digging out of a Palace for pigs,
from the starting of the cellar, out beyond fields by Pardes
Wood. It was to become a “large adventure,” and he said we
would make the creation of it side up on side. I helped splodge
a wall down and we burrowed into sooty earth like minermen
or moles sniffing at air. And all as full secret, nappying hammers
and picks with ragged towels and doing especial work if Mam
was gone out or in the whiskey sleep. It was Dad’s daytime
dream to breed his own piggies, not chop them to chumps at
Blandish Butchers with his sharp, shiny tools. He told he’d had
plenty of chopping flesh and bone for people’s pots and pans.
His desire was to make growing things, see runty piglets nurtured
into grand sows and hogs from his efforting.
For all of the hard working time we did, Dad made his
songvoice or told me fresh things on life. I came to know the
way he had been nurtured up on a farm place in a valley named
Eden, which Dad called a paradise place. I have memory of all
this kept safe.
“I was the youngest of four brothers, Jack,” he told, “and
so the land would have been a long time coming into my
hands. That’s why I studied butchery.”
I understood, from his mouth shape, that he was regret full
of this. When I have the fears and frights in the bottomless
dark time I think on that valley called Eden and wonder at
those brothers and that land. And I make a dream that some
time I will go to that place to find Dad in happiness there and
welcoming of me.
One midnight time, beyond the digging of our hands into
soreness all long day, Dad fetched me into Farmer Cotton’s
piglands and gathered a large sow up for riding. He had told of
pigriding in a past time and recognized that I wanted to know it
and be it. The bristling body next my short-trousered legs was
not fear full to me-it was suet pud warm and the furbristle tail,
it was just as the one of my dream time. Dad showed the ear
touch for the steering and the kittensoft pressing with knees to
stop or turn. He threaded up a cat bell up on soft purply ribbon
for the sow’s neck, and all the while, as me and pig larked along,
Dad ran aside us, making sweet songs which all the pigs liked,
and this cat bell, it trilled and chirped till my lop ears hummed
full with delight.
Dad left his own butchering tools at his going, swaddled
within oiled cloth, whiffing of blood and spit and hidden alleys
swilling of red water and gore stuff. I maintain them clean and
sharp, for his return but tucked up far from pigs so they can
not fear “the end.” Creatures what live among humanpigkind
have come to absorb our killing signs.
After Dad did not come back for some many days and
Mam screamed that he had “abandoned us without a back ward
glance” I made the choice to do the completing of Dad’s pig
venture. It was not a task of simpleness, but I finished the pig
Palace all by my own work. Week up on week up on month up
on year, digging and shaping and sweating with the strength of
soil and stones. I would linger often times next to the skeletons
of little creatures, trapped in and out of mud layers, to try and
know their full picture, like what they once was and the manner
of the dying. And I would be out long times beyond dark
fall, seeking for buildwork at houses, and I would gather cement
and bricks and wood and other things I had no names to
give but had seen Dad’s use of or heard him call. I fashioned up
this cart, like the pony does have, for my hoghands to drag
about, full of thrown-out or borrowed stuff. Some of my build
up items are not too proper, not good edges and shapes, but I
struggled to uncover ways of making and I kept on Dad’s plan
what he had drawn in the schoolbook.
These were the dark times where I came to know the big
metal boxes where people throwed things and I learned that
name from listening-it is “skip.” These were times when I
made discovery of dustbin days, of things being put out what
could be of much usefulness to me. I was like a whiskerful tomcat,
prowling and purring through dark time streets and I did
get treasure for the pig Palace. Such things as pretend grass,
pretend flowers, shiny color full paper and hangdown balls for
decoration, metal buckets, and manysize bowls.
Mam still does not know of the pig Palace. She expects I
play with trains still, way down in the cellar where her wheelchair
will not roll, and I go along with that. It is my own especial
place, with water from Pardes Wood stream, what ripples deep
in the old water hose, and grass and pretend flowers from the
dustbin days and cat bells what Dad fetched to rig out forthcoming
pigs so they would not get astray on their nightly outside
romping within woods and water.
My firstly pigs, at year one, were secret borrowed from
Farmer Cotton’s early litterings and I did return them with the
extra sow in year two. There was some early failings what died
and got put within Farmer Cotton’s pens for his disposing methods.
And I made up some special goodbye singing with my left
pigtribe on the losing of them. Farmer Cotton has the chunky
motoring lorry with slatty wood sidings for transports of animals
live and dead. I do not know what he fathomed of his
changing pigwig residents, but now I am many years and many
litters gone, and today, Freya, my bestest sow, brings more. She
has fashioned the piggylets delivering nest and pants and mewls
so Nodger, the dad of the piggy lets to come, snorts close, nudging
at her with the snout and dropping fresh grass at her mouth
to make comfort with taste and moisture.
I know of all this pigbirthing stuff from Dad’s many tellings.
It is from the wild time of pigs that sows make groupings with
their daughterpigs and other sows. Humanpigs have named this
“sounders” but I like to say “tribes,” as it is a gathering word.
Many litter generations share the territory space and join in with
the piggylet rearing stuff. An other thing Dad told was about
newborn piggylets, how they slurp one especial teat on their
mamsow and use it all times.
Freya’s time is now full come. I see the makings of a piggylet
slurping. That is one! Freya squeals the pain and joy fullness
of it and Nodger comes lost in the squirmy shape of his first
youngling, licking and rolling it at Freya’s teats until Nancy sow
trolls him away from the tribe area. Here is the next come
slumpering out, good Freya. She knows how it must go.
Way up above us, within the housespace, Mam smolders
with in the wheelchair, lonely and angry, always angry. She hammers
at the floor with her big stick, banging for me to attend by
her. I pretend I am not hearing until Freya has squelched up six
piggywigs. But Mam begins the bellows as well as the banging,
and her sideways voice rips at me with all its misery so that I
must go to her.
“Must leave now,” I tell to Freya, because piggywigs need
to know of my comings and goings, need to know my return
will arrive. “Big sorry, back later. Yes. And now … quiet …
must be as snow blanket, as leaf falling, as feathers dancing.” I
get the grumpsnort by Freya, and Nodger snouts me to the
upsteps.
Mam has expectation of noise from the cellar when I am
below but not other points of time, so these pigs have learned
about the softening when I am gone. Clever, kind pigs. And
there is Mam, all worked up into meanness and blaming me.
“Useless creature,” she says at sight of me, “never there
when you’re wanted, always hanging around when you’re not.”
Mam’s eyes have the whiskeysoup look of extra meanness,
not the companion glance of the pigs, who want closeness. She
will put hurt up on me if I am not wary-it is her way. She has
been entirely insidedoors since many years gone and refuses exit
at all times. No freshness of air enfolds her, ever, and I cannot
enjoy the stink of her. When she has the drunksleeps I bash open
all windows and let juicy wind in, to bring scents of grass and
flowers and whispered words from farlands and near.
One time or other I do see within the despair she keeps
holded in and I do know all the blame is on me, and those instants
my tongue does grow and try to choke breath away for
ever. It is like a dread thing, Dad did say. This voice of mine did
never work its right way in the space surround Mam, I do hold
no memory of it inside the hogskull. I do still make the attempt
of words to soften her misery.
“Y-you … b-been … drink … ing … wh-wh-whiskey,”
I say.
As is usual, my words is all halted up and broken apart
when they are out loud in Mam’s space or in the outsideworld.
This boarmouth will not work proper and the throat parches
up like sandy storms. Withinside the huge head, talk does
make real sound, perhaps eloquent, but it gushes into the open
all garbled up and wrong.
Mam laughs and turns the air cold. “I want my tea! Look at
the clock! It’s way past time for my tea. I think you do it on purpose.
Eh? You do, don’t you?”
She skewers at me with her fat stick but I am too speedy. I
learned, way past times, to dodge fists and weapons. I start the
makings of her tea and do not make arguing because she will not
listen to much of my sounds. Why would she, in the age it takes
for words to shape themselves? By the clock I’m only two minutes
of lateness, but she enjoys the stickbangs. Blam, bang, blam.
The linofloor is dented and pocked up but she does not care. No
body ever comes within the house space. They are fear full at
Jack Plum, overgrown goblin, or they have some jaggedness of
Mam’s peeved tongue. Mam’s deep misery stuff pushed all
sometime visitors far off and away long time back.
We is placed at the very edge slice of the house rows what
nudge the beginnings of Pardes Wood and that is of excellence
for pigs and me. It keeps us part away from other house
sounds and is not a passing place without you want entrance to
the wood.
“And don’t turn those daft, dribbly eyes on me,” Mam
goes on. “You’re the reason I can’t walk. You! With your big
empty head stuck inside me. Don’t you ever forget what you
did to me!”
I would not forget ever, as she reminders me all days.
When she is not TV goggling, Mam plays favorite music
up on the player of tapes. Mostly Donovanman, as he makes
the sad lonely habit she seeks. She wallows, like pigs in water-that
is something Dad telled.
“Stop wallowing,” he said oftentimes, and, “stop feeling
sorry for yourself.” Always, as he mouthed things, I spoke his
words inside my hogskull to make the lips take proper shape
and to twist breath for the forming of them. This was the way I
held on to many words inside and said them loud at alone times.
Within hoghead there is vastness of memory space which I hold
on to strongly.
(Continues…)
HYPERION
Copyright © 2005
Kitty Fitzgerald
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-4013-5251-0
Excerpted from Pigtopia
by Kitty Fitzgerald
Copyright © 2005 by Kitty Fitzgerald.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
