Pig

by C. Robert Miller


Shaker buffet and Shaker chairs — yellow-ochre washed, Old World vanity with basin — jade, and ewer — ivory, island, couch, ottoman, and pressboard nightstand with strawberry, silver stickers and girl’s nail-dug suitors had to stay in walk-up. Solomon and Steve were cleaning down to these bones. Last item they found, Solomon found. Die rested under bed, propped against metal caster, and offered two and five to last tosser. Solomon reached under queen like cat or yogi. Chin and tits skated pine floor as bed rail dug run of her spine. Oak slats knocked her head. Blasts from her nose stirred dust, dust bunnies, blanket lint, and egg sacs. She took air through tight lips to taste intruders.

Steve posted behind Solomon, bedside, like lamp or vulture. To secure his spelunker, Steve’s toes hooked hers. His head lit her descent and held wash over her ass. His beak took whiff, and arms spanned.

At toes’ signal, Steve planted, and Solomon pulled back, in snap, to kneeling. She kicked up — in clouds — three years of skin, mites, and pubes. Steve’s ankle hair and bridges were coated.

Between Solomon’s index and thumb, in cast of Solomon’s eye and her lover’s, die spun like raffle bin or carnival ride. It spun like earth. Its dust, thrown off and caught, became its ring.

In 1975, Solomon tossed Steve in Cottonwood Park, Queen’s Lot, Texas. Solomon, Steve knew, did not recall. Solomon believed she met Steve three years ago at City Park. Two chanced side by side at orchestra concert, she told. It was October. It was only October, she told. Her son was first violist, and Steve’s daughter, Macy, third cellist. Georgia and Pete, their spouses, never came.

Steve spotted Solomon from Ferris wheel on concert day. Sparrow had taken his eye to her by chance. It dotted up pink cotton at her pumps. Steve rocked cage, recalling Cottonwood and Queen’s Lot. He made up Georgia rising along Solomon’s back seam. By skirt ass, he switched band from index to ring, proposed to and eloped with Georgia. At landing, top of Solomon’s corn silk crown took Steve rest of way. Shoulder to Solomon’s, he pointed out first brunette he spotted on stage. He waved to Macy.

“Macy hurt her bow arm,” he tossed. “She’s nervous.”

Solomon ditched last period and searched Cottonwood early to find right spot. She made date with right wing or track star after school, Steve told. Solomon tested stretch hidden off road by Japanese boxwoods. She tried pond and nutrias in earshot. She laid out afghan and gave hillside go.

Steve watched Solomon from rec rooftop. He had come to sketch Two O’Clock West in day five of week’s series. He had penciled — by heart — tree line, radio tower, Queen’s Lot High’s mascots — my herd of Angeln Saddlebacks, and Queen’s Lot’s historical offering before Solomon came. Bonnie and Clyde’s hideout centered Steve’s charcoal assignment because it was simple shelter. Sun cut through doorway and lit opposite window. Kid likely framed it, he told. Week long, it was Steve’s darkest field.

Solomon searched cabin walls for love letters. She hunted out initials, promises hacked in math and body counts. She hunted out Bonnie’s heart chiseled in Clyde’s. She found D & D die, butts, and Harley matches instead. Walls insulted niggers, and cheerleaders were logged. Near list, stick man held donkey’s ears, and stick man gave it to donkey. Solomon traced and carved out guidelines. Lines were fat and deep. Index dug, and nail snapped off her hand already torn and bandaged. Throat and fetlock were clean through, stick man’s cock and ankle, too.

Solomon hung head in doorway and spoke to her tits. She squeezed eyes and face shut, and she threw slogans at her tits. Solomon shook. Solomon tensed. She tried to span arms, take down doorjambs and world with wrists.

To pull off demolition, she visualized. She built up shoulders in her mind. She rigged system requiring hooks and pulleys, tugs and countertugs. Doctoring her memory, Solomon recalled vein hunts, steroid injections, fluid changes and bionic maintenance. She conned herself with elaborate lies. She regaled her effort with alien fable.

As Steve bounded through window, she looked up, fell forward and gained her wings. Steve lunged to spot Solomon, and Bonnie’s safe house busted open.

Groups and their members intrigue aliens. Some, like cows, are palatable to their numerous stomachs while others catch their eye and sexual fancy. Variety from Teledos smears frogs on their forespines for fashion, it’s told. Sect of Custerarians turn wasps into tips of their hindbeards. Humans capture lot of attention; humans get all kinds.

In rural parts, swatch of crop draws more interest than tiller and spent wife. More cows and goats go missing than farmers. Cities have picks, sure — litters, swarms, million nobodies. City blockers sense person’s absence like sign — price of special beef — erased off deli board. Lobster becomes season. Halibut and mako follow, and beef’s annual return — curry, is it — fails to trigger or signify. Towns — suburbs and sublets, mainly — are best suit. Shop fronts spell out first families. Alum letters overfill hope chests while parents hand down deeds and outskirt keggers. Outskirt is forest in Queen’s Lot. Sons and daughters from short lines pioneer and fuck. Squeeze people tight enough to get rub. Pack people in, sure, but give them sprawl.

Floor plan landlord lent Solomon and Steve helped them start big clean. Front door had long lost swing, so Steve and Solomon came and went by escape. Walk-up had come with lot, and they had collected lot. Chests, armoires, hutches, cabinets, and queens made new walls. Heralds were columns, boom boxes, and microwaves were bricks and tabletops were ceilings in new, low rooms. Crawl spaces were filled with flea finds and pawn gold. Korean War postcards broke clasps, and suitcases avalanched.

Steve had tried to chart their movement through and stay in walk-up. He focused on spaces fit for bodies and arteries that linked them. Coral dot keyed standing room, violet dot keyed sitting area, and salmon keyed space for sleep. Passageways and tunnels were thin or thick lines. Arrow for each measured pitch or fall.

Solomon logged treasures by corridors in spiral. Leaves equaled corridors before long, so Solomon, during revisions, overwrote lost treasures with current treasures. She bolded treasures she still saw. Times, she used different ink.

Both efforts were unusable to navigate big clean. Early on, Solomon’s spiral fell apart in shreds. Half-inch legs and arches dug in and through pages. Enough layers, every leaf turned black, she told. Steve’s efforts had long lost sense of walk-up’s space. His maps were grand; spaces were overblown. Space that barely fit two was drawn to fit ocean liner. Standing room only became cathedral or sky ladder.

Steve and Solomon, after time, agreed on system to execute big clean. Working off landlord’s floor plan, off landlord’s placement of sketched pieces, everything theirs went as they hunted original walls and doorways. Times he led; times she did. They went quickly. One tossed flashes over shoulder, and other caught blurs and ran blurs out window. Everything went except bones. Neither looked, itemized, or recalled. No one paused.

Straightway from City Park, Steve took Southside walk-up for Solomon. Solomon was delighted that living pieces, as she dubbed set, came included. She and Steve did not need to gut their homes with Pete and Georgia immediately; they could borrow start from long line of starters instead.

Solomon had thing about her, landlord told. Solomon was right up to heaven, built top-down. Hung on weather front, her head led and carried weight of body room to room through walk-up. Her neck was tight and indestructible, landlord told. Her body, in tow, was airborne through kitchen and bedrooms, baths and closets. She marked and claimed their space. Midway trophies — stuffed wins, sport gear, plastic mirrors with paper glass — found themselves shelved in curio cabinets, on radiator and toilet seat. Arms, emptied in jet stream, flapped. Top-hands knocked doorjambs as she returned to first room. Tits, landlord told, fell off Solomon’s chest. Alice-blue nails, sandal-tips, and hammertoes hardly graced his floors.

“Does she pull out?” Solomon asked. Foldaway was efficient, and Solomon was quick. Fingers, going for rails, dug behind and popped off sofa cushions. Calves walked coffee table off knotted throw as arms unhinged and threw open bed, still fitted. Dust mushroomed, and head pillows swelled and sprung from tight pins.

Steve leapt and laid body sidewise in air. He took cheek and posed as October pin-up. Top leg scissor-kicked. Elbow and fist supported head at landing. Free hand gripped Wranglers as Steve rolled in dust and starters’ sleep. He coated himself entirely. He sat like ancient cat. Tongue licked circle of dirt it could from lips, under nose and off cleft. Steve’s eyes were closed, carved asleep.

To pull off kiss, Steve visualized ocean and shoreline. He became beach sculpture at high tide, lion full of mane come awake at Solomon’s pass. Lids broke, sand avalanched to lashes, and Steve’s red eyes caught her — Solomon on boardwalk, his Solomon rushing. King of all four-legs, he shook off sand and resat identically. She stopped and came to see how lifelike.

To explain busted shack, Steve released my Angeln Saddlebacks. There were nine — Lituma, Whitehall, Chloe, Dax, Bear, and Dax’s and Bear’s litter: Joe, Atta, Colleen, and Runt. Shack was kindling, and Steve needed stand-ins for reckless force.

Airships fly at pitch audible to pigs; light-drives scream and whirr in their ears. They must have been rutting whole time. Racket size of eardrum drowned out their own racket; their own called to and inspired Steve.

He only needed Lituma’s interest to move herd. He used ham, mayo, and American he had packed for lunch. Press got leak from police. Columnists claimed tinfoil as Solomon’s. Harley matches and butts were marked under her things — nickels children tossed at my pigs, too.

Queen’s Lot cut open all their bellies first thing to find her. School traffic thought wranglers should not wait. Mothers shouted, “Now,” out windows down run of cars while fathers and old brothers hunted for knives in glove boxes. Cheer captain barked and lamented. Squad overwrote cheer signs with black stabs and full-arm drags across butcher paper and stenciled mascot: Poor Solomon! Poor Bonnie Solomon!

Steve had told police he saw Solomon with my Saddlebacks. He came to her screams, in fact. This got him into his only troubles. He had to confess to hooky, one, and describe Solomon’s sockets snapping and muscles rending, two. What’s lung sound like chewed? Is nose long grind? Voice box became squeezebox then mouth harp, Steve told. One of those things said to him, like our Solomon, “Go.”

Solomon’s son, David, first violist, had to explain to Pete mom was off. “Tell dad mom’s off,” Solomon said. Solomon gave speech and long of it in paddleboat. David and Solomon circled corded pond times. Legs were spent. At dock and ride gate, David’s mom said, “Here’s Steve.”

Steve was man nice enough to have watched over David’s viola and Solomon’s purse. He held both by shoulder straps in straight-out arms and beer fists. He mock-strained purse-arm; he joked to know David.

Steve came to Pete and David’s house every time Solomon did after her time of absence. They came with lists on calculator paper. Nights brought lists to Solomon’s sleep, and Steve, her priest, faithfully took dictation. At start, he took dictation in bed and, later, curled however possible over Solomon’s body. Two shoved in whatever nook or under-table night offered. He pinned scroll between his knee and her hip, loosely; he rolled out paper, using pencil as spool.

First words were hard to get for Steve. Steve was lousy at all-nighters. Solomon’s first words always woke him. Fifth word, Steve had position, pen poised by sixth. He caught seventh or eighth word, tripped on ninth and tenth usually. By twelfth, Solomon’s voice went into light-drive. She chattered litany of words in one tone. Steve, in trance, flawlessly got each and every one spiraled in, wrapped by its followers.

Pete was there and Pete was not there when they came to collect. When Pete was not there, it was simpler, mainly. Changed locks added only seconds to their time and windowpanes or whole doors to Pete’s loss. If David was home, he let his mother in, and they took what they wanted. They started with last word and took list backwards.

Wrought-iron vane: cow, cash register, Polaroid of aunt on swing-set pony, Polaroid of Sandy Duncan’s ambushed eye, sea salts, dried sea anemone, teak hutch, and Hoosier. Times, it was little things only or Pete’s things only. Once, list started with Cs.

If David was home, Solomon insisted on holding him. David was junior high, bony and long. He looked like calf — new sack of incredible bones — kicking in her arms.

When Pete was there, he took running leaps to tackle whatever Steve worked on taking. His leg sailed through china-cabinet door; his shoulder smashed art-deco pot. He busted his chin on his clock and cut his lip on his receiver.

Time, he got hold of Solomon’s list. Time, he snatched it from Steve. He was quick. He threw tank to wreck both it, first thing, and Aunt Dan’s nesting tables, second. He stomped fiddlers and clown-fish heads into third, Oriental, and when Steve grabbed fourth, ficus, Pete tight-fisted trunk. He ran fist clean up plant and shaved plant clean of leaves. He popped his hand like magician. If leaves had been doves, it would have been real show.

Chance it was Bonnie and Clyde’s shack was doubtful. They highjacked attorney’s car and drove to Miami, Queen’s Lot clerk records. What do they need shack for that? Steve told. He always came alone to his apartment. It was block north from walk-up. There was no Georgia. There was no Macy. And as for long time, there was no Solomon. He stayed long enough to match commute to and commute from Queen’s Lot where he lied and said he had house. He composed family skits, assigned dialogue and ailments to wife and daughter. He took time enough to make family real. It took zits and nervous, nice, pink nails to get Macy’s face, he found. Georgia’s hips — kettle under her dress — got her. Lips were made puffy when Steve gave her lines with spit, when he slapped her face and gave her lines with blood. Steve favored lines, real zingers that jerked Solomon’s eyebrow and Solomon’s dukes.

Whitehall enjoyed my garden. Whitehall had lived here longest and had long ago given herd to Lituma. She enjoyed shade under honeysuckle. She liked ants. She licked up their trains and sucked in their troops. Midday, she sunned near patch of big boys and afforded herself bites. Seed and juice dried on her face, dried and cooked trail down her beard. Whitehall was happy when she spotted Solomon.

Solomon kneeled half-down beside Whitehall. Her thumb wiped Whitehall’s lips and, in turn, tempted her tooth. She was not biter.

Solomon was happenstance. She was probably pregnant from boys she brought to my garden when she brought her blood and fist down on my glass backdoor. Pregnancy had value. She was screamer, too. Lop Bogdans paid top bill for lungs. Cartilage and hipfat alone, sold to right Udurian, would keep lights on and food stocked for year. Piecing her out was best move if I had time. It took time to dial up right markets, though. Way I went, beacon was sale sign stabbed into air. Everything must go — whatever ship, whatever taker.

I dressed her hand in jersey after using Kiki Arine salve on wound. I wrapped her in afghan. I calmed her with spinach and Calilien bean soup. Solomon fevered night and fevered following day. I tended to her sleep and sweats until hand at jaw startled her. Solomon bolted.

Bidders were on way quick as beacon faded. She was lucky really. Considering what’s all, she was lucky, sure.