Pig Boy (15 page)

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.'

The Pigman starts walking. The red dust swirls around each boot as he strides back towards the camp.

‘Miro?' I call. The Pigman stops and waits for me to catch up. I can't say it until I am right there standing still and next to him. ‘Miro? Did, did you ever think you were going to die?'

He wraps his arm around my shoulders. ‘No, Demon,' he answers. ‘But sometime I want to.'

‘But you must've been scared?'

‘Yes and no.'

‘Did you ever wonder that if you were killed maybe nobody would notice? That'd you just be forgotten as if you never existed?'

‘No.'

‘I'm scared of dying,' I whisper. ‘It's the second before I die,' I say, ‘when I know I'm about to die, that's what scares me the most.'

‘Yes, you are right, Demon. Is darkest moment. For everyone.'

He drops his arm and starts walking.

From behind I watch him – his big strides, the straight back, the enormous hands swinging by his side. It would be easy to tell him. If I could spill my secret to just one person, how much easier my job would be.

FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Sara is mellow. He's not interested in playing big boss to Slatko or following us into the bush while I practise target shooting. Most of the time he lies on the towels, licking at his stitches or resting his chin on his paws and watching the big sky float by.

He hunts with us but the Pigman keeps him close, which means Slatko and I have more work to do. So far, we've killed thirty-four pigs. At least eight of them have been young, somewhere between a piglet and a pig. It's a tough gig. I don't like it. If we ‘stick' their mum or aunties first it's not so bad. But if we don't, they charge in to the mosh pit ready to fight for their young.

The noise is the worst. First a high-pitched squeal that escalates in pace until it's one constant shriek. Then into the mess rumbles the baritone grunts and snorts of the senior members. It grows stronger and louder until it hits a hectic crescendo and the panic and despair is palpable. But it's not so much the noise that bothers me. It's the silence afterwards. I hear that the loudest.

Tonight is the second time we've brought a young pig back to camp for the Pigman to roast. It shames me, but the first one I devoured; even helped myself to seconds. All it took was sitting where I couldn't see its little face.

But the mother of this pig, the one that spits and crackles over the fire now, got away. She was heavy with milk and her teats almost dragged along the ground but she outsmarted Slatko and me and escaped into the trees.

Now I sit here wondering if the sow is roaming the scrub searching for her child.

The Pigman passes me a plate of steaming white meat that I know will be tender and melt in my mouth. I put it down between my feet and stare away from the fire.

‘Why you not eat?' The Pigman asks through a mouthful. ‘What wrong, Demon? You sick?'

‘I feel bad about the mother,' I say.

‘Your mother? You miss her, yes?'

‘No, not my mother, the pig's mother.'

‘I no understand.' The Pigman rubs his hands together as he chews and swallows. ‘Mmm. Is very, very good, Demon. Try for me. Please.'

‘That's her kid or her teenager or whatever. The point is we killed it. We killed her kid.'

‘I no understand?'

‘The mother pig's kid.' I point to the carcass on the fire. ‘Oh, forget it!'

‘Argh. Now I understand, Demon.' He nods while his jagged teeth clamp onto the first piece of crackling. ‘But this is job.'

‘So? That doesn't make it any better.' I push the plate further away with my boot.

‘You kill animal, Demon? Before you come with me, you no shoot pig before. I know this.'

I stare down at my hands. The fingernails that aren't split or broken are stuffed to the brim with mud and dirt.

‘Demon?'

I peel the nail off my thumb and begin to smear the black sludge along my skin.

‘Demon? Why you come to work with me?'

‘I killed a cat once.'

‘I no hear you. You speak louder, boy.'

‘I said –' I look up at him –‘I killed a cat once.'

‘Cat?'

‘Yes. A cat,' I whisper. ‘Someone had hurt her. She was going to die anyway. I just stopped her suffering.'

The Pigman leans under his chair for the
rakija
. He jiggles the bottle then holds it close to his face. ‘Many bubbles,' he mutters. ‘Is my best brew for sure.' He wraps his lips around the bottle and drinks.

Perhaps the Pigman has conspired with the powers above, because the night has suddenly turned wild, just like his mood. The wind is howling, its whistle ripping through the trees like a screeching banshee.

A saucepan, a milk crate, two plates fly across our camp and into the back of the ute. They are not leaving the way they arrived, neatly packed in a specially marked box.

My job is to dismantle and pack up the tent. I haven't made good progress. For the last few minutes I've been sprawled, spread-eagled over the canvas, trying to fold it away before it's airborne and lost forever in the trees.

‘Time to go. Time to go!' The Pigman is shouting these three words and nothing else. It's not quite 4 am. He's given no explanation as to why it's time to go and there's no point asking.

‘Time to go. Time to go!' I look up from my prone position to see the Pigman storming towards me, the shovel in his hands. I have no idea what he's contemplating. I shut my eyes, hear the metal of the spade smash against the ute, then feel the Pigman's weight on top of me as he helps to wrestle the tent into submission.

‘You take dogs!' he yells right in my ear. ‘And water bowls get too.'

I'm up; relieved to be away from his brandy-stained breath that heaves and rasps, ‘Time to go. Time to go.'

Sara and Slatko are huddled behind the back wheel. I scoop up Sara and lie him in the front seat.

The Pigman's fist bashes the floor of the tray. Slatko jumps up and a cloud of green canvas lands in behind him.

‘Time to go,' the Pigman growls as he starts the engine, slamming the gear stick into reverse. ‘Time to –'

‘But the tent,' I interrupt the madness. ‘We need to secure it. We'll lose it or Slatko will get caught up and …'

He thumps his fist on the wheel. ‘No time! We must go.'

‘But there's nowhere to go!' I yell back to remind him that I can get loud too. ‘We're in the middle of nowhere. It's not like there's a cosy house to shelter in and, and a fat lady with red cheeks to make us hot chocolates and …'

But there's no point continuing. The Pigman isn't listening. He's on a one-way mission, gripping the steering wheel, his nose almost squashed against the windscreen and driving for his life.

‘I reckon the storm was going to pass anyway. It wasn't that far inland.' I know I'm the only one listening to me but it would be nice to know what the rush was about. ‘That's my opinion. Not that I'd know anything about my own country's weather patterns. Oh no, not me. The foreigner would know more, of course!'

I must be wearing Harry Potter's invisibility cloak because as far as the Pigman's concerned, I'm not here. So I might as well finish my night's sleep.

I yawn and stretch my legs as far as the boxy ute will let me, then wrap my arm around Sara while he nuzzles into my lap. I feel his heart racing against my thigh. I try to count the beats but it's so hard with the ute bouncing and swaying this much.

‘I don't think Sara's well,' I say.

No answer.

So I say it again, louder. ‘I don't think Sara's well.'

‘Sara?'

‘Yeah, Sara. He's sick. You should probably take a look at his stitches. Maybe he's got an infection. I'm worried about him, Miro.'

The Pigman's eyes flick away from the windscreen and onto me. They are growing wide like he's seen something terrifying and for a second time he smashes his fist against the steering wheel, then raises it up for another go.

‘He's not well!' I spit. ‘What is up with you?'

‘
Ti si isti kao on
!' He's not smashing the wheel in anger. He's slapping it with joy, over and over like he's just heard the best joke of his life. ‘Ah, Demon, Demon, Demon.
Ti si isti kao on! Ti si isti kao on
.'

‘You're fucking crazy,' I mutter.

He reaches out his arm and begins to squeeze my shoulder until I want to yelp. ‘I play music for you,' he's saying. ‘Maybe you like it too.' Now his arm stretches over me while he digs around inside the glove box. ‘This one is my country singing.' As the Pigman pulls the CD out of the glove box, his wallet tips over the edge and lands between my feet.

Instantly I'm on the count. One, two, three – the music's started, he's humming and fiddling with the volume, but I'm paralysed as if it's a ticking bomb sitting by my boots. When I get to ten, I tell myself, I'll do the obvious thing: lean down and pick up the wallet. Flick through it like it's the most normal thing to do. Six, seven – be cool. Calm is the key. Remember.

But I can't hear myself any more because the Pigman's cranked up the song. ‘Nearly best bit,' he shouts above the singing. He's hugging the steering wheel, wailing at the top of his voice.

Suddenly I'm sitting forward like I need to get close to the sound. ‘Hey? Hey, I know this song. That's, that's …'

‘Let's go, Demon!' The big hand comes down, whacking me on the back as he sings. ‘Bon Jovi!' he yells. ‘“Beds of Roses”, yeah!'

‘But …'

‘Is singing in my language. But same song. You like too?' He sings the next line in his language. ‘
Jer nochas ja spavam
…
od klina
…'

And I whisper in mine. ‘… on a bed of nails.'

‘You like? You like Bon Jovi, Demon? Yeah?'

My fingers jab the off button and suddenly the air is silent. I curl into the door and close my eyes. Now all I have to listen to is the ute rumbling through the bush.

Almost thirteen hours of not saying a word. But the old girl and I once went six days without speaking. This is piss easy. The only motivation to start talking is that it might kill the manic piano accordion that's been blaring since we hit the tar road. But that's only when he's driving. When I drive he sleeps and I enjoy the silence.

But I'm not sure I could speak anyway. With each hour I feel my chest tighten, strangling my breath, making me want to hit the panic button. We're heading home. We're heading back to Strathven.