Chapter Twenty: Hoot and the Hog

Captain Theophilus Trotter and T. Allen McQuary sat across from one another at the scarred oak table in the captain's cabin. A platter of empty oyster shells had been removed, their steins had been refilled, and the Captain was packing his meerschaum pipe. He cupped his left forefinger lovingly around the mermaid's ivory breasts and tamped the tobacco with his thumb. He asked Mack, "Do you smoke?"

"I like to smoke a cigarette from time to time."

"A coffin nail, you mean."

"Maybe. But every pleasure comes at a cost, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so."

Mack lifted his stein and took a deep drink. "Of course, it does." He had stowed his mask, costume, sword, and poniard beneath the berth in his cabin and wore instead a pair of cotton trousers cut full, a flannel shirt, a red kerchief around his throat, and a jaunty cap. Mack was full and comfortable and mildly inebriated. He watched Trotter fondling his pipe, and soon the Cap'n was squinting and puffing until he finally exhaled a mighty plume of smoke and said, "That's better. Now . . . how'd you like those Gulf oysters, lad? None better in the world, and I'm the one man you can trust on the subject."

"I like 'em. The only oysters we have in Missouri are called 'mountain oysters.'"

Trotter pursed his lips and said, "I'm not familiar with such as that."

"Bull testicles, sliced, breaded, and pan fried. They're tasty."

"Ah. In England we call 'em 'lamb fries.'"

"Why would you call bull testicles 'lamb fries'?"

"Who knows? That's just what we call 'em."

The ship was quivering from the pulsing of the pistons while twin chimneys puffed billows of black smoke into the night. Below deck, the two men sat drinking beer and discussing the tastes of various testicles when Mack said, "The subject of castration always reminds me of when I was a boy, and my father decided he wanted to raise hogs for some extra money. We had just sat down to supper when he announced, 'Everybody in the hills loves pork, and there's nothing in a pig that people can't use for something, and while most homesteads have a hog or two, the demand always outstrips the supply. Before my family gathered here tonight, I hereby state my intention to supply that demand.' Pa was a preacher and he was always making pronouncements.

"'I hereby declare I am going to the haberdasher.'

"'I say unto you all, good night.'

"'It is my intention to feed the chickens.'

"And so on.

"My father was also an eye doctor and a newspaperman and an auctioneer and whatever else he needed to be to get by. His favorite saying was, 'A man who can't fit his skills to the necessities of life is certain to falter in this world and probably in the next.' Anyhow, one day he auctioneered a stock sale, and instead of taking money, he bartered his services for two sows and a boar hog, and that's how he finally got into the hog business.

"The boar did his work and the sows did their work, and soon we had two litters of fine little pink pigs. One day, the piglets were nursing and snuffling when one of the sows went berserk and proceeded to eat her litter, and then she drove off the other mother sow and gobbled up her litter, too. We all know that sows do eat their own from time to time, but I never heard of a sow who ate another hog's litter, but that's what happened. The second sow was running around and screaming like the woman who begged Solomon to spare her baby, while the killer sow just sat back on her hams and rooted guts out of the mud. When she was finished, she wallowed back to the mud hole and went to sleep.

"We were inside eating lunch when we heard the ruckus from the pigpen, so Pa and I went to see what was going on. When we saw the sow with blood on her snout and innards all around her and all the piglets gone, Pa said, 'Well, that's not good. I declare we must do something.'

"I asked if we would butcher her, and he said, 'I intend to sell her as a brood sow. Go to Tibbet's and summon Hoot.'

"I said, 'Sell her for a brood sow? After she ate all the baby pigs?'

"'Silence thy mouth and fetch Hoot, boy.'"

So I said, "Yessir," and did what I was told.

"Now, Hoot was the biggest, dumbest, strongest fellow in town, and if he couldn't load a sow in a wagon, nobody could. He even kind of looked like a hog: black eyes sunk deep, big nose, dirty overalls, ratty flannel shirt, and barefooted. His feet were tough as hog hide and wide as bacon slabs, but he was damn near strong enough to hoist a full-grown boar pig over his head."

"By the time Hoot and I got back to the pig pen, Pa had driven the wagon around, tied up the horses, and propped a couple of planks against the bed as a loading ramp. He said, 'Good afternoon, Hoot. I say I appreciate your help,' and Hoot grunted back. Hoot didn't speak as a rule because he had a terrible stutter. It took him half the day to say, 'Hello,' so he usually didn't try. If he did try, the boys in town would make fun of him. 'H-h-hello, H-H-Hoot, h-h-howdy d-d-d-d-doo!' they'd say, and he'd lurch forward and swing a fist at them, but he was too slow. They'd scatter like a covey of quail, and Hoot would sit back on the bench at Tibbett's store until somebody came around who needed some work done. He spent whatever money he made on cheap cigars and cheaper whisky. After a pint or so, he would take to the woods and start chastising God Almighty: 'Wh-wh-who do you think y'are, up there on a c-c-cloud and p-pickin' on us? We cain't h-h-help bein' how you m-m-made us!' and so on. Then he'd bellow and swear and thrash around among the trees, so that people called him 'Hoot' and stayed clear of him until he was sober. Sometimes preachers tried to talk to him about Jesus, but Hoot would just close his eyes and set his jaw. The preachers said he was too simple to understand the plan of salvation, so the Good Lord would probably have mercy on him in the end. If that doesn't make you envy the imbeciles, I don't know what will.

"Anyhow, Pa said, 'Hoot, I declare I want to sell this hog, and I need to get her up in that wagon.' Hoot grunted to show he understood, and so Pa took out a two-bit piece and said, 'If it comes up heads, I'll grab the ears; if it comes up tails, you take the ears, okay?'" Hoot nodded yes. Well, the quarter landed Liberty Lady up, so Pa says, 'Fair's fair. I'll pull and you push, and we'll get her into the wagon.' Hoot picked up a stick and poked at the sow's hindquarters until she got up and wallowed out of the mud. Then Pa started easing up to take her by the ears. Lord only knows what Pa was thinking because of course that sow turned demon again and screamed at him and charged, snapping as she came. Pigs have got powerful jaws and can tear a man's arm off if they clamp down. Well, Pa turned tail and ran for the fence which he cleared with a bound I had never seen before. Hoot still had the stick, and he started chasing the sow around the pen whacking her on the ass. The boar and the other sow ran into a corner, so the arena was wide open for Hoot and the hog. Suddenly, that hog gets tired of having her hams thrashed, so she turns on Hoot and charges him, but Hoot doesn't budge. He just holds out that stick like he's a knight with a sword, and the sow clamps down on it and begins to thrash her head about until he has to let go. She flips her head and that stick goes flying—whoop-whoop-whoop—over the fence, and Pa has to duck so it doesn't hit him.

"Hoot and the hog were facing off again, each with a determination wondrous to behold. Hoot would step to the left, and the sow would step with him; Hoot would step forward and the sow would take a step forward. It was like Hoot was looking in a mirror. Or maybe the hog was. Whatever the case, Hoot gets an idea, and he starts running around the pen, and the hog keeps turning to watch him. Round and round runs Hoot and round and round turns the sow until she gets dizzy and becomes unsteady. That was all the opportunity Hoot needed. He ran in and grabbed that old sow by her curly tail and planted his bacon-slab feet in the mud and leaned back with all of his 300 pounds. For her part, the sow recovered her equilibrium and started pulling forward with her hooves dug in. The sight of Hoot leaning back and the sow pulling forward will always represent to me the eternal struggle between man and nature.

"Suddenly, pow! The tail pops off, and the sow runs forward, free but apparently unfazed by the loss of her tail because she doesn't squeal or charge or anything. She just trots off. For his part, Hoot's arms fly upward with the pig tail still in his grip. Somehow he kept his balance, and he shouted out, 'Oh, M-M-Mister A-A-Allen! L-L-Look what I d-d-done!'

"Pa calls out, 'What's the matter, Hoot? It's just a pig tail!'

"But Hoot was not comforted. 'The d-d-devil's g-g-got me now!'

"Pa seldom swore given his reputation as a man of God and an educated man, too, but this time he couldn't help himself. 'What the hell are you carrying on about, Hoot? You're not hurt. And neither is the pig so far as I can tell.' And it's true. The sow had shambled back to the mud hole and lay down again.

"But Hoot kept hollering, 'The d-d-devil got me! That d-d-damned old d-d-devil got me!'

"Finally, Pa cajoled Hoot into explaining his belief that it's bad luck to pull the tail off a pig. Pa said, 'That's ridiculous, Hoot! Neither God nor the devil gives a tinker's dam about a pig's tail!'

"'You d-d-don't know n-n-nothin, M-Mister A-A-Allen! My own p-p-pappy pulled off a p-p-pig's tail the ev'nin' before I was b-b-b-born, and he allus said that's w-w-why I is like I is.'

"Pa just shook his head and went into the house. When he came out, he had his rifle. He shot the sow between the eyes and told Hoot to set up the cauldron and the gambrel and pulley. Hoot scalded the hog, and then he hoisted her to shuck the guts and cut her up. We took the meat down to the butcher's to grind into sausage. We tried to give some of the sausage to Hoot, but he wouldn't take it. Said it was hellish bad luck to eat the meat of a hog 'you done pulled the tail off of.' Pa says, 'Hoot, that's the stupidest superstition I ever heard,' but Hoot couldn't be persuaded.

"There's no real moral to the story, but Hoot stopped fussing at God after that. He still drank whiskey and thrashed around in the woods, but he left God out of it. He simply accepted everything bad that happened to him from that time on as a curse he brought on himself. So far as I know, Hoot is still doing odd jobs back in Neosho, Missouri, and cursing the day he pulled the tail off a hog. And that's all there is to the story."

Theophilus Trotter laughed and blew a smoke ring that encircled Mack's face. He said, "You're all right for a Yank." And so ended the first night.