By Alex Rost
He is The Pigman. He has a name but his neighbors don’t know it and he keeps a pig in his backyard and it’s not the kind of neighborhood where people keep pigs in their backyards so they call him The Pigman.
The pig gets out of The Pigman’s backyard and it is a big fat pig but it can still run faster than The Pigman because The Pigman is a big fat man. It runs and it runs and The Pigman yells its name and his yells drift further and further away as the pig runs further and further away.
The pig runs down the middle of the street through the neighborhood and it is the first time a pig has ever run down the middle of the street in that neighborhood.
People look down from their porches and say, “What the fuck?” They yell for the people inside the houses to come outside. They say, “There’s a pig running down the middle of the street!” And the people in the houses come outside and are like, “What? A pig running down the middle of the street?” But the pig is already gone and they say, “Bullshit,” and go back inside to do whatever they were doing before the pig ran down the middle of the street.
The pig is running as fast as it can and it is approaching an intersection and a car is approaching the intersection and they intersect at the intersection and the pig runs into the car and there is the sound of brakes squealing and pig squealing and woman squealing. The pig gets up and runs away and it is still squealing and now it is not just a pig running down the street. It is a pig running down the street that has caused an accident. And now the police are involved. The pig runs and it is not running fast anymore. It is running slowly. It is a slow run that is more like a trot.
The police say, “My that’s a big pig.”
The police say “Stop pig!”
The pig doesn’t listen. The pig keeps trotting. But now it is a slow trot. It is a slow trot that is almost just a regular walk but a little faster than that. And now it’s not just the normal police. Now it is also the animal police. And what the animal police do is they shoot the pig with a tranquilizer dart. The pig squeals when the dart digs into its butt and for a moment it breaks from its trot that is almost a walk and begins to run again but its run turns back into a trot and then the trot turns into a walk and then the walk turns into a wobble and then the pig falls down.
The police and various other authorities tell The Pigman that he doesn’t have any permits or licenses to keep a pig in his backyard and The Pigman says he didn’t know he needed permits or licenses to keep a pig in his backyard and the police and various other authorities say The Pigman can’t have his pig back. The Pigman cries and then The Pigman gets angry and then the news catches wind of The Pigman and his pig and do a story on The Pigman and his pig.
The story goes like this:
When The Pigman’s wife died he got in his car and he drove. He drove and he drove and one day he stopped at a roadside fruit and vegetable stand and bought some fruits and vegetables. He saw a flyer taped to the stand for a bacon festival in a town called Beacon. The flyer said Beacon’s Bacon Fest!
“It’s not just bacon,” said the woman who sold him the fruits and vegetables. She said Beacon’s Bacon Festival was all things pig. She said, “Beacon…Bacon,” and she raised one palm and then the other like a scale.
The Pigman’s wife loved bacon and she loved eating all things pig and she loved it so much that at their wedding she insisted they have a pig roast even though The Pigman didn’t want a pig roast but now The Pigman’s wife was dead and he had nothing better to do so he decided to go to the Beacon Bacon Festival that was not just bacon but was all things pig.
There was bacon at the Beacon Bacon Festival and pork and sausage and all sorts of food trucks selling bacon and pork and sausage. There were people selling pig mugs and pig hats and pig shirts.
But that’s not all.
There were live pigs too. Pig competitions. Biggest pig and smallest pig and prettiest pig and ugliest pig and a show where pigs did tricks in a little ring. The Pigman bought a cup of pulled pork mac and cheese and watched the show. What the pigs did in the show is what dogs might do in a dog show but a lot slower.
But that’s not all.
At the Beacon Bacon Festival they also sold pigs. When The Pigman was done with his pulled pork mac and cheese he went over to the corrals where the pigs were sold and then went over to the corrals where the piglets were sold. The piglets were all running around and squealing and rolling over each other except for one piglet. The Pigman looked at the piglet and the piglet looked at The Pigman and their eyes met at the same moment with a click. He described it to the news people using words like instantaneous and unexpected and magnetic. He knew those eyes. They were the eyes of his wife. Not literally. The Pigman made sure the news people didn’t assume that he actually thought his wife’s eyes and the pig’s eyes were the same. It was more like when he looked at the pig it felt as if his wife was looking back at him. The longer The Pigman looked at the pig the more convinced he became that his wife was inside the pig. Something like a soul. So he bought the pig and named it Sugar after his wife’s nickname and he took the pig home and every day he’d look into the eyes of the pig and see his wife and The Pigman would feel better.
“It’s hard to explain to anyone, let alone the authorities,” says The Pigman at the end of the news segment, “that Sug is an emotional support animal.”
The news articles print and television interviews air and there is a massive write-in campaign. Public outcry. Petitions are passed around. The Pigman and his pig are the talk of the town. A GoFundMe raises $34,000. The Pigman uses the money to get the best animal rights and people rights lawyer he can find and that lawyer sues and sues and sues until the town gets sick of all the suing and eventually say fuck it and give The Pigman back his pig.
The Pigman is so touched by all the support that he decides to throw a massive party. He invites the whole neighborhood. People stream in through the front door and into his living room and comment on how welcoming the house feels. They smile at pictures of The Pigman and his wife and at pictures of The Pigman and his pig. They use words like wholesome and happy and adorable.
The smell of barbequing meat pulls the people into the backyard where The Pigman greets them. He slathers sauce on charring skin and says, “I hope you brought your appetite,” and he looks so pleased and the people are confused and they are confused because of what The Pigman is cooking. The Pigman is cooking a pig. A whole pig. Splayed open across a sawed in half metal drum grill. The party is a pig roast. And the pig being roasted is Sugar.
After the party some people still call him The Pigman. But eventually they mostly just call him Dan.
Alex Rost runs a commercial printing press outside of Buffalo, NY.