Magnificent Pigs

Insurance covered the medical bills. It didn't cover much else so I laid aside my art and bought some more pigs. I had to hire a nurse to take care of Jilly whenever I couldn't—I wanted someone with her all the time. I didn't want her lonely or unable to help herself.

At first I hired a chilly but competent woman, Miss Andersen. She was expensive, but I figured she was worth it. I had a crazy idea that I'd use my talent to become a tattoo artist and make enough extra cash to pay her. A Superior mobile tattoo set from eBay cost me a hundred bucks and got me started. I named my enterprise Magnificent Pigs, in honor of Wilbur.

But tattoos aren't a high demand item in Traversville, and you need to practice a lot to get any good at it. Once I'd run out of old high school friends who were willing to let me work on them in the name of a free tattoo, I turned to the pigs.

It's not as cruel as it sounds, I swear. According to the vet, pig skin is tough as nails and doesn't have a lot of nerve endings. He sells me cartons of a topical anesthetic lotion that I use beforehand, just in case.

And the pigs have never objected. They're placid beasts—give them a bowl of mash and they don't care what you do. My dad believed in playing classical music to calm the animals, so I crank Beethoven cello suites to hide the buzz of the needle, and go to town. The first time I took a tattooed pig to the slaughterhouse, they gave me odd looks when they saw where I'd inscribed "Mother," "Semper Fi," and "Tattooing gets pretty boring after a while" in blue and red and black on the leathery white skin, but as long as it didn't mark the meat, it was okay.

I didn't realize my dreams of becoming a brand-name tattoo artist, no matter how many coiling koi and serpents I covered the pigs with. Southern Indiana is a conservative place and very few people came out for tattoos. I liked the business because it made me feel like an artist, but I didn't really have any customers.

Eventually I had to let Miss Andersen go, promising I'd have her back wages for her within six months. She wasn't happy about it but had a good contract with the nursing home waiting for her so she let it slide. Jilly was glad to see her depart, but didn't tell me till weeks later about the meanness that had revealed itself when tending a hapless ten-year-old.

"She was just mean," Jilly said.

"She never touched you, did she?" I asked cautiously.

"No, not like that. She pinched me a few times but mostly she just said mean things. Like what a shame it was that I was an orphan and how you'd probably get rid of me when you got married."

I looked at her, but her face was clear and unworried.

"That didn't bother you, Jilly?" I asked.

"I knew you'd always take care of me."

Which was all fine and well, but even so Miss Andersen's departure made it feel as though things were pressing in on all sides. Nightmares lapped at my sleep all that night.

The next day, strung out on caffeine and weariness, I stood in the cramped grocery store aisle looking at a vista of jams and sandwich spreads and couldn't decide between crunchy and smooth, because I literally couldn't remember which Jilly or I preferred. I must have stood there for ten minutes.

See, one of the side effects of the disease is nausea and loss of appetite. Peanut butter's one of the few things Jilly will eat, and it's high in protein. So it's important to bring home the right one.

There's a wide variety of peanut-butter labels. I stood there, looking at Jif and Skippy and Peter Pan and Kroger brand, going through the same loop in my head over and over: "No I think I like crunchy and Jilly likes smooth, but maybe it's the other way around, and what other groceries do we need, but first—crunchy or smooth?" While this frenzied loop continued, I became aware that a woman and her cart had been circling me, going back and forth in the aisle and warding off other shoppers. The muzak on the store intercom switched from one piano piece to another.