My cousin Lem ain’t exactly one of them geniuses you hear about. And I guess I’m about as dumb as a toadstool, too, for lettin’ him talk me into stealin’ that pig from Jeb Barlow’s place. It wasn’t one of the smartest things I ever done, and I done some pretty stupid things in my life I reckon. Come to think of it, considerin’ we didn’t even get the pig, it was about a dumb a thing as I ever did.

It all started up at Lem’s still. It wasn’t somethin’ we planned to do. At my age I sure don’t cotton for sneakin’ around no pig pen at night dealin’ with muddy squealin’ pigs. When I was Elly Mae’s age, (she’s my daughter goin’ on to sixteen), I woulda done it in a minute, but not now. No, sir.

But somehow it happened. We wuz sittin’ and drinkin’ some of his moonshine hootch as usual on a Saturday night. Lem’s hootch ain’t quite as tasty as the store bought stuff. As a matter of fact, it tastes like that kerosene that you put in lanterns. You know what I mean. You need them lanterns at night when you go to the outhouse, so you don’t step or sit on anythin’ that can do harm. Ole Lem went out one night without a lantern and he sat down on a bug of some kind and squished it plumb to death. But that old bug didn’t go down without a fight. He bit Lem in the you-know-what. Well, Lem came rippin’ out of that outhouse a screamin’ and a hollerin’, his britches a flappin’ around his feet. He swoll up like a watermelon ripe for the pickin’. As far as I know he never got to do what he set out to do. I expect he woulda died from that bug bite, but Hester, Lem’s old lady, made up a concoction of lye and mustard grass, with a little swamp water so you can spread it, and rubbed it on. Lem says it burned like fire, but it did the trick. ‘Course that all happened before we got the electric lamps. Got one strung up in the privy that lights it real good, ‘ceptin it’s busted most of the time. So I keep that lantern handy. Them folks that makes the lamp should use somethin’ besides glass. The glass busts, and them little wires—Ma calls them "filly mints"—don’t work no more. I hear tell that they’re puttin’ outhouses right inside the house these days. But I don’t see that workin’ out so good. You need honeysuckle to pretty up the smell, and it don’t grow indoors.

Anyway, I never tasted kerosene, but if I did I suspect it would taste like Lem’s hootch. You see, you don’t drink the hootch for the flavor. No sir. You drink it for the kick. And it’s got a kick like a riled up mule.

Well, we drank about a pint of that hootch when Lem says to me,

"Let’s go steal a pig from Barlow."

"What fer?"

"Because."

Well, being as I was drunk and all, that made perfect sense. So we headed over to Barlow’s place and snuck up to the pigpen. Lem was carryin’ a poke to put the pig in, and I had one of them flashlights. You know, the kind that lights up when you press a button. Don’t know how they work. Batteries, or somethin’. ‘Ceptin’ that it ain’t no battery like they put in automobiles. There’s only these bitsy round things that ain’t big enough to be of any use to anybody. If’n them little things can light up a flashlight, why don’t they use ‘em in cars? I guess you gotta be a smartalecky scientist, you know, like the guy who invented gravity, to understand how these gadgets work. We wuz never taught that at school, bein’ as Miss Ferber was not one of them pee aitch dee scientists. But she was real good in English. Taught me ever’thing I know about grammar and how to read and write. She’s dead now, rest her soul. She never got married neither. Of course, that ain’t surprisin’ seeing as she had buck teeth and eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. Boy, could she make them eyebrows dance, especially when she was angered up.

It was rainin’ like it expected Noah to build another ark. I was soaked clean through to my longjohns, and was beginnin’ to think bad things about this whole pig stealin’ idea. I said so to Lem, but he ain’t about to give up. He could smell them pork chops a fryin’. And Lem likes to eat, I want to tell you. I remember one time I saw him put away a whole half a pig and then finish off the yams and peas without so much as a burp. I knew there was no use in tryin’ to talk him out of it, so I went along. Like I said, I guess I could use a new brain. But Lem is kin. And we Haggers is basset hound loyal.

We snuck up to the pigpen, me keeping’ the flashlight low so that old Barlow wouldn’t see us. Lem had that poke open, ready to shove a baby pig into it first chance he got. My job was to shoo that pig over towards Lem.

About the time we get to the pen, old Barlow’s big black dog, Luther, comes a whoopin’ towards us. Luther is as big as a grizzly bear, but he’s harmless; just a lot of noise but no bite. I remember one time he got chased by a dog no bigger than his paw. Why, Luther coulda stepped on him and put him out of his misery. Luther whimpered for the rest of the day, lickin’ hisself like he’d been hurt something terrible by that bit of a thing. That’s the kind of dog he is—nothin’ to be scared of. But I’m feelin’ a mite guilty because we was there to steal a pig, so I back off like I was goin’ to run. Well, old Luther saw me backin’ off, but I reckon he thought I was gonna hit him with the flashlight. He turned tail and ran back to the house like he did when that bitty dog chased him. He ain’t much of a dog, at least in the protection department.

The rain was still comin’ down. I opened the gate to the pigpen and stepped into mud almost knee deep. I could see mama pig and her young ones sleepin’ in the shack, so I tiptoed through the mud towards the shack. Now it ain’t easy to tiptoe when yer knee deep in muck with rain runnin’ down into your eyes and all that. I didn’t have a hat. I used to have a baseball cap with "Rafer’s Feed and Grain" wrote on it, and a picture of a big red rooster sittin’ on a fence. But I lost it last summer, and old Rafer ain’t givin’ out free caps no more. He says if I buy some chicken feed, maybe he would give me another cap. But I don’t want to spoil them chickens by givin’ them store bought feed. They’re just as tasty eatin’ what they eat now.

Anyhow, I wuz just about to the shack when I stepped into a hole the size of a wash bucket. My feet went one way and my body the other. I landed plunk down in that mud like a hacked down tree.

There I was layin’ there all covered with mud lookin’ like one of them corn dogs—you know, the kind you buy at the fair. Used to be they cost a quarter, but them days are gone. They cost over three dollars now, and I ain’t payin’ that much for somethin’ that gives me the gas. So I buy cotton candy instead. You know, the stuff that when you bite into it, it ain’t there. But I only buy the pink, because the blue gets all over and makes you look like you got venerable disease except it’s on your face instead of your venerables.

Anyhow, there I was layin’ in the mud when this old momma pig comes along and steps right on my stomach. Well, she weighs over 400 pounds jaybird naked—maybe more. I let out a whoosh and my uppers went a flyin’ out of my mouth and landed in the feed trough.

Now I paid 25 dollars for them teeth to a mortifier—you know, them people who pretty up the dear departed for kinfolk to weep and wail over, except I don’t see how they can be departed when they’re layin’ there in that box for everyone to see. "He’s with Jesus now," the preacher says. But there ain’t room in that box for two of ‘em. Maybe it’s one of them little Jesuses like you see in them Christmas scenes. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Anyhow, I need them uppers bad. I can eat pretty good with them except for corn on the cob and goobers. Goobers get underneath and riles up the mouth. So I feel around for them teeth. When I found them I hollered real happy like and stood up fast. Well, I hit my head on the beam of that shack with a fearsome noise, like "crrk!" Actually more like "krrckbck!". It’s hard to describe but you know what I mean.

So I fall down in the mud head first, and would have drowned if Lem hadn’t come along and flipped me over like a half done fried egg so I could breathe. He drug me out of the pigpen gruntin’ and groanin’ all the while. When he was done it was hard to tell who was muddier—him or me.

What with all the commotion from old Luther’s barkin’ and crackin’ my head and all, it gets Barlow’s attention. He comes tearin’ out of the house with a shotgun in his hand and yellin’ at the top of his lungs.

"You pig stealin’ varmints!"

Then he lets a blast of that shotgun, and them buckshots whiz by my ear like riled up hornets. About that time Luther starts to get real brave, what with Barlow protectin’ him with that shotgun. So he comes gallumphin’ up the path, his teeth all set to grab the first thing that gets in his way. I was closer to that dog than Lem, so I started runnin’ faster than a hound dog on a rabbit’s trail. I dropped the flashlight in the mud and lost one of my boots. I ain’t goin’ back for ‘em though. The batteries is probably dead by now, and I can’t afford new ones. I’m gonna miss them boots. They been in the family for forty years or more. My pap wore ‘em before he died. But old man Barlow was hoppin’ mad, and I sure ain’t fixin’ to mess with that shotgun of his. I guess I’ll have to throw that other boot out. It’s gonna be a sad day when I do that. Maybe I could use it to patch up the seat in the tractor. That’s only fittin’, as it spent a lot of time on my backside when Pap was still wearin’ ‘em.

After awhile we make it over the field, me limpin’ on one boot and Lem all bent over from runnin’. He was gaspin’ like a overworked mule. He ain’t in the best of shape and the only time he gets any exercise is when he’s runnin’ away from trouble. Which is pretty often, come to think of it.

Lem and me come stragglin’ up to the house all dirty and tuckered out. But Ma won’t let me in the house with my dirty clothes. She’s my wife, Peony, but I call her "Ma" because she hates her Christian name. So I strip down to my longjohns and go in the house. Lem starts in after me, but Ma won’t let him in, sayin’ "One dirty old man is all any woman should have to put up with." Ma can be a real hoot when she’s a mind to.

One of the buttons is missin’ from the flap in my longjohns, so it don’t stay up like it should. I’m a standin’ in front of the fire warmin’ myself when all of a sudden the log crackles and a spark comes out and hits me right where the flap of my longjohns should be. Well, I let out another whoop and hop around like I was stung by a fleet of hornets. Ma gets out the lard and spreads it on the place where I got burned. Maybe that’s what people mean when they call somebody "lard ass". I don’t know. I only know that it helped me feel better. And I was mighty thankful that she didn’t use that stuff that Lem’s old lady used on him.

I caught a fearful cold and a case of the grippe from bein’ chilled and all. So I’ve been laid up, watchin’ the teevee. I see where them eyerackee women on the teevee can’t let the men folks see any of them except for their eyeballs. I guess them eyerackee men get all het up when they see women’s noses and elbows and such. So they wear them black nightgowns—I think they call them "burlaps" or somethin’ like that. I ain’t sure. I only know that Elly Mae would never make a good eyerackee because her eyeballs ain’t the best part of her if you know what I mean. Or her elbow, neither.

Old Barlow never did find out that it was me and Lem who tried to steal that pig. I sure ain’t gonna tell him. Besides, I promised Ma I would never do such a crazy thing like that agin. She didn’t have to talk too hard. I had pretty much made up my mind when I was runnin’ away from Luther. Actual, I guess you could say I got the notion when I heard them shotgun pellets.

And I’m goin’ easy on Lem’s hootch, too. I only drink it on Saturday and special days. Ma sez it looks to her like just about every day is special, but like I say, she’s a real hoot at times. Sunday bein’ a religious holiday and all, well, I don’t touch the stuff.

I ain’t eat a pork chop or bacon ever since that day. I kinda lost my taste fer pig. Fact is, we’re havin’ chicken and dumplings for dinner. That suits me just fine.

Contact the Author - hcozine@yahoo.com