Tuskers. Chapter 2.

Going ahead and writing my man versus pig story.

It is going to be a pretty straightforward survival story.  Not a lot of secondary characters.  Just a slowly disintegrating situation.

I doubt it will be very long.  Longer than a short story, shorter than a novel.

Just going to have fun with it.

Remember -- this is rough draft.

I guess my philosophy on writing is:  Don't agonize over it, just write it.




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Chapter 2

After Hamilton left, I put the lawn fixtures back together as best I could.  I’d left them upended all morning because I wanted that useless Animal Control officer to see the full extent of the damage.  It felt good to put everything back in place, even if I had to prop up the birdfeeder posts with rocks and wrenched my back a little putting the concrete bird bath upright.

I eased into my favorite chair -- a nice padded chair under the eaves.  If the rains rotted it, I would just buy another one.  All well and good to have all weather lawn furniture but they are damned uncomfortable on my old man butt.  I poured myself a drink and closed my eyes and basked in the heat for a while.

When I opened my eyes, they landed on the sign I’d just hung from the patio roof a couple of days before: “The Hunter Hacienda.”  The letters were burned into the wood with an old fashioned magnifying glass by a guy who had a booth down at the weekend festivals in town. It had brought back memories of summer camps, and making leather lanyards and signs and other folksy things.  He’d done it in a matter of minutes, with a practiced ease that right then and there made me want to take up some kind of handicraft in my dufferhood.

I am firmly in the old duffer camp.  I used to wonder about people who’d watch Lawrence Welk or play golf all the time.  Did they know they were deeply uncool?

Now that I’m the same age, I have the answer.  They know they’re uncool -- and they don’t give a damn.

A simple condo, someone else mowing the lawns, a pool nearby to cool off with a little noodling, a clubhouse to play cards or billiards, a pickle ball court.  I fully embrace my dufferhood. 

My wife, Jenny, she’s the social one.  Always has been.  Without her, I’d be one of those grumpy guys you see floating around, who don’t join any of the activities.  She’s my intrepid scout, finding compatible couples to test, and we’ve developed a regular group, who get together every afternoon and talk politics.

We may reside in Red State Arizona, but the people in our group are mostly good old-fashioned liberals.  No doubt other groups are meeting on other patios, and are full of new-fashioned idiotic conservatives, but again -- I don’t give a damn.

Every afternoon I’ll sit on the back patio and drink vodka gimlets and wonder how I got so lucky.  My wife joins me about half the time, but she’s developed her own circle of friends outside our couple’s circle of friends, and I don’t mind.  I like being alone.  Always have.

I get lots of feedback on Facebook.  Keep up with the people back in the town I’d spent my entire career in, but which was way too cold and trendy for my tastes.  I can’t seem to completely let go of the Facebook thing.  Spend way too much time on it.

But there isn’t any reason to worry about it.  It’s an ideal existence, as far as I’m concerned.

Except for the damn javelinas. 

Who’d have thought I’d spend my retirement at war with pigs?

“They aren’t pigs,” I can hear Officer Hamilton saying.  “They are peccaries, an entirely different family.”

“Look like pigs to me,” I say, just teasing him.

“Well, they are in the same suborder as pigs.  But different animals.”

“Grunts like a pigs, smells like a pig, it’s a pig.”

Hamilton gave up, just shrugging his shoulders. 

The brush at the edge of my lawn stirred, and five large javelinas burst out into my backyard.  They looked as if they were looking for a fight.  Something made me stand up and edge for the door.  I slid the door halfway closed and stood at the entrance and watched them.

Their leader came forward by itself.  It didn’t take his its off me.  It was a casual and yet threatening approach.  When it was ten feet away, I closed the door until only my head was poking out.

There had been clouds covering the sun when they first trotted into view.  Now the sun came out, and I could see it glancing off the pig’s eyes.

I winced, and a cold chill came over me.

Then it started clashing its teeth.  I’d heard this sound before, as the herds of javelinas rooted about.  They were knocking their tusks together.

“Keeps their tusks sharp,” I can hear Hamilton’s voice.  “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Well, I was alarmed.  Scared, actually. 

This javelina was huge.  I was close enough to him to see that his tusks curved slightly, which was unusual.  Most javelinas have straight tusks.  This pig looked more like a wild boar, a razorback. 

The pig’s eyes were examining me, measuring the distance, as if trying to figure out if he could get to me before I closed the door.

Something impelled me to start sliding it the rest of the way closed.

The pig shot forward so fast he seemed a blur.  Its snout caught the last four inches of the opening, and it pushed it open another inch before I started countering its frantic efforts.  It huffled, almost growled, but again I was transfixed by the yellow eyes.  A murderous rage, and cunning intelligence radiated from the creature.  A stink filled the house.

“Scent glands,” Hamilton explained.  “It’s how they mark their territory.  They rub it on each other, too.  Which is why they stink.”

Some primitive primate instinct took over me at that moment, and I roared out a strange warlike cry that I didn’t know I had in me and kicked the snout of the creature with the bottom of my slippers.  I felt the tusks cut into the soft sole, and a flashing pain, but the javelina pulled away and I slammed the door all the way shut and locked it for good measure.

For a few moments the two of us stared at each other.

I understood.  This was to be a fight to the death.

Just then I heard my wife pulling up in the front driveway.  I saw that the javelina heard too, and it turned and ran back to his fellows, and they seemed to converse.

I turned and ran for the front door.  My foot stung with every step but I ignored it.  I slid the last few feet to the door, slamming into it, and threw it open.  My wife was halfway between the car and the door, cradling paper shopping bags in each arm.

“Hurry!” I shouted.  “Get inside!”

To her credit, she picked up the pace.  I could see her forming the question.

“No time!” I shouted again.  “Run!”

I saw a flash of motion to the left side of the house and the five javelinas came running around the corner, moving as a solid wave.  Jenny saw them coming.

She dropped the bags and sprang forward and into the hallway.  I slammed the door, just as a loud thump struck the outside of it.

There is a narrow window running down the length of the door and I peered outward.  Four of the pigs were rooting through the dropped groceries.

But the big one was there, staring back just inches away.  It shook itself all over, as if saying, “Got you sucker.” 

Then it slowly, almost majestically turned around and walked toward the others pigs, who pulled aside and let him pick the choicest bits of food.

And then my ladylike wife, who never swore said,  “What the fuck just happened.”