Tuskers. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I tried to get up, but the pain was so excruciating that I fell back with a cry.  My wife’s anger instantly turned to concern.

“Let me see that,” she said, getting down on her hands and knees, her blue pants getting stained by the blood on the floor.  She winced when she saw the gash, which ran along the middle of the foot.  “We need to clean that off.  Can you make it to the bathroom?”

“Sure,” I said.  I got up.  I hopped my way, putting just the slightest bit of pressure on the tip of my foot, with one hand on the wall.  About halfway there, Jenny put her shoulder under my arm and I made it the rest of the way.

I sat on the toilet while Jenny rooted around in the cabinet for antibacterial lotion and bandages.  I watched her furrowed face.  If I blurred my eyes just slightly, she still looked like the twenty-year-old girl I’d met my junior year in college.  A true blonde, with aristocratic features and bearing, tall and thin.  But I didn’t need to blur my eyes, for the added wrinkles and lines only made her lovelier in my eyes.

I wondered if she was happy, if she liked living in Arizona.  But even as I thought it, I realized that she’d been hinting in small ways that she didn’t like it.  I’d just willfully ignored the signals.

“You want to go for a long vacation to Philly?” I asked.

“Maybe later in the summer,” she said, after a slight hesitation.  “I’ve got some things I need to do.”

“What kind of things?” Jesus…that sounded like the whining of a kid.   “I thought that’s why we came down here…so we wouldn’t have things we need to do.”

“Do you mind if we talk about it later?” She asked, as she took a wet towel and started washing the wound.

I managed not to groan, both from the pain and from that strange hesitation, which I instinctively sensed meant trouble.

“What are we going to do about getting out of the house?” she asked.  “About letting people know?”

“Hamilton’s supposed to call me later this afternoon.”

She snorted.  “Since when has Hamilton ever voluntarily called you, honey?  I think he’s on the verge of taking a restraining order out on you.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty much every day.”

“Oh, come on, babe.  It’s his job.”

She shook her head.  “I wouldn’t be counting on a call.”

We fell silent.  We didn’t own a gun.  When I’d told Hamilton about the idea of maybe shooting a few of the pigs, or at least firing in the air to warn them off, he’d told me sternly it was against the law to fire off a gun in city limits.  And to tell the truth, I didn’t want a gun in the house.  They gave me the willies.

“What if I use a bow and arrow?” I’d asked.

“Still illegal,” Hamilton had been firm.  “I find you are killing off the wildlife without a permit and so help me, I’ll throw your ass in jail.”

“That seems so unfair!” I’d protested.  “Am I supposed to just let these critters eat my garden?  Destroy my lawn?  Wreck all my furniture?”

Hamilton had looked as though he wanted to say something he would regret. 

“You moved here, Barry.  The wildlife was here before you.  If you don’t like it…you can always move.”

I’d almost reported the S.O.B. over that, then realized the poor guy was under a lot of stress.  I doubted I was the only newcomer who was complaining.  And much as I hated to admit it, he had a point.

So I’d tried other things.  The next day, I piled a bunch of stones near the patio and when the javelinas came through, I started throwing them.  I missed, mostly.  But even when I hit one of them full on the flank, with a loud thud, the pig had just sort of grunted and looked at me, as if to say, ‘That all you got, buddy?’

I considered poison, but didn’t have any in the house and never got around to making the trip to town to buy some.  Besides, I didn’t want to poison all the squirrels and marmots and other innocent critters.

The thing that worked the best, at least at first, was banging on the metal lid of a garbage can.  But after only a few days, the skunk pigs just ignored it.

And now this.  ‘Man eating pigs,’ Jenny had joked, but damned if I didn’t wonder.

Now I said, “The pigs can’t stick around forever.  They have other gardens to rape, pillage and plunder.”

I knew from talking to my neighbors at the pool hall, they were all having trouble with the vermin.  Especially my nearest neighbor, Carl Silverstein.  He was so fed up, he was building his own fence, but wasn’t quite done yet.

A vague plan started formulating in my head.  All four sides of our house had windows on the ground floor.  If I ran from room to room, I could check all of them within a few seconds, while Jenny kept an eye on the front.   If the coast was clear, I could make a run for the car.

Great plan, except I couldn’t run. 

“Babe,” I ventured.

“Yes?” she recognized the tone, but didn’t say anything.  For once, she seemed willing to listen to one of my schemes.

“Would you be willing to get out on the roof?  Climb to the top and check out the surroundings?  When the coast is clear, you can give me a signal, and I’ll make a run for the car.”

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.  “Climb on the roof…”

“Well, remember, we’ve done it before,” I said.  When we’d bought the house, we’d agreed, in case of a fire, to check to see if it was possible to get out of the upstairs master bedroom by way of the window.  We hadn’t actually jumped off the roof, but agreed that we could if we had to.

She nodded.  “That’s not actually a bad plan.  But you should be the one to get on the roof, and I should be the one to make a run for it.  Seeing as how you can’t run.”

I hadn’t thought of that.  She was right.  But I still didn’t think she was scared enough.  She didn’t really deep down believe we were in real danger.

But I did.  Because I’d looked into Razorback’s eyes.

“But we don’t need to do that,” she said, dismissing the plan.  “Peter is coming by this afternoon to take me to dinner.”

“Peter?” I said.  A great dread had filled me at her words.  “Out to dinner?”  A day before and I probably would have ignored it.  No doubt planning for one of her benefit events, I would have thought.  I had a vague recollection of her telling me about someone named Peter, who was a local real estate agent.

“I told you about it,” she said.  “The neighborhood association is getting together to appeal one of the rules.  You know, the one about not allowing hanging laundry outside.”

“Hanging laundry.”  Jesus, I thought.  I’ve been blind.  My wife could care less about the hanging laundry outside.  Hell, I did the laundry in this house.

“What’s going on, Jenny?”

“What do you mean?” She sounded so innocent, I knew I was on to something.

“Go ahead and tell me, babe.  Not knowing is killing me.”

She stopped fussing around putting away the medicines and cleaning the sink, and turned and looked at me with a heartbreakingly serious look on her face.  She sat on the edge of the bathtub and took my hands in hers.  I nearly teared up.  I couldn’t bear to hear what I was about to hear, but I couldn’t stand not knowing either.

“I want to go back to work,” she said.

“What?”

“Peter has offered me a job as a real estate agent.  I’ve already passed the exams and everything.”

Relief and confusion washed over me.  I was having a hard time processing what she was telling me.  All I knew was that she hadn’t told me she was having an affair.

“Did you think I was seeing someone?” she cried.  She leaned forward and put her arms around me.  “I’d never do that, honey.  I love you so much.”

I did tear up at that, but managed to wipe my eyes before she let go of me and could see.

“I, uh…I thought we wanted to just relax?” I stuttered.

“So did I, at first.  But, honey.  I’m bored out of my skull.”

I just laughed.  I should have known.  I was the one who had always been home, always on my own.  She’d always worked in places surrounded by people.  Retirement really wasn’t that much of a change for me, but for her…

“I understand,” I said. 

“I can work as little or as much as I want,” she said, quickly, rushing her words as if she had thought it all out and had rehearsed the explanation.  “I’ll have flexible hours.  We won’t have to stop anything we’re doing…or no doing.”

I laughed again.  “I get it.  Sure.  If it will keep you happy, I’m all for it.”

She lightened up at that, and sprang up.  “I’ve got to call Peter, tell him the news….oh…”

Yeah, that brought us down to earth again.  The pigs had her phone. But suddenly it seemed like a minor problem to me.  Why had I been so worried about it before?  It was just a bunch of pigs.  Fuck them.

“When is Peter coming by?”

She reached into her pockets, looking for her phone to check the time.  Then stopped, flustered.

“Good thing I’m such a primitive that I still wear a watch,” I said.  “It’s 3:30.”

“So he’ll be by around fivish, I think he said.”

We got up.  I’m not sure what we intended to do for the next hour and a half.  I know what I wanted to do for the next hour and half…but it was not to be.

The entire house shook, and we both nearly lost our footing.  I caught Jenny before she fell backward into the bathtub.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked, swearing for the second time that day, a new world record.

We ran to the living room, and looked out the big picture window.  Just on the horizon, was our nearest neighbors, the Silberstein’s.  We could just see the roof of their house.

Only we couldn’t.  Not any longer.  Instead of a roof, there was a fireball, with smoke curling high into the air.