Pig Farm

Pig Farm

  A Short Story by

  Jamie Buchanan

  Copyright 2013 Jamie Buchanan

  Pig Farm

  I knew my wife was cheating on me. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew. You know how sometimes you just KNOW that someone is lying, or someone is keeping something from you? Well, I had had that feeling for a few months with Michelle.

  I noticed things were wrong when she started to be more attentive towards me. She would tell me she loved me at least two or three times a day. We wouldn’t often have sex, but she was very affectionate…too affectionate, I now realize. It was out of character for her to be like that; she’d always been a bit standoffish when it came to intimacy between us. More often than not, I was the one who would initiate sex, hug her, or even give her a kiss in the morning. But then she started being overly loving and affectionate…and my cynical side came out.

  Of course, as usual, I was far too chicken-shit to say anything. I was too scared of her, too scared of the reaction I’d get.

  Mostly I was too scared she’d confirm my suspicions.

  Is it better to live with suspicion and doubt than to know the truth? Especially when the truth would break your heart? I suppose there are arguments for both sides there, but in the end I wanted to choose to ignore the warning signs and try and live my life believing that she probably was seeing someone.

  “Seeing someone” – now there’s a euphemism that really softens the blow. For “Seeing Someone” read: “sleeping with someone”.

  Read: “Having an Affair”

  Read: “Shagging someone”

  It goes on. I could get vulgar and continue in that vein, but the crux of the matter was that she was having sex with someone other than her husband. I couldn’t ignore it – I knew that. I was determined to find out who it was.

  Our town was only small by most town standards, about 5000 people in total. This is a rural area, mostly agricultural farms of wheat, hay and canola. There are a few sheep farmers in the area – and one pig farm. Mine – I’m the lone pig farmer in the district. When the census results came out and “Other” was in the agricultural section of the economy of the region, that “Other” was me.

  But even with a small population like this, it was still hard to pinpoint who it was that she was sleeping with. I ruled out any women – I was SURE that she wasn’t inclined that way. But, then again, six months ago I was SURE that she was faithful; so I guess you never really know. However, on this point, I decided to concentrate on the men, as I was fairly confident it was a bloke she was seeing.

  My initial suspect was Bill Kincaid, one of the local teachers. Bill had only been in town since the start of the school year and Michelle would have had reason to bump into him taking the kids to school or picking them up. He was younger than me by about 12 years, and he didn’t have the love handles that I had, the beginnings of a potbelly from too many beers, chips and a lack of real exercise. He was still fit and I had seen him running a few times early in the morning.

  Suspect Number 2 was Dave Hitchcock. Dave ran one of the local hardware stores. He was a year older than me and I had seen the way she flirted with him at times. She was always giggling a bit and I swear her face flushed when he served us in the store. He was a slimy sleazy dog and I had known Dave since he moved to town when I was in grade 7 at school. He was a year older and was a sleazebag then and is still a sleazebag now. His wife turned a blind eye, but most of us knew that he would ride anything that let him have a go. He’s not even that good-looking. He’s going bald, crops his hair short. He’s got a bit of a belly (like me) and he rarely dresses well.

  Actually, those were my only two suspects. The rest of the men I could narrow down didn’t fit the bill and there was no way that Michelle would, or could, have met any of them long enough to have an affair. She needed time to do it – because I work at home on the farm. So she’d need excuses to go to town…

  “Honey, I’m going to pay some bills…” or

  “Honey, I’ll go and pick up some groceries after dropping of the kids at school…back in an hour and a half.”

  90 minutes to get groceries? The town is only 20 minutes from home – that’s a 40 minute round trip. It would be no more than 20 minutes to get what we needed from the IGA supermarket.

  I couldn’t follow her because, in a town our size, I would certainly be spotted. Therefore, a couple of times, I went into town about 15 minutes after she did so she didn’t see me follow. And I drove around casually looking for signs of her car. Occasionally, someone I knew would spot me and wave, but it wasn’t odd that I would be in town at anytime anyway so no one was the wiser.

  But, then again, neither was I because on the first two occasions I drove into town, I couldn’t spot her car. It certainly wasn’t in the supermarket car park so she was definitely lying – that pretty much confirmed an affair to me.

  Then, on the third occasion I looked for her, I spotted the front of the car poking out from the rear driveway of a house on the corner of Forster and Davidson Streets. The white bumper bar of her Ford Mondeo stuck out like toes of an intruder behind the curtain. The house belonged to Curtis Palmer, which didn’t make sense at all. Curtis was over 60 years old…no way was she having it away with an old man!

  I knew she’d be wary when she left – because she’d taken steps to hide the car in the first place – so I decided to come back later when she wasn’t around and see old Curtis. He had a lot of explaining to do.

  I wasn’t sure what my plan was – in all honesty I didn’t really have a plan. I was tempted to barge right into the house, grab Curtis by the throat, warn him to stay away from my wife and then give him a bit of kicking for good measure. He wouldn’t call the cops because then everyone would know what was going on which would not bode well for him…or Mrs. Palmer. She was in Shady Acres Retirement home and, from what I’m told, had advanced Alzheimer’s. She may not even understand what was going on really, but Curtis sure wouldn’t want the news getting out.

  My plan, as primitive and Neanderthal as it was, was established in my mind. Instead of going to the pub for darts like I always did on Tuesday night, I decided I would confront the old bastard who was slipping my wife his undoubtedly Viagra laden cock and warn him to lay off. I left a few minutes earlier than normal and drove like a bat of hell to get to Curtis’ place before 7.30. I figured that I could see Curtis, smack him a bit, warn him off and then go and play darts thereby establishing an alibi as best I could – certainly good enough for Michelle anyway.

  When I got to Curtis’ place, the street was dark and I turned the engine of the car off about a hundred metres from his place. I parked down the road and ran, silently, along the fence line to his back yard. I entered his yard through the rear driveway on Forster Street and decided I’d go in through the back door. It was secluded and the Wilmots (who lived behind Curtis) were holidaying in Queensland so no one heard a thing.

  I turned the doorknob and it opened (people rarely locked their homes around here) and I walked inside. There were a few lights on but I couldn’t hear anyone. I walked down the hallway quietly; my heart pounded a million beats per minute, my brow sweated with anxiety and adrenaline. Then I heard heavy footsteps on the timber floorboards – too heavy to be a shuffling old coot like Curtis.

  It was Gene – Curtis’ son. Gene was ten years younger than me, close to the same height (just over six feet tall) and he was strong. Powerful was probably the best description. Gene moved away years ago to join the army and Curtis bragged that Gene was in the SAS – but I know that if he were in the SAS, Curtis wouldn’t have been told. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But now, here he was, in his father’s house.

  It clicked right away that it was Gene my wife had been seeing/sleeping-with/shaggin
g. It also clicked very quickly that I was no physical match for Gene – he would kill me if I approached him. He had his back to me as he walked down the hall to the kitchen, probably ten feet ahead of me. The hall was dark, but I had nowhere to hide. And, if I ran, he’d hear and he’d certainly catch me.

  Fight or flight?

  I looked around and saw Curtis’ old golf clubs in the hall. I grabbed the putter and walked to the kitchen. Gene still had his back to the door (to me). Silently – swiftly – I swing the putter hard and the steel end smashed into Gene’s skull. He dropped the plate he was holding and spun around slowly. The look on his face was shock and surprise all rolled into one. I nearly laughed when I saw that look – his mouth wide-open, eyes agog.

  The club had dug a hole into his skull so I reefed it out and, before he could react, swung it sideways across his head, the toe of the club collecting his temple and he hit the ground immediately. Luckily for me he landed right onto the linoleum floor mat in the centre of the carpet covered timber flooring. Blood leaked out of him but it was collecting on the lino.

  I had no idea where Curtis was, but I couldn’t hear anyone else either – maybe he was out?

  I waited….nothing.

  I waited a bit more….still nothing.

  I don’t know how long I waited – ten seconds? Ten minutes?

  When I thought the coast was clear I rolled the linoleum up with Gene’s body inside and started to carry him to the car. Then I wondered if he was actually dead? What if he woke up? My plan was still to go to darts – what if he woke up in the boot and started to make a racket?

  I decided to make sure.

  In the back yard, I dropped the lino that enveloped Gene’s body and saw a pair of secateurs on the back porch, which looked like they’d been left there after gardening. Perfect.

  I flipped open the lino and Gene lay flat on his back, eyes closed. I was too scared to even check his pulse in case he woke up grabbed my like some half dead psycho in a horror movie. So I opened the secateurs as wide as they could go and placed them over his neck. The steel of each blade was millimeters from Gene’s skin. Then I slammed them shut.

  The blood didn’t squirt like I expected – maybe he was already dead? It oozed out through the gaping wound, his head barley held on now.

  Right – now I was certain he was dead!

  Body in the roll of Lino? Check!

  Lino, secateurs, golf club in the boot of the car? Check!

  Now for the alibi – so I went to pub to play darts.

  I had to quickly check myself in the toilets before going in that I didn’t have blood on me. There was some on my boots, but, as I said, I own a pig farm. These were my work boots and everyone expected a pig farmer to have blood, shit or mud on his boots. I was ten minutes late, but that went unnoticed – I’d often be late if I had a busy day.

  Alibi was done. I was surprised how calm I was about it all. There I was playing darts with friends and having a few beers whilst my wife’s lover’s body was going into rigor mortis in the boot of my car outside the pub. I’m glad Curtis wasn’t at the pub…I’m not sure I could have held it together. Maybe he was visiting his wife?

  I played okay but, in the end, lost quite convincingly. That wasn’t an unusual occurrence so everything still seemed, to the casual observer, to as normal – status quo maintained.

  At 11pm I left, when everyone else did. Nothing untoward, nothing unusual…everything very calm. I drove home quietly, probably slightly over the drink driving limit, but I knew I’d be okay – besides Sgt “Bart” Brady was in my team for darts; he even bought the last round!

  I parked the car in the shed, where I always do, went inside, changed clothes and slid into bed next to my wife.

  And lay there all-night - unable to sleep a wink.

  In the pub I was myself, but I was acting a role. The role of alibi-neederer! Now, at home in my bed, practically alone whilst Michelle snored quietly beside me, I was alone with my thoughts.

  What if someone saw something?

  Did I leave anything behind?

  What gave me away?

  The rational part of me answered: “There was no-one”, and “No, you didn’t”, and “NOTHING!” But, irrationally, I started hearing sirens in my head, thinking they were far away but getting closer to arrest me for Gene’s murder.

  Murder. Oh God! I’m a murderer! A crime of passion. No one would care why I did it – even if most of the blokes around here probably would have done the same thing. I’ll be caught, life in prison, my kids! I never even gave them a thought – but they will know everything. Why I did it, what I did, and how I tried to cover it up. They’ll never want to see me again – I’ll lose them forever!

  When it all came down to it, I could eventually handle it if Michelle left me for what I did. But I could never handle losing the kids. If I lost them I’d…well, I’d…Oh I can’t say it!

  The rational part of me tried to settle the other side down, all the while not wanting to wake Michelle from her slumber. Then I hit upon a plan….

  Early next morning I told Michelle I was going to feed the pigs. I drove the car down to the shelters where I had 300 piggies – mostly sows and young ones. The shelter is about 500 metres from the house for health reasons and none of the staff was there yet. But I didn’t feed them – I wanted them to be hungry.

  Ravenous.

  Hungry enough to eat whatever I gave them, when the time was right.

  The farm hands (Travis, Mark and Larry) would be there soon so I had to work fast.

  I backed the car into the shed and closed the doors. When I opened the boot, Gene’s body had started to go off but, mixed with the smell of the pig farm, it wasn’t that noticeable. I took the linoleum sausage out of the boot. Blood had congealed on the plastic, but I was very confident none of it had leaked into the boot of the car.

  So far, so good.

  Then I cut up the body. Arms, legs, head and the torso. It was easy enough with the hacksaw as the body wasn’t in true rigor and there was virtually no blood leaking out now. It congealed nicely and there were a few little puddles of jelly-like black blood that flopped out of the open flesh from time to time. I stacked the body piece upon piece and put it all into polystyrene box in the freezer.

  All except the head.

  And the fingers.

  I had to get rid of them another way.

  I put them in a large bucket in the freezer, taping the lid on tight. I then placed the lino, golf club and the secateurs in the freezer as well and locked the freezer door with the only key.

  Car clean? Check!

  Body dismembered? Check!

  Tools secure? Check!

  Now I had to wait for the pigs to get hungry.

  You see, the pigs will eat virtually the lot – but they can’t digest the teeth. They also will struggle with the head, too, and there will, undoubtedly, be bits of skull left over if I fed it to them. That’s why I needed another plan for that – but the arms, legs, body? No problem – this time tomorrow, the pigs will finish that in a few minutes flat. If I waited any longer, they’ll start eating each other.

  Travis and the boys arrived not long after and I sent them into town for more fencing wire and strainer posts. I had fencing to do for the small amount of sheep we had – that got the boys out of my hair. When they were gone, I gave the pigs a mere handful of food so that when they boys returned, it would look like the piggies had eaten something…so far, so good.

  Later that day the cops came. I nearly shat myself when I looked at the police car driving up the driveway. I could see “Bart” (Sgt Brady) driving. The siren was not on and the lights not flashing – but my heart was thrashing around in my body, bouncing off my skeleton. My brain was boiling and I was frozen to the spot.

  I’m gone. That’s it, I’m fucking gone!

  But – no.

  “Hey, Joe,” Bart said casually as he got out of the car.

  “Hi, Bart,” I replied, sure that it a
ctually came out like “I’m the fucking killer you’re after!”

  “What’s up?” I asked, absolutely positive it came out like: “I’M GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!!!”

  “Oh, nothing much,” he replied, as lazily as he could muster. Bart wasn’t the hardest working of coppers and he was happy just to keep the peace and make sure it all stayed nice and quiet. He was the sort of cop that would be happy to stay as sergeant of this town until he retired. “Just wondered if you’d seen old Curtis Palmer lately?”

  Oh fuck….which came out like: “No, why?”

  “No-one’s seen him for a few days…” his voice trailed off as he opened his notebook.

  What do I do? Do I ask if anyone’s asked Gene? Curtis’ son? Maybe Bart, like me, didn’t even know Gene was back?

  A mantra started up in my head: play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool…

  “I don’t know,” I replied again, “I haven’t seen him for ages. I know his wife’s in Shady Acres, but apart from there, I don’t know where he’d be.”

  “He has a son…”

  Play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool…

  “But no-one has seen or heard of him for a while. He came back to visit a few weeks ago but he left again.”

  “Maybe they left together?” I offered, the mantra repeating in my head and I’m fairly sure it was reverberating around the paddocks as well: PLAY IT COOL! PLAY IT COOL! PLAY IT COOL! PLAY IT COOL!

  “Well, it’s possible, we’ll track him down eventually. Maybe the old coot simply wandered off?” Bart looked at me this time – the first time he actually locked eyes with me since he arrived. He wasn’t entirely dim – he could read people very well.

  Written across my face was: “I’m the killer you are looking for! His chopped up body is in my freezer and I’m going to feed him to my pigs!”

  But what my face said was: “Maybe, but I doubt it. Bet you he is with his son somewhere…”

  Bart looked away again, content that what he saw in me was nothing unusual. His usual perceptiveness must have abandoned him – rendered him temporarily illiterate when reading people. “Yeah, maybe you’re right…” his voice trailed off dismissively. “Well,” he concluded as he slid back behind the wheel of the police car, “if you or Michelle think of anything, let me know.” And he left, the tyres of the car on the gravel driveway made a soft cracking sound like the pockets of bubble wrap popping as he drove away.