Pigs to the slaughter

Bernie O'Hare's a decent bloke - for a cop. Alright, I'm under
arrest, but he had no choice. And he's driving me out to the grave. I
shuts me eyes and thinks about pigs.

Pigs fear the slaughter. They feel it coming? and fight against it,
squealing like a kid with boogie-man dreams. But pigs are powerless.
Big men drag little piggies to slaughter. Piggies piss themselves? or
worse. In me dreams I throws me hands over me eyes and ears and nose,
but that don't work at all. Tears and snot everywhere.

But one of the big men comes, pulls the hands from me face. 'They're
only animals, son.' And he takes the big sledge hammer, and smacks the
pig between the eyes. Thwwooock. Instant silence, instant death.

Piggies don't get buried, or c'mated. They're tied to a sorta rack,
their bristles are burnt off all over with a blow torch. They get
skinned, for leather, then butchered and become roast dinners. Only
bones and guts left over.

Pigs sure do bugger up your sleep with their squealing, but it's the
smell of burnt flesh that really grosses you out. Makes me chuck. But
hey, they're only animals. And me Daddy says someone has to do
it.

For city folk, death is something on telly, or in a book. Not real.
Country folk see death lots. Roos and foxes are shot. Then there's
drought and flood and fire. Animals die, sometimes people too. Dunno
what I'd do if something happened to me son Hal; he's all I got left.
'Cept for memories.

Death's just part of life. Until it comes up close. Real tough, me.
Gone's the boy who howled and chucked at the slaughter of the pig. I
can wring a chicken's neck or pump a bullet into a horse's brain. But
the piggies' squeal and stench have been back for weeks now, and won't
go away. Over and over though me head. I begs them to go, to fade away.
I need me Dad. I need him to thump the pig in the forehead and end the
torment. But Daddy is gone, so is the thwwooock.

Then last week, the nightmare changed. I weren't six year old no more,
but in me forties.

Tears still swept down me face, but o no, o no, I saw meself lift the
giant hammer, heard the wet thud, but the screaming just got stronger,
so I struck again and again, until the screaming stopped, but I didn't
stop, and swung and swung until me arms quit, then I looked at the
bloody caved-in mess, at the bent and broken body, but it was long and
unpiglike, and wore clothes and shoes, and it may have been human, but
who could tell. Whatever, it was stone dead.

A dream? Sure, but so clear, so real. But when you haven't been
sleeping, days sorta melt together, and everything blurs. Especially
when you hit the turps real hard.

Well it helps me survive.

When we stop, Bernie removes the cuffs, then leads me where me daughter
lies. Not religious, me - never needed it. All the hoo-hah about
everlasting life. Life is life, death is death. Don't want to live
forever. But Missie, you didn't get half a life, not even half a half,
taint fair.

Bernie tries to be kindly to me. 'Mate' he said. 'Mate, she didn't
suffer.' Horse paddies, I thinks, you try being raped Bernie, you try
having a knife to your neck, and all the filth forced on you. Suffer?
Sweet Priest I knows you did, darling girl. How could you not?
Shite!

I asks Missy who it was, but she won't say a word. But I think it was
Donnie Aikin. He was always pest'ring her, leering, being the pork
chop. Wild, that Donnie. Missy seen somep'n in him. She saw somep'n in
everyone.

Me fingers trace the cold stone words. Aged 15. 'You'll be fifteen
forever' I tells her aloud. 'This I pray.'

But I aint telling her the rest of me prayer, what's between me and He.
If there is a He. More a promise really - that we'll get the bastard
who did this. Missy would stop us if she found out.

Hal's hand on me quaking shoulder says time to go. He helps me up,
points me homeward. Hal looks calm but he's all churned up inside. Like
me. But where is Bernie? I'm all mix up, but hey, nothing surprises me
any more. 'Take me home, son'.

Hal leads me to the ute, then drives the five minutes to home. Maybe
Bernie has let me go? Wearily, we climbs the steps. The house is dark,
and so empty when we go in. Just Hal and me now, no wife, no daughter.
Not that Janie's dead; she's alive as live can be, somewhere east.
Couldn't even find her to tell about Missy. But it was splashed across
all the newses, so she can't have missed it. Maybe the name 'Catherine'
threw her. No one ever uses Missie's real name, 'cept her
teacher.

I remembers the thing about the flowers. Big ones. Hal racing across
the front paddock. 'There's flowers, Pa, Missie's grave's got flowers.'
Now they're not ours. We don't do that.

'What sort Hal?'

He don't know . 'Great big yellow ones'

'Sunflowers?'

'Think so'

I aint the smartest anytime, an' what brains I got are turned to jelly
jus now. But I knows where these are from. Aikin's. They farm
sunflowers - only locals who do. And here was Donnie laughing at us
all. Pretending to care, but it's his joke and be damned if Hal and me
and Missie have to put up with it. Bloody animal!

Dunno why Bernie knocks on doors. Ours is never closed, not even at
night, or in winter. Maybe it's his job makes him.

Anyhow I shouts 'Come in Bernie', and he does. I offers him a drink but
no. All the more for me. 'Where'd you go to?' I asks. He looks puzzled.
'At the grave?'

'Whatya mean?'

'When you took the cuffs off.'

Bernie shakes his head, and sits me down, puts me in me big chair, gets
me some water from the kitchen, then the bastard takes me scotch away.
'I'm getting worried about you' says he. 'You're losing it Jacob. We
haven't been to the grave together. Not since the funeral, leastwise.
And what are you rambling on about cuffs? Taking them off? Why would
you have them on? You want to take it easy, mate.'

I starts to explain but he cuts me off. 'Anyhow, enough of that, I came
to ask if you two have seen any strangers around.'

'No, why?'

'Aikin's dead.'

'Good riddance to bad rubbish.'

'You don't really mean that Jacob.'

Me brain says O yes I do, but I keeps me trap shut.

'And no one deserves to go like he did. Head smacked in, burns all over
his body, bits of his skin scraped off.'

What? I shakes all over. Me mind is full of pigs. 'Must be a country
boy Bernie.' He asks why so I explains. Bernie's a city boy, doing his
turn in the bush. He makes lotsa notes. Guess he's impressed.

So here's to death, I toasts the empty room. I'm lonely, and down,
down, down. But I'm less confused than before.

Me bad dreams change. The pig-with-clothes now stares back, and the
screams are in words. '?don't don't don't.' They stop when I goes
thwwooock. Yes I. Me. I sees meself doing it. And I glory in it. For
you, Missy, I says over and over, but whispering les'n she hear.

But then I sees Mum Aikin at the graveyard, she leaves flowers for
Missy, and also on Donny's new grave. Sunflowers. With a purple bow.
Like before. Exactly like before.

And I drinks with Bernie, and he gets drunker than me, tells me the
secret stuff about their investigations. 'In confidence' he winks. But
I reckons he's not pissed at all. Maybe it's his way of tricking people
into saying things.

He tells me Hal is under suspicion. No chance, I says, not me son! but
he insists it is so. He also says there has been another murder/rape
since Aikin's death, by the same person as murdered Missy they
say.

I almost chokes. Aikin innocent? Well not really innocent, he was an
arsehole. But if being an arsehole deserved death there'd be lots of
people long gone. I do not comment, do not ask on this. Let it
lie.

But Hal? No. He's a bit like me, but kill someone? No way. I may not
have known it before, but I remembers the look on Aikin's face when I
swung the big hammer, it was so real, couldn't've made that up. Could
I?

I knows what must be done. Help Hal. Go to the police station. See
Bernie, make a confession. I musta done it. Hal's ute is outside. I
bursts through the door shouting 'I did it, I killed him..I?'

'Shut up Dad, shut up' shouts Hal, but it's a bit late. Can't take me
words back.

Bernie puts his big arms round me and guides me to a seat. It is his
way. To the other cops he says: 'Ignore him, he wouldn't even know his
own name at the moment. He confessed because he thinks his son is being
accused of killing Aikin'.

'And why would Dad think that?'

'Because I told him you were under suspicion.'

'But I'm not am I?'

'Not now you've established where you were. Just my way of
investigating?'

Lucky, I'm too tired to call the arsehole an arsehole. Hal does it for
me anyhow. The cops all laugh, even Bernie. It is time to say
nothing.

Truth? Not real sure who did it. Coulda been me. I think it was. I hope
the hell it was! But it just coulda been someone else. Don't need to
know. Coulda lost Hal as well.

Aikin? Wasn't much of a loss anyhow. People like Aikin, they're only
animals anyway. And someone's got to do it. Daddy said.