Oink

Even though my old mentor and boyhood best friend Jaybird enjoyed the company of dogs and cats, his favorite pets were pigs. He would have agreed with Sir Winston Churchill, who once said, “Always remember, a cat looks down on men, a dog looks up to men, but a pig will look men right in the eye and see his equal.”

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I was acquainted with a few of Jaybird’s beloved pig pals, among them Peggy Pokechop, Hortense Hog, and Clarabelle Chitlins, but the pig he loved most was named Oink. After a day of chopping cotton, he and I would relax on his cabin porch and watch the sun slide beneath the flat Mississippi Delta horizon. He would kick back in his rocking chair, pull out his old cigarette case (one of my most cherished possessions to this day) and light a Camel. Directly, he would fetch a bottle of corn whiskey, and yell out, “Oink, come on up and jine us.” We’d hear an excited grunt, and Oink would trot up the steps, nuzzle Jaybird’s hand, and sit beside him with all the decorum and grace of a queen.

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You may have known a few well-behaved pigs, but when it came to poise, manners, and etiquette, none could outdo Oink. Although her great beauty caused Jaybird’s boars to engage in tusk wars, she was demure, coy, and totally self-effacing about her drop-dead good looks. Long, curly lashes swept down over her brown, intelligent eyes, her face was always fixed in a pleasant grin, a couple of incisors poked cutely beside her jowls, and her ears, festooned with bristly hair, rotated constantly, indicating that she keenly enjoyed good conversation, especially Jaybird’s jokes. She was also keenly interested in Jaybird’s corn whiskey. As she waited expectantly, he’d pour a dram or two in her bowl. At first, he held it to her mouth and let her sip, but soon he taught her to hold the bowl with her front feet and raise it to her mouth, although he later regretted teaching her this skill because, as the evening progressed, she left off sipping and began slurping in a most un-ladylike way. And, bless her heart, she understood English — not that of a pedantic, grammar and syntax English professor, but the field hand vernacular that Jaybird used. Once, I witnessed an amazing example of this un-swinish ability. Jaybird was very protective of the rose bushes in his front yard. Oink was rooting too close to one of them, and instantly he put together a string of prepositions and shouted, “Oink, you better come on away from up in around behind dem bushes.” The pig grunted apologetically and trotted away. Although Jaybird loved cracklins, chitlins, hams, and pork chops, he never met a live pig he didn’t like. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the three of us on his front porch — a wise old black man, a white boy he raised, and a pampered pet … a pig named Oink.

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