Thomas McGuane - Nothing but Blue Skies

Maybe Frank would have to go. He knew this particular walkthrough: in a stockman’s hat and camel’s hair coat, you stood next to your pigs and stared into their genetic future while waiting for the judge. He realized that this small investment notion had put him somewhere he had no business being. But even as he smiled at the picture of himself in his big hat at the pig show, he realized he’d better not miss it. He remembered that when he had partnered with Jerry, the bank had said they “had trouble seeing money for him.” He didn’t know how he had gotten into so much action with cows, pigs and chickens. If he got the little dish he could play the commodities on the satellite, but that was too fast, too dangerous. He’d seen many a good man taken down by one of those dishes, Old MacDonalds of the microchip.

Frank parked well beyond the show barns, among the stock trailers. He climbed out of his car, pushing his big lizard cowboy boots out ahead of him. Several 4-H kids had tied their animals to the sides of their trailers for a final grooming. There was a beautiful slick steer, half asleep, being painstakingly brushed by a girl in her teens; there was a self-important ram having his forelock combed by a boy in a cowboy hat, several unattended horses under blankets and hoods like big ghosts, all out in the parking area. The stall barns were dark and smelled of straw bedding and dung. Here and there people were grooming their animals inside the stalls and portable radios played next to plastic trays of brushes, combs and hair spray. He felt first rate in his topcoat and big hat, eager to be among the pigs he co-owned, grand red Durocs he’d held to his chest as babies, now avatars of swine genetics the size of ponies, squinting with wiliness. He shot his coat cuff to look at his watch: he was just in time for the theoretical heart of pork belly futures as understood in the northern Rockies.

He stepped into the main hall with a gasp: clusters of hogs of truly exaggerated size stood with their handlers under powerful overhead lighting. Men and hogs were several inches deep in cat litter. There were bleachers all the way around and these were almost full of hog fans. A judge wandered among the hogs, speaking in a clandestine manner to an assistant who made notes on a clipboard. The judge was a small-faced man in a Stetson hat with a tight, permanent scowl. Frank spotted Jerry Drivjnicki, who grinned and waved him over. He stood next to a gleaming, mighty red Duroc, Tecumseh. It was like standing next to a spaceship.

“This must be Cump,” said Frank.

“This is him,” said Jerry, stepping to one side presentationally so Frank could admire Tecumseh. “He ain’t like you remembered him, is he?”

“He was a suckling, Jerry.”

“That whole litter was good ones,” said Jerry.

Frank looked toward the bleachers and there was Gracie holding a pair of opera glasses. Next to her was Edward, her male companion, looking none too well. Frank’s dismay at seeing her was set against the rather dissolute appearance of Edward.

“But Cump,” Frank heard Jerry say, “he just jumped out at a guy. I knowed he was headed for the big time.”

Gracie hadn’t spotted Frank. Then Frank saw Holly, and Lane next to her, a real family tableau. He didn’t for a moment think they would recognize him, but he saw Lane pointing down toward him and the four chatting among themselves. Frank felt body heat rising within his camel’s hair topcoat and around the perimeter of the heavy, wide Stetson. He felt his posture fail slightly, a deadness of flesh and purpose. And some of the pigs didn’t seem completely under control, skidding their handlers a bit as they tried to keep the animals in line while they awaited the judge. Feeling something against his rump, Frank turned to head off the interest of a half-ton boar hog. He caught the eye of the handler, a big vacant farmer with huge flat hands wrapped around his staff. Frank looked off and caught Gracie’s eye and, he thought, her faint smile. He knew he was probably rising in Lane Lawlor’s estimation, out here playing the stockman.

“You need to feel part of this,” said Jerry. “I’m gonna let you handle showing this pig. Hell, he shows hisself. He knows he’s making history.”

Frank wanted to ask that Jerry not leave him. But it was too late and he couldn’t think how he might say it anyway without expressing his sense of outlandish solitude. Several of the hogs were now squealing across the arena at one another, which brought a stir of concern from their showmen. They knew how to deal with it, but Frank could only hope Tecumseh stayed put.

Jerry gave Frank his staff, eased off and found himself a place to lean against the wall. The hog in back of Frank gave him another shove and Frank instinctively slipped his gaze up to Gracie, who was pointing her rolled-up program toward an animal that had gotten her attention. It was just as well; he wasn’t eager to have this butt-rooting observed and was thinking of flogging the farmer if he didn’t get it stopped. A few rows up sat Frank’s hired man, Boyd Jarrell, who politely moved his eyes away once Frank had seen him. Frank was wondering if he was just being paranoid to be so startled at seeing all these people here. He supposed he was glad to have Boyd watch him taking an interest in the pigs. He thought they would all have to understand the costume he was wearing, but he wasn’t sure. He really was dressed for Chicago or the National Western in Denver. He just couldn’t have an outfit for every place a pig or a chicken or a steer with his name on its papers turned up. Frank hoped they would accept that. He did feel overdressed, though, as if he already expected to win the grand championship. He felt ridiculous.

He began thinking about the approach of the judge. He really had no idea what his role might be. He could only observe that the others were standing next to their hogs by way of establishing their ownership, he guessed, or responsibility. The judge with his mean little face seemed not to occupy any plane with his eyes that could be crossed by any other eyes. He simply went from hog to hog, seeing no humans, then making extremely brief remarks to his assistant, an effeminate teenage boy in a royal blue Future Farmers of America jacket who licked the end of his pencil before writing anything down. All power rested with these two, and since he did not understand his situation, Frank began to elaborate a stone-faced concern to go with the topcoat and the Stetson and the very distinct sense of being evaluated from the bleachers. He was relieved to notice that the showmen and the judge did not exchange words of any kind. For Jerry’s sake he wanted their hog, Tecumseh, to do well; but he concentrated most on quietly handling his own part, however it turned out for the hog.

Frank felt proud of his big, well-behaved animal, who stood motionless and refrained from even joining in the squealing around the hall. There was certainly some sort of communication emanating from the judge, something nonverbal, because a middle-aged woman showing a vivid Hampshire gazed at the ceiling with tears shining on her cheeks the minute her hog was judged. Perhaps she had overheard the judge’s remarks to the little farm sissy, thought Frank. Or perhaps she had never before faced the fact that she had a bum pig.

Now the judge was before him, looking right into the face of Frank’s hog, as though he could read the mind of the pig and know whether or not he would transmit intelligence to his progeny. Frank knew that judges often looked for “femininity” in cattle, and maybe some such trait was sought here. Frank’s hog ignored the judge but the brute behind Frank gave him another shove. He hitched his shoulders within the camel’s hair topcoat and stared into the middle distance, feeling the hot breath of the other hog rise through his shorts. He rose on the balls of his feet but found himself trapped between the judge and his own hog. He strongly felt he must keep silent just now as befitted the demeanor of a stockman, but the butt-snuffling had become unbearable. He turned enough to take in the face of the farmer behind him and thought he detected a faint smile. That did it.