Wordsmoker

A man had an urge to French kiss a pig’s butt.  It came upon him one day at the State Fair as he passed the livestock pens.  A corndog in his hand and the smell of manure in his nostrils, he saw some pigs, saw their butts, and thought, I’d really like to kiss those pigs’ butts.

It wasn’t until later in the day when he was buying a raffle ticket (the prize, a brand new car) that he was struck by the disturbing strangeness of his thinking. Why would he want to do that?  Why would he want to put his tongue inside a pig’s anus? He felt vaguely ashamed and dirty, but it wasn’t a sexual desire; he felt no arousal.  It was more like something he needed to accomplish to keep his life in order, like some superstitious habit for luck, knocking on wood, say, or fingering a rabbit’s foot.

He considered rabbits’ feet, those multicolored key rings, and thought, Well, now, what kind of sick weirdness is that?  The world is full of oddness.

Then he put it out of his mind, for awhile.  But as the day wore on he drank more and more, emptying his pockets on beers from Milwaukee.  He came across a pig race and felt some sort of epiphany was at hand.  On a circular track (and everything is circular when you come right down to it, he thought) half a dozen swine with numbered silken banners slung over their backs grunted and squealed toward the finish line.  A big fat hog, name of Charlotte, came in third (and three is a magic number, he thought), and he knew what he was going to do.

He hung around a nearby tent where some idiot band was playing Del Shannon covers, drank more beer, and waited out the races.

As they were loading the animals onto flatbed trucks he saw her, Charlotte the Pig, big and fat and dirty, tethered near a Port-a-Potty.  Another hog (Gertrude) was balking at the ramp and the handlers were busy trying to force and coax her on up.

It’s now or never, old boy! he thought, and sidled up to Charlotte.  He looked around to see if anybody was noticing, then quickly dropped to his knees and pressed his mouth against the pig’s butt, thrusting his tongue in once, twice, and three times.  Then he was up and away, feeling fulfilled and also a little manic.

He talked and laughed and danced with strangers, had a wonderful time.  He didn’t win the car, but he didn’t care.  He already had a car and it ran good. “Sometimes I just like being alive!” he said aloud. “I’ve got the world on a string!  Ring-a-ding-ding!”