The Pigman: Chapters 9-12

But the kids used to make cracks about him, so that made him go berserk around the age of ten. He was the only berserk ten-year-old in the neighborhood.

“What’s his house like?”
“Like?”
“Has he got anything worth stealing?” Norton clarified, his eyes beginning to get mean and sneaky like an alley cat about to jump on a bird.

I knew Norton had to make believe he didn’t hear that last remark because he would have had to run after me and try to bash my head in with a rock otherwise. It’s like paranoia in reverse when people are really calling you insulting things and you deliberately pretend they aren’t.

She mulled that over a few seconds, but she had to get to work on time and couldn’t devote her full energies to interrogating.

She mulled that over a few seconds, but she had to get to work on time and couldn’t devote her full energies to interrogating.

I went out to the kitchen and left John and the Pigman watching some kind of TV spectacular, the theme of which was Hurrah for Hollywood. Everybody was in it, so I knew it was going to be a strenuous bore.

It dawned on me then what a strain it must have been on Mr. Pignati to have trudged all the way down to see the baboon.

“Lorraine and I have something on our consciences that you ought to know about.”

The wife runs back to the LOVER’s house and explains to him what her predicament is and asks him for fifty cents to pay the BOATMAN.

John got particularly wild at one point when Mr. Pignati was "It" and there weren’t many obstacles you could skate around on the ground floor except the kitchen table, and that got mundane after awhile.

Clomp! Clomp! What a racket those skates made. And Mr. Pignati started right up after him, puffing like crazy his face redder than a beet. Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! right up the stairs.

He started to double over—his eyes fastened on me—gaping like a fish out of water.

I mean those particular cops were so dumb it was pathetic.

In fact he was so alive he looked better than ever, but I’ve heard that’s the way a lot of people are when they have heart attacks. I mean, that’s supposed to be the real danger period because they feel energetic, but if they exert themselves, they can have another attack and croak.

They had a guy with some kind of oxygen-tent thing nearby that looked like a malaria net.

“I’m sorry if I was any trouble yesterday.”
“Are you kidding? Lorraine and I thrive on excitement.”

“We’re going to miss you, Mr. Pignati,” Lorraine said, as though she was giving last rites.

A big plow came down Forest Avenue, scooping snow right into the front of it and throwing it out the top through this pipe contraption. It looked like a black dragon devouring everything it touched.

That would have been a superb idea if I had overlooked the fact that I loathe spaghetti.

I took one of his ties that looked like a red-and-blue flowered kite and hung it around my neck, and when I found a makeup pencil on the top of the bureau drawer, my transformation was complete—a moustache.

“Can I have seventy-five cents to get my blue dress out of the cleaners?” I asked, though I could tell by the way she was fidgeting with her hairbrush that she was not finished with her own topic.

When the hospital answered, John passed the phone to me and stood in the hall to watch for any teachers, because the kids aren’t allowed to use the public telephone at Franklin High unless they get a special pass. And even then it’s got to be to call your mother to say that the school nurse has just diagnosed leprosy or something.

Read the amendments to the Constitution and condense the meaning of each into one succinct sentence.

Every now and then I’m startled at how good-looking John is, but he glared at me from under the shock of hair that fell across his brow and scared me a little.

If l didn’t know how maladjusted John is at times, I would have simply walked out of that house and not spoken to him again as long as I lived.

But I let him pout in front of the television and watch a rerun of Doris Day’s called the Light of the Silvery Moon.

“I’m only doing it because the Pigman’s coming home tomorrow, and this hovel better look good.”

But instead of being on a table the pigs were arranged on a long black container, and as I started to realize what it was the fingers propelling my legs tightened and moved me closer.

I heard John rummaging through the closets in the kitchen and a banging of bottles.

“Just a few intimate friends for a quiet little drink. Don’t you think Mr. Pignati wants us to have a social life?”