Last Night In Twisted River

needed no help getting over the fence. Danny was looking all around for Joe, but the little boy wasn’t with Katie; he saw his wife standing with Rolf and the three painters.

“Those are the four guys you want,” Danny told Amy, pointing to them. “The ones with the small woman, but not the woman-she wasn’t in on it. Just the two guys with the beards, and the two without.”

“This pig doesn’t bite,” Danny thought he heard his son say in a quiet, contemplative voice.

“Joe!” the writer called.

“I’m right here, Daddy.”

That was when Danny realized that little Joe was in the pigpen with him. The boy stood next to one of the pink-and-black pigs; it must have been running, because it was clearly out of breath, though it stood very still. Only its harsh breathing made the big pig move at all-except for the way it inclined its head toward the boy, who had hold of the animal’s ear. Maybe it felt good to a pig to have its ear rubbed or gently pulled. In any case, the more the two-year-old stroked its ear, the more the pig tilted its head and lowered its long ear in Joe’s direction.

“Pigs have funny ears,” the boy said.

“Joe, get out of the pen-right now,” his dad said. He must have raised his voice more than he’d meant to; the pig snapped its head in Danny’s direction, as if it deeply resented the ear-rubbing interruption. Only a low-to-the- ground feeding trough separated them, and the pig hunched its shoulders on either side of its huge head and squinted at him. Danny stood his ground until he saw Joe climb safely through the slats in the fence.

The drama with the skydiver, and then with Joe, prevented Danny from seeing how low in the sky the small plane had circled. The pilot and copilot probably wanted to be sure that Amy had touched down without mishap, but Amy gave the plane the finger-both fingers, in fact-and the plane dipped a wing to her, as if in salutation, then flew off in the direction of Cedar Rapids.

“Welcome to Buffalo Creek Farm,” Rolf had said to the skydiver. Regrettably, Danny missed seeing this part, too-how Amy had grabbed the photographer by both his shoulders, snapped him toward her, and head-butted him in his forehead and the bridge of his nose. Rolf staggered backward, falling several feet from the spot where Amy had made contact.

She knocked down the painter with the beard with a left jab followed by a right hook. “I don’t jump into pigs!” she shouted at the two painters left standing.

Both Danny and Joe saw the next bit. “Which one of you artists is going to get my parachute?” she asked them, pointing to the pigpen. By now, the pigs had calmed down; they’d returned to the fence and were once more observing the artistic crowd, their snouts poking through the slats. The pig whose ear had been stroked, to its apparent satisfaction, was now indistinguishable from the others. Way out in the muck, the trampled red-white-and-blue parachute lay like a flag fallen in battle.

“The farmer told us never to go in the pigpen,” one of the graduate-student painters began.

Danny carried Joe over to Katie. “You were supposed to hold him,” he said to her.

“He peed all over me when you went into the pigpen,” Katie said.

“He has a diaper on,” Danny told her.

“I could still feel how wet he was,” she said.

“You weren’t even watching him,” Danny told her.

Amy had the painter who’d spoken up in a headlock. “I’ll get your fucking parachute,” Katie suddenly told her.

“You can’t go in there,” Danny said.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do, hero,” she said.

Katie had always been competitive that way. First the nude sky-diver had taken the art students’ attention away from her; then her husband’s act of bravado had upstaged her. But of course what Katie really wanted to do was undress. “I’ll just keep the pig shit off my clothes, if you don’t object,” she said to Danny; she began handing her clothes to the one painter who’d been untouched by the shit-smeared skydiver. “I would give them to you,” she told Danny, “but you’re covered with shit-you should see yourself.”

“It wouldn’t be good if something happened to you in front of Joe,” Danny started to tell her.

“Why?” she asked him. “A two-year-old won’t remember it. Only you will-you fuckhead writer.”

Seeing her naked and defiant made Danny realize that what had once attracted him to Katie now repelled him. He’d mistaken what was brazen about her for a kind of sexual courage; she’d seemed both sexy and progressive, but Katie was merely vulgar and insecure. What Danny had desired in his wife only filled him now with revulsion-and this had taken a mere two years to transpire. (The loving-her part would last a little longer; neither Danny nor any other writer could ever explain that.)

HE’D CARRIED JOE BACK to the downstairs bathroom so that they could clean up, or try to. (Danny didn’t want Joe to see his naked mother devoured by a pig; surely the two-year-old would remember that, if only for a little while.)

“Is Mommy giving Lady Sky her clothes?” Joe asked.

“Mommy’s clothes wouldn’t fit Lady Sky, sweetie,” Danny answered his son.

Amy didn’t want any clothes; she told the asshole artists that all she wanted was a bath. The pilot and copilot were bringing her clothes-“or they better be,” the skydiver said.

“I hope your bathroom is cleaner than ours,” Danny said to Amy, as she was following the unassaulted painter up the farmhouse stairs.

“I’m not counting on it,” Amy told him. “Was that your wife-that little thing who was going to fetch my parachute?” the skydiver called down the stairs to Danny.

“Yes,” he answered her.

“She’s got balls, hasn’t she?” Amy asked him.

“Yes-that’s Katie,” Danny said.

He’d forgotten that there wasn’t a towel in the downstairs bathroom, but getting the pig shit off himself and little Joe was what mattered. Who cared if they were wet? Besides, the boy’s clothes had somehow managed to stay clean; Joe’s pants were a little damp, because he’d really peed like crazy in his diaper.

“I guess you liked that ginger ale, huh?” Danny asked the boy. He’d also forgotten to ask Katie for a dry diaper, but that didn’t really matter as much as getting the pig shit off little Joe’s hands. There was shit all over Danny and his clothes-his running shoes were ruined. If his wife could take off all her clothes, Danny guessed that no one would mind if he wore just his boxers for the remainder of the artists’ party. It was a sunny spring day-April in Iowa -warm enough to be wearing only a pair of boxers.

“You call this a clean towel?” the skydiver was shouting.

Danny undressed himself and little Joe, and they both got into the shower. There was no soap, but they used a lot of shampoo instead. They were still in the shower when Katie came into the downstairs bathroom, carrying her clothes and a towel. She was not as shit-spattered as Danny had expected.

“If you don’t try to run in that muck, you don’t fall down, fuckhead.”

“So you just walked out to the parachute, and walked back?” Danny asked her. “The pigs didn’t bother you?”

“The pigs were spooked by the chute,” Katie said. “Move over-both of you.” She got into the shower with them, and Danny shampooed her hair.

“Mommy got pig poo on her, too?” Joe asked.

“Everyone’s got pig poo on them somewhere,” Katie said.

They took turns with the towel, and Danny put a dry diaper on Joe. He dressed the little boy before putting on his boxers. “That’s all you’re wearing?” Katie asked him.

“I’m donating the rest of my clothes to the farm,” Danny told her. “In fact, I’m not touching them-they’re staying right there,” he said, pointing to the pile of clothes on the wet floor. Katie threw her bra and panties on the pile. She slipped into her jeans; you could see her breasts through the white blouse she was wearing-her nipples, especially.

“Is that all you’re wearing?” Danny asked her.

Katie shrugged. “I guess I can donate my underwear to the farm, if I want to,” she said.