The frost on the glass was thick and it covered a third of the window. The rest was covered with steam. The pot on the stove bubbled, and I waited eagerly for the porridge to be done. The kettle was boiling fiercely and my mother placed a spoon between the lid and the spout to put an end to the incessant whistling. Much of the wall and ceiling was wet from the kettle’s steam. It contributed to the fogged up window. The steam would soon overtake the remaining frost as it, and the heat from the coal stove, drove away the chill the night air had left behind.
My Uncle Willie had decided to keep pigs the last two years. He lived above us and the smell of the pigs was disgusting. To make matters worse, the pig manure had been shoveled over the bank where it had followed a path directly to our well. Once discovered, chlorine bleach had been added to the well water, and Uncle Willie had sold off his two remaining pigs. The taste of the chlorine was almost as bad as the smell of the pig manure.
Ma had been told she should boil the water for a full ten minutes before cooking or making tea. The fella who had done the test said there were fecal particles present in the water, which I learned later was a polite way of saying shit. The man said the chlorine should solve the problem and, with the pigs gone, there shouldn’t be anymore contamination.
"To be on the safe side," he added, “Boil your water for the next three weeks.”
That was in August. Now, mid November, she was still boiling the water.
The porridge was dipped up and placed before me. I splashed milk and a heaping spoonful of brown sugar on it and began to enjoy my feast. Ma would sometimes add raisins or pieces of apple to it, but I liked it just as it was, plain with milk and sugar.
The frost on the window had all but melted; only a small amount of ice was still present. The house had warmed nicely, but I knew it must be awfully cold outside. I hoped Nanny wasn’t cold in her pen. I wondered if Ma would let me put Pa’s old woolen sweater in with her. It was full of holes and my Grandfather didn’t need it anymore, now that he was living at the Home.
“Ma, can I have Pa’s old sweater for Nanny?” I asked. She didn’t answer.
If the frost was this thick on the window in November, it was likely to be a long, cold winter. Da said Nanny was an animal with fur and that she wasn’t cold, but I’d felt her shiver more than once as I milked her.
“She’s just a goat,” he always said, but she was my goat. He viewed the world through practical lenses. I couldn’t have a dog because it wouldn’t earn its keep.
“Can’t have a dog hanging around. It’s not like we got anything for it to guard. Be just more shit in the yard,” he had said when I’d asked.
Nanny was better than any dog I could have had. She provided milk and had more than her share of kids, most of which were sold to cover the cost of her feed. Da had kept one of her young last year, but it was awfully contrary. He had borrowed a billy goat to breed Nanny and the other one this year, but Nanny hadn’t caught. The younger one had produced two kids.
That we were poor wasn’t something I was conscious of all the time. Sure I heard kids snicker when I walked by, my pants patched and the collar of my shirt turned inside out. Still,my Sunday clothes were in good shape and, whenever possible, Mom bought me new clothes.
Uncle Willie had two boys, bigger than me, and I got their hand-me-downs; sometimes the clothes were in good shape. His boys were fat and mean. Willie Junior was the meanest, and Eddie, his brother, just followed his lead. Willie was fourteen and Eddie twelve. Eddie and I were the same age, but both he and Willie outweighed me by almost thirty pounds. Two days ago I had felt Willie’s wrath, and finally unleashed a little of my own....
*****
“Hey Anthony, where’d you get the new duds?” Willie asked.
It was lunch time and the halls of Long Island Junior High were filled with students pulling lunches from their lockers.
I didn’t answer, but I knew what was coming next.
“They look like the rags my Mama was gonna put in the poor box. Looks like your Mama raced the poor folks. Your Mama took em even before they went in the poor box,” Willie said. He laughed and clapped his brother on his back.
I looked at the kids who had stopped to listen to Willie’s rant. Some shook their heads in pity for me; others enjoyed my misery. I was tired of the treatment, but when I'd tried to reason with Willie he’d just laugh and tell me to stop suckholing.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “You’re just a hand me down kind of guy.”
I stared at the brothers. Their combined girth blocked the hallway. They were my cousins and we should have been friends. I still held out hope that maybe someday we would be friends. Today wasn't someday.
“Do you wear my old underwear too?” Willie asked. “Did your Mama have to scrub extra hard to get the brown out?” Willie and Eddie burst out laughing, and a few muffled laughs came from some of the kids.
I guess there’s a point in everyone’s life that once it’s reached, there’s no holding back, and I had reached mine.
“Actually, lard arse, the only reason my Mama took these clothes was because your Mama was crying and going on. She said she didn’t know where she was going to get clothes to fit her two little baby elephants, but she hated to see good clothes go to waste. So I’m just wearing them cause that’s what your Mama wanted. As far as me wearing your drawers,even if you hadn’t pooped in them, they’d be way too big. Might be able to make a tent outta them, but who ever heard of a white tent with a brown stripe in the middle?”
Willie and Eddie stared at me in disbelief. I knew I’d started down a path with possible serious consequences, but I didn’t care anymore. I was poor, but I didn’t want to be reminded of it everyday.
“I’m gonna kill ya, asshole,” Willie said, his pudgy fists opening and closing.
Eddie looked at Willie, then at me. His mouth hung open like a dead fish. The fear and awe he had for his brother was evident. “He’s gonna friggin’ kill ya, and I’m gonna help,” Eddie said.
“I don’t need your help to kill this asshole,” Willie said, then turned toward me. “You’re dead.” His cheeks were flushed and his bottom lip quivered.
There was no turning back. “What are you gonna do lard arse, talk me to death? I hope you don’t sit on me or I’ll be squished.” The laughter was a little louder and this time not at my expense. Later I might feel bad for what I’d said, but at the moment I felt fantastic. Sure he might beat me to a pulp, but now he knew what it was like to be teased, and I didn’t think he liked it anymore than I did.
Willie slammed his locker shut and walked outside into the school yard. Eddie followed behind him, turning to look at me as he pushed through the double doors.
I stood before my open locker and stared at my lunch box and waited. The eyes staring at me soon diminished; I waited a few minutes more before taking my lunch outside. I had said all I had to say and would wait to see what Willie would do next. I concentrated on my lunch. The peanut butter and homemade jam sandwiches hit the spot. I had a thermos filled with tea and washed down the molasses cookies which got caught in my throat unless the tea was hot.
Willie and Eddie sat on a bench just outside the school doors. They glared at me every few minutes and their gestures were meant to intimidate me, but I was already prepared for the fight I was sure would follow. I watched Eddie hurry away from Willie, holding his nose. Willie laughed and raised his other cheek off the bench.
“You smell like the pigs, Willie,” Eddie said.
I saw him approach and prepared myself. I didn’t like the treatment I received from Willie or Eddie, but I knew Eddie was a victim as well. He followed Willie because he was afraid of him.
“Hey Anthony,” Eddie said.
I stared him in the eyes and discovered he wasn’t very brave without Willie. “What do you want?” I asked, and continued to look at him.
“Willie said ...”
“Never mind Willie, what do you want?” I asked.
Eddie shuffled his feet and moments later moved away.
*****
I loved Saturdays. Ma always let me sleep til nine o’clock, sometime ten, and I could usually dream away the day. Da worked six days a week, but we never got ahead. Ma said that was cause Da got laid off every year just before Christmas, and the money the county helped with wasn’t enough to cover everything.
I’d almost finished the porridge, and was looking through the stack of comics I was planning to read when Da came through the door. The comics I’d borrowed from Willie had to be returned on Monday. I wasn’t sure if we’d become great friends, but at least a temporary truce had been established, and with luck could become permanent. He had been the one to offer the comics with the condition I return them on Monday, so I had set aside the entire day to read. Da had other plans for me. I wondered why he was home. Apparently a big event had been planned all week, and I was to play an integral role.
The goats provided the milk we drank, and Ma sometimes made cheese from it as well. Nanny hadn’t freshened this year and her milk output had all but dried up. She had been with us for eight years and was tame and friendly. She was never tied but seldom did the things for which goats were notorious, like eating bark from trees or peeling labels from cans. She was content to eat the hay and vegetable peelings that were given to her each day. The little milk she had, was given patiently as either my mother or I milked it from her. She laid her head against my neck as I milked her. Whenever I entered the yard, she hurried to me at a fast trot, happy to see me. It
had been years since I had asked for a dog, and now I wouldn’t trade Nanny for all the dogs in the world.
The other goat had to be tied and was difficult to milk, lifting her legs and trying to pull away, but she had freshened and her two kids were now part of the herd. She gave at least two quarts every day, and her young would be bred next Spring with the kids sold off to cover the feed costs.
I was happy Nanny could be put out to pasture. I wasn’t particularly naive, but I hadn’t considered that a milkless Nanny was worthless and a drain on the family income. I had assumed she would be left to live out her days in relative peace. Da had other plans.
“If you’re done eating, I need you Anthony,” Da said. “Put the comics away until later.”
“Okay Da,” I said, closing the book. A skeletal hand had been reaching from a grave. I shivered and was glad it was daytime.
I reached for my coat on the hook behind the door. My boots were beside the coal stove, nice and warm. The oilcloth around the front of the stove had cracked from heat and old age. Several tar paper nails held the cracked pieces of floor covering in place. Most of the flowered design was worn from the oilcloth and the colours had faded and blended into something nondescript. Hot embers had left scars in their wake, but the floor was always clean, although the shine was no longer present.
As I left the house, the door banged behind me and I came face to face with Nanny. A collar and a rope hung from her neck. She brayed when she saw me and walked my way. I scratched her head and ran my hand along her neck.
“We’ve got to kill her son,” my father said.
I recoiled as if bitten by a snake. “No!”
“She’s old and her milk’s dried up. We can’t afford to feed her. It’s not like she’s a pet,”he said.
He was wrong. She was my pet. Not a day went by that I didn’t scratch under her chin and pat her back. What did he know?
“I got twelve dollars saved I’ll put toward her feed costs. Please Da, I wanna keep her.” I could see by the look in his eyes that he’d already made up his mind, and I wasn’t making it any easier on him. He had taken the day off to butcher her and was determined to carry out the task.
“The meat we’ll get from her will make ten or more meals, maybe as many as twenty,” he said, as if that would make a difference to me. He had actually expected me to help.
“Please Da, I wanna keep her,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say. “Ma, Ma,” I hollered, and she came to the door. “Don’t let him kill Nanny, Ma. Please?” I begged. A look of sadness passed between my parents. I was told to go back into the house.
“It’s something that has to be done son,” Da said, as he and my mother walked with Nanny behind the shed. Mama held the rope and led the way and Da followed carrying the ax in his hand. It was swinging back and forth.
As I said, I’m not naive. I knew he was going to hit Nanny with the ax to stun her then cut her throat with a knife. I’d seen a pig killed before by Uncle Willie, but it had been raised for meat and hadn’t been a pet.
I turned from the house and started the walk up the hill towards Uncle Willie’s and heard Nanny call out. I said a silent goodbye. I’d deserted her. I couldn’t stay around for the killing.
Willie and Eddie were bundled up and their outfits included woolen mittens and stocking caps. As soon as Willie spotted me, barehanded and without a hat, he quickly pulled his own off and stuffed them deep into his pockets.
“Hey Anthony, whatca doing?” Willie asked.
“Hey Anthony, whatca doing?” Eddie asked, parroting his brother. He kept his mittens and cap on.
I felt the coldness in the air but was accustomed to the changing temperature. Willie’s ears began to pink up with his hands quickly following suit, but he would not give in. However, he responded quickly to Eddie’s suggestion they go inside for cocoa.
“Yeah, we can play in our room. I got a zillion more comics, some of them you can have,” Willie said, willing to do whatever it took to get out of the cold.
I didn’t mind the prospect of spending the afternoon with my cousins. I hoped it might take my mind off Nanny, but I doubted it. With buds sprouting on our new found friendship, we talked about fishing and rabbit traps and, of course, girls, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them about the slaughter happening in the valley below. I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain my tears. After a couple of hours I said goodbye and headed home.
I could smell the blood in the air, almost taste it, as I drew in a deep breath. The tears I’d held back, overflowed and dropped from my chin. I rubbed my coat sleeve across my face drying the tears and wiping my runny nose.
I looked at our small house and hated the fact that we were poor, because it meant that Nanny had to die. I didn’t mind the second-hand clothes or that we didn’t have a TV, but the loss of Nanny overwhelmed me. Mistrust and anger, bordering on hatred for my parents, rose to the surface. They didn't care that they were responsible for the death of Nanny and the sorrow that caused my chest to hurt from sobbing.
My sleeves were shiny from the tears and mucus that I’d wiped from my face. With the next deep breath I took I realized that I couldn’t really smell the blood, but I planned to avoid going behind Nanny’s shed anytime soon. I didn’t want to witness what had taken place.
Ma looked up from the table, a sad smile crossed her face as I entered the kitchen. She took a sip from her tea and studied my face, no doubt looking at my red rimmed eyes. Her smile gone, she held open her arms.
“I’m sorry for Nanny,” Ma said.
I let myself be consoled by her loving arms, sobbing, “I woulda paid for the food Ma.”
“I know dear, I know,” she said, as she gently brushed the hair from my face, “But it just had to be.”
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