The Old Ways

FICTION The Old Ways Jerry Mansfield JIMMY NOBLE BANGED ON THE DISHPAN as he walked behind his grandfather. It was early Saturday, the morning dew still slippery beneath their feet. Jimmy's daddy had dropped him off the daybefore, like he always did. It seemed to Jimmy like he'd been spending weekends with his grandparents all thirteen years of his life. Jimmy didn't understand why his daddy was gone all the time, and he didn't like it. What he did like was helping his grandfather, Enoch, whose hog farm was about the best place he'd ever seen. Jimmy liked everything about the farm, from the iron taste of the Enoch's well-water to the coffee his grandfolks let him drink. Coffee was a grown-up drink. "What'd we bring the dishpan for?" Jimmy asked Enoch. "To put the oysters in," his grandfather told him. "We're in a hog pen, Grandpa. Ain't no oysters here." Enoch grinned down at Jimmy. "I thought your daddy said you was smart." Jimmy sighed, his father was always telling folks how smart his son was. Last year, after his fifth-grade teacher had given the class a test, she said that Jimmy was a "prodigy." "We're gonna do some trimmin. You ever read up on that?" Jimmy shook his head. "Then your books are as useless as a set of tits on a boar hog," Enoch grunted as he swung his bad leg over the fence. Like a lot ofmen around Slick Rock, Kentucky, Enoch had once moved to town to take up factory work. He'd gotten drunk one night, and a group of workers from the factory walked by the boarding house where he was staying. Enoch was hanging out thewindow ofhis second story room, one hand clutchingthe windowsill, the otherholding abottle ofBlack Label. Notwanting to spill the whiskey, he waved with his other hand and shattered his leg in the fall. The limp he still had did nothing to wean him from the moonshine. Enoch herded the baby pigs into a corner pen and grabbed one by its hind legs. At Enoch's command, Jimmy stepped into the pen to hold the pig's forelegs. The beagle-sized animal thrashed around, throwing mud, straw, and hogdung on the two of them. 83 Pinning one of the pig's legs with his knee, Enoch flicked a knife open, placed it at the pig's groin, and quickly drew the knife upwards. The pig's testes were flung into the dishpan, and Enoch sprayed antiseptic on the open wound before releasing the pig. The pig ran off grunting, rubbing its hindquarters in the mud. "Shore do raise a ruckus, don't they, Jimmy? 'Course, I guess I would too." Jimmy helped Enoch repeat the operation on ten more pigs. The bottom of the dishpan was soon covered. "What are we gonna do with these, Grandpa?" "Them's mountain oysters. We'll have 'em for supper." Jimmy retched and ran to the end of the pen. Enoch chuckled as his grandson hung his head over the edge. They hadn't had breakfast yet, and after heaving uselessly for a minute, Jimmy felt better. "Sorry, Jimmy. I had to do this today, the signs woulda been wrong tomorrow. You gotta trim hogs when the signs are in the groin—or at least the legs—or they bleed too bad." Puzzled, Jimmy looked up. "What's the signs got to do with cutting a pig's doins off?" "You gotta go by the signs. Hell, everybody knows that. It's part of the old ways." Enoch was always telling Jimmy about the old ways. Jimmy had already learned that if you dig a post-hole by the full moon, you won't have enough dirt to refill the hole, even with the fencepost in it. Or if a baby comes down with asthma, you cut a dogwood sapling the same length as the baby. Then you put the sapling in the eaves of the house, and the asthma will go away when the baby grows longer than the sapling. And you always plant potatoes when the signs are...