Farm Noire
First published 9/30/1999

She was a prize, alright. Skin as pink as a tropical sunset. Eyes like twin pools of black tar -- just as deep and just as mysterious. You wanted to fall into them but you knew if you did theyÕd find your bones there a million years later, petrified. But her tail -- her tail was her best feature. A perfect corkscrew, not too long, not too short, and hanging off her rump at a 45-degree angle. Yeah, Viviane was a hell of a pig. Only, by the time she was through with me IÕd wish IÕd never laid eyes on her.

I bought her that first set of pearls when she entered her first hog show. They were cheap plastic imitations IÕd pulled off the impulse rack down at the Co-Op. Something about those pearls screamed Viviane. I didnÕt even mind the "pearls for swine" jokes. There was a kind of magic in the air, as if someone had cropdusted with a special herbicide that killed all bad feelings. Even before the judges announced the winner I knew Viviane would walk off with the prize, and sure enough she did.

I left that hog show with more than a blue ribbon and a $50 gift certificate from Canadian Tire. I left with a sense of purpose. I was going to show Viviane the world -- let her strut her stuff in front of the toughest judges at the most prestigious hog shows in the land.

Lamont. Grande Cache. Brooks. Soon, the greatest cities in the world were at our feet. Word began to spread about Viviane. She was the "it" pig, a goddess, a hog fatale. I knew it was time to take Viviane to the biggest hog show in the province. To the bright lights. To the big egg. Vegreville.

It was about then that the idea hit me. Viviane was a hog goddess, yet I had her decked out in this costume jewelry, cheap plastic orbs. And so I bought her the real thing: a choker, earrings, and a matching bracelet -- first rate oyster spit, all of it. Real pearls for a real swine.

The night before the contest the stars twinkled in the sky like the worklights of a thousand brand-new John Deere tractors. I sat by VivianeÕs pen for hours. The future rolled out in front of us, golden and bright, like wheat in a roundup commercial. She never looked more beautiful than when I finally left her there, pearls glinting on her piggy skin.

Little did I know that night would be our swine song. In the morning, she was gone.

I never heard word of Viviane again. Had she left me for some other farmer, a smooth-talking Valentino with a brand-new ballcap and a pair of dazzling blue overalls? Or was she running free, a pig with pearls, perhaps shacked up with some handsome young he-pig recently escaped from the petting zoo? I would never know.

Yeah, VivianeÕs nothing but a distant memory now, bacon under the bridge. But now and then, on a clear night, when those thousand new John Deeres are plowing through the sky, I look out the window and I can hear myself gently calling to her: Vivianne! Vivianne! Soooey! Soooey! Sooooey!

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