Witnesses said that when the new concoction was served to the audience for the first time, it induced a violent reaction in all present, which included the mayor and his wife, as well as various council members and their spouses and corporate chairpeople of all descriptions.
Police called to the scene described the melee as “uncontrollable” and told of horrible depredations inflicted on Atlanta’s most fashionable citizens, including the ripping off of women’s gowns and dresses and fighting and throwing objects of all descriptions.
At some point, the affair spilled out into the streets and turned into a riot, causing extensive damage in the chic downtown area. One source prominent in Atlanta’s high society who wished to be unnamed said: “It was the wust thing I ever seen since Lester Maddox begun handin out them axe handles at his restaurant back in sixty-four.”
Little is known of the perpetrator, Mr. Gump, who witnesses said fled the scene shortly after the brouhaha started. Sources said that Gump, thought to be in his early forties, was once a football player at the University of Alabama.
An assistant football coach at Georgia Tech who wished to remain anonymous recalled that “Yeah, I remember that Gump feller. Wadn’t too smart, but the sombitch sure could run.”
Police have put out an all-points bulletin for Gump, and the CokeCola Company, headquartered here, has offered a $1 million reward for his capture, dead or alive....
Anyhow, I kind of hid the newspaper an we went on into the restaurant an set down, an Mister McGivver begun tellin me about his farmin operation in West Virginia.
“It ain’t too big right now,” he says, “but someday, I’m gonna be the greatest hog raiser in the world.”
“Yeah?” I says. “That’s nice.”
“Nice—shit on nice, Gump. It’s a dirty, low-down, smelly business, but there’s money in it. ‘Bring home the bacon’ and all that crap. You just gotta be flexible. The hogs don’t take a whole lot of work, but there are other problems to contend with.”
“Such as what?” I ast.
“Well, for one thing, the people in Coalville, the little town where my farm is, they all the time complainin about the smell. Now, I admit that hogs smell, but the hell with that, Gump. Business is business. I got a thousand hogs and all they do is eat and shit all day. Of course it’s gonna smell. I got used to it, why can’t they?”
Anyhow, he goes on for a while about the hog bidness, an then he ast me about mysef.
“Say,” he says, “was you involved in that disturbance in Atlanta last night? It looked like some kind of riot was goin on.”
“Well, not exactly,” I says, which I guess was sort of a lie, but I just didn’t want to get into all that right now.
“Where you headed?” Mister McGivver ast.
“I dunno,” I said. “I gotta go someplace an get me a job.”
“What line of work are you in, Gump?” he says.
“Oh,” I says, “I guess you could say I done a lot of things. Right now I just gotta get back on my feet.”
“Well, why don’t you come work for me awhile? There’s a lot to do around the farm.”
So that’s what I did.
Chapter Four
Next year or two, I learned more about hog farmin than anybody got a need or even a right to know.
They was all sorts of hogs Mr. McGivver kept: big ole Poland Chinas an registered Hampshires, Mangalitzas, Durocs, Berkshires, Tamworths, an Cheshires. He even had a few merino sheep, which was sort of funny lookin, but Mister McGivver said he had em cause they was “nicer to look at.”
My job, I figgered out pretty soon, was to do just about everthin. I slopped the hogs in the mornin an afternoon. Then I’d go around with a shovel an try an get up as much of the pig shit as possible, which Mister McGivver would sell to crop farmers for manure. I fixed fences an tried to keep the barn cleaned. Every month or so I’d load up the truck with whatever pigs Mister McGivver wanted to sell, an take them to market up at Wheeling or wherever.
One time I’m comin back from a trip to a pig auction, when a great idea come over me. I am drivin on the outskirts of this big ole army base, when it occur to me that they is wastin a lot of food that might be useful. I mean, when I was in the army a long time ago, I spent a lot of time on KP, account of I was always in hot water. An one of the things I remembered was that there was a lot of food an stuff that just got thowed out in the garbage from the mess halls, an it suddenly occurs to me that maybe we can use this food to slop the hogs. This is on account of hog food is expensive, an Mister McGivver say this is the main reason he cannot expand the pig farmin as fast as he wants. An so I stopped by the headquarters an ast to see whoever was in charge. They shown me into a little office, an lo an behole, there is this big ole black feller settin behind a desk, an when he turned around, it was Sergeant Kranz, from my ole company back in Vietnam. He took one look at me an liked to jumped out of his skin!
“Great godamighty! Is that you, Gump? What in hell are you doin here?”
When I tole him, he bust out laughin till he liked to split his pants.
“Pig farmer! Why, hell, Gump, with your record—Congressional Medal of Honor an all—you ought to be a general by now—or at least a sergeant major, like me! Mess hall leftovers for pigs, why—well, why not? Hell, Gump, you go see the mess hall first sergeant. Tell him I said to give you all the garbage you want.” We talked about some of the ole times back in the war—about Bubba an Lieutenant Dan an some of the other fellers. I tole him about the Ping-Pong stuff in China an gettin involved with the NASA people an startin up the srimp bidness an playin football for the New Orleans Saints. He say that all sounds pretty peculiar, but what the hell, to each his own. For him, he says, he is a “thirty-year” man in the army, after which he is gonna retire an open a saloon that won’t allow any civilians in, whatsoever, includin presidents of the United States. Finally Sergeant Kranz clapped me on the back an sent me on my way, an when I got back to the farm with a load of garbage for the hogs, Mister McGivver was beside hissef.
“Goddamn, Gump,” he shouts. “This is the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard of! Why didn’t I think of it myself! With all this slop from the army, we can double—hell, quadruple our operation in a matter of months!”
Mister McGivver was so happy he done give me a fifty-cents-an-hour raise an let me have Sundays off. I used the time to go down to the town an sort of ass around. Coalville wadn’t much of a place. A few thousan people maybe, an a lot of them was out of work account of the coal seam that caused the town to be there in the first place had done played out. The mine entrance was just a big ole hole in the side of the hill overlookin the town now, an a lot of the guys set around the courthouse square an played checkers. There was a diner there called Etta’s, where some of the ole miners gone to drink coffee, an sometimes I’d set there an drink coffee alongside em an hear them tell their stories about when the mine was runnin. Tell the truth, it was kind of depressin, but it was better than hangin around the hog farm all the time.
Meanwhile, it became my job to arrange for the mess hall slop to be brought to our hog farm. First thing we had to do was to separate the pig food from the other shit, like napkins an paper bags an boxes an cans an all. Sergeant Kranz done figgered out a way to do this, however. He made all the KPs in the various barracks divide the garbage into separate cans, marked Edible Trash an Inedible Trash. This worked good enough till visitors’ day at the army base came around an some of the mamas an daddies of the soldiers complained to the general about what their sons might be gettin to eat around there. After that, we figgered out a new code for the cans, but it worked just as well. In a few months our operation was workin so good Mister McGivver had to buy us two new trucks just to haul the garbage to our farm, an within a year, we had seven thousan an eighty-one hogs to our name.