It’s not much of a parade. Just a hometown affair so as not to worry Macy’s, but we went to it that year anyway. This was despite Mavis’s eight-month condition. I told her we ought to skip it.
“We can go this afternoon,” I said. “We can walk around the booths and then you can watch the rodeo from the grandstand.”
“You’re not listening to me,” she said. “I have to get out of this house. I’m sick of this house.”
“All right. I can see that.”
“And you know I won’t be any more uncomfortable in town than I am here. Don’t you know that? But I’ll tell you what it is.”
“What?”
“It’s because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me. I’m getting too big.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “Vince, Junior, told me the other day when he saw us together — he told me you make me look skinny. Hell, he thought I must be losing some weight, and I told him to keep thinking like that.”
“So what are you talking about?”
“It’s just that I’m afraid you’ll get tired. That’s all. Then I’ll probably have to carry you around on my back and come damn near ruining myself.”
“I won’t get that tired,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Now do we go to the parade together or don’t we?”
“All I know is,” I said. “You’re getting flat unruly. That’s a fact.”
So we went to the parade all right. We did the entire opening-day program. Only we didn’t go alone. We drove in to town with the Goodnoughs in Lyman’s Pontiac. The day before he had waxed it fresh for the occasion, and I figured the big back seat of that boat of his would be good for my wife. When we got to town that morning he parked the car on a side street away from traffic, then the four of us walked over to Main Street and found a place out of the sun in front of the Coast to Coast store on the east side of the street. There were already hundreds of people lining both sides. Some of the old-timers had arrived early enough to unfold lawn chairs along the curb, and there were kids everywhere, teenagers in shorts and little kids with balloons and cones of ice, and all the townspeople and area farmers. A little after ten o’clock the parade started.
The color guard came first. They came marching north up Main Street from the high school toward us, and everybody stood still while they passed, four middle-aged veterans stuffed into wool uniforms and sweating plenty. They were followed by some guys on horseback; then the school band was there playing some march or other while the band director hotfooted it along beside them; some more horses then; then the Holt County Fair queen and her two attendants rode up, each of them in new felt hats and bright cowgirl outfits and looking straight ahead without a smile when one of the girls’ horses raised its tail to drop road apples along the pavement in front of everybody; then some kids on decorated bikes; then a half-dozen boosters in convertibles and some more horses; then a float or two, the Future Farmers of America float with some high school boys dressed like Arabs smoking cigarettes in long holders; and the local implement company’s float consisting of an old manure spreader with a painted sign taped to it that said: WE STAND BEHIND WHAT WE SELL; then the candidates for county clerk waving and smiling from convertibles, acknowledging the folks of voting age and throwing candy to the kids, the kids all scrambling for it and their mothers checking to see that it was wrapped in wax paper; then some old tractors and antique cars and still more horses. The city street cleaner with its spray of water and rotating brushes ended the parade. It was finished by eleven o’clock.
“Well,” I said. “That appears to wrap up any parade for the year. Now what?”
“I say we eat,” Lyman said. “Sis here got me up before breakfast.”
We all looked at Edith. “Oh, I don’t listen to him anymore,” she said. “Next thing you know he’ll want a tray in bed.”
“That’s the idea,” he said.
“No,” I said. “You want to be careful. One summer she brought me a tray of food out to the side yard every day and I just about died of bloat and discomfort.”
“Do you remember that?” Edith said.
“Sure. Every mouthful.”
“That was a long time ago. You were a nice little boy then.”
“I still am.”
“Of course you are,” she said. She patted my cheek. “Sometimes he is,” Mavis said. “But I agree with Lyman. I’m starving.”
The cafes in town were all crowded with people waiting to find places to sit down, so we drove out to the fairgrounds. Inside the gate a deputy sheriff waved us over toward the parking lots; Lyman parked his Pontiac at a chalked line and we locked the doors to his satisfaction, then we ate lunch behind the grandstand in one of the booths that had a lean-to roof built out over one side with wire screening nailed onto two-by-fours to keep the flies out. There were always a lot of flies during the fair. It tended to discourage some people’s appetite to see flies swimming in the mustard and pickle relish, so a couple of years previous the fair board had ordered screens put up. We each had a hamburger and something to drink; Mavis ordered another sandwich and we kidded her about it. Afterwards we decided to see the exhibits and some of the livestock judging before the rodeo started.
When we got to the hog barn they were judging the January boar-pig contest. We sat down to watch the fun from the second row of the bleachers. In front of us was a good-sized enclosure of heavy fence panels with sawdust spread deep on the dirt floor. The 4-H kids had already run the pigs into the pen and were trying now to move the pigs back and forth in front of the judge so he could see the muscling. It was hard work. The pigs were tall, long, tough hided, independent. It was hot in there under the tin roof. The pigs were hot; a pig doesn’t have a very good cooling system, you know. They kept moiling, trotting off to look for mud. Their round eyes looked mean, heavy lashed; their big ears flopped the flies away while their squirreled tails twisted and switched as they moved, and they were all grunting and squealing up one hell of a pig racket. If anything, the kids looked hotter, more miserable than the pigs. The kids were red-faced from the strain, and nervous, dressed right for the show in new blue jeans and white shirts and wielding hog canes and racehorse bats in the attempt to keep those damn big pigs circling to the best advantage in front of the judge. It required considerable whacking and wielding of canes to do that.
Meanwhile the judge stood ankle deep in the sawdust and pig squirt in the center of the pen. He had his arms folded and he did not look happy. He was hired as pig judge; he took himself serious as Sunday. I believe a cold beer in a cool bar would have saved him. And all the time the 4-H kids were having a hell of a time of it: the pigs wouldn’t cooperate. They were either trying to dig out from under the fence panels with their tough snouts and so get shut of that miserable hot business, or they were fighting, a bad racket then, a higher pitched squeal than before, if that was possible; it made your hat jump — the two pigs squealing, chewing at one another’s ears and jowls while the kids whacked at them, beat with canes and bats and called for the board—”Board! Board!”—until one of the men standing on the outside stepped over the fence and shoved a heavy sheet of plywood down hard between the screaming pigs and stopped the fight. Separated, the pigs would look sort of dumbfounded, like where did that other son of a bitch go, I ain’t finished chewing on him yet, and so it would all go on again as before.