By John Prins

Copyright newsroom

It is important to Adam that he drives me to the gym, so there I am, on his doorstep in my shorts and sneakers. I knock, and Adam, shirtless, possibly naked, swoops behind the door as it swings away. He calls out that he’ll be out in five, just has to take a shit.

Six minutes later, we are on the road.

—You told Jake? says Adam.

—No, I say.

—Good shit, you’re a good mate.

—I don’t know.

—No, you’re good. You’re, you’re, what’s that word, chivalrous.

—That’s not what chivalry means.

—Sure it is, we both are, both noble as fuck.

—I think chivalry is you holding the door for Eve, not, well, not what you’re doing.

—Slamming her door.

He punches my arm.

—It’s not like he loved her.

—Loved her? says Adam, the fuck. He looks at me as though I am a stranger.

—He’ll be fine.

—Say it started last weekend.

—When did it start?

—Last weekend.

—Easter weekend, he says.

—Since Easter!

—Well, it’s done

Then we are in the gym. Air is being pumped in and out; it carries the smell of disinfected sweat and sweet peat. Large men live inside the walls, concerned only with the image of themselves. Adam, wearing a singlet, is flat on his back on a bench, which disappears beneath his bulk so that it looks like he is defying gravity. I stand at his head: spotting, he calls it. I call it keeping a promise.

—Two, phoow, three, phoow, four, phoow, phoove, phraugh. Adam slams the bar back on its stand.

—Wow, nice, I say.

I suggest lending him the novel I am reading after I finish because I think he’ll like it.

—Keep it, he says.

—It’s good, it’s about this kid learning how devious people can be.

—Don’t have time to read.

—It’s good.

—The thing about books, he says, is that no book is ever about me.

—Have you read any?

—I haven’t read shit, it’s always these wordy chicks who think about shit all the time or it’s by some skinny dude with all sorts of feelings and shit, and it’s always about a fucken writer. The bench is damp where my head rests. The sponge has been worn away so that my teeth want to grind.

—Can you take off those two big ones on the ends? I ask.

—Who the fuck wants to read about a writer?

—You’re right.

—Fucken writers.

—Always writing about writers.

—Or their parents.

—About skinny dudes with daddy issues.

—Daddy issues. See, my dad’s a fucken legend. Where is that story? The one about how much a kid loves his dad.

—So, you’d be into it if you found a book about you.

I push the bar up off its cradle and put it back down again.

—No, too much, take off one more.

—Could be. Right, go. Arms after this. Go!

—Three, phoow, four, phau, five, phew, pharrgh.

—Come on, come on, go, go, go. Good man. Right, arms time. Didn’t talk much but man, a real hero.

—How long ago did he—

—Couple of years. Nah man, fucken legend. Proper hero. Built his business from nothing. On the tools for a couple of years then owned that shit.

Adam makes us do the backs of our arms, our chests again and then some ab stuff. My body, not used to this sort of abuse, feels fit to burst. Adam’s gait changes during the session, as though he is being tightened up from the inside, ratcheted up, coiled, cranking and clicking.

Back in his truck, Adam moves quickly through the gears. Holding the grab handle above my head, I observe my outline and muscle forms on the corners, ashamed of my narcissism.

—Look at those guns! He says, following my gaze. Yew! Curls get the girls, man.

—I’m pretty sure that is curly hair. Curly hair gets the girls. Curls.

—Shit no, guns get the girls and look at those things! Come on shithead, move!

He gives the horn a burst.

—You’re dangerous now, Adam says, girls are gonna love you.

—Girls are gonna look at those guns and think about fucking. Straight away.

Adam leans over and punches my arm.

—Bang, fucken bang, he says.

It hurts and I flinch.

He looks at me.

I’m acutely aware of the road in front of us.

—That story about my dad. I remember when I was young, about five, and we got this pig. We were given it by an uncle, or it was dad’s payment for a job he had done, I don’t know, whatever. He was always fucken working. Man, and he gets this pig. It’s small, he can carry it in his arms like a baby, and we keep it in the dog kennel. I don’t ever remember playing with it, I mean shit, a pig living in your back yard? I would have definitely wanted to play with that pig, but I don’t ever remember doing it.

—So summer comes and Christmas and it’s hot and I’m probably climbing a tree. Indicate, dickhead! We had this big tree out back and Dad comes out and sends me inside and says something like ‘Stay inside’. He’s all serious and shit. I know something is up so of course the only place I want to be is outside, doing whatever my dad is doing, right? It’s what you do, right? I used to whittle sticks with this old Swiss army knife just to be doing something with a knife, just like Dad was always doing something with a knife: plucking a duck, gutting a deer. He’d fucken walk for hours and carry a carcass like a backpack, blood pouring down his neck and shoulders, you know, where he’s cut the head off. Weighs a tonne, the head.

—I remember there were always photos in the house of Dad hunting, standing behind dead animals, or holding them up. Holding the head towards the camera as though they were a couple of old buddies who’d been asked to smile. One of these photos I remember had Dad with a deer turned into a backpack walking through some smoke or smudge or thick grass or something and I remember feeling so bad for him having to walk through that shitty dark forest. Then a few years later, looking at the photo again, the smudge wasn’t a forest, it was the finger of the person who took the photo. Dumb fuck.

—I wanted to be like him though, so much. Once while I was in the garage and a mate of Dad’s was around, I can’t have been more than five or six, and I said, real casual, Right, I’m taking a piss, and they looked at me and I can’t remember what they said but man, they had a laugh. Dad even shot a deer once with a baby deer inside her and they cut it out and it was alive. It lived for a couple of days at our house, then it died, and Dad had it stuffed and kept it on his bedside table.

—So anyway, Dad’s definitely up to something in the back yard and I know it and I want in on it. He’s locked me inside the house so I climb up onto the washing machine, must have dragged a chair over or something. I could climb when I was little, man, spent half my life in that big old tree out the back. So I’m peeking out the window, the curtains are blowing in my face. It’s so vivid. Crazy how some shit just gets stuck in there.

He’s pointing at his head.

—Bloody branded in there. And I’m peeking out and Dad goes to the kennel. He’s got a massive fucken knife in one hand and the pig’s food bowl in the other. Eggshells, lettuce, potato skins, that sort of shit, and he opens the kennel and puts the bowl of food down in the middle of the grass. I’m confused by the food. I know what the knife means but the food, the food is fucking with me. But the pig’s not leaving that kennel. It knows, man. They say they know, and I believe them. It knew all right. It took one look at the big steel blade and at Dad’s eyes and it wasn’t leaving that kennel for shit.

—So Dad puts the knife down, puts it around the corner, out of the pig’s sight. The pig is not buying that shit, though. Dad has to climb into the kennel on his hands and knees and pull it out by its collar. Yeah, it had a collar, but no name. It’s weird. The pig squeals and struggles and Dad is so fucken calm and I can’t watch any more. I look at the wallpaper. Then the pig stops squealing. I look again, real slow. The pig has its head down and it is chewing on some lettuce. Dad is kneeling down beside it and he’s talking to it. I can’t hear him but he’s definitely saying something and he’s patting the pig on its back, and he gives the pig’s ears a ruffle. You know, like you would do to a dog, and I loved my dad for scratching that pig’s ears the way he did. The pig is real calm now and it’s hooking into the food like it’s the most normal thing that ever happened. It’s a nice fucken moment, you know?

—I don’t see where Dad goes because I’m watching the pig, watching it munching its food and I’ve got this dumb grin on. Then something catches my eye, and I swear Dad looked straight at me, he definitely looked at me, this big knife swinging in his hand and he looks straight at me, looks at the pig, kneels back down to where he was, ruffles those big floppy ears, steps over its back and runs the knife under its neck. Blood splashes all over the lettuce and I jump off that washing machine as quick as I can and run into my room and shut the door and jump under the covers and cry like a fucken baby.

—That pig never squealed at the end though, stayed silent, kept its dignity man. Move, go, go, ah shit! Orange means go, you dumb shit! We never talked about it. Mum and Dad shared these shitty jokes about how good the ham tasted that year, and I knew. I fucken knew and they knew and nobody said a word. I still can’t decide if I wish I’d never seen it, still don’t know if a kid can know too much about something like that. Still don’t know if Dad knew I was watching. Never asked him.

—So when you seeing Jake again? he says.

—When I see him, I say.

—And you’ll tell him for me.

—I’ll tell him.

Adam massages the defined parts of himself and tells me I’m a good man.

—You think that pig had a good life? I ask.

—Shit man, what even is a good life for a pig?

—You think the pig was in pain?

—Not at the end, but before, in the bit before Dad dragged him out, in that bit there, where there was panic in him, if that’s what pain is, then fuck yeah, he was in pain. When you tell Jake, though, make sure I’m not the bad guy.

—Not the bad guy, got it.

—You’re a good man, says Adam, and he punches me in the arm for the third time that day, and it hurts like fuck.

John Prins says, “This was written at least 10 years ago, but I remember writing it. I was weeping and trying to record a memory of this little pig Dad kept in our dog kennel. When I asked Dad later why we kept a pig in our backyard he told me we never had a pig. So, I’m not sure whose memory this is, but it came to me unbidden, with overwhelming clarity, and complete with the sweary voice.” The story is taken with kind permission from his recently published debut collection of short stories Pastoral Care (Otago University Press, $30), available in selected bookstores nationwide. The stories are set variously on the shores of Lake Pukaki; in kitchens, bedrooms and Lego-strewn living rooms; and stuck in traffic with a child kicking the back of the driver’s seat. His story “A Good Man” was originally published in Landfall.