They stopped thinking Pig was full of shit when he ate two pigeons in front of dozens of spectators. Nobody at Brooks High School believed his claim that he was actually able to consume live animals whole, so he challenged a doubter: “Bring me pigeons. I’ll eat as many as you can find.” A group of skeptics pooled together to take him up on this, trolling the grounds with tranquilizer guns. 

Difficulty was feigned when he started to choke as the pigeon’s back legs descended into his mouth. After two distinct bites, he swallowed and burped a feather, took two short breaths, and swallowed the second pigeon whole. 

“Do you think his shit has feathers in it?” Patty said to Conan, her greaser boyfriend. He never laughed and this was no exception, though she supposed she wasn’t kidding. Conan was jealous of everybody and she wondered if he tired of how often she talked about and gawked at Pig, whose real name was Pierre. 

Pierre was not a fat man, but his shape made little sense. He was tall and, when he wasn’t eating, his skin sank in a way that made him look as though he were melting. After a meal, the flaps filled up and gave him the dimensions of a pufferfish. No one could adequately describe the stench he carried, many tried. 

“He smells like a room full of dead seagulls,” said Anne, the class president.

“He smells like shit smeared in mold wine,” said Jerry, the star football player.

“He smells like meat plucked from the body of a rotting cow carcass,” said Eric, the radio announcer. 

Pig’s stench gave him his own private wing in the cafeteria. Even the rich kids masquerading as hygiene-free punks were disgusted by him. No one called him by his actual name, though he always seemed to be delighted by the nickname he earned. He did nothing to give the perception that he wasn’t a fan of his notoriety, quite the opposite. Patty found it a bit sad. Mockery was likely all he ever knew. She was fascinated by him. Men like him existed only in print and in carnivals. In her mind, poor Pig was a man navigating a hard life with a strange condition that he was at least able to parlay into a spotlight. 

 “I want to see what he looks like inside,” she said to Conan, snuggling in the back of his Lincoln. “It has to be a remarkably unique interior. Can you imagine? I’d love to just cut him open.”

“I don’t want to think about Pig at all, much less after sex,” Conan said, nose curled. “I don’t get why you’re so fascinated by him. He’s gross. He does weird shit to get attention and you’re feeding into it. The best thing you could do for this kid is to let him be. Don’t pity him, don’t laugh at him, just let him live.” 

One day, Conan was out with strep, so she sat next to Pig in the cafeteria. She had to swallow two retches while approaching, and four more when she sat down, and after that, she was acclimated.

“I want to eat with you,” she said. After taking one bite of her panini, Pig grabbed it out of her hand and pushed it into his mouth. It looked as natural as a key going into its proper lock. He then took the other panini and her side caesar and did the same. The sacks of his skin began to swell.

“What do you want to do with your life?” She asked him.

“I want to be a soldier. I want to fight for the country.” His french accent was coming on thick. 

“Infantry? Medic?”

“Spy,” he answered without missing a beat. 

She offered to walk home with him and he shrugged. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect mixture of cloud and sun. Soft leaves covered every inch of pavement. Stops were made so that he could pick up and eat squirrels unfortunate enough to cross his path. Their dying screams were audible from his stomach. Never did he apologize or show any shame, in fact, he more or less pretended Patty was a total stranger. 

His house was nestled into the suburbs, not a wealthy area of town, but not a poor one either. All the houses needed were a bit of upkeep, another coat or two of paint, and they’d blend right in. 

“Can I come in?” she asked. Pig opened the door and gestured for her to enter. However used to his stench she was, she was unprepared for the house’s odor. Rotten food and dead, half-eaten animals were strewn about the carpets stained a color she never knew existed. Diapers were relegated to a corner, where they served as a pillow for the lower body of a bifurcated possum. She puked everywhere, landing on the bloodstained carpet. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

“Why?” he asked. He knelt down and started picking apart her vomit for scraps of food. 

He showed her around, though there wasn’t much to show. No TV, no books aside from five different translations of the Bible, no record player, nothing. A torn apart couch and a mattress on the floor, no liner, made up the furniture. She had to pee, but she didn’t want to see what that bathroom looked like. 

“Where are your parents?” 

“My father vanished because of work. My mother vanished for reasons beyond me.” 

“What does your dad do?”
“Spy.”

He took a mostly untouched pomeranian out of the freezer and brought it to his bedroom. Next to his bed lay a stack of porno mags that probably predated her birth.

“I want to be a singer when I grow up,” she said to him. “Do you want me to sing for you?” she asked him.

“Sure.”

“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” was her choice of song, and she hit every note perfectly. She locked her eyes into his, hoping her talents could make him show emotion. Mostly, he looked confused as he shoveled pieces of the dog into his mouth, finishing the animal before she got to “when Lester took him a wife.” Prior to the song ending, he left the room and came back with two doves wrapped in plastic, eating both of them without removing their protective coating. At the end, he clapped. This was enough for Patty to blush.

Conan did not, and would not, learn what Patty did that day. She didn’t like to lie, but she knew he wouldn’t understand, that he’d get mad and confused if he learned, so she said she had gone home and watched reality TV. 

The two went to lunch. It was strange to watch her boyfriend eat a normal meal in a normal amount of time. A piece of food got caught in his windpipe, leading to a handful of brutal coughs. Something about the sight embarrassed and repulsed her, knowing this could never happen to Pig; maybe if he tried to eat a live cow, but it would never happen with any food meant for humans. “Careful,” she told him cautiously. He scowled. 

“Did you change cologne?” she asked him that night. His smell was unbearable. 

“It’s the same cologne I’ve worn every day since we’ve met,” he said. “Why are you acting so strange?”

“I’m just having stomach issues, I guess. Must be a bug.” She excused herself to the restroom, the scent of him was too painful to bear. 

Two days later, a spy was found washed up on the shores of Egypt. He had been long dead, and there were rumblings that he was a Frenchman. She didn’t think much of it until Pig was out of school. She was told he had a “family emergency” when she inquired about his absence.

She spent her time in study hall researching the dead spy. Every story about him was full of tin-foil hat speculation with regards to his placement in several historical events ranging from coups to assassinations. Bloggers argued whether he was friend or foe of the country. Some speculated he was undercover in Russia for the sake of learning secrets of their transhumanism programs, their mythological desire to turn man into machine. Nobody could agree on his motives, or who he fought for, or what he was assigned to do. 

Conan broke up with her at lunch that day. “Your mind has been elsewhere, you have been thinking of another man,” he said, though she gathered he was too dumb to assume Pig. She didn’t fight back, nor did she cry.

After school, she went to buy a bouquet of flowers for Pig. She wanted him to feel loved during what was surely a trying time. No answer at the door. The lock had been broken. Inside, Pig lay on the kitchen floor, face down, pants soiled. He had been gutted, his body was now a mass of sallow skin that made him look as though he had melted. Maggots crawled through the hole in the back of his head. The house had been ransacked, every drawer opened, holes in the walls, all that remained were the animal carcasses. 

Despondent, she fell to her knees and stroked his thinning hair. Turning him over, she saw that he had been cut open, though there were no entrails on the floor, no blood left over. She peeled him open. A wet elastic sound pierced the air like a gunshot. His stomach, gallbladder, and liver had all been removed. Cysts and thick pus was all that remained. She rubbed his matter on herself until she was completely soaked. She kissed him goodbye, did the sign of the cross, and walked home, paying no attention to the government plates following her.