She

Mama warned me not to name the pig, so I called her many things instead of just one:
Linda, Chula, and Guapita because animals, like people, like to feel attractive.
Gorda because she was fat.
Caramelo because she was light brown.
Ronca because of the light grunting noises she made when I’d come to feed her corn and bread that’d been soaked in milk and oil, and also it was the sound she made when I rubbed her side.

She was our Christmas pig for the Noche Buena feast on the 24th and when we got her she wasn’t full grown yet. Not even a year old. It wasn’t my job to take care of her but if I fed her and showed my love for her throughout the summer and fall, I was sure dad would spare her life.

Mama warned me not to grow attached, but no one was around to play with and no one listened like a pig. The stench didn’t bother me. Her dung smelled like browned leaves and burning grass, like warm soil and old bark. Her hide smelled like musk and was rough as sand and strong like planks of wood. Her eyes were full of awareness—yes, it’s the boy with the bucket of food that smells grainy and the flies near the water will need swatting and that mockingbird will sing all morning. She was aware, too, of what she’d been purchased for, so I promised her “Ronquita, Linda, my Chula he wants to kill you, but I’m going to talk to him because maybe he won’t...okay?”

The morning of the 24th came. It was time, and dad was determined. Several uncles came. I was inside still when mama said they were about to. Nobody had come to tell me like I’d begged (except mama because she knew what it meant) so I ran out to the pen and before I got there I heard screams and saw the men gathered. They forced her on the ground, on her back—the sound of an old trunk hitting the ground.

The more she struggled the more they pressed down on her limbs to keep her pinned. One uncle who stood with me apart from the group asked if I wanted to slit her throat. I couldn’t respond, I didn’t know how, I hadn’t said goodbye, and while regret flew by dad jabbed her throat twice with his machete. She screamed still—deafening, like a hundred eagles screeching. Not all the sound came from her lips, some bubbled out with the gush from the hole in her throat. There was so much blood. It shot up like a fountain. It sprayed my father and uncles. It pulsed.

Her screams died down until there was only the gurgling of blood. When her breath stopped, the killing men stood. All were silent. Their bodies swayed like thin trunks against a wind. Their faces wrinkled like bark, their hearts stone. “It’s going to give us good meat,” I heard one say, before they brought buckets and brushes to scrub her body clean.

Caramelo, Chica, Linda, Gorda, Ronca, Ronca? If I didn’t know what name to call her in my mind how would she know who my apology was for? The one to take her life should’ve been me.