The Pigman

John, a sophomore at Franklin High School, begins his narration by stating that he does not like school, which is how he and Lorraine became involved with a person they call “the Pigman” (2). In ninth grade, John earned the nickname "the Bathroom Bomber” (2) because he used to hide out in the bathroom and set off firecrackers. He never got caught because boys smoking in the bathroom were always blamed for the crime. Having become legendary for his pranks, John once organized what he called the “colossal fruit roll” (2) on days when they had a substitute teacher. Students stole apples from the lunchroom, and when the teacher turned their back to the room, all the students rolled their apples across the floor at once, making a thunderous sound.

John says he has given up pranks in his sophomore year, and the only crime he commits at school is writing on the desks. Currently, he is in the library for his shared seventh-period study hall, with Lorraine typing a memorial for the Pigman and arguing over whether they can use curse words. Lorraine opposes the idea, but they decide John can use “@#$%” (5) in place of curse words. The librarian Miss Reillen, whom they call “Cricket” due to the sound her stockings make, lets them borrow her typewriter. Lorraine has been sad since the Pigman died, and John agreed to help write the memorial in hopes of lifting her spirits. John says she is eager to type, so he hands the narration to Lorraine.

Lorraine says she is eager to record all they have experienced before they forget it. She explains that John is handsome, which is why he gets away with all his pranks, though she is especially attracted to his eyes. She writes that he drinks and smokes a lot. Her mother is a nurse, and Lorraine has tried to explain the dangers of smoking to John, but he persists. According to Lorraine, most of his problems can be traced to his family. She says, “Actually, we both have families you wouldn’t believe, but I don’t particularly feel like going into it at the moment.” (7). Lorraine’s mother makes cruel remarks to her about her appearance, and John’s father struggled with alcoholism until he developed liver disease. John displays a pattern of lies and deception, and she blames his drinking on his father’s influence. Lorraine says everyone is hiding something and explains how even teachers have hidden lives. Once, she visited her typing teacher, Miss Stewart, at her home and saw her caring for her sick mother in a hospital bed in the living room. Since then, Lorraine has more empathy for her teachers, but she says John’s compassion is buried inside him, and he has trouble expressing it. Lorraine knows he has some humanity since he is friends with her and chose to become involved with the Pigman.

Lorraine and John first met when her family moved into the neighborhood two years ago. While the neighborhood is a mix of socioeconomic classes, it is not particularly friendly. Anxious and self-conscious about being the new girl, Lorraine was nervous about attending school because no one talked to her. One day on the school bus, John sat beside her and began laughing hysterically. Thinking he was laughing at her, she asked him to stop because she did not want people to think she was sitting with a lunatic. John apologized and said, “I am a lunatic” (12). When he began laughing again, Lorraine was infuriated, but then she began to laugh as well. Soon they were laughing so loudly that everyone on the bus was staring at them.

John agrees with Lorraine that he is handsome and has nice eyes. He thinks his English teacher, Miss King, has a crush on him because she laughs at his jokes and calls him a “card” (13), which John says is an outdated term. One reason he liked the Pigman was that he did not use old-fashioned language even though he was older. John had forgotten about Lorraine’s obsession with paranoia though he enjoys reading the articles she shares about people in sanitariums. The difference between John and Lorraine is that she remembers details and words while he recalls the action. John wants to become an actor one day, and he thinks Lorraine will become a writer. He worries about the harsh and cruel ways her mother speaks to her though he does not see anything wrong with her except that she lacks self-confidence. Lorraine has intriguing green eyes, but since the Pigman’s death, John has noticed a dulling of their intensity.

Their interaction with the Pigman began when they played a phone prank game with Dennis Kobin and Norton Kelly. They use Dennis’s phone because Lorraine’s house does not have an unlimited call plan and John’s father put a lock on his phone. “Bore,” as John calls his father, locked the phone after he became frustrated with John overusing it. John retaliated by putting glue in the keyhole lock. The phone prank is called a ‘telephone marathon,” and the object is to dial a random number from the phone book and keep the person on the line for as long as possible. Dennis holds the record after keeping an older woman on the line for over two hours. John says,

Now Lorraine can blame all the other things on me, but she was the one who picked out the Pigman’s phone number. If you ask me, I think he would have died anyway. Maybe we speeded things up a little, but you really can’t say we murdered him. Not murdered him (18).

Lorraine clarifies that Dennis and Norton are mean, disturbed young men. Norton has been a social outcast since he got caught stealing marshmallows from the grocery store in ninth grade, which earned him the nickname “The Marshmallow Kid.” She recalls the day she first called the Pigman. Jealous of Dennis’s record for keeping someone on the line the longest, Norton begins cheating at the game, choosing only female names because he knows he can keep them talking longer. Lorraine tries cheating and selects an address close to her home, knowing she can pretend to belong to the Howard Avenue Civic League. When she dials Angelo Pignati, she introduces herself as Miss Truman from the Howard Avenue Charities. Mr. Pignati says his wife is not home and away in California, but Lorraine persists and asks for a small donation for the L&J Fund.

When Mr. Pignati hears someone laugh in the background, Lorraine pretends a coworker told her a joke. Mr. Pignati wants to know the joke, saying his wife always laughed at his jokes and that he misses her. He tells Lorraine several corny jokes while laughing at himself, and Lorraine feels sorry for him, thinking, “[…] I began to wish I had never bothered him” (22). While Mr. Pignati continues with his jokes, Lorraine thinks about John’s frequent lies and the elaborate stories he tells to support his lies. He is so enmeshed in his fabrications that he convinces himself they are real. Lorraine thinks John learned how to lie from his dishonest parents, and it bothers her that they get away with their lies. John lies to his parents, and they do nothing about it. Lorraine returns to listening to Mr. Pignati, who apologizes for taking up too much of her time and offers a $10 donation. When Lorraine starts to refuse, John grabs the phone from her.

Fearing they might extort the old man for more money, John lies to Dennis and Norton, telling them Mr. Pignati caught on to their prank and hung up on Lorraine. In truth, Mr. Pignati invited them over the next day to collect the check. Lorraine initially refuses to go with him, but John argues that they are not taking money from Mr. Pignati because he is becoming their patron. Later that night, John asks his mother for money to buy beer, and she refuses, saying he cannot have any more money until his father speaks with him. John wants to know what he did wrong, but his mother will not say. When John argues, she retorts that she wishes he was more like his older brother Kenneth, who is married and has a job on Wall Street. After more arguing, John’s mother says he is in trouble with his father for putting glue in the phone lock. John denies gluing the lock, claiming the ghost of Aunt Ahra did it: “I blame an awful lot of things on the ghost of Aunt Ahra because she died in our house when she was eighty-two years old” (29).

John sends Lorraine their secret signal through the phone, but he must use the operator since he cannot dial her number. They meet, and on the way to Mr. Pignati’s, they argue about taking the man’s money. John finally persuades her by claiming that Mr. Pignati sounded suicidal and that by visiting him, they will prevent him from harming himself. Mr. Pignati’s rundown house is across from a convent, and when the two arrive, he is overjoyed to see them. He tells them he has just come from the zoo, which he visits each morning. He used to go with his wife, but now he goes alone since she is away in California. After seeing the strange, portly man in his sixties, Lorraine fears he might be dangerous and briefly considers leaving. However, he seems genuinely happy to see them and invites them in for wine, apologizing for the mess. Mr. Pignati explains he is a retired electrician, and his wife usually keeps the house tidy, but it has fallen into disrepair since she has been away. After teaching them a mind trick for memorizing ten items, he writes them a check and invites them to join him at the zoo the next day. After several awkward pauses, he shows them his collection of pig figurines that belong to his wife. He houses the collection in a room behind a black curtain and explains he bought the first pig for his wife as a play on his last name. Lorraine, still uneasy with the whole scene, acknowledges his joke.

After leaving the Pigman’s house, John takes Lorraine to Tony’s Market, a store known to sell alcohol to minors. Lorraine presses John not to cash the check, but he does anyway, using the money to buy beer and rationalizing his decision by saying, “If we don’t cash it, he’ll know something was funny and really call the police” (41). John thinks they should go to the zoo with Mr. Pignati, but Lorraine disagrees, and they part ways angrily.

When Lorraine arrives home, she is surprised to find her mother home early from her job as a private nurse because her patient died. She lies to her mom, telling her she went to drama club practice and Stryker’s Luncheonette afterward. Her mom does not like her hanging out with boys and tells her not to go back to Stryker’s. Lorraine explains that her parents separated 15 years ago, and her father died nine years later. Though her mother is physically attractive, Lorraine says her mother’s manner of speaking is unattractive. Citing her knowledge of psychology, Lorraine thinks her mother needs intense therapy. Her mother continues complaining about her patient’s final days in end-stage cancer and how much money it costs to send her daughter to school. There is not a lot of food in the house, so Ms. Jenson stole canned goods from the patient’s house before leaving. She also accepts kickbacks from the undertaker at the funeral home after her patients die. Ms. Jensen coldly demands that Lorraine skip school the next day to stay home and help her clean the house, but Lorraine insists she has a Latin test she cannot miss. Her mother criticizes her for not helping around the house despite Lorraine explaining that she does the laundry and changes the sheets. Her mother claims school is a waste of her time, especially attending Latin class. Lorraine wonders what her mother would think if she knew she wanted to become a writer. Later, Lorraine calls John, and they decide to skip school the next day and go to the zoo with Mr. Pignati. Lorraine can hear John’s parents yelling at him in the background.

John persuades Deanna Deas, a girl in the Dean’s office who has a crush on John, to hide their absentee cards so that their parents do not find out they cut class. Lorraine is anxious because she does not enjoy the zoo and seeing all the animals in captivity. Lorraine finds animals to be very intelligent though she has never had a pet. She once briefly kept a stray dog as a pet until her mother found out and had it taken away and likely euthanized.

Mr. Pignati arrives at ten o’clock, excited to start their tour, but Lorraine feels their trip is doomed by several bad omens: a rude peanut salesperson, an aggressive peacock that corners her, and a strange child they see in the bat house staring at patrons. Mr. Pignati, on the other hand, is having the time of his life. He especially enjoys the snake house. Lorraine finds a quiz about snakes on a sign inside and prides herself on knowing all the answers. After visiting all the other animals, Mr. Pignati introduces John and Lorraine to the baboon Bobo, whom he calls his best friend. Lorraine watches as Mr. Pignati feeds Bobo peanuts and talks to the animal like it is a child. When Mr. Pignati starts beating his chest like Tarzan, John and Lorraine leave him alone while they ride a train car around the zoo. When they return to the primate house, Mr. Pignati is still feeding Bobo peanuts. Soon, all the monkeys in the enclosure begin screaming. Mr. Pignati starts making monkey noises, and soon, all the animals are in a frenzy. When they leave, Mr. Pignati sadly says goodbye to Bobo, telling him he will miss him.

John does not understand why Lorraine did not enjoy the trip to the zoo with Mr. Pignati and thinks it is cool that he and the baboon are friends. He also enjoyed all the treats Mr. Pignati bought for them at the zoo and the ice cream he bought later. They told Mr. Pignati their real first names and made plans to visit him the following evening. The next day on their way to visit Mr. Pignati, John and Lorraine run into Dennis and Norton. They go to drink beer at the cemetery and sit near the tombs of the Masterson family in a secluded part of the burial grounds. John is enchanted by cemeteries because they make him contemplate life and his purpose on earth. He likes to sneak off alone and lay on the grass looking up at the stars, wondering if there is anyone in Heaven or below the ground trying to communicate with him: “Then I got sad because I knew I wasn’t really wondering about the guy underneath me, whoever he was. I was just interested in what was going to happen to me” (58). Before visiting the Pigman, Lorraine had to go home to check in with her mother.

John returns home for dinner and can tell that his mom, whom he calls “Old Lady,” is uneasy because his father had a rough day at work. John’s father tells him he has too much free time and suggests he come work with him at the Coffee Exchange. Having no desire for a career where people shout at each other all day, John tells his father he is thinking of becoming an actor. He calls John a “jackass” and tells him he should be more like his brother, claiming that one day he will die and someone in the family will have to take over the business. John worries about his father, who is close to 60 and works long stressful days. Father and son argue over John’s need to exert his independence, with John asserting that he cannot be his authentic self while wearing a suit every day, but his father contends that he can still be independent while earning an honest living. The argument escalates, and his father scolds him for being ungrateful and rude to his mother. As John leaves, his father tells him to get a haircut.

Later, John and Lorraine visit Mr. Pignati. He is overjoyed to see them, and John thinks that his parents have never seemed happy to see him. Mr. Pignati serves them wine and shows them parts of the house they did not see on the first visit. The house is cluttered and filled with a random, strange assortment of things. Lorraine helps herself to food from his fridge while John looks at his collection of books. Lorraine finds a photo of Mr. Pignati’s wife, Conchetta, as a child in her confirmation dress, and he becomes emotional when he sees it. John ventures upstairs and finds all of Mrs. Pignati’s clothes and jewelry, making him think that if she did go on a trip, she would not take anything with her. He discovers a pamphlet from The Silver Lake Company for families who have lost loved ones and a bill for Mrs. Pignati’s funeral.