Hank and Hogs

Hank was wiping up the last of his pan gravy up with his biscuit. He always ate a good, satisfying breakfast. Farming wasn’t meant for diets. He never saw a skinny farmer. It’s hard to grow anything and not eat. It’s unnatural.

Hank looked around the farm as was his usual morning routine. Nothing was ever out of place but he looked anyway. Always good to know if a fox got into the hen house although a farmer usually heard the commotion when that happened. A farmer always kept a loaded shotgun by the door. The fox didn’t know it until it gets shot. Then it runs away, if it can. But, being a fox, it would come back.

While Hank was a farmer he wasn’t some country yahoo, some country bumpkin, some redneck. At night, he watched TV like most people. It wasn’t only just the Cartoon Channel although he loved “Tom and Jerry.” He liked the Discovery Channel and loved the doctor shows. He knew from watching them he was a probable heart attack waiting to happen. He knew about fat, trans-fats and cholesterol. He knew he didn’t eat as healthy as he should or healthy at all for that matter.

He had watched the vegetarians come on and preach about the evils of red meat and how everyone should eat only vegetables. He knew that was as dumb as it was wrong. If we should only eat vegetables why do we have canine teeth? Why were our teeth so thin? Why were these vegetarians so thin? Hank couldn’t always tell the boys from the girls. Of course, now-a-days, he thought, that wasn’t uncommon. Still, he knew he was primed for a heart attack.

He was looking at the pigpen when that thought came to mind. Big, fat hogs. Bacon, fatback and country ham on the hoof. Really good eatin’. It then occurred to him that if he had a heart attack he hoped it wasn’t in the pigpen. Those hogs would eat anything. By the time Ma thought to look for him there wouldn’t be any him.

Ma came out the door and called Hank for lunch. She had made BLT’s, Hank’s favorite sandwich. When she went to the barn and hollered again. Still no answer. She looked across the hay field and didn’t see him. He wasn’t in the cornfield either. That wasn’t like Hank. He never missed a meal.

She called Pete from the next farm to see if Hank had gone over there. He hadn’t. She called the farmer on the other side and he said the same thing. Ma was getting a little worried. She couldn’t run he farm by herself. A few minutes later Pete drove up followed by Tom, the other neighbor.

“Why, he may have fallen. We’ll take a good look around. It ain’t right him not answering ya,”Pete told Ma.

“Yea, we’ll find him for ya, sure as shit. Oh, excuse my French,” Tom added.

They didn’t find him after a good search. They told Ma that maybe she needed to call in the sheriff on this. She thought they were right and called 911 and told them what had happened. The sheriff came out with a couple of his deputies. He knew Hank well enough to know that he wouldn’t just disappear; not with a meal ready. He sent his deputies to look around.

“Well, now, Sheriff, we looked everyplace ourselves. Hank ain’t in them places. We ain’t here to play hide‘seek,” Pete said to him.

“Yea, Sheriff, we got farms of our own to work. We ain’t here to play, mum, shoot,”,Tom started to say.

“Yes, well, that’s all fine and dandy. You didn’t find him now did you? Ma, I know this is going to sound bad but is it possible Hank has a, uh, you know, a girlfriend.”

Ma absolutely cackled at that. Pete and Tom laughed so hard they could hardly keep from falling down. “A girlfriend? Hank? Are you smokin’ somethin’ ya shouldn’t oughta be smokin’? Hank with a girlfriend? My God, I wouldn’t sleep with him if I wasn’t married to him. That man is one ugly man. He smells bad all the time. Girlfriend. Jeez.”

“Boy, Sheriff, that was one funny story. I can’t wait to tell that one down at the Grange,” Pete said.

“Well, after we find him, you mean,” Tom said.

“Well, yes, of course. Wouldn’t be fitting to tell it with him missing and maybe -”

“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,”the Sheriff said. “I’m going to call in the rest of my men. I’ll call the volunteer fireman to come help. If you two know anyone else that can help, call them.” Eventually the Sheriff had a good number of men to use. He wanted to start with the hay field. While you could see a man if he was standing. You might easily miss one who was lying there.

He lined the men up a few feet apart and got ready to comb the field. The men were willing enough but weren’t happy about this idea. Hay fields would hide a man lying there as well as a snake lying there. There aren’t too many people who want to walk where snakes live. Certainly none of those kind were here.

Ma was one of the people who preferred to avoid snakes. She said to the Sheriff, “Hey, why don’t you get one of those helicopters to fly over. That way, you can look straight down and we don’t have to walk through here.”

“Well, Ma, I don’t have a helicopter for one thing. I don’t know where I could get one for another. We want to find him or not?”

Well, yes, they did, snakes or no snakes. They traipsed across the hay field slowly so as to not miss Hank or a snake either. Nothing, there was nothing found. The Sheriff announced he was going to put a missing person report out. That was about all he could do.

The volunteers began leaving reluctantly but knowing they had done all they could. Pete and Tom were standing with ma trying to console her but not knowing the right words. Tom looked at the hogs abs said to Pete, “Pete, do those hogs look funny to you?”

“Huh? Whatta ya mean by funny. They look like any other hogs, fat and fed and watered.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Hank! Hank! You alright? You were starin’ off inta space.”

Hank shook himself out of the daydream. He looked at those hogs. He now knew that hogs looked at him the same way he looked at them.