The Pigman's Legacy (The Sequel to The Pigman) (5 page)

“We were only trying to be
nice
,” I was finally able to say to the old man.

“We want to help you,” John added so gently I wanted to hug him.

“Why?” the man demanded to know, holding the door open just a crack now.

“Because you look like you don't have any friends.” John just came out with it. “And you look like you haven't had a decent meal in two months!”

I felt an anxiety attack come on when John said that. He was so direct about it, almost angry, and
impatient
with the old man. But then I realized John was probably right in being so strong. The old man's eyes began to fill up with tears. I think he couldn't believe what John had said. There was a very long pause. It seemed like the computer of his brain was reaching back desperately to remember what it was like to trust another human being.

“You should be home with your parents,” he finally said. “No use wasting time with an old man.” He started to close the door again, and it must have been the way the light hit him, because we both noticed something blue and shiny swaying across his chest. John yelled, “Hey, what's that you're wearing around your neck?”

We could tell right away that we had hit a soft spot. The old man reached for the shiny thing. It was some sort of rock hanging on a beautiful gold chain. A flash of pride crossed his eyes as he slowly opened the door wider and wider.

“
This?
” he said. “
Tins was my life
.”

John and I checked each other to see if either of us understood what he was talking about. We had no idea what the man meant. He didn't say anything after that. He just went back inside, but he left the door open. I looked at John again and I wasn't quite sure at first, but I remembered that actions speak louder than words. “He wants us to follow him,” I whispered to John. In a flash John was dragging me along behind him into the house. We followed the old man into the living room. We weren't sure if he could hear us, because he seemed to behave as if no one was in the room. I think it was because he had to concentrate so much on each step he took. I was really afraid he might fall down.

When he did manage to sit it took him almost a full minute before he could adjust himself to a comfortable position. I just stood there holding the fudge out toward him. He stared at us again.

“Well, what are you doing here?” he asked. “And what are you standing for? We're not in Egypt. You're no mummies, and I'm certainly no pharaoh. Sit down over there before I strain my neck looking up at you all the time.”

John went to the side of the room and sat on an old bench. It was very uncomfortable sitting totally across the room from the old guy and having him look at us as though we were mannequins in a department store. I began to have an anxiety attack again because I remembered an article I had read about an old man in Florida who invited teenagers into his house and ate them alive. Maybe this man was tricking us so he could make us into hors d'oeuvres or something. In any case, John must have picked up my internal panic, and he took the fudge from my hand and placed it on a small table next to the old man. John sat back down on the bench and the old man looked directly at me.

“Come over here,” he snapped, beckoning with his finger as though he was some kind of male witch.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes,
you
,” he said, fiddling now with the medallion around his neck. “I want you to help me take this thing off. My arms don't move so well.” For a moment it seemed as though he smiled again. I saw he hadn't had much practice at smiling, because it seemed to strain his facial muscles in an unusual way. I looked at John and he flashed an
It's okay
message at me. I got up and moved slowly toward the old man. I watched his hands very carefully as I circled behind him and lifted the chain over his head. The sparkling mineral hanging on its gold thread almost hypnotized me.

“It's beautiful,” I said, raising the dangling object high into the light, where its clusters of blue crystals sparkled brilliantly.

“Of course it's beautiful,” he said; then he pointed to John. “
You
, move that bench closer. I'm not a ventriloquist. I can't shoot my voice to the moon, you know.”

“Oh, sorry,” John said, obeying his orders.

“Look
, John,” I said, swinging the shining rock toward him.

“What is it?” John asked.

“Primarily,” the old man explained, “it's a fossil.” The twinkle was beginning to grow in his eyes as he raised a finger to point out the details. “You see that raised sliver on the front? It's the horn tip of a prehistoric rhino. What you're holding in your hand there is over twenty-five million years old.”

“Wow,” I said. John handed the fossil to me right away. I could see he didn't want to take any chances with it, and I didn't know what to do with it either. Just the way the old man talked about it I felt as though I was holding a piece of his heart in my hand, and that at any moment it would slip through my fingers and crash to the floor into a million pieces.

“No,” the old man scolded, “don't be afraid of it. Run your finger over the rhino's horn.”

He just stared at me and seemed to be waiting. I was afraid to do it because I thought at any moment I might be changed into a pumpkin or something. But finally I did as he told me, and it gave me chills knowing that my fingertips were actually touching something so old my mind couldn't even dream of it.

“You're touching one of the mysteries of the universe,” the old man said joyfully. “Imagine being able to hold on to a part of life that was there long before you or I ever came into existence. It makes you think about where the force of life comes from.” The old man's voice practically began to sing. “Certainly not from you or me. It's all out there, hiding, waiting to be known, perhaps only when we die.”

It gave me chills to listen to him talk about death in Mr. Pignati's house. I even saw John shudder.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“Somebody gave it to me,” the old man said slowly. “I used to dig a lot of fossils on my own too,” he added. I felt now that his voice had grown guarded.

“You like digging?” John pursued.

“I always loved digging,” the old man said. “At your age I couldn't get enough of it. I'd dig all over the place. I loved finding anything Mother Earth had hidden beneath her surface!”

I turned the fossil around in my hands, and I noticed a smooth polished area with printing on it set in the back of the blue crystals. I lifted the rock closer as though I was seeing things. Finally I was able to read it aloud:
To the Colonel, for fifty years of service
, the engraving said.

Suddenly the twinkle disappeared from the old man's eyes, and he reached out grabbing the fossil from my hand, almost breaking the gold chain. I leaped back as though I had been attacked, and now the old guy not only looked cranky, but he looked infuriated that I had noticed the engraving—as though he had forgotten about it. I scooted back next to John, who stood up fast. We both stood tense, ready to flee, but after a dreadfully long silence John squirmed and shot out as though nothing had happened at all, “You should come to our high school some time and help Mrs. Stein teach a geology lesson.” John sounded sincere in spite of what had happened. I breathed a sigh of awe and admiration for him, and I remembered why I had picked him for my friend to begin with. Whenever the going got rough, John Conlan was
there
to save the day.

“You need shock treatments,” the old man growled, getting the chain back over his head until the fossil was again safely resting on his chest.

“You forgot about the fudge,” John reminded the old guy, counting on helping the old man forget whatever had made him go as nuts as he did.

The old man laughed cruelly. “I didn't forget about it. You're just dying for me to open it so you can stuff yourselves with it. You just brought it for yourself, not me, buster.”

I saw a look of sadness cross John's eyes, and I began to feel terrible for him. Every time John said something he had his head snapped off.

“Please, sir,” I said with a voice that was barely audible, “have some of the fudge.”

The old guy just stared at us. John and I looked at each other and now we were both very sad. We thought maybe we should just leave—that there really wasn't anything we could do. Just when we felt that we had totally failed, the old man reached out and ripped open the box of fudge. He started stuffing pieces into his mouth like there was no tomorrow.

John and I beamed. And John decided not to back away from the matter that had triggered the old man's anger to begin with.

“Who was the
Colonel
?” John asked loud and strong.

“What Colonel?” the old man sputtered while munching on the fudge.

“The fossil said
To the Colonel, for fifty years of service
” I reminded him.

The old man looked up and seemed ready to scream at me. The blood drained from his face again, and he looked like he was having an anxiety attack of his own. “The Colonel was a friend of mine,” he said.

“The fossil belonged to
him
?” John asked.

The old man hesitated, shoved another piece of fudge into his mouth and spoke while chewing away. “Colonel Glenville and I were friends. We both liked digging and I worked for him. He was a rich man once upon a time.”

“How rich?” John wanted to know.

“You're a nosy little brat, aren't you?” the old guy said. “I'll tell you how rich Colonel Glenville was. He owned a town house in St. George, and he dug great tunnels under the earth. Colonel Glenville was a very famous man, and if you kids knew anything about history you'd know who he was. He designed eleven subway systems all over the world. He was knighted by the King of Sweden for the subway system he did in Stockholm.”

“How exciting,” I said. “But that must have been a long time ago.”

“Why do you say that?” he demanded to know.

“I don't know,” I said.

John jumped in to help me out: “Because everybody knows Sweden had subway systems a long time ago.”

The old man didn't say anything. He just chewed away and suddenly his eyes looked far off, as though traveling back in time.

“What happened to the Colonel?” John asked as though he was onto something.

“Oh,” the old guy said, “he died. I was with him a long time, and if you ever want to feel terrific you try living in a town house. Everybody wants to live in a town house. I tell you, I lived in a town house until …
a train ran over him!
That's what happened to him. I remember now, it was a train. That's one of the great ironies of life, don't you think? This man spends his whole life building subways, gets knighted by the King of Sweden. A terrific hole in the ground he built over there! And
bam!
Gets knocked off by a subway. That's life, isn't it?”

“Were you with him?” I asked.

“When he got run over by the train?” the old man asked as though I was crazy. “No, I wasn't with him! But I should have died the day of that crash, I'll tell you that. When a man's work is ended—when no one wants to hire him anymore—his life is ended too.”

Then a very remarkable thing happened. The old man opened his mouth as though he were about to call out for help, but instead he burst into tears. The tears ran down his face, and they led to great gasping sobs. I could barely understand the words that tried to escape through his profound sadness and mouthful of fudge, “
I want to go back. I want to go back
,” I thought I heard him cry.

“Have some more fudge,” I heard John saying. I realized John's nerves were finally shot too.

“No,” the old man sobbed.

“We really bought it for you,” John said.

“No, thank you,” the old man answered, readjusting his position in the chair. Slowly his sobs and tears died down, and he pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket. We expected him to dab at his eyes or blow his nose, but instead he put the handkerchief over his face and held it there with his hands as though he was a person suffering a very great shame.

“I really think you should have another piece of fudge,” John said softly. “Fudge has a lot of energy in it, you know. It's almost all sugar.”

The old man shook his head negatively with the handkerchief still secured over his face. I could see John seemed not only disappointed, now, but frustrated because he hadn't been able to make friends with the old man yet. I've seen John meet a wild dog on the street and make friends with it faster than he was doing at the moment with the old man.

“Please, look at us,” John almost begged.

“What for?” The voice came out from behind the handkerchief.

“We want to be your friends,” John said as straight as an arrow.

The old man slowly lowered the handkerchief. John moved forward, lifting the box of fudge up toward the old man. The old guy reached down, took a piece, passed it under his nose as if he was savoring a fine cigar, and popped it into his mouth. He then looked at me and John and smiled. This time there seemed to be nothing forced about the glow on the man's face. He was truly smiling at us,
connecting
with us, and I could feel the electric message running through my veins that indeed our Pigman had come back.