How to Sell a Suckling Pig

sabine wilson-patrick

Wear your good clothes, no bloody jeans or guts on an apron. It’s fall; this is an excuse to wear

long coats and not sweat. Wick the moisture from your brow, clean your teeth with your too-long

tongue, and smile your Cheshire cat smile. They tend to like these smiles because they remind

them of the three weeks before their rich white husbands went senile, when the men grinned at

their wives’ bare bodies bending over backwards for old money. When people see your pig pen

on the far side of the market, their kids squeal, then the pigs squeal, but you are not a kindly

farmer, and this is not a petting zoo. Some mothers and their young daughters drift through the

park, going from dutch pancakes to artisanal raw honey, barbeque sauce with whole shriveled

cherries in it, truffle popcorn, and bouquets of dried lavender smelling of post office paper. Do

not be like the other people peddling their wares, because they look like they jar their own honey

and harvest the lavender from their family flower bed. You do not want to be seen as a man that

slaughters pigs. So instead, float elegantly along, as though you do not touch the grass or the

blood or the fat, with pamphlets pressed between your forefinger and thumb. They look pretty

and expensive, like wedding invitations. You hand them out to women who all look the same:

pretty, pursed lips that are dainty and rouged; hair wrapped into those buns that defy gravity, not

a single bobby pin out of place. The women hold their daughters’ hands tightly, they wear dead

animals over their shoulders. Some of the animals still have faces. Today, her name is Clara, the

only woman whose daughter sees the pigs as a decadent feast and not a pet. Introduce yourself

without a title, using just your Christian name. Keep your distance. She looks down at the pen of

piglets with a vague disdain, then up at you with a smile. Make small talk about her tennis court,

about the silk she buys her kids that end up covered in grass stains. Shame on them. Then discuss

the dinner party she is having for her third husband’s 91st birthday. She orders pigs numbers 4

and 7 for the following weekend. Give her a card to write down all her contact information and

specifics of her order. She just writes Clara, and you suspect she might not remember what her

family name is anymore. You have made a sale, and it feels as good as toting a gun.

Sabine Wilson-Patrick has been writing for a majority of her life and is the recipient of several Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in addition to NIFCA (Barbados National Cultural Foundation) poetry prizes and an Honourable Mention in Michigan State University’s Richard Benvenuto High School Poetry Competition. She is going to Gettysburg College this fall to major English and Religious Studies.