Free Ham by Sam Harris Page B

scaly, dry nostrils and blew several spurting breaths through the straw along with a few remaining drops of Diet Coke. Her golden chest rose. I located her sternum and slightly pumped it with my thumb, then alternated with the straw breathing. In a few moments, her eyes fluttered and her beady pupils returned to center. I’d saved her.
    I’d almost killed her but I’d saved her.
    This was yet another story I couldn’t share with Cooper. But I knew the next one was surefire fun.
    â€œA few years later, I got a pig! A Vietnamese potbellied pig named Lillian.”
    Cooper screamed with laughter. “A pig? A real pig? Was Larry the dog there?”
    â€œLarry the dog was there. He didn’t like Lillian very much, but he put up with her.”
    â€œWhy didn’t he like her?”
    â€œWell,” I said, “she was a pig. Lillian wasn’t really a dog person. I mean a dog pig. She wasn’t really a people pig either. She made rash decisions. She was bossy and pushy and she bit choreographers.”
    It was true. Lillian bit five people in two years and they were all choreographers. She could sniff them out like truffles and she hated them. Lillian possessed an almost human opinion about nearly everything and I thought perhaps she resented that her stout frame would never allow her to be a real dancer.
    One day, I arrived home and the Nicaraguan housekeeper gravely and wordlessly gestured for me to follow her to the guesthouse in the backyard, where she lived. She showed me that Lillian had figured out how to open the sliding glass door, enter the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and raid its entire contents. Broken dishes and plastic wrap and empty Tupperware containers littered the floor. In the adjoining living room, Lillian lay at the base of a rough-hewn wooden altar that displayed a dozen burning Sacred Heart veladoras for the Virgin of Guadalupe. I wondered if she’d lit them herself. She was on her side, her bloated belly extending past the length of her stubby legs, which made it impossible for her to stand. Still, she appeared virtuous, saintly even, but for the sickly green foam that frothed from her snout and lips. The housekeeper pointed to a particularly ravaged, crumpled scrap of foil. “ De puerco, ” she spat with disdain. Lillian had eaten her own kind.
    â€œWhat happened to Lillian the pig?” Cooper asked.
    â€œWell, I realized she needed to be with other pigs, and people in show business were not enough. So I took her to a place called Hog Heaven, which was a special farm for potbellied pigs, and she was very happy.”
    She was very happy because the moment she arrived, she was eagerly surrounded by a small herd of male swine parading corkscrew pig penises that twirled and twisted like a power tool demonstration at Home Depot. She engaged in group sex within seconds. I waved, misty-eyed, calling, “I love you, Lillian!” She never looked back. She was, indeed, in hog heaven and the word “pork” had an entirely new meaning.
    â€œWhat about Larry the dog?” Cooper questioned.
    â€œAfter a long, long time, Larry got very tired and his body wore out. And then, when I met Papa and fell in love, we moved to New York and got Zach and Emma.”
    Zach and Emma were very old when Cooper was born. As a younger pooch, Zach was a handsome, brindle shepherd-Dane mix, and the best dog anyone could want, sweet and playful and solid. Emma joined us a year later when a neighbor, fiercely dedicated to rescuing basset hounds, asked if we could foster her for a day or two. She’d been in three different homes in the past month. Danny made me promise it would be temporary, but I knew the moment I saw her that she would be ours. She weighed sixty-five pounds and thought she was a lap dog, and we related. She arrived on Thanksgiving Day to a house full of friends, including Liza, who brought Lily, her cairn terrier. Lily knew Zach well and