I’m sure you’ve all heard of Reverend Tommy Tucker. He’s the preacher over at The First Baptist Church Of Our Lord And Savior The Redeemer On The Cross At Calvary.
You’ve probably been by the church up on Pleasant Gap Road. Nice little white church with a sign that’s about three feet high and twenty feet long. Anyway, the preacher has a little daughter, around 8 years old by the name of Margaret.

Maggie as they call her, is cute as a button and obviously takes after her momma. You know me, I ain’t got a mean bone in my body, so I can’t say that the preacher man is ugly. But I will tell you that his ears stick out so big and far that, as Miss Mary Jo, the lady who plays the organ at the church once put it, “His head kinda looks like my Volkswagen with both doors open”. They tell me that his nose had started out straight, but when he was a kid he got into a lot of fights and had it broken four times. Now it reminds me of a winding country road with twists and turns and a few bumps along the way.

Maggie has lots of friends and gets along well with everyone at school. She gets good grades, does her homework, and for the most part she’s a typical little girl. However, she does have one thing that makes her stand out. Not just from her friends but from everyone else in the county. You see, Maggie has a pet pig by the name of Susie. I’m sure you’ve all heard of or seen those cute little pot-bellied pigs that some folks keep as pets. Susie ain’t one of them kinda pigs. Nope, she’s a full size, potty trained, 180 pound pig with a collar and leash. I’m not positive but it seems to me that I’ve seen that pig wearing makeup. It sure is a sight to see little Maggie walking Susie down the sidewalk in town. I always figgered that if she wanted to she could put a saddle on that pig and ride her.

Pigs ain’t just the first ingredient in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. No sir, it turns out that pigs are pretty smart. Probably smarter than half the population around here anyways. I’ll bet you’ll never see a pig touch his tongue to an electric fence, at least not three times in a row like old Johnny Ledbetter did just yesterday… in the rain. Something else you might not know is that a pig’s skin is a whole lot like a human’s skin. I was in the waiting room over to Doc Bramlett’s one day while waitin’ to get a possum bite looked at. I tell you what, lookin’ down and findin’ a possum latched on to your kneecap is downright unnervin’. Painful too. Anyways, while I was a waitin’ I was readin’ some kinda medical magazine what was layin’ on the chair next to me. They had an article in there about how pig skin gets used sometimes to treat burn victims. I don’t know how the pigs feel about that ’cause I didn’t get to finish the article. But that sure did stick in my mind.

Now, if you’ve never met any of Dudley Townsend’s devil children then you can count yourself lucky. Dudley and his wife were originally from Atlanta and they had some of the most outrageous notions about child care that you ever did hear of. The main point is that they never spanked those kids, they used “time-out” instead. Folks around here will spank their kids in a heartbeat and never feel a mite of remorse. That’s just how it’s done. I recollect the worst whoopin’ I ever got from my Daddy was with a piece of aluminum off an old screen door. That was the first thing he could get his hands on. I tell you what, when you get an aluminum whoopin’ you don’t misbehave for a while and that’s a fact. The Townsends had three boys, each wilder than the other. When you see all three of ‘em together you’d best look around for some smoke, screams or sirens, ’cause it’s nothing short of a natural disaster.

Well, one Saturday down at the school, Maggie was a practicin’ her singin’ in the school chorus. She has a might fine voice and she sings in the church choir too. Susie was there with her that day, just like always. To make a long story short, or at least not too long, those Dudley boys were there at the school too. They saw Maggie come in with Susie earlier and wanted to have a little fun. They took an apple off of the desk of Mrs. Beasley, the fifth grade English teacher. Then the oldest, Brandon, snuck up close to the door of the classroom where the chorus was a practicin’ and caught Susie’s attention. He showed her the apple and when she trotted over to him he led her into the hall where his brothers, future convicts all of ‘em I swear, were a waitin’.

They took Susie into the gym teacher’s office where they knew Coach Andrews kept an electric razor. Then they proceeded to shave that pig’s back and legs just as close as that razor would get. It must not have hurt her none ’cause she didn’t squeal a bit, just sat there snortin’ and wonderin’ where that apple had gone. The boys finished and then stood back to admire their handiwork. Then they took Susie out to the playground, tied the leash to one part of the merry-go-round and stuck the apple on another part in front of here where she could see it but not reach it. They they left that poor pig trottin’ around in circles, chasin’ an apple she’d never get to eat, and sweatin’ in the noon day sun.

Turns out that just like us humans, and I barely count those Townsend critters as human, pigs can get sunburned too. Susie had finally got tuckered out and laid down in what little shade she could find but by then it was already too late. By the time Maggie found her Susie’s back was red and downright uncomfortable. Mad as she was, all she could do was take Susie home and put some lotion on her and put her to bed.

The next day at church, Maggie showed up early and started prayin’ for vengeance. “An eye for an eye”, she was heard sayin’. “Them what done this to Susie deserve to be punished”! Her father tried to convince her to forgive the perpetrators but wasn’t havin’ no part of that, not yet anyway.

There weren’t no witnesses at the scene of the crime, so even though everyone suspected the devil children of Dudley’s, they couldn’t prove it. As it turned out, no witnesses were needed. Dudley overheard the boys laughin’ about the pig and how much better she’d look with a suntan anyways.

Nobody would have ever expected it but Dudley pulled off his belt, a good leather one with his name stamped in it, and proceeded to light into those boys of his. They were caught by surprise, yellin’ somethin’ about bein’ willin’ to go on time-out or goin’ to bed without their supper, or somethin’ like that. But he was in a groove and must have had years of “spare the rod, spoil the child” bottled up inside of him ’cause he tanned their hides until they were just as red as Susie’s. Then he marched all of them over to the preacher’s house and made them apologize to Maggie and Susie.

Maggie waited until the boys had left, then leaned over to speak to Susie. “Well Susie, I reckon it’ll be a long time a comin’ ‘fore those boys kidnap a pig and get her sunburned!” Susie grunted, shifted around a little to get comfortable, and munched happily on one of the apples that Dudley had made his boys bring over. You might say she was as happy as a pig in mud, if you take away the mud and add some lotion and just a hint of eye shadow.