Mind Fields: Arkansas Pig Squeezin’ Contest
Posted: January 31, 2024 Filed under: Dark Humor, Fiction, Humor, Mind Fields, Short Fiction, Stories | Tags: Arkansas Pig Squeezin' Contest, Arthur Rosch, Mind Fields, Short Story, Writing to be Read 1 Comment
Addendum: Zoot’s Greatest Story
1968: On the road somewhere near Cairo, Illinois
The Mississippi river appears frequently to the left side of the road, as the Continental digests miles under its Goodyears. The river is like a giant python at the bottom of the bluff, twisting its silty way towards New Orleans. At Cairo it meets the Ohio River in a megalithic “Y”. The different colors of the different rivers make discreet etchings in the basic silver brown in the serpentine body of The Mississippi.
Zoot is snoring lightly, slumped in the front passenger seat with his elbow on the armrest, his head bumping gently against the rolled-up window. The car’s air conditioning is roaring like a distant storm, its wind coming from black plastic vents in the dashboard.
Aaron is in the back seat, trying to read a science fiction novel. The car’s motion is making him sick, so he puts the book down and watches the River as it appears and disappears amongst rows of trees.
Zoot jerks awake suddenly, yawns, rubs his eyes. He inspects Tyrone’s driving, looks at the speedometer. “You’re going a hundred miles an hour, man, and you in the slow lane. There’s a cop that cruises this road by name of Furley Robinson and he will love to jail my ass, so ease it on up.”
Tyrone looks innocent. “I don ‘t know how that happened, Zoot, sorry.” The speedometer drifts in fits and starts back down to seventy.
Zoot cranes his neck to see Aaron, slumped boredly in the back seat.
“I ever tell you the story of my true musical roots, of my Arkansas heritage?”
Aaron perks up and leans forward over the soft leather upholstery.
“Which one? The one about Preacher Scarby and the girls in the choir?”
“No, no, this one even earlier and more rooty than that one.”
“Let’s hear it, Zoot, we all ears,” Tyrone says, lighting up a cigarette.
“This is back when I was five, six years old,” says Zoot. “All the black farmers in Arkansas get together once a year for a musical festival, a Pig Squeezin’. They’d come from evahwhere, they’d come from Dawes County and Little Creek and Big Creek, from Meaty Bottom and Cradle Cave. They’d bring their best musical pigs and their women and children would barbecue up some ribs and haunches and they would contend for the position of Master Pig Squeezer. “
Aaron smiles. Tyrone wrinkles his brow, hoping to concentrate on the road but sneaking glances at Zoot, trying to discern just how far in his cheek is his mentor’s tongue.
“The greatest Pig Squeezer of all is a big fat gentleman by the name of Eufustus Rathbone. Y’ll understand, Pig Squeezin is a subtle art, it combines animal genetics, musical training, weight lifting and other forms of athletics and requires a fine hand at dealing with the hogs. You gotta take em when they’re tiny piglets and get em used to the feel of your armpit, your knees, you get piglets that like bein’ squeezed and handled evah which way. Takes a calm and pliable pig to squeal and bellow on cue. Why, Eufustus Rathbone can get a note out of both ends of a pig just by flexing his bicep, he is that good. He has a pig named Joby that can fart an E flat and squeal a perfect third above it.”
Aaron pats both his thighs hard, then pats them again, more softly.
Zoot pauses to light his three o’clock cheroot.
“You’re putting us on, right?” Tyrone swings his head sideways, then back to the road, then sideways,then back to the road.
“Lord’s Truth,” Zoot swears, solemnly. He winks at Aaron.
“This must have been nineteen ten, nineteen eleven,” Zoot continues. “It was my first Pig Squeezin and I thinks I is in heaven, they is so many people, so much food on big long tables, all kinds of little girls runnin’ round in checkered dresses with pretty hats.”
He exhales his stream of smoke languidly, cracks the window a bit to clear the air inside the car. Tyrone lights yet another in a constant string of Camels.
“You’re smoking too much,” he admonishes Tyrone. “You know that stuff wilts your dick, don’t you?”
Tyrone hastily stuffs out the butt in the ash tray. “Damn,” he says, “one fun thing fucks up another fun thing. Doesn’t seem fair.”
Aaron puts his chin into the crevice between the front seats, as if to prompt Zoot to continue his story.
“Okay, after two solid days of Squeezin’, there’s only three Squeezers left who can get up and withstand the sheer virtuosity of Eufustus Rathbone. This man has been Squeezin’ Master for six years runnin’. He has raised himself a breed of musical hogs that are light of weight but solid in volume and tone. He gets up on the stage that is built right there in the middle of Hanky Parkins’ fresh-mowed soybean field. He’s got Joby in one hand, he’s got two piglets named Squeak and Tweak on rope leashes, and he’s got an old sow named Hester draggin’ her udders on the floor boards. Hester is like his old standby, a reliable bass pig. He can just give her a jiggle and she will go ‘honk’ on the downbeat and the upbeat.”
Zoot’s left hand waves in the air and pictures seem to flow from his fingers, apparitions in the drifting smoke that lazily spiral up from the cheroot held loosely in his right hand.
“Eufustus starts out with The Star Spangled Banner, just to keep things simple, not to raise expectations or nothin’. The pigs squeeze in perfect counterpoint. Eufustus is sitting on the low three-legged Squeezin’ Stool, and he’s got Joby between his legs where he can control the pitch by bringing his thighs together, he’s got Hester under one foot and he’s got Squeak and Tweak in each armpit. After the national anthem he looks around as if to say, ‘can anybody top that? The crowd goes wild, everybody claps, looks like it’s all over. But when the noise dies down, a youngster by the name of Chester Wankus comes up the steps leading just two little piglets. There’s a gasp from the crowd, people saying ‘he can’t do shit with no two piglets, who he think he is?’ But Chester just scoots that Squeezin’ Stool over, sits down and starts squeezin’ these piglets and he gets them fartin’ and squealing and he plays “Battle Hymn of the Republic” real fast and he’s tapping with his feet too. It is amazing. Old Eufustus puffs up his chest like nothin’ happened, takes the stool back and plays the “Overture from The Marriage of Figaro”. The crowd falls silent, they figure that’s it, all over, nothin’ can top that. Chester leaves his piglets on the stage, jumps off the back, picks up a two hundred pound sow like it’s a twig and puts her on the stage, then jumps back up and gets her inside his legs. He takes a deep breath, everybody’s waitin’ for whatever’s gonna come next.”
Zoot leans forward and flicks the ash from his cheroot into the ashtray. He looks out the window. The sun is midway down the afternoon sky and its rays flash back from the river.
“Chester takes a minute to get himself braced, then he starts squeezin and out comes a perfect contrapuntal version of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The sow is a trifle flat out her behind but Chester compensates skillfully by increasing the pressure from his feet and the rhythm is powerful enough that Eufustus starts turning a darker shade of brown than he already is. Joby just lays down on her side and Chester’s two piglets run over and start nursin’ from her. You’d think that is the end of the story but just then up comes a teenage boy from Smith County, and he’s got four piglets on leather leashes, he’s got a three hundred pound sow and he’s got a hairy wild boar in some kind of crazy harness. The judges take some time debating whether that is legal or not, but they allowed it, I mean a wild boar is a wild boar and they just have to give the kid points for difficulty.”
“What’s your name, kid?” the head judge asks.
“The kid replies, ‘My name is Felix Twitty and I’m from Smith County near the town of Goose’s Crack.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little ostentatious, all them pigs?”
The crowd grumbles its agreement, I mean, if the kid can ‘t come through with something tremendous he’d be seen as a total poseur, a Nouveau Squeezer with a big ego. He just takes the stool nice and calm, positions that boar under his left arm, arranges them other pigs in various ways with one of ‘em under his chin and he starts to play. At first nobody recognizes the music. It sounds good, it sounds mighty good, and finally the crowd realizes that the kid is playing Wagner’s “Finale from Das Rheingold” and he is making the boar sing the part of Thor and making the piglets do the parts of the Rhinemaidens. It is spectacular! Everybody almost passes out from amazement and Felix Twitty sure as hell won the Master Pig Squeazer prize for that year and for the next five years. He’s remembered as one of the greatest squeezers in history, and might have broken Tolly Scoobus’ eight year run, ‘cept he went off to France in World War One and got shot by a farmer who thought he was stealin’ pigs. He was just playin’ scales in the barn! All he wanted was a little practice. Mighty shame, that was. Mighty shame.”
The occupants of the car drive in silence for a while.
“You’re not pullin’ my leg, are you?” Tyrone asks sincerely.
“Lord’s Truth,” Zoot swears.
___________________________________________________________
About the Author
Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.
Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award. Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.
More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com
Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos
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Mind Fields – My award winning story
Posted: March 18, 2022 Filed under: Fiction, Mind Fields, satire, Science Fantasy, Stories | Tags: Arthur Rosch, Award Winning Story, Mind Fields, Sex and the Triple Znar-Foot, Short Fction, Short Story, Writing to be Read 14 Comments
Sex and the Triple Znar-Foot
Winner of Playboy Magazine’s Best Story of The Year
Sitting indolently in his gravity couch, Nerl Forfeech was lasciviously eyeing this month’s Plaything centerfold. Two of his tongues hung out from his upper crease as the shiny cellulose pages fell all the way to the floor. Such a lavish display was essential on the planet Znar-foot, a world where six genders struggle to reach alliances and make trysts. The photo that Nerl studied included all the erotic subtypes, built up into naked pyramids of hair, tumescences and orifices.
In this issue, as always, a gorgeous nude six sprawled in the typically suggestive pile, gravity being so low on Znar-foot that any other arrangement would have resulted in the lovers floating away. Their faces were lit with the ecstasy of romantic communion, their organs photographed to be all but fully visible. Nerl, idly fondling one of his protuberances, sighed as he viewed the tinted nipples, the arousing half-glimpses of fur-covered apertures.
Then, suddenly, the door-iris swooshed open and Cloong walked in. Nerl, hastily stuffing the segments back into the magazine, almost fell from the couch as he attempted to hide the issue under some cushions.
Cloong giggled at her embarassed partial lover. “Oh, go ahead,“ she piped, “You can unfold the layout again. I don’t care. They ARE rather lovely… but so impossible, don’t you think?”
Nerl threw down the magazine in disgust. “I wish you weren’t so right. I’ve had only two sixes in my entire life, and both of them got weird right away… right after….”
His voice trailed off at the memory of it. The ecstasy! And then, inevitably, confusion.
Cloong took Nerl by the trunk nooks, and they clung together in mutual frustration. Cloong was Nerl’s Two. And together they had a tentative Three with Albolon Farfing, who, unfortunately, was doing a loose sort of thing with a Two, Three and Four down in the Freesex District, the swinger’s playground in the city of Fichi Forfoot. Albolon had a tendency to be unreliable and he slipped in and out of identities like six-sided dice. He was a Her Two, but no… she is a her3Him… or sometimes a 4femmhe. Albolon was sketchy but still they loved him, if a bit reservedly, in return.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Cloong asked, licking Nerl’s eyeknobs playfully. To Nerl it only made the craving for someone to be inserting into his side slits more powerful. Cloong was only a quasi-femguy, good for sucking and the like… but he shouldn’t be too unfair to her. After all, he was only a quasi-himgalhim, and had limited abilities, as well. Like it or not, it was the way nature made them. With dozens of erogenous zones, the Znar-feet needed flesh on all sides, working in combination to produce the orgasmic culmination of multiple personalities. You could get off with Three; Four and Five were even better. But being a Six was the ultimate, and pitifully elusive, Total Turn-on.
“What can we do?” Nerl echoed distractedly. “Is there anything we can actually do to remedy this feeling?”
“Sure,” Cloong cheerfully volunteered. “We can go pick up Albolon and cruise a Triples Bar. You never know what might happen.”
“Not again,” Nerl groaned. “I can’t take it, the futile games, the flash and glitter. I’m a simple person. All I need is a good, simple five-to-one relationship. That’s not so much to ask.”
“Come on, “ urged Cloong, lifting her appendages in his trunk nooks. The effect was sufficiently erotic. “You’ll never meet anybody if you don’t show your faces. What can you lose? Would you rather stay home all night and masturbate in the washing machine?”
“Okay okay,” Nerl gave in. “Let me get my threads on. I’ll wear my jewel-studded trunk shapers and my simulated-tumescence trouser pads.”
“That’s the way!” Cried Cloong, getting up off Nerl’s abdominal folds. “Dress up sexy!”
Later the three of them strode snout in snout down the flamboyant promenades of Flesh-Bargain City, the accepted cruising ground for Znar-Foot’s frustrated sexuals.
Cloong was bouyed up between her partial lovers, dressed in a revealing mini-suit that left quite a few of her tubes exposed. The night was torpid, just right for the ongoing voyeurism of Gendervender Plaza. (Sometimes known as Six Sex Street.) Of course Albolon and Nerl were elegant beyond compare in their striped priapic enhancers. As they progressed down the brightly lit avenue, they caught the envious stares of lonely Ones or Twos, and occasionally the pitying glances of bustling Fours and Fives. But there were no Sixes. The Sixes would undoubtedly be at someone’s apartment, in bed. Or else arguing.
Cloong, Nerl and Albolon stopped to peer into various clubs and bars, to see which ones were running Threes that night. The formats always changed, rotating a nightclub’s patronage through the various combinations, Two-Fours, Five-Ones, Singles Night, and so forth. Of course, no one EVER went to a Single Night. Too humiliating.
As they walked, peering through the transparent view bubbles of the different clubs, they were accosted by street hustlers making suggestive offers: “Say honeys,”a gaudily dressed Non-specific eyed them speculatively. “I got just the Three for you, never been Sixed before, any of them. Got a taste for some fresh action?” Or another: “Need a massage, sports? Got a lovely pair, just juicin’ to get their trunks on you.”
Ignoring the lascivious stares and remarks, Cloong, Nerl and Albolon arrived at their favorite place, The Sexagram Club, and saw that it was running Triples that night. The house band, The Numbers Racket, could be heard raucously blaring, and their pulses raced with anticipation at the wild action within. The Numbers Racket, a successful Four offstage, never failed to turn on the audiences with their erotogymnastics and jerk’n’jell music. Cloong, Nerl and Albolon showed their IDs and entered the crowded room that smelled of trunk-pit persp and stimu-mist.
“Hey babies,” a Triple, rocking past in an orbiting dance, called out. “Hey hey, let’s get it on.”
Cloong pulled back. “How unsubtle. Come on, boys, this is no place to meet nice people. Let’s get out of here.”
But Nerl and Albolon had already spotted some promising looking action. “No, let’s stay, Cloong. It was your idea in the first place. If we don’t like it after a while, we can go someplace else.” They pulled her farther into the seething mass, where dancing bodies yanked and plopped spasmodically, simulating sex.
Onstage, The Numbers Racket had sprawled atop one another in an explicit orogenital configuration, while, up front, dancing Threes screamed their shock and delight.
Against the walls of the room, stimu-mist vendors lined up next to sensory-enhancement dealers, exchanging money balls for popular brands of dope. The rest of the room was all dance floor, with sufficient space in which to flirt, writhe and show off simul-sex aptitude.
Cloong and her hims moved onto the dance floor, their eyes constantly shifting across the room, taking in the more attractive groups, canceling out the ones who held no appeal. Since their tastes were relatively alike, they intuitively crossed through the various combinations until they were close to another sexy Three who seemed alone.
Perfect! A Three with two fems. Cloong lowered her tubes a trifle suggestively at the him of the group. Meanwhile, Nerl had shown a definite tumescence at the she-she-it in the flaming orange trunk gripper. They danced up closer, coyly initiatiing eyes contact. Albolon, however, didn’t move correspondingly. He was too busy eyeing a fem in a different Three altogether.
Cloong jerked at him and he staggered forward. “Idiot,” she hissed, but the cute Three had caught the little interchange and had indifferently moved away through the crowd.
Nerl reprimanded Albolon. “You blew it for us, man. Didn’t you see those gorgeous fems? Himwit! We would have been perfect. I just know it.”
Albolon cursed. “Ah, the one in the dotted tube-throttler was a pig. I almost scored another Three for us all by myself until you pulled at me so obviously.”
Cloong waved her eyeknobs impatiently. “Look over there. Do you think we can all agree on one Three to come on to? How about that short-tall-tall number in the corner?”
Al and Nerl furtively checked it out. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Again, they spasmed across the dance floor, dodging single and double Triples to get near the attractive Three that Cloong had pointed out. This one was a good dancer, doing all the most fashionable orifice-openers among several maneuvering Threes. They were dressed in one of the latest cozy-suits, a gauzy garment that joined the three bodies in a spacious but intimate arrangement. There was an obvious zipper where another Three suit could easily be hooked in.
“We don’t have one of those suits,” Nerl commented negatively. “This Three’s too uptown for us. And look at the competition. I hate standing in line.”
“Don’t be a onesyhead,” said Albolon, who lusted after high class liaisons. “We’re artists. Rich Threes need us.”
“Now that I think about it,” said Cloong abjectly, “rich people have no sensitivity. Maybe we should go check out that long-haired Three over there in the middle.”
By the time they were in close, Albolon was dragging the others. The music lulled for a moment. Agressively, he leered at the Three and said, “Hey, babies, didn’t we meet at a sensory-awareness clinic in Big Stir?”
The chic threesome laughed disdainfully and, without even answering, lost itself in the crowd.
Nerl and Cloong clung to each other in utter embarassment.
“Albolon,” she said sadly, “if we don’t get our relationship together, pretty soon we’ll be a Two.”
Albolon farted from his side vents in frustration.
“Would that be so bad? I’ve heard you two talking together, I know what you think. You think I care about that Trip up in Snort Beach, the one you guys can’t stand.”
He was beating his trunks up and down laboredly. Cloong stroked the pits with tender solicitation.
“No, no,” they said, “we’re not jealous of them, Albolon. It’s just that sometimes your crude come-on ruins our chances.”
Albolon backed away petulantly. “You’re just possessive, that’s what. Just because I have my style and like to check out things on my own.”
He turned, broke away from them, while they stood there, stunned. All around, Threes were watching them and giggling.
“And you know,” Albolon said stingingly, “I do get off on my other Trip. At least my Snort Beach floozy gives me plenty of space. Not only that, but they give better trunk, too.”
“Albolon, you’re crazy,” protested Cloong.
“You see,” he said, his eye nooks wide, “that’s what you really think of me when I’m being honest. Well, goodbye.”
He pivoted and was lost in the whirling bodies. Cloong and Nerl tried to catch him, but the door of the club hissed shut and Albolon was gone.
Shocked, under the mortifying gaze of twittering Threes, they left the club. Outside, the street was empty of Albolon. With tears rolling down their face-folds, they made their way across the livid avenue, but the lights and gaiety had lost their charm.
“Let’s go home, Nerl,” Cloong said mournfully. “This is no way to find your nice, simple five to one relationship.”
Nerl stood stubbornly in one spot. “Go home? You must be kidding! We just lost our Three. I don’t want to go home alone tonight. I’m just not ready for it.”
“You’re NOT alone,” said Cloong, a trifle peeved.
“You know what I mean,” said Nerl, regretting his spite.
“I guess I do,” she said, fatalistically.
Nerl gazed up into the dimly visible heavens, reddish in the glow of the street lights. All his anguish at the way they had been constructed poured out of his heart and flailed weakly against the indifference of the cosmos.
“There are are some worlds out there,” he said distantly, “where I’ll bet they have only three genders, or maybe even just two. Different arrangements entirely.”
Cloong laughed and took his center trunk with her snout. “Come on, Nerl. That’s absurd. Think how dull life would be. It would all be too simple.”
He shook his shaggy mane, as if to dispel the far-flung fantasy. Taking his girlfriend by one of her more exposed tubes, he led her down the hysterical walkways in search of a Four-Two club.
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Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.
Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award. Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.
More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com
Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos
_____________________________________________________________________
Want to be sure not to miss any of Arthur’s “Mind Fields” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress. If you find it interesting or just entertaining, please share.
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“Weeping Willows”: A Ghostly Tale
Posted: April 21, 2017 Filed under: Book Review, Fiction, Paranormal, Speculative Fiction, Stories | Tags: B.J. Robinson, Book Review, Ghosts, Paranormal, Short Fiction, Short Story, Weeping Willows Leave a comment
Weeping Willows by B.J. Robinson has the potential to be a good ghostly tale. Unfortunately, Robinson didn’t take it quite far enough. All the elements are there, but they just don’t come together very well.
The story fails to set a tone scary enough to cause any real anticipation. The House of Usher, it is not. The one spirit that actually shows herself, isn’t very threatening, is actually rather helpful, providing all the needed information about the house’s history, so the story may proceed, thus removing any sense of mystery the story might have been carrying.
The plot is classic haunted house to the point of almost being cliché. Two couples enter into a contest where the couple who lasts the longest in the old house, which threatens to crumble and fall into the sea, wins a honeymoon in Hawaii, but of course, the house is haunted and the spirits don’t seem happy about its latest guests.
The circumstances often seem a little too convenient, as if the events occur at the convenience of the author, to get the story out. It feels like the characters do what is necessary for the story to unfold, but perhaps not what would be natural for their personalities, but that could be because the characters lack depth. Character development is always a challenge when writing short fiction due to the short amount of page space, but without it, it’s difficult to care about the characters.
Weeping Willows is a ghost story of fair quality. I give it three quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs at no charge. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
