海角大神

鈥淒id you know that every pig on the planet is pregnant for three months, three weeks, and three days?鈥� Mr. Fletcher said as we rested our arms on the fence.

鈥淣o way, you鈥檙e pulling my leg again.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 true. Once they mate, we can put an X on the calendar, and you鈥檒l know about when they鈥檒l farrow.鈥澛�

鈥淥h my, look,鈥� I pointed over to the boar and the sow. 鈥淚 guess I鈥檒l go in and put an X on the calendar, the one from the feed store, I think.鈥澛�

鈥淎ny calendar with days ending in Y will do,鈥� he snorted. 鈥淵ou city people.鈥澛�

Three months, three weeks, and three days later, February snow drifted up against the barn. I shoveled a 150-foot path from the house, in the dark, even though it was Academy Awards night and this chore meant I was going to miss most of the red carpet.聽

The X on the kitchen calendar stood out like Angelina Jolie鈥檚 leg in that fabulous black dress. I had no choice. 鈥淧erfect,鈥� I thought. 鈥淭he only night I get to pretend I don鈥檛 live here.鈥澛�

Now weighing more than 500 pounds each, the two sows were lying in straw beds they鈥檇 made for themselves, each in a separate corner of the freezing barn. Nothing was happening except low grunting, the same noise they made when I fed them stale Sunday doughnuts.聽

Around 1 a.m., after the best picture was awarded to a movie I hadn鈥檛 seen, I trudged back out to the barn.聽

Blood-streaked piglets were loose everywhere, and high-pitched squealing reverberated like 15 whistling teakettles. A few newborn piglets wandered around, seemingly dazed; one was bashing up against the barn wall again and again. More came from both sows at a frequency that seemed miraculous and excessive.聽

鈥淚 mean, are you kidding me?鈥� I yelled to the assembly.

I had no idea what to do next. Completely clueless. Obviously, I had prepped for the event. I鈥檇 read everything I could find. I simply did not think I鈥檇 be working with such volume. I left the barn and went out into the pen, looked up to the heavens, and said, 鈥淗ey, I have absolutely no idea what to do next.鈥澛�

I turned toward the road because the wind picked up just then and bit my face hard as only a February wind can. Running lights, the kind that comes standard on every pickup truck, shone like little beacons, making their way down my driveway.聽

The radio stopped when the driver鈥檚 door opened. Mr. Fletcher stepped out.聽

鈥淭hree months. Three weeks. Three days. And I forgot to tell you, usually at 3 o鈥檆lock in the morning.鈥�

The clock in the barn read 2:45. He had timed his heroism perfectly.聽

鈥淵ou鈥檙e a good man, Mr. Fletcher, you know that, right?鈥� I said, patting his shoulder as he opened the gate to get to the pigs.聽

鈥淲ell, no one knew that until I met you,鈥� he said, gently placing the piglets under the heat lamps with hands the size of dinner plates. 鈥淵ou went and ruined my reputation.鈥�

鈥淚t was my pleasure, Mr. Fletcher. My pleasure,鈥� I said to his profile as we watched the piglets do the Darwinian dance of who can get the best spot under a heat lamp.聽

I used to think that there was no arc to Mr. Fletcher鈥檚 story, that he is and will forever be a man going from work to church to home (鈥渕inus the church,鈥� he鈥檇 say), expecting little and living a predictable life based on the seasons and the chores that went with each.

I was wrong.

Yes, his truck will never leave the county and yet will log 200,000 miles in five years. He will never take a vacation, get on a plane, or sit in a cafe surrounded by chatter he cannot understand. His life will not be cinematic, but that鈥檚 not important or necessary.聽

That鈥檚 because he spent a freezing February night placing 22 warm, clean piglets up against their waiting moms, making sure that they 鈥� and I 鈥� found peace. Acts of unselfish kindness can change a person from grumpy to gentle, or at least that鈥檚 what happened to my friend Mr. Fletcher: a hero on any day that ends in Y.