As I'm writing the biography of American author John "Stoner" Williams, I look for connections between Williams' experiences and his fiction. Here's my description of butchering a hog on his grandfather's farm in Texas during the Depression and how it later played into his novel, BUTCHER'S CROSSING:
Grandfather Walker decided John Ed needed some toughening-up. Although the boy spent most of his time outdoors— he enjoyed hunting and did his chores before and after school— he was beginning to stammer like he was fearful. He spent every spare moment reading Westerns, which Walker knew were unreliable, having lived in Indian Territory himself. A boy shouldn't fixate so much on stories and mental work to the neglect of his physical self. "Don't read so much— you'll put out your eyes," he told him, but it made no difference.
So come the first cold day of winter, Walker laid down the law. "If you're going to eat pork, you should know where it comes from." The old man got down the .22 rifle and together they went outside, across the yard over to the pig pen.
They discussed which was the best-looking pig, then the old man climbed into the pen, took a couple of boards and swatted the animal on the rump and sides, steering it toward the fence. It ambled right up, its muddy snout snuffling at John Ed. Walker tethered the head so the hog couldn't move out of the way.
"Shoot it," he said. The old man tapped at a spot right between his eyes.
John Ed raised the barrel of the rifle, aimed between the fence boards and pulled the trigger. The rifle jumped and the report sent the other pigs scampering away. The old man knelt, reached with a butcher knife through the fence and sliced the pig's jowl, releasing a splash of blood on its front feet. It collapsed butt first then lolled halfway to one side, letting its heart bleed out the gash. They got the truck, tied a rope around its hind trotters, and dragged it over to the barn.
They filled an oil barrel standing on bricks with water from the pump, set kindling afire and turned it into a scalding bath. When grandpa judged the water was hot enough, he looped the free end of rope through a pulley overhead. Then they hauled the pig up into the air by his hind legs, swung it into place, and lowered it like it was diving into the boiling water. After a few minutes, they pulled it out again, steaming and clean. John Ed helped scrape the bristles off the hide until the flesh was white. With a smaller knife, Walker cored the hog's rectum, pulled it out, went around to the front, split the crotch and tied off the pizzle so there wouldn't be pee everywhere.
In Butcher's Crossing, Williams wrote about buffalo skinning, "The hide parted neatly with a faint ripping sound. With a stubbier knife, he cut around the bag that held the testicles, cut through the cords that held them and the limp penis to the flesh; he separated the testicles, which were the size of small crab-apples, from the other parts of the bag, and tossed them to one side; then he slit the few remaining inches of hide to the anal opening. 'I always save the balls,' he said. 'They make mighty good eating, and they put starch in your pecker.'"
Walker took a hacksaw, held the pig's head steady by one ear so the carcass wouldn't swing, and sawed through the neck. The head fell heavily to the floor of the barn and Walker shoved it aside with his boot. Then he inserted the butcher knife into the neck hole and flayed upwards through the chest, stopping to pull the rib cage apart, and stepped back out of the way. The gut sack leaned out and tumbled through, landing wetly at his feet.
It was hog butchering, Grandfather Walker's demonstration in the barn. But Williams, with a writer's eye, took note of it as a procedure with a beginning, middle, and end. How a beast falls from a gunshot and surrenders to the knife; how its flesh comes off like rind on a fruit— if it's done correctly. And how during the Great Depression, everything excerpt the pig's squeal would be used for food.
