PIG SWEATIN’, by Jacob S. Knabb

Knabb is co-owner of Curbside Splendor Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of Another Chicago Magazine — he works as a janitor for THE2NDHAND.

for James Tadd Adcox, as per his rules and all at once

Me and Dawn Ray was out in the garage pig sweatin’ Pete Ramsey’s fat ass for pills while Harold and his band was practicin’ when Mindy Jefferson and Cancerdog Adkins come barrelin’ right up the driveway in his F-150 and got out and walked straight over to Harold and Cancerdog took to beatin’ him down into the ground never sayin’ word one with Mindy over ’em screamin’ you just better hope I ain’t pregnant cuz I’ll own your ass you barrelchested son of a bitch and that just went all through me ’cause everybody knows Harold wouldn’t fuck that skanky hollerbitch with Pete Ramsey’s dick so I walked right up and blacked her eye and that’s when Cancerdog turned on me yellin’ you best mind your own fucken business Nichole you purplehaired bitch and I screamed this is my fucken business because I just made it my fucken business and I shoved Cancerdog and told him you’re free lunch motherfucker and your whole family’ll die wearin’ wellstained churchclothes and then I grabbed Harold off the ground which is somthin’ considerin’ I only weigh a-hundred-and-five-pounds with my Oxblood steeltoe Doc Martens on thank you very much but that’s just how pissed I was because me and Harold ain’t like the rest of Boone County since he’s gonna be a famous country singer and I’m gonna be his photographer and document everything we do and show the world just what they’re missin’ while they sit in the bleachers at Skyhawk football games spittin Copenhagen into popbottles stuffed with napkins and most of ’em either laid off or on worker’s comp while their sons get their asses kicked and not a one of them will say a goddamn thing about the fact that the principal and the math teacher just got busted smokin’ meth on school property cuz they’re too fucken busy puttin’ stickers of Calvin pissin’ all over some NASCAR number on their freshwaxed 4x4s and callin’ in to vote for some TV dance show on Sunday nights fresh from church and full up with the spirit and clappin’ their guts out when their boys don’t fuck up against the Sherman Tide and their asses numb from bleacher metal and they make me want to puke and that’s exactly what I did I puked up big hunks of hamburger and strawberry milkshake and halfchewed nervepills right onto Mindy Jefferson and Cancerdog Adkins and Harold started laughin’ blood pourin’ from his mouth and Mindy and Cancerdog turned right around and got into that truck without even wipin’ any of that vomit off and they laid ten feet of tire gettin’ outta here so fast and I could feel Dawn Ray and them lookin’ at me and Harold like holy fucken shit did that really just happen as I turned to ’em with them halfdigested purple klonopins burnin’ my throat all to shit and fuck you if it wouldn’t of made a perfect picture.