Attack of the 4'2" PigBoy©

By Julien Lowenfels

PigBoy is what they called me. It took those vicious teenagers forever to stop.

There is nothing worse than waking up at five in the morning during the summer when you’re a kid. At fourteen, I had to get up that early five days a week to go to work all summer long. Several events led up to my finding a job that year, not the least of which was the fact that my father’s work had fallen through. He’d moved us all to Incline Village, a small, affluent community in Lake Tahoe after he had been rewarded with a promising new project in Reno, Nevada. Unfortunately, my father’s wealthy benefactor had passed away and things began to quickly spiral downward. Within a matter of months, my family was broke.

One day it became clear that I would have to find a job. It was a modest little scene; I arrived at home after school and in my usual fashion, began guzzling milk right from the container. My mother interrupted me to say, a) please don’t drink directly from the container again, and b) it really doesn’t matter because we won’t have milk for guzzling anymore anyway. It was clear from that moment on that I would have to fund my own activities. I needed to find a job. My neighbor Monique suggested I work with her. I had very grudgingly agreed, knowing exactly what that meant.

Monique worked at the Ponderosa Ranch, which had been built in order to film “Bonanza,” the popular western television show from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. Previously occupied in the television dimension by the Cartwright family, it was now a sad, discarded little fake western town, with the look of a place that had once known the bent thrill of mediocre fame and unsustainable glory, both of which had long ago faded. There were dilapidated, faded signs strewn throughout the ranch, which read things like “Hoss Sat Here,” or “Little Joe’s Favorite Fence;” it was profoundly depressing. Like a giant, rotting façade of a cowboy, the ranch had become an uninspiring diversion for the tourists in Lake Tahoe who could not brave the icy cold of the lake during the summer. The Ponderosa mostly attracted families still lost in the mysticism of ‘50’s television – they would stroll the pretend main street, lapping at cherry snow cones with their red dye number nine stained tongues, calling out to each other whenever a familiar building came into view. It was a haven for people who could not get a life.

The Ponderosa was also the place for local teenagers from poor families to earn summer wages, while their wealthy peers enjoyed water skis, pulled by the umbilical tow ropes attached to their father’s powerboats along with the other spoils of a happy, well-financed summertime in Lake Tahoe. To work at the Ponderosa Ranch was basically the equivalent of carrying a sign that read, “Beat me up – I’m poor.” It was the greatest insult in the minds of Lake Tahoe teenagers, nothing less than a fall from grace and there was no other place in Incline Village that would hire a fourteen-year old. I had no choice but to apply for a job, an act, if successful, would garner me the dubious achievement of being the youngest payroll worker in Incline Village. Much to my chagrin, I was hired.

Monique tried her best to appear supportive while suppressing her amusement. Fully comfortable with her advanced fifteen-year old wisdom, she informed me that upon employment, a new employee was issued a western outfit, consisting of blue jeans and a red and white checkered cowboy shirt, complete with mother-of-pearl snaps, which would look “totally cute” on me. Continuing, Monique said the new recruit was then assigned to an area of the ranch. Even within the Ponderosa, there was a pecking order among the disgruntled teenage employees. The most sought-after positions were as tour guides in the Cartwright’s house, a one room, log-veneer masterpiece of proto-modern fifties television realism. Dust covered and without plumbing, it felt nothing like a real home but more of a crash-test dummy of a house. Even at fourteen, I realized that a goal of climbing my way up the ranch’s rope ladder of success to only end-up giving “tours” of one room of an old set was as vacant as the shiny-lipped seventeen-year old female veterans of the Ranch who were the current tour guides. 

Other positions vied for at the Ponderosa were in the gift shop, the snack bar and the carnival games section where Monique worked. At the bottom of the list and the lowest of the low, was the petting zoo.

At fourteen, I was rather diminutive, barely clearing four foot two inches in height. On my first day, the sage-like eighteen-year old manager could not find a western outfit small enough for me. Due to the fact that I was joining the ranch a bit late in the season, all that was available were a pair of huge blue jeans and an extra-large red and white-checkered shirt. Once I had changed, the manager realized the jeans were not going to stay up. He solved this problem by tying a rope around my waist. As I stood in the outfit waiting for my assignment, feeling my bony arms floating in the voluminous sleeves of the shirt, I also felt the tears welling in my eyes. I kept swallowing the lump that was growing in my throat. I hoped he had not noticed. Then he uttered those fateful words; I watched as his pimply lips parted in slow motion, the first whiskers of his developing manhood sprouting from the eruptions around his mouth, giving it the look of a strange spiny succulent. From this ugly opening crawled the phrase, “Petting Zoo.” My heart began pounding, causing the arteries in my head to bang my temples like conga drums. He then fastened a heavy coin changer around my waste, instantly causing the jeans to sag. At this point, I almost stopped breathing completely. In a short time, I would find myself holding my breath on purpose.

From then on at five every morning, Monique and I could be found waiting out in the cold summer Tahoe mornings as my father backed our poorly heated ’66 Land Rover out of the garage. I was more than angry at him as I felt that the whole ordeal was directly his fault. I would stand leaning on one hip as only a teenager is able, arms folded in bitter protest as he motioned me into the Rover each morning. This was the carpool to the Ponderosa, home, home on derange and my own private western-styled hell.

I dreaded each morning as the Rover would round the bend and I would see the Ranch as it loomed from its position tucked at the bottom of a hillside on the main highway, which encircled the lake. In the parking lot each morning where my father dropped us off, the overpowering smell of the Petting Zoo at the very end of the ranch filled my nostrils, instantly causing my breakfast to threaten re-emergence. As I walked towards the impending torment, I learned to pass time by counting days until the summer was over and I could return to school. Somehow this made my trek to the Petting Zoo tolerable.

The Petting Zoo consisted of an open corral inhabited by five filthy, full-grown hogs. In the corner of the sty were pellet dispensers that, for a dime, spewed a handful of alfalfa pellets so the tourists could feed the pigs. The odd thing about the petting zoo is that no actual petting ever occurred. This was most probably due to the fact that the hogs were usually soaked with feces and mud. The pigs were joined in their pen by enormous swirling clouds of biting black flies.

Working in the Petting Zoo was a true punishment; I often wondered what I had done. Apparently, the alfalfa pellet dispensers were placed inside the pen to deter theft or vandalism. My job was simple: to make change and get a handful of alfalfa pellets from the dispensers for the tourists. The pungent mud and shit mixture that comprised the floor of the pen steamed every morning in the bitterly cold air, composting the hogs and me slowly, from the feet up. The pigs were huge, their backs much higher than the top of my head, accentuated by the fact that my feet and ankles often disappeared into the six inches of fluid, heated fecal-magma that masqueraded as the ground. Guests would lean over the railings and yell with excitement into the pen for assistance and then alternatively gasp in shock disbelieving their eyes as I materialized as if from thin air; a tiny androgynous child in dirty, oversized clothing barely able to walk through the giant beasts. The sight of me must have been astounding. Matching the hogs, I was usually coated by nine in the morning with dirt and feces. The tourists would watch me struggle through the sludge towards them, sliding along “Igor-style” in their direction, my eyes fixed on the ground, my shoes making a suction cup-like sound as I freed each foot from the dung soup to take the next step. Now and then as I approached, I would have to yank on my legs with both hands to free them from the bog, which often resulted, at times, in my shoes being pulled completely off, followed by a search for the missing shoe deep in the moving mud. The sleeves of my extra-large cowboy shirt hung to my knees from the weight of the gross sludge caked upon them; I constantly re-rolled them or shoved them up my arms just so I could find my hands. The tourists would silently lean over the fence and hand me quarters once I stood before them, thoughts of quiet sympathy and mercy killing on their faces.

If I were able to locate the coin changer concealed by the filthy folds of my giant shirt, I would make change for the tourists and begin my journey to the alfalfa dispensers. I had learned to store alfalfa pellets in the huge pockets of my pants and shirt, so I could throw them to the opposite side of the pen, bating the swine so they would not notice me as I would ker-plunk, ankle deep in the poopy quagmire to the dispensers. Unfortunately, over the years, the beasts had become slaves to the sound of the crank of the pellet dispensers; they had become Pavlov’s Hogs. Upon hearing the crank, the pigs would rush the machines and me, knocking me over, grunting as they punted me about in the mud like a volleyball in their frenzied search for pellets. 

Occasionally, I would somehow manage to get a few pellets to the tourists. Strangely no longer interested in feeding the pigs themselves, the tourists’ mouths were more times than not hanging open in shock at this point and they would try to hide the looks of horror on their faces, a reaction to the spectacle of my unintentional circus act.  All parents present tended to attempt to draw their children’s attention away from me and point with false smiles to the Cartwright’s fake-house on the hill.

Unfortunately, attention distraction would fail if even one cruel child extended his or her hand over the railing in even a mock offering of pellet, for this would cause the pigs to panic, smashing and rolling me between them as they scrambled from the dispensers to eat out of the tourists’ hands. Sometimes, I would get lifted from the ground completely, my muffled screams barely audible, with great rises and falls in volume, as I was held firmly between the belly-sides of the monstrous animals. My wailing and squirming would cause the pigs to further panic and run in herd formation, with me suspended by their enormous guts. My muddy blonde bowl cut would flap in the breeze as the pigs gained velocity as they ran, swirling in circles around the pen. When this happened, the tourist mothers, unable to utter a word, would often cover their children’s eyes, even when the occasional two or three-year old would clap, mistaking my torment for a performance. This went on every day, several times a day. I was ruining vacations.

If this all weren’t enough, I had developed an ineffective coping strategy; I simply cried…the entire time. I cried while I gathered change. I cried while I dispensed pellets. I cried while lifted by the pigs. During quiet periods, I would lean against the pigs crying, drying my eyes with the giant sleeves of my muddy shirt. By the end of each day, my tears would cut two clear trails through the brown mask of my face. Even during lunch, as I sat on the steps of the make-believe church, praying to the façade for help while eating tuna sandwiches prepared by my mother, I cried. Sometimes I think the tourists passing by considered me animatronic; a robotic part of the church set. Church, sobbing child, muddy clothes, tuna fish – somehow, I guess it worked.

After two weeks of this, I was called to the office. There had been complaints. My wailing was disturbing and upsetting to our visitors. I was told that I was going to be fired for crying if I didn’t stop. Of course, upon hearing this, I immediately started crying. My manager took pity on me and transferred me to the carnival game section.

Thus, I graduated from the Petting Zoo; a rite of passage. I spent the rest of that summer swindling tourists who hoped to win big, ugly stuffed animals; that felt GOOD. Eventually, Monique stopped asking about the “Crying Zoo,” as she called it but everyone else called me PigBoy for the rest of the summer. The pigs actually seemed to miss me, as children who had lost a favorite stuffed sock-monkey might feel. Still, despite all the taunting, I actually began to enjoy my new carnival games assignment. Arriving clean and leaving work clean in of itself felt like a promotion. By the way, the milk cans are rigged – they are specially made with a smaller opening at the top, so a softball can barely fit through. So are the apple baskets; they are nailed to the stand but not before a large piece of rubber is placed under them, so each softball will bounce right out - yup, swindling felt good.

However, when I reminisce about the Ponderosa, I often think of the two weeks in the Petting Zoo and not the carnival games. Sometimes, decades later, as I sat in the large, beautiful conference room of the glorious state-of-the-art high-rise building in downtown San Francisco, where I spent years as a corporate paralegal, I would glance across the exquisite and enormous mahogany table, exchanging looks with the corporate attorneys sitting around me, their handsome faces reflected in the intense shine of the table’s surface, dressed in their corporate casual wear from Banana Republic, I would sigh deeply with satisfaction and think, “I really miss those pigs.”

("Lord of the Pigs" comic above completed by an audience member during live reading in Cotati, California ca. 2000.)