Ike the Spike

We got two weanlings when I was nine very early in the spring. Dad paid five dollars for each of them. They were males, so Dad wanted them castrated so they would grow better to eat. I learned later on that these were called barrows. Ike offered to come and do it for a shot of whiskey.

Saturday afternoon Ike came over and we slogged through frozen snow and mud to the half painted barn. Red faded into the more faded white.

Inside, Ike leaned on the thick boards along the top of the pen. He reached down, grabbed a little pig by a hind leg. The pig squealed, but not too loud to put up with. Ike grabbed the other leg and held the legs on the edge so the head hung down. Ike got Dad to reach over and hold the weanling. in the shuffle I caught an elbow in the head. Ike reached into his pocket and pulled out something I had never seen before. Ike smiled and showed his missing teeth. He laughed his good natured laugh. "I used to use this one for shaving." He flipped open the straight razor.

He reached over and pinched the little sac just under the weanling's arsehole so that the skin was stretched tight. He touched the razor to the skin between the pigs nuts and a cut appeared and two little ovals popped out. He sliced them off and flicked them to the floor in the pen. The high pitched squeal registered finally in my head. I glanced up at Dad. He had a slight frown. Ike motioned for Dad to let the little one go. Ike focused in the pen. One of the other two weanlings sniffed at the white pieces on the pen floor, and Ike leaned forward and scooped a back leg. He brought the pig over to where Dad was so Dad could hold this one again. The squealing was loud, but when Ike made his cuts, I could hear the different pitch in the weanling's voice.

The third weanling had eaten the first's nuts off the floor, and when it smelled the second's nuts laying on the floor in the clean straw, Ike scooped it up. He repeated his operation. This time I could hear the different pitch in the squeal as Ike made the first cut, and there seemed no difference as he made the second cut.

Ike told us that if there was even a bit of red around the cut the next morning to get the penicillin from town. They hardly ever got sick from the way he did the castrations he said. He always cleaned the razor and kept it very sharp. He wiped it on the leg of his coveralls. He said he'd clean it at home. Dad showed him the horses in the east end of the barn and we fed and watered them. Ike helped us chuck a couple of bales to the cattle, then we went in.

Ike stopped at his car and carried in the smallest guitar case I had ever seen. He answered my question with just a grin and arched his eyebrows. Iniside Ike pulled out the instrument and tuned it. Mom pulled out her guitar and they tuned them together. When Ike was ready, he turned to me and said, "This is a mandolin."

He led us through songs I'd never heard of, but Mom and Dad had. They had the half bottle of rye whiskey out and finished it before supper. Ike wouldn't stay for supper, but said he would come back to help us cut up the pigs if we got the local slaughter house to do the killing. That way we would know that we got everything from the pig. I had never thought that a butcher might cheat us, but then I thought about how easy that would be when the meat always came wrapped. How would we know.

A few years later we saw Ike on the local TV station playing with his trio. He sat stiff-backed on stage as if he was nailed there. He only moved his hands in time to the songs. I looked at him on the black and white screen. He was out of place.

Years later, after I moved back to the area, I joined the fire department and took the emergency medical training. One of the others was the wife of Ike's only son. Everyone called her by her right name now that she was a mom instead of the nickname that I remembered from high school.