Two New Stories: “Pigfoot” and “Witches of Fresno”

In a pair of flash fiction pieces from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 43, “Fixation,” Venita Blackburn traces the porous border between this life and one beyond.

By Venita BlackburnDecember 4, 2024

• LARB Lit

• Fiction

These stories are a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 43: Fixation. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print.

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Pigfoot

I VISITED MY GRANDPA IN HOSPICE when he told me about Pigfoot and the murder. I forgot you aren’t supposed to ask old people questions, especially about things people don’t talk about on purpose.

The body landed and everyone got confused, grandpa said.

It was August when I visited so I thought about how summer makes the air heavier at your feet than at your head. I imagined my uncle’s head bouncing on that air, no sound, no rocks moving, no leaves crunching, everything wet and green and growing since they were all country folks.

We knew what to do way before our brother walked into the woods with us. We knew he wasn’t leaving.

All I did was ask why people call my aunt Pigfoot.

She used to talk all the time about the things she learned at school or in her books. I took a book out of her hand once and her mama slapped me on the chin hard enough to leave a mark; it was as high up as she could reach being so short. Let her read, she said.

We ain’t the kind that scrap like that, so I knew grandma was big mad. According to grandpa, Auntie Pigfoot got her name the day her mama put some pointy mary janes on her that made her clop around like a goat on a deck.

Goat?

Pig. Don’t matter, it stuck from then on.

I gave him some water out of those pink plastic cups that suck the happy right out of you upon touch. He rolled over half frozen to sip.

I’m not dead yet, and if there’s any justice on the earth, I’ll live long enough to have more than this in my head.

Auntie Pigfoot used to be this talking wiry thing whipping through the house only stopping to tell grandpa some horrible something she learned. Did you know this and did you know that about some octopus that changes color or that the catholics drink real wine in church.

That should’ve been her name: Did you know? Daddy, did you know plants eat light? Daddy, did you know people dance with corpses?

What?

She said they pop ’em out of the graves every few years to just hang out, sit the bones around the house, at the dinner table, on the patio, and then have a ceremony where they dance with ’em. She said mmmm-hmm and went back to reading leaving me and her mama looking at each other like damn. Her mama told me first. I didn’t think it possible. Had to hold me back with that weird small woman power she got when she put her hand right on my sternum, and I couldn’t push past her. We needed to talk about it. Her eyes were red and watery and her voice steady and I saved my hammer. We talked with my other brothers and one of my cousins and our only sister. Some of ’em we didn’t trust. We sat like crows in a circle. Pigfoot was almost five months in when she told her mama why she wasn’t bleeding and had gone so quiet and who did it. When all of us stood together after, we didn’t talk about the law or God or forgiveness or forgetting or how most of those things didn’t care much about Pigfoot and her baby and how small they both was in the end and how her voice stayed locked up inside for a long time. We talked about tomorrow and when tomorrow came who would be in it or not. It doesn’t change you as much as the preachers say. Food still tasted fine … except in here.

You like the Jell-O.

I like that it’s cold. The cold is nice.

Yeah. I like the green one.

I took a deep breath with this pocket of something ballooning in my back. I wondered if it was always there or I just noticed for the first time, this work we have with family and how much there is to manage.

And the green ones are alright.

Grandpa turned to me with his stiff neck from the stroke and his watery eyes wide like I was about to fall down.

Don’t worry now. It’s more like paying a big bill and there’s not anything leftover to work with but you don’t have the payment no more. We all knew we could be fine with that.

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Witches of Fresno

WHEN YOU MEET A WITCH IN FRESNO, you’ll be just past the high note of your latest tragedy. Witches of Fresno drive cars with failing transmissions and loose hubcaps. Witches of Fresno smoke Black & Milds and fear dental care. Witches of Fresno are born with talents spectacular and rare but are unable to monetize them. Witches of Fresno can see all of your dead, the recently buried, the ash and wood, the murdered and the drowned and those that still breathe but are about to be lost. They see them clear as red caterpillars on the green leaf of your body, small, bizarre, and beautiful things that crawl over your skin.

You will meet your Fresno witch at a house party in Old Fig, someone’s grandaunt’s home occupied by two cats and an immense collection of jade flowers. The house will smell like sweat, nutmeg, and termites. Your heart will palpitate like a struck bell, something you’ve been told happens at your age and the proposed surgery is often unsuccessful.

Witches of Fresno play bingo at the casino on Sunday afternoons and always win. Witches of Fresno take their bingo winnings to play the lottery and always lose. Witches of Fresno are kind alcoholics who chew sugar free gum before breakfast.

At the party, one witch will play a guitar and sing with a voice that strokes your bones while her face reminds you of a tarantula. She will make you feel sad and fortunate and sad again to the rhythm of your unsteady heart. When she smiles at you, the need to pretend to be fine vanishes like a fart blown through a window and you laugh then laugh some more. She will nod and you will drink and drink and drink.

Witches of Fresno have bad credit and many friends. Witches of Fresno walk in a hundred-degree heat to get $5 pizza at noon because they can’t afford gas. Witches of Fresno always share their food.

A voice to your left will say, I can see your mother all around you. You were loved. The witches on the sofa and in the hall will sip Everclear and margarita mix from used beer cans and grin at you with awe and envy. One witch will vomit uncontrollably into the night.

Witches of Fresno have old chihuahuas and Yorkies, hella old like 19, they declare. Witches of Fresno donate to charity when they are hungry. Witches of Fresno grow tomatoes and basil in plastic pots and give the seedlings to neighbors.

When you begin to sober up, you will want to ask questions. You will want to talk to your dead. You will begin to lose the inclination towards freedom and want that feeling back again. You will seek out the tarantula face and demand she smile and know your soul one more time. You will listen to the silence for her voice and find less than the memory. You will want to hear confirmation that you are not alone in the same words as before but you don’t know who said them. You will feel the skin of your lips begin to slough away from dryness, so you’ll bite bit by bit and begin to stress eat your own mouth. The witches will be in various states of drunk and disorderly. They will not remember your name or your loss or how you came to them or where you will go after. They will look at your face like you are the whole moon and ask if you’re sure this was the plan all along.

Witches of Fresno die with no debts and no property. Their belongings are scattered to the nearest hands like soil overturned.

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Featured image: George Inness. The Home of the Heron, 1893. Art Institute of Chicago, Edward B. Butler Collection (1911.31). CC0, artic.edu. Accessed November 19, 2024. Image has been cropped.