9/3/01: The Pig Roast. Really.
The bathroom of my aunt's husband's house is carpeted in light blue. It’s full of my baby cousin’s bath toys and Amway products, left over from when my aunt used to sell them. The toilet paper dispenser is attached to the wall with largish hooks shaped like American eagles. On the wall is a small display of collectible, commemorative pins from the 1982 Winter Olympics. I guess these are the pins that couldn’t fit into the huge display of pins hanging in the hallway. It’s nice and quiet here in the bathroom, so I’m taking a moment to floss and look out the window. It’s a small window, built to fit in the eaves, but from here I can see the whole party.
My family -- my mother's sisters and their husbands -- are mostly sitting together off to the side, closer to the house. There is a non-Flannery feeling to this event, so the aunties haven't broken out the pinochle cards. Maybe it's the lack of diet Coke and M&Ms, which are standard fare at any "real" family gathering -- you really can't play pinochle without them.
The other people here are milling around closer to the converted barn, which is where beer is available on tap. Some of the guys -- friend's of my aunt's husband, I guess -- are poking at the pig slowly roasting on its spit. I can just see it from where I am. There is no apple in its mouth, but maybe that's just a pig roast myth. Goodness, the subject is just rife with myths!
I'm telling myself I should bite the bullet and go back out there, when I hear, on a microphone, my aunt's husband saying: "Iss everybothy ready to pardy? 'Causse the party's jusst gedding started!" Got to love it when somebody drunk gets ahold of a microphone. I look down at my family again. My 9-year-old cousin is listening to her CD-walkman, and my 4-year-old cousin is poking her in the ribs, trying to get her to play with her. I throw my floss away and head out, down the rickety steps, past the den where some unidentified children are watching The Sound of Music, out to the girls. "Spin me!" says the little one, with one of her brilliant smiles. I'm such a sucker.
When we're all a little dizzy, I take a moment to find my aunt, the one who lives here. "Who are those kids watching TV in the den?" I ask her.
She shrugs. "This isn't my party," she says.
We stand at the snack table, eating potato chips, watching the pig slowly turn on its spit.