It wasn’t that long after I’d entered the seminary

Back then they let you go in at thirteen, fourteen

If it seemed to be God’s will

I was still getting used to waking up to the morning prayers

The hard kneelers, the Latin, the soft music

The serene face on the wooden crucifix

Suspended from the chapel ceiling

Between the stain glass windows

My stomach still growling at waiting until after Mass for breakfast

My knees just starting their calluses

It wasn’t that long, maybe a month or two in

That I was first assigned to farm duty

During the manual labor period

That time after lunch when we all did the jobs that kept the place going

I remember bouncing down the dirt road in the back of the truck

Quite an adventure for a kid from Peekskill

The farm was on the property

You could see the chapel up the hill

Brother Thomas ran it

His way of serving the Lord was to raise the pigs we ate for supper

We were all assigned our jobs

Some to dump what looked like a mix of bad apples and kitchen garbage into the food troughs

Some to shovel the shit out of the muddy pens

I’d never seen pigs up close before

They were loud and messy

But seemed basically satisfied with their lot

I stood around for a minute while the others got their tasks

Then Brother Thomas said “Come with me”

I followed him into a small cement building with a wooden roof

It really stank in there

Right away I saw why

In the middle of the room, hanging by its two hind hoofs from a pair of hooks

Was a pig

A large slash ran down its belly from top to bottom

And red gloppy stuff was still oozing out of its insides

Into a big tin pail underneath its head

Which was where the stink was coming from

I’d never smelled anything like it

Not all the stuff had hit the can and the floor was a bloody mess

I could tell it had just been killed

Because smoke was still rising from its insides

Nobody paid much attention to me for a minute

They all knew their jobs

Two of the bigger guys lifted the pail and took it out to dump it someplace

Then another of the upper classmen

A guy I didn’t know

Picked up a long hose with a thin metal nozzle

And sprayed the pig inside and out

He did the floor too

I saw the clumps of blood go down a hole in the cement

The whole room filled up with steam

Probably from the cold water being shot into the pig’s hot insides

Then Brother Thomas handed me a short knife

It was an old knife

Not rusty, but old

Wooden handle, metal blade

Seen a lot of use

And he gave me my task

Which was to shave the pig

He’d picked me for the job because I was tall

And could reach as far as the tail

If I stretched a bit

Pigs, in case you’ve never noticed

Are covered with pale, bristly hair

Kind of like Brillo but a lot thicker and longer

It was important, he explained, to shave the pig while it was still wet

He took my hand in his

And guided me through a few preliminary strokes

The hair resisted for a second, then gave

If you went against the grain

Which he showed me how to do

I remember his hand

Rough and hard

Then he stepped back and said “Now you try it”

I did, and after a few false starts

When it seemed like I was never going to cut anything

The hair gave and I started to get the hang of it

“Try not to cut into the hide” he said

“The meat will keep better if it’s not cut”

Then he went out into the sunlight

Leaving me alone with the pig

All the light in the room came through a pair of dirty windows

But I could see well enough to manage

So for the next hour or so I worked my way around the pig

Getting better at it as I went

It wasn’t that different from shaving myself

Which I was also just learning to do

I only made one cut that I remember

Up by the tail

Probably because I was stretching

And my arm was getting tired

By the end of the job I had pretty much forgotten about the pig

Or the fact that he’d been alive at lunchtime

And just focused on it as a job

I wanted to finish

The pile of hair on the cement floor kept growing

And I kept wiping off the knife

And my shoes too, which were a real mess

I had to clean up in the slop sink later

When the chapel bell rang

Signaling the end of manual labor

I wasn’t quite done

One last patch down near the throat

That I’d kept putting off because it was easier to stretch than to bend

But Brother Thomas said I’d done fine, he’d finish

And I went back to another truck ride and a shower and religion class

Where I sat at my desk in a clean white shirt

And black tie

And took notes for the exam

And learned about the merits of the crucifixion

The glory of Jesus’ suffering

And God’s mercy.