Chapter 21: Chapter 20 – Make Roast Pig

Mrs. Tam stands at our door. "Hi, Mrs. Thu. I'm here to work on the pig."

In the pig-roasting business, you don't make much profit by buying cleaned pigs from butchers and roasting them. Instead, you buy pigs, and if you don't like the messy task of butchering, you hire neighbors to butcher and clean them. You can pay neighbors for their work with money or with the chitterlings from the pigs they clean. They can sell the chitterlings at roadside markets. They can sell pigtails, for large sums of money, to Chinese men who are bald in the front of their heads but still have a little hair in the back.

Mom says, "Hi, Mrs. Tam. I'm glad you prepare the pig for me. Can I pay for your work with the chitterlings?"

"Sure, Mrs. Thu. Can I take the pigtail?" Mrs. Tam says.

I say, "Our pig has a loose-coil tail looking like a stretched spring. I don't know if a Chinese man would wear a wavy tail for a pigtail."

Mrs. Tam smiles. "The Chinese man, to whom I'm going to sell this special pigtail, will dye it with gold dust and attach it to his little natural hair in the back of his head, and wear it as a golden pigtail."

Mrs. Tam unleashes the pig. It darts toward the back of our house, lifts its two front legs and jumps over a wire fence, and plunges away into the woods. Our neighbor men are playing poker outdoor, and they jump over the fence to chase the pig. After about five minutes, they come back carrying the pig over the fence and into our backyard.

The cleaned pig is hung upside down where the circulating cool air keeps the meat fresh. Mom rubs a mixture of five-spice powder, crushed herbs, garlic, brown sugar, and salt inside the pig. I brush the red food coloring on the pig's skin. The pig is allowed to stay undisturbed for at least two hours, for the meat to absorb the seasoning flavors before roasting.

The roasting pit is eight feet wide and ten feet high and can roast up to three pigs at the same time. The pig is hooked head-down, and the hook is hung from the thick iron bar, which is placed across the top of the pit. At the pit's bottom, a round iron ring with legs stands in the fire, and it holds a wide copper work to catch the grease dripping down from the sizzling pigs. A small rectangular opening in the pit's wall near the ground provides air circulation to keep the flames burning.

A roasted pig for a wedding must be able to stay upright when it's put on a wooden board. While preparing the pig, Mom cut the pig's leg joints so that the legs wobble. And now when she puts the pig on the board, it rolls over and rests on its side on board.

Someone is passing by our front door, sobbing. Mom runs to the door. "Wait, Wait a minute. Please come to my house. Why are you crying?"

The crying girl steps into the doorway and stands with her protruding tummy. "My lady of the house told me to leave her house because I'm going to have a baby. I'm a week away from delivery, and she doesn't want to keep a maid with a baby. I do all the house chores and run errands for her. I have nowhere else to go around here."

I bring out the chair from my studying table. "Please sit down."

Mom makes her a plate of white rice topped with roast pork and omelet. "Where do you think you can go to now?"

"I want to go back to my parents' house in Danang. But I have no money for bus fare."

"How old are you?" Mom says.

"I'm sixteen, and my name is Bong."

Mom gets a cyclo passing by our house, to take the girl to a bus stop. "Bong, take care of yourself and the baby. Promise me that you don't do anything rash. Everything will turn out all right."

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