Cauldron of Thoughts: Peggy

If you're going to attempt to read this novel click on the "novel-in-progress" label and start with ch. 1. I don't expect anyone to do this but I figured I'd suggest it anyway. I'm making the chapters as short as possible, really.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
CHAPTER 7: THE CAULDRON OF THOUGHTS (PEGGY)
And what’s next, Peggy thought, submerged to the neck in the apple-scented froth

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of a hot bubble bath. She crossed her hands over her breasts. The phone call hadn’t gone
well. “You’ll have to fend for yourself,” her mother said. “Papa’s sick with tumors. I
can’t help you anymore.”
Peggy made light, contemplative splashes with a foamy foot. Mama said she was
sorry, and I hung up on her. Peggy watched the tub faucet drip and positioned her big toe
under it. Slowly the bubbles melted off, revealing a turquoise-painted nail. Peggy locked
her gaze to it. My favorite color. Further dripping unveiled the tan-colored toe-skin with
sprouts of fine black hair at the knuckle. I have to finish school and start my own life, she
thought. Someone like mama can’t understand that.
An old memory hobbled through the thicket of Peggy’s thoughts till it stood at the
center clearing of her mind like a wounded, trembling fawn, surprised at being summoned
after so long a suppression. Peggy wetted a wash cloth and pressed it to her face. She
leaned back and stretched her legs out, grateful that the tub could comfortably accom-
modate the full extent of her diminutive, supine body. That summer visit to uncle Pedro’s
farm was my call to adventure. I didn’t seek it. Summer before first grade. I still loved
papa. He called me Pinky because I was small like his pinky and he told me I’d have a
special time playing with all the animals on uncle’s farm.
Peggy draped the wash cloth over her face and closed her eyes. In the warm, wet
dark of scented apples she drifted back to that formative world and snatched up the
details. Stinking wet hay and manure. Horses dipping their long brown heads to eat.
The crackling, crushing sound of those beastly jaws; the powerful hinges grinding hay to
edible pulp. She remembered clutching tight to the manure-caked leg of uncle Pedro’s

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overalls. The horses whinnied awful and kept on eating. On and on they chewed, and the
equine mucous-foam frothed a filthy yellow. Globs of it oozed down and separated from
their mouth-thick masses, finally breaking free in the violent chomp and grate, and
plopping to the hay-strewn ground in growing viscous mounds.
And shit splattered from their asses while they ate. Blooching brown-thick
streams of it. Steaming piles. Now and then one of the horses would sink a hoof in one
and continue eating.
Peggy re-wetted the cloth, squeezed it, re-draped her face with it, and briefly
considered the sad state of the cows, chewing their cud in perpetual bovine boredom.
Even at age six I identified with their pitiful sadness, and perceived how domestication
had drained these once proud creatures of all natural vitality. Uncle explained that cows
were made for man; that their bloated udders were the fortuitous result of mankind’s
tinkering at selective breeding to augment the milk yield. What have we done, I thought,
my little heart wilting, my little cold hand squeezed by uncle’s heat but staying cold. In
our selfishness, I thought, we had turned a whole species of beings into slaves, into mere
objects for our own nourishment. Stripped of will and their own natures, cows were
vacuous zombies now. The animal undead. Eating and getting fatter. Eating and
getting fatter. This made uncle Pedro happy, and papa agreed.
The water grew tepid. Peggy’s floating hair lapped at the curved pink of her half-
submerged cheeks. She thought of getting out before the water got cold, but dismissed it.
There was more remembering to do. Uncle was proud of his pig pen. My visit there
would provide a squealing soundtrack to my nightmares for years to come. Plump and

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pissed and red-colored in the dusk, the pigs were too numerous to count. They crowded
at the trough, snarling, nudging each other with horrid snorting snouts, trampling and
splashing up mud. I wanted papa, but he stayed behind to milk the cows and murder
chickens for dinner, leaving me alone with uncle Pedro.
Peggy’s muscles convulsed. She kicked at the porcelain, sloshing waves onto the
pink tile of the bathroom floor. His breath reeked. It was later I learned the word whis-
key. He snatched me with his dirty arms and crushed me to his rough beard stubble like
I was his lover. He kissed me rough. I said nothing. He was papa’s brother. He had
given me a bike for Christmas. Be a good girl, Peggy, he said. Then he kissed me again,
this time with tongue. I consented. Be good, Peggy baby, or into the pig pen ya’ll go.
He patted my butt, then lifted me onto his strong shoulders. Stand on them, he said.
His long dirty fingernails dug into my thigh bones. I tottered in his grip. My legs be-
came gelatin. Over the edge I tottered, watching the pigs turn from the trough to watch
me with hunger-lust in their beady feral eyes. Later I learned I wet myself.
They’ll eat you up, kid. So be good! he shouted up at me, the heat and proximity
of his breath making my legs bead. I feared he’d do it--throw me in with the pigs to be
eaten. I cried and cried, I think, out loud for papa. I felt the slime of uncle’s tongue lap-
ping my ankle bone. Then he threw me into the air and I prayed that death would come
quick. I did not scream. Time slowed, and I was able to watch, detached, the flight of a
candy bar, ejected from my pocket, fall toward the ground, to be snatched up and
crunched to bits in the snapping teeth of a leaping hog. Then uncle Pedro caught me.

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Peggy flicked down the drain’s lever with her toe. She wobbled and caught herself
on the shower rod. The motherfucker thought it was funny! He laughed as I cried, and I
tongue-kissed him for saving me and promised to be good. Then I laughed too, and he
cradled me and made cooing noises, saying silly silly Peggy girl; uncle Pedro would
never let those bad piggy wiggies nibble on the sweat meats of my baby girl, and yer so
silly silly for being scared of uncle Pedro. Why we’re family, sweetheart and I . . .
Peggy dried herself, took a fresh towel and buried her face into it. And I was
embarrassed for being scared, and later that night I wanted to tell papa but didn’t know
the right words. I said I needed to tell him something, so he took me up to the hayloft.
He turned me on his lap to face him, and when I thought I’d found the right words to
begin he leaned in as if to listen, but it wasn’t the sound of my voice that followed. It was
the sound of papa unzipping his pants.
Peggy felt numb as she put her pajamas on. Her roommate was away, shacking up
with the boyfriend. Peggy put on Mozart's Requiem and curled beneath the covers.
From that moment, she thought, I became someone else. I asked God to be my father,
begged God to take me into his care. I came to papa to bare my soul, but he--
But God listened to me, sustained me, strengthened me through years of
living with cousins and talking to mama only by phone. By nine I learned about thera-
pists. I’d be a great healer of damaged psyches; and I set my sights on the academic
hoops I’d have to jump through. Mama said she’d help financially. She felt guilty. Now
the monster’s needs take precedence. It’s up to me to find a way, and I can’t quit now.