Angelo Pignati (“The Pigman”) Character Analysis

The truth and nothing but the truth, until this memorial epic is finished, So Help Us God!

The one big difference between John and me, besides the fact that he’s a boy and I’m a girl, is I have compassion. Not that he really doesn’t have any compassion, but he’d be the last one on earth to show it. He pretends he doesn’t care about anything in the world, and he’s always ready with some outrageous remark, but if you ask me, any real hostility he has is directed against himself.

Then he started that laughing again. Very quietly at first, and boy, did it burn me! And then I decided I was going to let out a little laugh, so I did. Then he laughed a little louder, and I laughed a little louder, and before I knew what was happening I couldn’t stand it, so I really started laughing, and he started laughing, and we laughed so much the whole bus thought we were out of our minds.

Now Lorraine can blame all the other things on me, but she was the one who picked out the Pigman’s phone number. If you ask me, I think he would have died anyway. Maybe we speeded things up a little, but you really can’t say we murdered him.

Not murdered him.

There was something about his voice that made me feel sorry for him, and I began to wish I had never bothered him. He just went on talking and talking, and the receiver started to hurt my ear. By this time Dennis and Norton had gone into the living room and started to watch TV, but right where they could keep an eye on timing the phone call. John stayed next to me, pushing his ear close to the receiver every once in awhile, and I could see the wheels in his head spinning.

I blame an awful lot of things on the ghost of Aunt Ahra because she died in our house when she was eighty-two years old.

“You’re ruining your lungs with that thing” was the first remark out of her mouth besides a cough from a misdirected puff from my cigarette. She sounds just like her mother when she says that.

“You never wanted to visit lonely people before, or is it that you only like lonely people who have ten dollars?”

“You think you’re the perfect headshrinker with all those psychology books you read, and you really don’t know a thing.”

“How long has she been gone?” Lorraine asked, trying to be kind, in that English accent of hers.

“She’s been out there about a month now.”

For a moment he looked as though he was going to cry, and then suddenly he changed the subject. Lorraine’s nervous radar was in full operation, and I could tell it made her sad to look at the old man.

The thing that made me stop going to the zoo a few years ago was the way one attendant fed the sea lions. He climbed up on the big diving platform in the middle of the pool and unimaginatively just dropped the fish into the water. I mean, if you’re going to feed sea lions, you’re not supposed to plop the food into the tank. You can tell by the expressions on their faces that the sea lions are saying things like

“Don’t dump the fish in!”

“Pick the fish up one by one and throw them into the air so we can chase after them.”

“Throw the fish in different parts of the tank!”

“Let’s have fun!”

“Make a game out of it!”

Then I heard this “Uggauggaboo,” and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Mr. Pignati starting in. And before you knew it, all three of us were going Uggauggaboo, and we had Bobo, two chimps, and the gorilla worked up into such a tizzy I thought the roof of the monkey house was going to fall in.

I don’t happen to buy all of Lorraine’s stuff about omens. She talks about me distorting, but look at her. I mean, she thinks she can get away with her subliminal twists by calling them omens, but she doesn’t fool me.

Beware of men is what she’s really saying. They have dirty minds, and they’re only after one thing. Rapists are roaming the earth.

But now I understand her a little. I think the only man she really hates is my father—even though he’s dead.

By the time we left, I was so glad to see the outside world I thought I had been in prison for seventy-three years. The smell of hospitals always makes me think of death. In fact I think hospitals are exactly what grave-yards are supposed to be like. They ought to bury people in hospitals and let sick people get well in the cemeteries.

The room was very dark though I could make out the shapes of pigs all around me. But instead of being on a table the pigs were arranged on a long black container, and as I started to realize what it was the fingers propelling my legs tightened and moved me closer. I felt the same horrible force taking control of my arms, and I couldn’t stop my hands from moving down to the lid of the box. When I touched it my hands went cold, and I knew I was about to open a coffin. I started to cry and plead and call to God to stop me as the lid began to rise.

I really did think Mr. Pignati would have wanted us to have a few friends over. Of course, he would have liked to be there so he wouldn’t feel he was missing anything. I knew how much he’d enjoy hearing about a party when he came home. He’d want to know every little detail, just like he asked about everything we did in school.

Several other broken pigs were laying all over the floor, and the only thing I could think of at that moment was the proud and happy look on Mr. Pignati’s face when he had shown us the pigs that first day.

I wanted to phone him and say, Mr. Pignati, we didn’t mean things to work out like that. We were just playing.

Playing

“My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”

“He’ll forget about it in a day or two,” I reminded him.

“I know.”

Our life would be what we made of it—nothing more, nothing less.

The truth and nothing but the truth, until this memorial epic is finished, So Help Us God!

The one big difference between John and me, besides the fact that he’s a boy and I’m a girl, is I have compassion. Not that he really doesn’t have any compassion, but he’d be the last one on earth to show it. He pretends he doesn’t care about anything in the world, and he’s always ready with some outrageous remark, but if you ask me, any real hostility he has is directed against himself.

Then he started that laughing again. Very quietly at first, and boy, did it burn me! And then I decided I was going to let out a little laugh, so I did. Then he laughed a little louder, and I laughed a little louder, and before I knew what was happening I couldn’t stand it, so I really started laughing, and he started laughing, and we laughed so much the whole bus thought we were out of our minds.

Now Lorraine can blame all the other things on me, but she was the one who picked out the Pigman’s phone number. If you ask me, I think he would have died anyway. Maybe we speeded things up a little, but you really can’t say we murdered him.

Not murdered him.

There was something about his voice that made me feel sorry for him, and I began to wish I had never bothered him. He just went on talking and talking, and the receiver started to hurt my ear. By this time Dennis and Norton had gone into the living room and started to watch TV, but right where they could keep an eye on timing the phone call. John stayed next to me, pushing his ear close to the receiver every once in awhile, and I could see the wheels in his head spinning.

I blame an awful lot of things on the ghost of Aunt Ahra because she died in our house when she was eighty-two years old.

“You’re ruining your lungs with that thing” was the first remark out of her mouth besides a cough from a misdirected puff from my cigarette. She sounds just like her mother when she says that.

“You never wanted to visit lonely people before, or is it that you only like lonely people who have ten dollars?”

“You think you’re the perfect headshrinker with all those psychology books you read, and you really don’t know a thing.”

“How long has she been gone?” Lorraine asked, trying to be kind, in that English accent of hers.

“She’s been out there about a month now.”

For a moment he looked as though he was going to cry, and then suddenly he changed the subject. Lorraine’s nervous radar was in full operation, and I could tell it made her sad to look at the old man.

The thing that made me stop going to the zoo a few years ago was the way one attendant fed the sea lions. He climbed up on the big diving platform in the middle of the pool and unimaginatively just dropped the fish into the water. I mean, if you’re going to feed sea lions, you’re not supposed to plop the food into the tank. You can tell by the expressions on their faces that the sea lions are saying things like

“Don’t dump the fish in!”

“Pick the fish up one by one and throw them into the air so we can chase after them.”

“Throw the fish in different parts of the tank!”

“Let’s have fun!”

“Make a game out of it!”

Then I heard this “Uggauggaboo,” and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Mr. Pignati starting in. And before you knew it, all three of us were going Uggauggaboo, and we had Bobo, two chimps, and the gorilla worked up into such a tizzy I thought the roof of the monkey house was going to fall in.

I don’t happen to buy all of Lorraine’s stuff about omens. She talks about me distorting, but look at her. I mean, she thinks she can get away with her subliminal twists by calling them omens, but she doesn’t fool me.

Beware of men is what she’s really saying. They have dirty minds, and they’re only after one thing. Rapists are roaming the earth.

But now I understand her a little. I think the only man she really hates is my father—even though he’s dead.

By the time we left, I was so glad to see the outside world I thought I had been in prison for seventy-three years. The smell of hospitals always makes me think of death. In fact I think hospitals are exactly what grave-yards are supposed to be like. They ought to bury people in hospitals and let sick people get well in the cemeteries.

The room was very dark though I could make out the shapes of pigs all around me. But instead of being on a table the pigs were arranged on a long black container, and as I started to realize what it was the fingers propelling my legs tightened and moved me closer. I felt the same horrible force taking control of my arms, and I couldn’t stop my hands from moving down to the lid of the box. When I touched it my hands went cold, and I knew I was about to open a coffin. I started to cry and plead and call to God to stop me as the lid began to rise.

I really did think Mr. Pignati would have wanted us to have a few friends over. Of course, he would have liked to be there so he wouldn’t feel he was missing anything. I knew how much he’d enjoy hearing about a party when he came home. He’d want to know every little detail, just like he asked about everything we did in school.

Several other broken pigs were laying all over the floor, and the only thing I could think of at that moment was the proud and happy look on Mr. Pignati’s face when he had shown us the pigs that first day.

I wanted to phone him and say, Mr. Pignati, we didn’t mean things to work out like that. We were just playing.

Playing

“My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”

“He’ll forget about it in a day or two,” I reminded him.

“I know.”

Our life would be what we made of it—nothing more, nothing less.