The Pigman

John narrates this chapter. John confirms Lorraine’s observation that he is quite handsome—but it doesn’t let him off the hook, except maybe with Miss King, the “old maid” English teacher who always laughs at him and calls him “a card.” John likes that the Pigman doesn’t try to use modern slang to sound cool—he calls John and Lorraine “delightful.” Lorraine is always reading about “nutty people.” He’d almost forgotten about the paranoia article she showed him. The only part that stuck out to him was the story about the woman who hoarded towels, sheets, English muffins, and bathrooms. In their friendship, “Lorraine remembers the big words, and [John] remembers the action.” This makes sense, since John’s going to be an actor and Lorraine’s going to be a writer.

John thinks Lorraine could be more confident—it’s crazy the way Lorraine’s mother makes it seem like Lorraine is an ugly monster. She has electric green eyes—or she did until Pigman died. John thinks Pigman’s death has something to do with Lorraine wanting to be a writer. He and Lorraine have both been a little off since, and they’re still trying to figure out why they did what they did.

Everything began when Lorraine, John, Dennis Jobin, and Norton Kelly were making prank phone calls last September. They began with simple gags but eventually created a game where the objective was to keep the person on the phone as long as possible. They’d pretend they were calling on behalf of a game show and claimed that the person had won a prize. Dennis lasted the longest, since he happened to dial an old woman who was lonely and just wanted someone to talk to. He made up some horrific story about asking for advice about a rat-transmitted skin disease he was dying from—and kept the woman on the line for over two hours. 

Even though Lorraine blames a lot of things on John, she can’t blame Pigman’s death on him. He would’ve died anyway, and “you can’t really say they murdered him.” And it was Lorraine who picked out the Pigman’s number to call anyway.