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Despite how progressive society today may seem, there are so many elements that remain truly backwards. And, appreciating the female as he did, Whistle Pig could not make peace with how many of the world’s decisions fall solely to men. And because drinkers of truly fine whiskey always stand for what is right, Whistle Pig sought to teach the Old Boys some new tricks.

Today he was on his way to a very important building in a very important city where a group of very important men gathered to decide very important things.

When he slammed open the great wooden doors, silence took the room. Whistle Pig cleared his throat, not self-consciously, and stepped into the cavernous space. He proceeded to the podium and waved aside the master of ceremonies with a flick of his wrist. Aware of the snickers that were beginning to erupt, he fed their antagonism with a slow twirl, that they might take him in.

Whistle Pig did not have the figure for the dress he was wearing. Moreover, labor day was weeks past and his white patent leather heels were hardly appropriate—beyond seasonal faux pas, however, they did nothing to flatter his thick shapeless ankles.

“I love women,” began the be-dragged Pig to his bewildered audience. “I love skinny women and fat women and tall women and women that come hardly up to my ribcage. I love women with careers and lazy women and even women who chew gum too loudly, though God knows I hate a man who smacks. I love the woman at the massage parlor who smells like grapefruits and the woman at the market who sells grapefruits, and the woman at the bank who, not to be crude, has a chest like grapefruits. And if you will allow me in here in this dress looking not half as good as a woman might in it, then I see no reason for a woman not to come in here in a suit and tie, looking twice as good as you all look in yours.”

And Ms. Sanger and Ms. Roosevelt and Ms. Freidan all raised a glass to the Pig among the rest of the swine that was not too dense to grasp the big picture.

Whistle Pig believed in equality for all; except, of course, for those who did not drink his whiskey, who were obviously inferior. 

A lesson in gravity

The definition of insanity is to repeatedly try something with the same result, expecting a different outcome each time…or something along those lines. Whistle Pig did not consider himself insane. But then, there’s the old Catch-22: those who are aware they are crazy are not crazy in the least. No matter. The point, oh refined and prestigious friends, is that Whistle Pig refused to believe in ever and unchanging laws—nothing was set in stone, nothing dictated by the universe; and those who live their lives expecting the expected just to bypass the sometimes cumbersome life of curiosity are bound to dismiss the following as fallacy.

            But if the infinite beyond is as never-ending as the scientists claim, mustn’t there be one single insignificant particle somewhere that might look gravity in the eyes, and then, defiantly, fall UP? Whistle Pig was no such particle. Even he had not been chosen to be that particular exception.

But one day, when it was especially foggy and there was a chill in the air, our dear old Pig wrapped his scarf around his neck and clickety-clicked up flight after flight of shiny marble to emerge on top of the Empire State Building. And then, stepping over the wrought-iron barrier with only two pigeons to witness, he spread his tiny arms and let the New York City sidewalks decide his fate. While he did not oppose Sir Isaac Newton and shoot instead to the stars, gravity did loose its hold for the adventurer, and he stepped casually on air— down, down, down— to a street of bored and weary commuters who did not look up when the Pig descended from the sky.

And if, by your curmudgeonly cynicism, you refuse to believe it, you may also refuse the next glass of Whistle Pig that comes your way: you do not have the spirit to partake. 

Whistle Pig had always been light on his feet--an irony, considering the fact

that he was, in truth, a pig. But give the Victrola a good crank, and there would go Whistle Pig, cutting the rug in time to a bouncy Joplin rag.

This evening was no exception for our quick-hoofed friend. As he
jiggity-jogged around the room, fighting through a fragrant haze of cigar smoke, he grasped Maude--who was only too happy to oblige the pushy porker--and dragged her into the frenzy of flaying limbs that is inevitable when someone plays the piano as well as Henry was playing it now.

Whistle Pig had had his eye on Maude the entire evening. It was
hard, in a room as extravagantly large as Henry's parlor, to be a commanding presence. But if ever a presence commanded, Maude's did now. The tall brunette towered over Whistle Pig, whose rather unimpressive stature-- which did not, incidentally, dictate a limit to his staggering ego--brought him just to her chest, which was flat and boyish, in keeping with vogue.

Maude laughed like she knew she was being admired. Head tipped back so her bobbed hair just brushed the back of her lovely pale neck, she became charmingly amused whenever Henry tinkled across an f-sharp or when the woman next to her whose tumbler--and teeth, for that matter--was smudged with red lipstick, began to divulge stories of the fast women that her mother had warned her never to become.

And then there was Maude's impeccable taste in beverage. In the time Whistle Pig had been watching her, Maude had gone to the bar three times to refill her glass, each time returning with that unmistakable amber-colored luxury, that stand-alone staple of a gentleman's cabinet, that liquid scintillation of tremulous effect: the whiskey that, in honor of the very superior specimen that Whistle Pig had proven himself to be, had been named--what else?--Whistle Pig. He had to have a dance with this divine creature.

And so he did. They danced the Charleston. They danced the Black Bottom. They danced the Lindy Hop. Then they danced the Charleston again.

For all his lusting after her, Maude's winning over was not so much a record for the books as a regular occurrence. Whistle Pig was accustomed to getting what he wanted. Perhaps it was his boyish charm. Perhaps it was his surprising intellectuality. Perhaps it was the impeccably tailored three-piece pinstriped affairs that he donned on all occasions. Whatever the case, Whistle Pig had only to introduce himself before counting a new addition on the long list of willing admirers.