Holy Cow (7 page)
Authors: David Duchovny
ELSIE
You’re in.
The next couple of days passed in a blur. The nights were filled with hushed planning as Shalom, Tom, and I finalized our route, and tried to figure out the best use of the phone without running the battery out. We also had to practice walking on two legs, at least Shalom and I did, so we could better fit in without drawing so much attention to ourselves as four-legged creatures, and that didn’t come so easy. We worked our tails off at it night after night.
Think of this (screenplay alert!) like the “Feeling Strong Now” montage from
Rocky
, where he’s training for the big fight. Almost exactly like that, except it doesn’t end with someone punching the hanging carcass of a cow. (Does that sound bitter? Maybe I am a little. I’ll have to think about that.)
“We also had to practice walking on two legs.”
The afternoon before the night we were to leave, all of us cows were out to pasture. Mallory was huge now. She was ready to give birth at any moment, and I was sorry I might not be there for that, when lo and behold, she gave out a low grunty mooey sound and went down on her side. The bulls somehow knew what was happening before we did. They were lined up by the fence, Steve as nervous as any father-to-be. Mallory lowed in pain, but I couldn’t tell if she was grimacing or smiling, and then almost as quickly as it began, here it was, the calf, spilling out of Mallory like a small surfer on a small wave, and immediately trying to stand, immediately trying to join life.
It was then I noticed the farmer and his boys watching from another point along the fence. And for a moment, it was as if this little calf had brought us all, man and animal, together. I could see the man smiling. Was that a tear I saw gathering in the corner of his eye? Just for a moment, the moment of birth, I felt like we were all one on the green planet and everything was gonna be okay. But that was just a moment, and moments, by definition, are momentary, and pass. Then I saw one of the boys make a joke about all the gooey afterbirth on the ground, and the bulls horsing around with one another like they’d actually done something, and just like that, the moment was gone, replaced by reality.
And the reality was that Mallory had had a baby girl calf, a beautiful healthy baby girl. Even though I could tell she was dead tired, she was licking the blood and slime from her just as the newborn stood up on wobbly legs. “I’m gonna name her Elsie, Jr.,” Mallory said.
It was my turn to cry.
As the sun was going down, Mallory awoke from a long nap, her calf, Elsie, still sleeping beside her. She looked different to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, mostly ’cause I don’t have any fingers, but also because it was mysterious. She looked like someone. And then it hit me—she looked like my mother. “Mallory,” I said.
ELSIE
I’m leaving tonight.
MALLORY
I know.
ELSIE
And I know you can’t come with me, but I’m gonna come back for you and Elsie, Jr., as soon as I figure out how.
MALLORY
No.
ELSIE
No what?
MALLORY
Don’t come back for me, I won’t go. I won’t leave this place.
ELSIE
How can you say that? You know what they’ll do to you? You know what they might do to little Elsie. You know about the V word.
MALLORY
I know, but this is the only life I’ve ever known, the only life any of the cows in my family have ever known. I’m not brave like you. You were made to explore, to discover new things. I wasn’t. I know I don’t have forever here on the farm before they kill me, and that they will kill my baby after that, but we all have to die sometime and I want what little time I have here to be peaceful, in the pasture, playing with my girl and her daddy. You may not think that’s a beautiful life, but I do. And just one day of that life is worth everything to me. Please don’t hate me. You can think I’m a coward, but please don’t hate me.
ELSIE
I don’t hate you, Mals, and I don’t think you’re a coward. In fact, you are the bravest woman I’ve ever known.
I meant it. Maybe I was the coward for running away. Or maybe we were just different, cut out for different lives, and each of us was doing what we had to. I leaned into Mallory with all my weight, which is how cows hug. Her eyes closed and she fell back asleep leaning on me. It was nighttime now. I heard a rustling at the back of the barn and I looked up to see a pig tottering upright on its hind legs and a turkey with a cell phone, waiting for me. It was time to go. I shuffled over to them.
Just as I was leaving the barn for the last time, I turned around and had this overwhelming urge to stay. Why is it that when we’re leaving something is the moment we most appreciate it? My heart was filled with love for all the animals, even the chickens, even the dogs, even the farmers, and I cast my mind back on all the lazy days we’d had—me and my mother in the pasture, Mallory and I talking through the night. So many memories.
But I had to go. When I turned, the pig was looking at me. And he said, “It’s hard to leave anywhere. Even if the place sucked. It’s hard to leave anywhere at all.”
(followed by a pig and a turkey)
It was a nice night, temperature in the sixties, cloudless sky, no chance of rain. Just the sound of my hooves on the grass and the occasional “Oy, my mouth is so dry, does anybody have a hard candy?” from Shalom. We walked in silence for a good long while; I think we must have all been in awe of the moment. “Seventy-five million people, life expectancy, 71.1 years—I’m gonna live to be 71.1!” The gobbler was googling facts about Turkey on the phone—“Did you know that Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age?” No, we did not. “For the Daily Double [
see
Trebek, Alex]—does its location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia make it a country of significant geostrategic significance?” Nobody cared. “The answer is—hells yeah! Go Turkey, go Turkey, it’s your birthday!”
Shalom held up a hoof. “Ssshhh, listen, did you hear that?”
We listened—crickets, not much else—and then the silence was broken by the howling of a wolf in the distance. Shalom looked at me, like Oh shit. I said that that howl seemed at least a mile away and not to worry, but inside I was very concerned. It’s one thing to hear the baying of a wolf and think it’s gorgeous when you’re safe inside a locked compound protected by men and dogs, but it’s a different ball game when there’s nothing but the night air between you and that wild animal. I had always considered myself wild, but tonight I wasn’t sure. “Turkey has had a president since 1923, maybe I’ll make a run at it.” Jesus. “The waters in Turkey are the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara—isn’t that a beautiful word …
Mar-mar-a
…
Mar-mar
—”
Shalom had had enough. “Stop with the fun facts about Turkey already. You’re gonna use that phone so much, the battery’s gonna die and then what’ll we do, Einstein?”
“Fine,” Tom said, but he couldn’t help himself. “Turkey’s motto is ‘The country unconditionally belongs to the nation.’ I don’t know what that means, but me likey. Okay, okay, turning it off, powering down.”
We walked on, talking loudly about silly stuff to show one another how not scared we were, laughing a little too loudly at jokes, as the howling seemed to get closer and closer. We had covered about two miles, when a shape differentiated itself from the night about ten yards ahead of us, blocking our path—like it had been invisible one moment and the next moment visible, like the darkness itself had taken form.
The form of a wolf. A lone wolf. “Well, well, well,” said the wolf, with a wolfish grin.
Shalom immediately soiled himself. “Sorry,” he said, “nervous pooper.” I had never been in a fight before, let alone a fight to the death, but something told me I was going to be in one tonight.
“A cow, a pig, and a turkey walk into a bar…” is what the wolf said. His white teeth had an unsettling way of catching the moonlight. “Isn’t that a joke?” he asked.
“I don’t know that one,” Shalom answered. “It’s not in the Torah.”
“I hate jokes, they contain latent hostility,” offered Tom.
“Yeah, sure,” said the wolf. “I don’t quite remember the punch line … A cow, a turkey, and a pig walk into a bar, and the bartender says … uhh, wait, I remember … the bartender says, ‘Dinner’s here!’”
“That joke doesn’t even make sense,” Tom said. I could hear his beak clicking because all the moisture in there had dried up in fear. I was sure everyone could hear my legs shaking, my knees actually knocking against each other. “I love that joke,” said the wolf, “it’s my favorite joke of all. Listen, I can see you all are far from home and out of place, and I have some sympathy for that, as much sympathy as a wolf can have, which is not very much, and I’m not so very hungry, so why don’t you, cow, and you, pig, just keep walking and let me discuss tonight’s specials with that turkey over there?”
Tom looked faint. I jumped in. “We’re on the lam from the farm. I’m going to India, Shalom is going to Israel, and the turkey is going to Turkey. It’s a historic journey.”
“Wait a second.” The wolf held up a paw to stop me. I could see that he was salivating, the liquid running down in thick rivulets from his jowls. He looked at the pig formerly known as Jerry. “You, pig, your name is Shalom?”
“Yes.”
“Funny. You don’t look Jewish,” said the wolf, and he collapsed in a laughter that segued into a horrible series of howls. For all we knew, he was calling his buddies to dinner in wolfspeak. “I’m actually Jewish on my dad’s side, changed the name from Wolfsheim to Wolf when we came down from Canada. But you’re outta luck ’cause I’m one of those self-loathing wolves.”
Shalom couldn’t take it. He pointed at Tom. “He’s got white meat!” Tom pointed back at Shalom. “He’s the other white meat!”
This was going to hell in a handbasket quickly, we were already turning on one another. I knew I had to think fast.
“Look, wolf,” I said, trying to sound as tough as I could (all of a sudden I had a New York accent), “we are all animals here, maybe some are a little wilder than others, it’s true, but we are all brothers and sisters who have been wronged by human beings—we have been kept and fattened only to be slaughtered, and you, you get shot at and have your traditional hunting grounds unfairly encroached upon by the Man.”
I could feel the moment lending me a kind of eloquence. “And if we fight amongst ourselves, then who wins?”
“Me?” the wolf replied. “I would win a fight against you.”
“No. Humans win, our common enemy.”
“Oh, oh, oh, I see what you mean.” The wolf nodded. “Yeah, common enemy.” Maybe there was hope, but the wolf continued, “I’m not really political. I’ll just take the turkey.”
He started toward Tom with that slinky low wolf slide, his eyes beady and merciless. I could see Tom’s terrified face lit up from the light of the phone, his wattle quivering in the night.
Out of nowhere, a flash of pink strobed the darkness, and the wolf went tumbling sideways as if he’d been yanked by an invisible hand, letting out a pathetic little whimper. WTF?
Shalom had taken a running start and thrown his entire body weight against the wolf. And Shalom is a fat dude. He’s a pig. The wolf was dazed, momentarily off balance, but I could see the pure animal power and need returning to his eyes.
“Okay, for that little move, fatty, you have just become dessert. Every American’s fantasy—pork chops and bacon for dessert.” The wolf was regaining the wind that had been knocked out of him by Shalom’s body block. I knew I only had seconds, so I rushed forward and started stomping on the wolf as best I could. I’m not fast, but I am strong and heavy, and I could feel once or twice something soft and squishy flatten beneath me.
