Holy Cow

by David Duchovny

  So there he is, texting away and taking a picture of me and laughing and pressing SEND, and I didn’t really appreciate that, so at the perfect moment I just kind of kicked with my right hind leg, not hard to hurt the boy, just hard enough to make him drop his phone.

  But first, to set the stage, I had to poop. Pooping while you’re getting milked is one of life’s great pleasures. You should try it sometime. So I pooped, kicked a little, and he dropped his phone right into what you all call a cow patty. Now I know you think cow patties are gross or a source of humor, but to us, they just are. Another thing about humans I don’t quite get is how disgusted they are with poop, even their own. They can’t get away from it fast enough, and whenever they step in ours, they curse and try to get it off their boots really fast. Plus, they think poop is totally funny. Like it’s the setup of all these jokes they tell one another. I don’t get it, man, it’s just poop. Poop and farts. What? That make you uncomfortable? That’s your problem, Cochise. We all do it. We all do it lots. No big deal. Poopy poop poop fart farty fart fartalicious poopiosity etc.—got it out of your system? And stop blaming me and my gas for global warming. I can’t drive a car. Can we move on now?

  His phone goes ploop—right into the poop. Ever seen a cow laugh? No, ’cause we do it in private, like Japanese women. I turned away and started laughing, but I kinda faked like I had something in my throat and was coughing. He was pissed! Actually slapped me on the rump. Didn’t hurt. You people are small and weak. And then he has to dig his precious phone out of my poop. You think people don’t like stepping in poop, man oh man, do they not like getting their hands anywhere near it even more! But he has to. ’Cause it’s his phone. If he dropped his phone into a shark’s mouth, he’d go in there to retrieve it. Or a volcano. It’s like the most important thing in the world.

  So his phone is like a quarter of the way in my poop. Standing up straight, like it’s surprised to be there. And the boy has to deal with it. He gets down there, and ever so gingerly, like a pimply King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, he rescues his phone. And then he wipes it on me ’cause he’s mad. Like he’s punishing me. What do I care? It’s my poop. He starts muttering under his breath, grabs the pail of my milk, and stomps out of the barn. And guess what? He forgets to shut the gate. :) Doesn’t that mean “smiley face” when you text? Well, here I am, smiling. I wish there were a cow face smiling, but there isn’t a way to make it on the keyboard. :(

  Yet. :)

  4

  THE OPEN GATE

  You like that? Chapter titles and whatnot. I’ve been doing that since the beginning of my story. Fancy, I know, but I want to highlight the concept.

  What the open gate means is that, come nightfall, Mallory and I are gonna be able to sneak out and go wherever we want. To the bulls, to the ball game—wherever. The gate opens into a whole new world. Mallory and I are so excited. Especially her. To see Frank, or Steve, or Dino, or whomever. No doubt you’ve noticed that one of a cow’s best features is our long, impossibly thick, luxurious eyelashes. Human women would die for our eyelashes. Come on now, don’t be a hater. Every species, like everyone, has a strong point or two. Heavenly eyelashes are one of ours.

  Mallory is in her stall applying cow mascara to make her eyelashes even more beautiful, and I suppose make her irresistible to Frank or Steve or whomever it is she thinks she has a crush on. Cow eyeliner is basically some good clean dirt, then you add a touch of water and lay your face down in the mud and then shake your head. If you’re lucky more of the dirt will adhere to the lashes and less around your mouth, which is not a good look. Mallory does this and then I do her the solid of licking her face to get the excess dirt. She looks amazeballs. No doubt Frank or Steve is going to find her the most beautiful cow in the world. I’m just excited to get out past the gate. I mean, yeah, I’m kinda into the bulls, but in a way I don’t quite get, so I’m a little afraid of it, but really, I’m just looking for adventure. That’s the kind of cow I am.

  Mallory and I can barely contain our excitement. The day crawls by like a human baby on all fours. It’s like the sun decided not to move in the sky; it’s just hanging there. It’s so hard not to tell anybody about our plans, but we know that if we did that we could ruin it. I notice this one pig looking at me funny, with his head tilted, and a little smile. This pig is named Jerry. So I say, “What, you never saw a cow before?” And I say, “Take a picture, babe, it’ll last longer.” And he kinda turns away. That’s how you handle pigs, gotta be super straightforward ’cause they’re really smart at the circuitous-logic-type stuff, too smart for their own good. You gotta psych ’em out. They overthink—so a direct shot will short-circuit them and make them wanna take a nap. Which is what Jerry does. Like I gave him a mental karate-chop sedative. Handled that. I’m like a Jedi sometimes.

  Finally, the sun starts to dip beneath our western horizon, maybe my favorite moment of any day. Dusk. Sunset. Love it. Night will not be too far behind, and with night, an adventure, one that will change my life forever.

  5

  OUTSIDE THE GATE

  See what I did there? I left you on a poetic cliffhanger. And a chapter title again. Gives you a chance to take a break, maybe dog-ear a page, get something to eat, and when you come back, the chapter heading will refocus you on the story. Like a Jedi, I tell you, a Jedi. But really, I’m just thinking about your comfort and enjoyment. :)

  It was a pretty moonless night. It was pretty, and it was moonless, so it was pretty moonless. Which was good news for Mallory and me, ’cause it would be harder to see us in the near-total darkness. We waited for what seemed like forever for the rest of the animals in the barn to fall asleep, and for the dogs to stop nosing around. Don’t get me wrong, dogs are fine, though about half are bitches, but because they are often allowed to sleep in the house and are considered to be domesticated and man’s best friend and all, they tend to have a pretty high opinion of themselves and think whatever they do is the right thing ’cause it’s for the boss, the farmer. I actually feel sorry for them a little, ’cause they’re neither here nor there, neither fully animal nor fully human; they’re caught somewhere between wolf and man, wild and mild, and that must be pretty confusing at times, and sad. Like broccaflower. Dogs are the broccaflower of the animal kingdom.

  The two dogs on our farm are called Will and Grace, a couple of border collies. Like I said, smart and stuck-up. So Will and Grace are patrolling around, barking at nothing, saying things to each other like “sector four clear, sector two clear,” I mean, come on, it’s a farm, dudes, no sectors. Anyway, after they’re convinced all the sectors are clear, they run back to the house to go do whatever it is they do in the house. I listen to the sounds in the barn, lots of snoring, some shuffling, but generally the contented, murmurry sounds of sleeping animals. It’s a little like music. But this night, I’m not going to stay till the end of the concert. To talk like one of the dogs, I lean over to Mallory and whisper, “It’s go-time.”

  6

  GO-TIME

  I’d been up to that old gate a thousand times before, but this was different. Everything was different. You know those times in your life that you know are going to change everything? When all your senses are heightened and time seems to stand still and rush ahead all at once? That’s how I felt. At the opened gate, to cover my fear, really, ’cause I was so scared I’d already dropped a couple of patties on the walk up, I say to Mallory, to give myself the courage of a joke, “One small step for cow, one giant leap for cowkind…” and I nose open the gate. It was that easy. A world changes that easily. With a nudge of a gate, with a step, one step and then you can’t go backward, things are never again the same. Ever seen a cow walk backward? Nope. Can’t do it, it’s not in our nature to go back.

  The whole time, Mallory is kinda narrating what we’re doing, almost to convince herself that someone else, not her, is doing these things, is sneaking out—“and they’re walking up to the gate, and they’re pushing the gate open, an
d, that’s right, sports fans, they are walking outside the gate at night—OMG—they are walking outside the gate at night!” She’s freaking a bit, so I shush her, her eyes are as wide as a deer’s, but she’s happy, I can tell, she’s psyched. She says, “Let’s do this.” So off we go, step by step, always glancing back at the barn, which all of a sudden seems so small and far away even though we’ve gone only about ten yards. We also keep an eye on the house to make sure no humans or dogs are alerted.

  All quiet. Except in the near distance we could make out a sound, the sound we had come for, the sound we were going toward like Odysseus to the Sirens—the snorting of the bulls.

  7

  BULLS#@T!!!

  You like that? My editor told me if I add some sex, curses, and maybe some potty humor, this will sell better to my “audience.” I don’t know who my audience is. I want everybody to hear this story, but my editor says human adults won’t take a talking animal seriously (“Why not?” I asked. “What about Animal Farm and Charlotte’s Web? Babe?” And she goes, “Elsie, Elsie, Elsie, times have changed, and anyway, this isn’t an allegory, this is a true story … blah, blah, blah”). So she’s gonna market it as a kids’ book, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Which is fine by me, I like kids, but then she says, “Adults are gonna read this book to their kids so you have to sprinkle little inside jokes along the way with some allusions to pop culture from the last thirty years so they don’t get too bored. Just make sure you make a reference to Gilligan’s Island or Star Wars or Depeche Mode or Chia Pets or something, cover the decades—sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, aughts—and the occasional penis joke.”

  She gave me a bunch of movies to look at to see what she was talking about, but they kinda bored me, to be honest, like they were trying to talk out of both sides of the mouth. But I guess I get what she means. There should be a wink now and then. That’s okay. So some of my readers know what’s supposed to happen when we get up there with the bulls, you know, cue the funky bass line and the bad acting. That’s another thing: humans are so weird about the sex. It’s like pooping, folks, everybody does it. That’s my next book, The Educated Flea. But don’t worry. This is a PG story. Wink wink. Hey, man, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

  My editor also told me my story should be written “more like a screenplay than a book ’cause that’s where the big audience is—not books anymore, but movies.” So that’s what I’ve been attempting wherever possible. And she says animated movies are the biggest movies of all, and that animals are often the stars of animated films. I say, “How can I write it like a movie if it’s a true story?” And she literally jumps out of her chair and says, “Gold mine! The first animated documentary! Gold mine! Just write out the dialogue without quotes and underneath a character’s name and they’ll think it’s a documentary screenplay and it will make it longer to boot. And remember to put something in like ‘The names have been changed to protect the blah, blah, blah.’”

  We’ll see if Hollywood calls. I’ll have to lose some weight. I’m as big as a yak. I also have some very specific casting ideas about who should play me, but my editor says if I put them out there, it will step on the toes of the producers. She says producers like to think everything is their idea. So I’ll hold my tongue. Jennifer Lawrence.

  Anyway, I have to admit the sound the bulls were making was a bit mesmerizing. We were drawn to it, Mallory and me, it was like the sweetest music. Sounds that had been stupid to us the day before were now like the Beatles. (Pop culture reference, check.) Weird. I don’t get it. But it’s natural, happens to us all. We were making our way up to the bulls and the bulls now knew we were heading their way and boy oh boy did they start to get pumped up. Snorting louder and pawing the ground and showing off by running and smashing into one another. Mallory and I were pretty jazzed that they were putting on this whole big show for us. Made us feel like a couple of special cows. Made us feel pretty and … bullish. (You’re welcome.)

  When we got up to the fence, the bulls were like, “Hey there, baby girl…” and “Whassup?” trying to be cool, and it was then I realized, yeah, we got outside our gate, but we didn’t think about the bulls’ gate. Mallory realized this at the exact same moment I did (’cause we’re bffs) and we both said, “Oh no! How do we get this gate open?” Now, to be totally honest with you, I was somewhat relieved. I didn’t feel I was totally ready to enjoy the company of a bull without a nice, sturdy fence between us, but I couldn’t really tell Mallory that. The bulls were freaking me out a little this close up. Weird energy, if ya know what I’m sayin’. The bulls are now like, “You want me to knock down this fence, little lady, ’cause I totally will, I will knock this shit down,” and similar-type stuff, and Mallory is just grinning away like a moron. So I say, “Let me go find something I can smash the latch with, something heavy,” and Mallory is like a zombie at this point, she’s like, “Sure, sure, whatevs,” and I’m like, what happened to cows before bulls and hoes before bros? But, really, I get it, I do, and I love her to death, my Mallory girl, wherever you are. So I say I’ll be back in a few minutes and I sneak down the hill on little cat’s feet.

  8

  OFF THE BEATEN PATH

  I don’t know what made me head toward the house. I guess it was destiny. Something pulled me toward that house and I followed. I had never been up to the house before in my life. The lights were glowing. It was a dark night, but it was spring and mild. The family had their windows open. I could hear voices coming from within, human voices, but somehow not human voices, very strange. And a flickering light, like a campfire, but not a campfire. I was drawn by the strange voices and the strange, uneven light. I knew it was cray cray, but I had to see what the story was. Curiosity killed the cat, not the cow, so I figured I was safe. I looked back up the hill and I could see the silhouettes of Mallory and the bulls and I could hear them a little, they were laughing and snorting, having a good time, it sounded like. Feeling Mallory was okay up there alone, I crept along the side of the house right up to an open window and looked in.

  I didn’t know what to make of what I saw. The whole family was in there quietly staring at a lighted box. The people were hushed like the light box was their god and this Box God was talking, or saying words anyway, and the people seemed both transfixed and bored at the same time. The people were eating things out of a bag, crunchy things, and drinking bubbly colored water out of huge cups the size of my snout. These must be part of the Box God’s ritual demands, I thought, but I really didn’t know what to think. As I said, people are weird. And just as I was about to turn around and leave before I got into trouble, the Box God said something I’ll never forget …

  Cliffhanger!!!

  9

  THE BOX GOD

  This is what I remember the Box God said. It’s not perfect, ’cause right after, the world went spinny and warped, and I fainted, but this is what I remember it saying:

  “The small farm is dead, replaced by huge industrial meat farms the size of a small town. Here, at this plant…”

  And this is where I stopped hearing, ’cause what I was seeing was so shocking it rocked my world off its axis.

  First, I saw chickens in cages, row upon row upon row of cages. The chickens were piled up on one another with barely room to breathe. I’m not a huge fan of chickens, but this was no way to be living. The chickens were hardly able to move, so their talons actually grew around the wire of the cages and the humans sometimes had to cut their feet off to remove them. I started to cry big wet tears, which made what I was looking at blurry and kaleidoscopic, even more surreal. Then they showed pigs, hundreds upon hundreds of them all penned in together too. That didn’t seem too bad, pigs like to hang with their own, but still, it was way crowded and filthy and sad.

  “And then they showed the cows.”

  And then they showed the cows.

  The cows were being kept in this huge building, separated from one another by these tight metal chutes. But that’s not what was b
ad. Because the merciless Box God showed what happened to the cows next: a man held a metal rod up to the cow’s head, and the cow’s legs just gave way like that, and she collapsed, dead. Murdered. One after another, snuffing out life as if it were just flipping a light switch from on to off.

  And then the Box God showed the lifeless carcasses of cows being hung up on big metal hooks and cut up, stripped of skin and dismembered like in a horror movie, blood everywhere, all I remember is blood. A faceless man with a hose rinsing a room of blood. And then some discussion of veal that I cannot to this day think about without throwing up and changing the subject, and I can only refer to as the “V.” Or the “V word.” And the blood. Rivers of blood. Oceans of blood. A world of blood. The blood of my kind. I emptied the contents of all four of my stomachs. And then I passed out.

  10

  I AWAKE

  I don’t know how long I was out. It couldn’t have been that long, because the Box God was still talking about “meat,” which by now I know is animal flesh—cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, dogs in some countries (hey, if you’re gonna eat me, why not eat a dog?), monkeys, deer, bear, ostrich, ants—you get the picture. The list goes on and on. Humans will eat almost anything if you put a little salt and butter on it. And the butter is made from our milk. Makes me feel oddly complicit and guilty.