TOM struck a muscleman pose, the “archer.”
ELSIE
You should eat. And don’t call me “baby girl.”
TOM
I can’t eat.
ELSIE
Why not?
TOM
’Cause I’ll get fat.
ELSIE
Oh, you’re one of those anorexics! I’ve heard about that. Or bulimic. Or body dysmorphic disorder. Are you a duck trapped in a chicken trapped in a turkey’s body? A turducken? Which is it now?
TOM
None of that! I’m totally compos mentis in the cabeza. You got it all wrong; I’m not a jive turkey. November is just a few months away!
ELSIE
And what happens in November, you fly south and wanna look good in your mankini? Oh wait, you can’t fly …
TOM
Do I have to spell it out for you? The fourth Thursday of every November—Thanksgiving!!! Everyone in America, we are talking millions of people, will eat a turkey. Millions of us get slaughtered every year on one black day!!!
ELSIE
That sucks, but at least it’s only one day.
TOM
That’s why I’m all skinny. I’m hoping they’ll look at me and think, “That ain’t no drumstick.”
ELSIE
Good plan. Good luck with that.
TOM
I need more than luck. And I have an actual plan.
ELSIE
Oh geez … here we go …
TOM
I hear you have a map.
You try keeping a secret on a farm. Impossible. They don’t say “gossiping like hens” for nothing. I shoved the map over to the bird. He unrolled it with his beak. I was impressed with his dexterity.
TOM
Right here.
I looked where he was beaking—seemed like around the Middle East again. Seemed like everything always led back to the Middle East.
ELSIE
Iraq?
TOM
Not Iraq. Turkey!!!
ELSIE
Yes, that’s right, Turkey is the name of a country.
TOM
Yes, and do you think for a moment that they are going to eat the thing their country is named after? That’s my country, those are my peeps. I’ll be like royalty over there—instead of being on a hero, I will be a hero! They may make me king. My name is on all the money. I’ll be rich as Croesus. I gotta get to Turkey!! And, just as an aside, however we get there, can we not go through that country called Hungary? It sounds like a nightmare for all of us. Just the name makes me shiver: Hungary. And all the scary, hungry Hungaryarians that live there.
ELSIE
Okay, I concede you have a point, Turkey, but I’m already traveling heavy with a pig at my side that I gotta get to Israel. A bird is just gonna slow me down even more, and what’s more, you’re a flightless bird. You’re a bird that can’t fly. You’re an oxymoron.
TOM
Hurtful. Calling me a moron.
ELSIE
I said “oxymoron.”
TOM
Any kind of moron. Just hurtful.
ELSIE
I got no time for niceties.
TOM
Okay, but what if I added value to the enterprise, rather than subtracted? Because that’s what I’m all about—being additive, not subtractatative …
ELSIE
What are you getting at?
And I didn’t know where he pulled it out from, ’cause turkeys don’t have any pockets, but in the slivered moonlight, he was pushing toward me what was clearly a cellular phone, exactly the thing I’d been coveting for the journey.
ELSIE
Impressive. But it’s of no use to me. I can’t work it with these hooves and neither can Jerry, er, Shalom.
TOM
Check it.
I swear that cheeky turkey was winking at me. And with that, he began pecking at the phone like a high school girl at 3:01. He had the weather, he had On-Star, Uber, even Siri was at his whim. I swallowed a gasp, tried to cover my glee, and said—
ELSIE
You’re in.
22
A MOMENT
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.
23
IT’S HARD TO LEAVE ANYWHERE
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.”
24
HEADLINE: COW JUMPS OVER MOON
(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.
25
YOU HAD ME AT SHALOM
“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 hea
vy, and I could feel once or twice something soft and squishy flatten beneath me.
“Out of nowhere, a flash of pink strobed the darkness.”
Now the wolf was howling in pain. I was pretty sure I’d broken a paw or two, if not a leg. He limped off and became one with the darkness from whence he came. I was snorting breath like a bull, when out of the dark, the wolf’s voice came again, a lingering threat. “I’ll be back, folks, I’ll be back with my pack.”
With the wolf hobbled, Tom finally recovered his courage and gobbled out, “Bring it on, son, you just got your ass handed to you by a milk cow! This little piggy just made you his maccabeeyotch! Go ahead, bring your friends, we’ll tell them you got owned by a proud turkey, a fat little pig, and a moo-cow! Boo-ya!”
26
COUNTRY COW, CITY COW
On we walked, keeping an ear out for the wolf pack. We were getting tired from walking so many miles, but as soon as we saw the tall buildings of the city on the horizon, it renewed us like a good night’s sleep. We hadn’t said anything for a while. I wanted to lighten the mood, so I said, “‘Moo-cow’? Really?”
“Yeah,” complained Shalom, “and who you calling fat? I have a slow metabolism. I’m husky, I’m big boned…”
“C’mon,” Tom said, “I was in the moment, you can’t blame me, I’m a free bird, I speaks my mind.”
“And what were you doing with the phone when the wolf was coming at you?” Shalom asked. “Were you gonna stop him cold with some Wikipedia Turkey facts, or maybe blind him with your flashlight app?”
We laughed. And walked, and laughed some more to relieve our stress, and when we figured we were about a mile away from the city, we decided to catch some sleep so we could be at the top of our games tomorrow. We took turns keeping sentry. The wolf had spooked us.
In the morning, the plan was to try to reserve airline tickets to India, Israel, and Turkey and then head on out to the airport in disguise. I had memorized the farmer’s credit card numbers—Visa and Amex—so I was pretty sure we could charge the tickets. Once we had tickets, the rest would be easy. We could use the phone, and with Tom’s beak, we could pick out the appropriate keys.
Holy Cow Page 5