Holy Cow (14 page)
Authors: David Duchovny
I have dictated this memoir in an undisclosed location (Jamaica) and I am flying back to the United States and to my home to coincide with the publishing of my book. We’re all flying back.
“We’re all flying back.”
Tom is going to try to officially become a pilot, while working toward getting a presidential pardon from President Obama for next Thanksgiving Day. He is also lobbying for Tofurky to replace turkey as the meal of choice for that holiday. It’s a long shot, but he seems to have Michelle’s ear on this.
Shalom and Joe have been short-listed for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in the Middle East, and they may very well win. But first, Shalom may have to spend a few weeks in rehab trying to ween himself off his newfound predilection for psychedelic drugs.
Me? I want America to hear of my journey. I want you, boys and girls, men and women, fauna and fowl, to learn what I’ve learned—that it is not right to be reviled, nor is it right to be worshipped. We are not gods and goddesses, nor are we devils and beasts. I know nature is red in tooth and claw. I don’t blame Wolfsheim for trying to eat us; that’s in his nature, what he needs to do to survive. And I know that a life led like Mallory’s can have dignity and sanctity, that you can spend a few good years on a farm, have a child, and then be sacrificed to feed someone. There’s a simple, circular beauty in that. I happen to be a vegetarian like all cows, but I’m not naive enough to ask a tiger to forswear meat and eat bean sprouts. We are all animals and we have our place in the womb of Mother Nature. Only man has separated himself from the great chain of being and from all the other animals, and I think that has been to his great detriment, and sadness, and to ours.
I can no longer be part of the herd. I want to be heard.
This is my religion—we’re all animals, perfect animals created in the infinite image and imagination of nature. It’s a life not without pain and competition and suffering, but it can be a life of dignity and mutual respect. I don’t know what awaits me when Tom brings us in for a smooth landing at JFK. A heroine’s welcome? The bestseller list? Hollywood? The slaughterhouse? It’s funny, because after all this, I have been thinking a lot about Mallory, and that maybe I would like to have a calf of my own. A few years out to pasture with a couple of kids seems like heaven to me right now. But I can’t. At least not yet. It was given to me to tell a story and it is my responsibility to tell it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.
I’ll be landing any minute now to spread the word. Look up in the sky. It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s three underdogs, it’s a cow and a pig and a turkey, and we’re coming for you. We have a message for you:
You, me, the animals in the wild, the animal at your feet, the animal on your plate, the person next to you—
We are all one
We are all holy cows
Moo
BY E. BOVARY AS COWMUNICATED TO
D. DUCHOVNY (COW-WRITER)
FEBRUARY 2015
It’s been brought to my attention that certain aspects of Elsie’s story are implausible: that our heroes could actually pass for humans as they make their way around the world; that Shalom could actually find a mohel willing to work his magic on a pig; that Elsie could be a milk cow before giving birth; and, maybe most suspect of all, that all three of their intercontinental flights abroad left on time. I know Elsie; perhaps she is given to embellishment like any good storyteller, perhaps to outright lies like any great storyteller. I was taught in school to “trust the tale, not the teller,” and I would ask you, dear reader, to extend this generosity to our friends in the animal kingdom.
Trust the tail, not the teller.
DAVID DUCHOVNY
I want to thank Eleanor Chai for thinking this could be a book and Jonathan Galassi for reading it, believing in it, and helping me shape it. Miranda Popkey for being able to ask a thousand questions but never be annoying. Maria Dibattista back at Princeton. Disney and Pixar for turning it down as an animated film and forcing me to write it out like a big boy. Albeit many years later. My dog, Blue, for being the best dog ever. And. My kids who are my constant audience in my head. Everything I write I write for them as they were, as they are, and as they will be.
David Duchovny is a beloved television, stage, and screen actor, as well as a screenwriter and director. He lives in New York and Los Angeles.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2015 by King Baby, Inc.
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Natalya Balnova
All rights reserved
First edition, 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Duchovny, David.
Holy cow / David Duchovny.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-374-17207-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-374-71289-1 (e-book)
1. Cows—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.U343 H65 2015
813'.6—dc23
2014027455
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eISBN 9780374712891