Holy Cow (6 page)
Authors: David Duchovny
JERRY
No, we won’t. The farmer will come down on us like a ton of bricks, like the hand of God, like—
ELSIE
Okay. What’s your point? Why is that my problem?
JERRY
My point is, I wanna go too.
ELSIE
No. No way.
JERRY
You think you’re the only one who knows the lay of the land? You think you’re the only one who knows which way is up, which side your bread is buttered on—
ELSIE
Jerry!
JERRY
Sorry—that’s like a thing with me, I know. I’ll keep an eye on it, you know, note-to-self it, stick a pin in it, damn, sorry—what I’m sayin’ is I know where the truffles are, woman. They’re gonna eat me just like they’re gonna eat you. It’s a damn holocaust in here.
(I fell silent. I knew
JERRY
was right, but I didn’t know what I could do. A cow traveling is bad enough, but a cow and a pig, fugeddaboutit.
JERRY
kept on, though.)
JERRY
And I got skills. I got mad skills. I got skills to pay the bills. Pigs are wicked smart. We are well liked. I can help.
ELSIE
Look, Jerry, even if I could take you, the same thing is going to happen to you in India. They’d eat you there as soon as they’d look at you. Apparently pork is quite tasty.
JERRY
Low blow, dude. Can you say “hamburger”?
ELSIE
I’m sorry. But it’s true. Cows are sacred in India, but pigs are just, well, pigs.
JERRY
You got your map there?
(And I did. I had stolen a map of the world and a couple of
Encyclopaedia Britannica
volumes from the house to research and figure out all my routes. I knew the family wouldn’t notice their absence, ’cause they now got all their information from their phones. Come to think of it, a phone would be handy, but how could I ever work the touch screen with my big ol’ hooves?)
JERRY
Hoof it over.
Jerry unrolled the map with his mouth, getting pig mucus all over it, which I did not appreciate.
JERRY
Looky here.
He pointed with his flat, circular snout to somewhere in the Middle East, the original place that cows come from, pretty far away from glorious India.
ELSIE
So? Iraq?
JERRY
No, not Iraq. Here, right over here. Israel, baby.
ELSIE
Israel? What’s in Israel?
JERRY
It’s nothing in Israel. It’s what they do in Israel, or more precisely what they don’t do.
ELSIE
What, Jerry, what do they do or not do in Israel?
JERRY
It’s a little thing I like to call “kosher.”
ELSIE
What’s kosher?
JERRY
It’s an ancient dietary regimen of the Jews. Prohibitions. Commandments. Restricti-on-ays. [
He said it like it was a Spanish word.
]
ELSIE
What are Jews?
JERRY
It’s a long story, some say the greatest story ever told, but basically, Jews are Christians with longer sideburns. And a better sense of humor.
ELSIE
Wha?
JERRY
And funny hats.
ELSIE
Wha?
JERRY
The yarmulke … the original Hair Club for Men.
ELSIE
Wha?
JERRY
You with all the wha, wha, wha … keep your eye on the ball, cow, keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole, and pick up what I am layin’ down. The ancient Jews thought pigs were unclean for some reason that historians argue about, they called us swine, they called us “traif” (along with shellfish, don’t ask). They were disgusted by us. Can you imagine? I cannot. [
He held up the old book.
] These are the people of the book. The word, the law.
ELSIE
What book word law?
JERRY
This is the Torah, in the Old Testament, but I just call it the testament ’cause it didn’t need a new one, got everything right the first time around.
ELSIE
Fine, fine, but what you describe sounds terrible, why would you wanna go somewhere you’re hated?
JERRY
Hatred can be as useful as love.
ELSIE
You lost me, bro.
“Call me Shalom.”
JERRY
Because they hate us pigs so much they won’t eat us!
ELSIE
Ahhhhh …
JERRY
It’ll be heaven. I’ll walk down the street, and people will get outta my way like I’m Clint Eastwood. Nobody will talk to me, they won’t even look at me, but best of all, I won’t wind up on their damn plates next to some friggin’ apple sauce!
I had to admit, Jerry had a point, a very valid point, and I agreed that being a pariah was better than being eaten, especially for someone with the stunted social skills of a Jerry, who might actually enjoy living the life of an antagonist. I’d be a god and he’d be a devil, and we both would live. Humans are ridiculous, but we were desperate. So I relented. I nodded. I said that he could come and I would do my best to get me to India and him to Israel, but I couldn’t promise anything. He smiled, grunted, kissed my knee with his snout, and said—“Next year in Jerusalem, my friend.”
Then he added, “Call me Shalom.”
Finally I had my route to the city plotted out. Jerry, I mean Shalom, was a pain in the tuchus, but he was proving to be pretty helpful with logistics. I have to admit, Shalom is pretty smart. One night, about three days before Jerry and I were gonna make a break for it, I was just standing, thinking about life in India and how much fun it would be to be worshipped as a god, when I heard a very strange noise by the barn door, a kind of shuffling and a gargling sound, like somebody was simultaneously trying to swallow a bunch of marbles while saying the word
marble
. Certain sections of the barn were lit where the windows let the moon in, and whatever it was was walking, or maybe
strutting
is a better word, to a spot on the ground where I could see who it was. A turkey.
Now, we cows don’t know the turkeys well at all. They are kind of kept in an area away from us. Sometimes we pass them on the way out to pasture, but we rarely talk. They’ve always struck me as really nervous, the kind of nervous that wears out your sympathy and just ends up making you nervous too, so you avoid it, and them. But I couldn’t avoid this turkey ’cause he was walking right at me.
TURKEY
Are you Q, the cow formerly known as Elsie Bovary?
ELSIE
Who wants to know?
TURKEY
The name is Turkey, Tom Turkey.
Now, he said this the way “Bond, James Bond” says it, so I really had to stifle a laugh. I acted like I had a chicken feather in my throat.
TOM
Meleagris gallopavo
, Mama-san. Not to be confused with
Numida meleagris
, the helmeted guinea fowl. You okay there, little lady? ’Cause I totally know the Heimlich maneuver.
ELSIE
No, no, I’m good, I’m good.
(As he got closer, I could tell this turkey didn’t take care of himself. He was rail-thin and his feathers were all uncombed, flying off in every direction. Even so, he seemed a bit vain and impressed with himself, and walked with the confident strut of a pimp from a ’70s blaxploitation movie.)
TOM
I guess right about now, you’re asking yourself, “Self, what is that gorgeous hunk of turkey man all about and why is he pimp-rollin’ my lucky way?”
ELSIE
No. Not even close.
TOM
C’mon, baby, let’s be real.
ELSIE
I was wondering when was the last time that little flightless bird had a meal. Boy oh boy, you are thin.
TOM
Thank you for noticing.
ELSIE
I’ve got some slop here the pigs left and some chicken feed the chickens didn’t finish.
And with that, the natural nerves of the turkey overwhelmed him, and he lost all semblance of pimp-roll bravado, reacting to the food the way Dracula does to a cross.
TOM
Keep that food away from me! Are you insane?
ELSIE
What? You just looked like you could use a meal, is all. You look terrible.
TOM
I’m all muscle, baby girl. All muscle, gristle, and bone.
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—