The Jesus Cow (14 page)

“Yeah. I guess. Okay.”

Sloan immediately produced his cell phone. “First thing we do is insure that calf and cow,” he said.

“Well, I've always worked with Ken down there at State Farm.”

“I'm sure he does good work,” said Sloan, using his free hand to pull away hay bales and let himself out the door. “We'll be using a little outfit run by a guy named Lloyd, out of London.”

It was quiet in the barn then, just the sound of Tina Turner
working her cud, and the muffled sound of Sloan on the phone outside the door.

Billy nodded in Sloan's direction. “If that feller ain't the devil, they're damn sure first cousins.”

He was grinning as he said it.

On the straw, the calf dozed, the bloodied face of Christ rising and falling.

AN HOUR LATER
, Harley's kitchen was a command center. A bank of rechargeable radios blinked on the countertop, and a group of people were hunched over laptops at the table. A ring of uniformed private security personnel encircled the barn and house.

“This is just the advance contingent,” said Sloan. “International Talent Management took the liberty of retaining them in advance—on our own dime—in anticipation of exactly these developments. The real help will arrive tomorrow.” The private security members were quiet and efficient and not at all the sort of potbellied mall walkers Harley had—rightly or wrongly—come to associate with the phrase
private security
.

Dusk was falling. Out in the hay field and up and down the road, the mess of cars and people and TV trucks still remained and was still growing, but a large portable LED sign on a trailer had been parked between the house and barn, and the same message crawled past, over and over.

…VIEWINGS TO RESUME ASAP…UPDATES AT JESUSCOW.COM…

“I apologize for swamping your kitchen,” said Sloan. “The mobile command center will be here by tomorrow morning, and we'll be out of your hair.”

Harley didn't know what to say. Sloan laid it out for him.

“We've done a lot of work with the NFL and the movie industry. We're used to setting up on location and running the show on the fly.”

Harley stood there goggle-eyed.

“Best thing for you would be to rest,” said Sloan. “Right now we're mostly consumed with logistics. But by morning we'll need you to sign off on some things. Including the surgery.”

“The . . . wha?”

“We're bringing in a veterinary plastic surgeon from L.A.”

“I was not aware of this profession,” said Harley.

“Oh, she's very good,” said Sloan, as if recommending a barber. “Her clients include the reupholstered shih tzu of a certain regularly rehabbed starlet, an Oscar-winning stunt monkey, and she is on retainer with several of the stars of
Snow Dogs
. Apart from cosmetics, she specializes in wound remediation.”

Harley looked at Mindy.

“My place, baby?” asked Mindy.

“That'd be nice,” said Harley, looking around the kitchen and out the window, where the TV truck lights had everything halogen bright.

“I'll get my truck,” said Mindy.

“No, no,” said Sloan. “Jack here will see to it.”

“But—”

“He'll also make sure you aren't bothered,” said Sloan. A large man in a dark suit and long coat stepped from a corner of the kitchen and ushered them out the door, where a black Suburban had already been started and was waiting.

Outside it was dark. With Jack at the wheel, the Suburban made its way down the driveway, now clear of pilgrims. As Jack
accelerated onto the county road, Harley looked back. His farmlet was a psychedelic mishmash of halogen-thrown shadows. Headlights beamed through the exhaust of several hundred idling cars in his hay field. Dark figures walked to and fro. The LED sign continued to scroll its message, over and over.

I have no idea what is happening
, thought Harley.
No idea
.

In the darkness, Mindy squeezed his hand.

K
lute Sorensen woke to the sound of a hedge fund manager in his right ear, discussing how his portfolio was up 28 percent for the year thanks to prescient bets placed on “key transportation and housing sectors.”
I must have forgotten to set the sleep timer
, thought Klute, who was having more trouble sleeping than ever now that he had thrown unrequited love into the mix. Since his tentative visit with Meg she seemed to be avoiding him, and he found himself alternately pouting and longing.
It was easier
, he thought,
when I was only pursuing her property.

And then there were the rumors he had heard about Harley and that damn calf. After the debacle of the fire department fund-raiser, Klute had been buoyant. Surely this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Surely now sentiment in Swivel would swing his way. And yet, Klute had heard rumors that some bigshot group from L.A. had come in to run the show. Certainly the flow of
pilgrims hadn't slowed. Vance Hansen said he had hardly been able to make it home from the village hall last night for all the traffic. Of course Vance was timid and drove a minivan, thought Klute.

Klute rose to shave and prepare for the day, which looked to amount to more of the same: berating Vance Hansen in an attempt to get Vance to do what Klute's Clearwater lawyers should have been doing (the truth was, Klute could no longer afford them, but during his final consult he had snagged some letterhead) and figuring out some way to put himself in the path of Meg Jankowski without looking like a complete creeper.

The hedge fund founder had finished his interview now, replaced by news at the top of the hour. It was the usual mishmash of war and worry. Then, right at the end, at the spot reserved for what was called “The Business of Entertainment” but was actually just an excuse to wedge celebrity gossip into the programming, Klute heard something that made him pause with his razor in midair.

“And finally, Jim,” said a female newscaster, her delighted smile leaping right out through the speakers, “renowned Hollywood star maker Sloan Knight of International Talent Management has announced that he and the firm have taken on a
four-legged
client, having signed a comprehensive deal to represent a Holstein calf in rural Wisconsin that has been all
over
social media lately, thanks to a series of spots on its hide that many say resembles the face of Jesus Christ. In what's being called a three-sixty arrangement, International Talent Management will handle all rights from film to live appearances, endorsements, and merchandising.”

“Holy cow!” said Jim, with a fake-baked chuckle.

“Yes,” giggled the female newscaster. “That's what I call a
beefy
deal.”

Jim segued seamlessly into precious metals futures.

Klute stared into the mirror until the shaving cream began to burn. Then he slowly raised the razor and finished what he had started. When he was done, he toweled off his face and stared into the mirror again. The business news was still echoing all around him, but he didn't hear it. Instead, he straightened up, looked himself right in the eye, and in a very quiet voice said, “Key housing and transportation sectors . . .”

Then he called Vance Hansen and set up a meeting.

It felt good to yell again.

WHEN HARLEY AND
Mindy awoke, Jack the driver was waiting with breakfast and a ride back to Harley's farm for a meeting in the command center with Sloan.

“Good news,” said Sloan, as an assistant distributed cappuccinos. “The surgeon found the damage to the Jesus face to be mostly superficial. It was easily repairable on-site. We brought in a hair and makeup person to obscure the stitches. It's all cleaned up now and you can't see the difference.”

Sloan went on to report that subsequent to the surgery, three independent veterinarians, a hairdresser, and one notary public were obtained to inspect the calf and then sign a certificate of authenticity. “Any knucklehead could stencil a Jesus face on a calf,” explained Sloan. Harley thought of his shoe polish trick as he signed the papers Sloan handed to him. He didn't read them in their entirety, but he did see the sentence that said, “PricewaterhouseCooper cannot verify that this is the face of the Savior, but does verify that the calf and/or the image in question has not been in any way artificially manipulated or modified.”

Before the veterinarian departed she implanted a tracking device. “With an animal of this value, kidnapping is always a concern,” said Sloan. Then, by way of explanation, he added, “Many of these measures are required by Lloyd's.”

The speed with which the operation grew was astounding. Two more busloads of security teams arrived, and cleared the property of people and vehicles. The team hired Meg to do the towing. This resulted in an unexpected financial windfall for her and—she tithed the very next day—St. Jude's and the food pantry, and Harley had the first inkling of how all the things Sloan and Billy had predicted might just pan out. The calf might actually be used for good. By afternoon the wreckage of the fire department ticket booths had been replaced with turnstiles and ticket scanners. Weatherproof tents were erected and torpedo heaters brought in. The remainder of Harley's hay field had been plowed clear and fitted with generator-powered lights, heated Porta-Potties, and parking attendants.

The command center was now operating in a gigantic mobile home. A cleaning crew had been through Harley's house in the wake of the command team's departure, and frankly, Harley couldn't recall it ever looking so good.

“Public relations,” said Sloan, nodding toward a cluster of four people working tablets and Bluetooths at the far end of the mobile home. “Apart from handling the news crews, they're coordinating with the state tourism board and arranging visits by dignitaries. I understand the governor has already been in touch, as well as the National Association of Religious Broadcasters. We've also assigned one person to monitor animal rights organizations to anticipate and neutralize any difficulties in that direction.”

Another four-pack of people was clustered around flat screens. “Social media,” said Sloan. “The calf will have numerous accounts.”

“Which reminds me,” said Harley. “JesusCow.com?”

Sloan smiled. “We took the liberty of squatting on that one in advance. As well as the Twitter handle @TheJesusCow.”

“But it's a
calf
. For a while yet.”

“Yes, but when it first blew up—I believe it was your mail carrier—”

“Dixie.”

“Yes, well, she hashtagged it #JesusCow, and it stuck. So we went with that. Better in the long term anyway. Our market research did yield affection and loyalty spikes around the term ‘calf'—due mainly to cuteness variables—but as a term it puts a hard horizon on long-term marketability thematics. Whereas ‘cow' has us covered well into the future.”

“Um, also, that's gonna be a
bull
, not a
cow
,” said Harley.

“We prefer to think of the term in the generic gender-neutral sense,” said Sloan. “Furthermore, and by way of update, during the hide repair surgery we took the liberty of . . . um . . . altering that status.”

“You steered that bull?”

“Yes,” said Sloan. “While bovine animal husbandry is not my chief area of expertise, it seemed best. Apart from the legendary Ferdinand, bulls in general do not project lovability. Whereas our research indicated the term
steer
charts much higher among children, housewives, and hard-core feminists. There were some outliers—a segment of Christians who prefer the image of a muscular, virile Christ—but there is a downside risk to deploying the term
bull
within a religious context.”

Harley looked at him blankly, then it dawned on him.
Bull
. As in
bull
shit.

“You know,” said Sloan, “the satirists and haters.”

“How do you keep track of all this?” said Harley, looking around himself worriedly. “And what about permits, and sales tax and zoning violations and trip-and-fall lawsuits and who knows what else?”

“Actually, in this case I agree with your archnemesis Klute Sorensen,” said Sloan. “In particular the way he proceeded with Clover Blossom Estates; the key is to go like mad, make as much as you can, and seek forgiveness later. You know, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.' Sometimes opportunity has the shelf life of a Twinkie in a pigpen.”

Harley found himself booked into a lot of very boring business meetings in which he had to sign piles and piles of paperwork, most of it explained briefly and on the fly. Each time the small voice inside told him this was a bad idea, he imagined Clover Blossom Estates blooming in nothing but actual clover and Klute Sorensen driving a used Toyota.
Oh well
, thought Harley,
can't stop now
.

Throughout the paperwork, Harley saw references to JCOW Enterprises, Inc., of which entity he was apparently president. At one point he signed a piece of paper titled “Agency Representation Agreement” and he had hesitated with his pen in the air for a moment when he read the part about International Talent Management claiming 20 percent of all proceeds. It seemed like an awful lot. Then he looked around at the hum and buzz of activity in the command center, and then he considered the scene outside where everything was shaping up for the reopening, and finally he reflected on the train wreck that resulted when he tried to do it
himself, and then he figured whatever the deal was, it was a good deal.

Sloan slid another piece of paper into place. “Catchall,” he said. “On your behalf we will control film, media, and merchandising rights. In addition to development, we will vigorously pursue any and all unauthorized online videos and sales items.”

Harley signed, and the feeling was that of launching a boat he had never seen and could never bring back to dock.

“Last one for today,” said Sloan, placing a single sheet of International Talent Management letterhead into place. It was the simplest of forms, in fact one simple line:

I, the undersigned, grant International Talent Management and their qualified representatives to negotiate on my behalf with the bishop of Rome and all relevant subsidiary institutions and officials regarding the sanctified status of the property heretofore and henceforth referred to as “the Jesus Cow.”

“Bishop of Rome?” asked Harley.

“That would be the pope,” said Sloan. “Clearly we won't approach him directly—at least not initially. We will initiate the process via our Vatican contact.”

“Your Vatican contact?”

“When's the last time you ever heard of tour buses lining up to visit the Mary Ann Van Hoof farm?”

“Well, I . . .”

“You can visit her place. She's long gone, of course, but a shrine remains. And there are plans for a giant cathedral, as directed to her by Mary in the visions.

“But if you go there, y'know what you'll find?”

Harley shrugged.

“A half-finished cathedral, a few laminated Bible bookmarks in the gift shop, and a brochure asking for donations. They're just scraping by. They failed to obtain approval from the Vatican, and in fact, the regional bishop placed them in a state of interdict—one step removed from excommunication. It really killed the business.

“Now then,” continued Sloan, “for the sake of comparison, let us consider the Our Lady of Good Help shrine in New Franken, Wisconsin. They were puttering along, maybe seventy-five to a hundred visitors on a good day. Then the bishop issues a decree certifying that the Virgin Mary had truly appeared there as reported, and,
boom!
five hundred to eight hundred visitors per day, even during winter. Bus tours. Faithful pilgrims from all around the world. A mention on
Nightline
.”

He handed Harley a scan of a newspaper article containing the story and these details.

“Yeah, but how about this?” asked Harley, pointing to a quote from a local priest: “We don't want to become a kind of circus.”

“We at International Talent Management,” said Sloan, “are not lumbered with that particular compunction.”

HIS MORNING DOUBTS
at bay, Klute Sorensen was back in his element, having blared his Hummer through the ranks of pilgrims to Swivel Village Hall, where he was once again fulminating at Vance Hansen.

“But—,” said Vance.

“But
is where you
sit
when you
quit
!” hollered Klute, who had made that one up himself and intended to include it on his own motivational CD one day. Sometimes he liked to close his eyes and
imagine himself stalking the stage of a giant conference center, wearing one of those invisibly slim flesh-toned microphones that attach right to your face, looking out at a sea of expectant faces as he boomed out business-savvy piths and gists backed by a PowerPoint projection the size of a drive-in movie screen.

“But I don't control the school buses,” said Vance. “I can't simply sign them over to you.”

“BUREAUCRACY!” hollered Klute. “BANE OF ALL ENTERPRISE! ENEMY OF PROGRESS! GUM IN THE GEARS OF GREATNESS!”

“Yes, well—”

“Who's the president of the school board?”

“Freda Sigurdson . . .”

“You call Freda
right now
, and you tell her to convene a special session. You tell her Klute Sorensen is going to rent every single school bus on the lot for the foreseeable future.”

Vance looked confused. Klute pointed out the window. “You see all those damned cow worshippers? Clogging the streets? Parking all over the place?”

“Yes, it's a problem,” said Vance. “Constable Benson is—”

“You
see a
problem
,” said Klute, “I see an
opportunity
!”

“That's why you're you,” said Vance.

“Transportation and housing! Those are your
key sectors
in a situation like this! Right now Swivel has a problem with
both
, and more coming! You tell her Klute Sorensen will cover all the costs and that twenty-five percent of the proceeds . . . ten percent of the proceeds . . .
five percent of the proceeds
will go to the school athletics fund.”