The Jesus Cow (20 page)

THE FOOD PANTRY
was blown to smithereens.

HARLEY'S BARN BURNED
to the ground, and Tina Turner and the Jesus Cow with it.

I
t was such a mess. There was so much to sort. Klute served up a fresh lawsuit, as did the village and any number of terrified citizens. There were endless meetings with Sloan and the International Talent Management team. Lloyd's of London took depositions for days, and it was not entirely clear that everything—or anything—would be covered. There was hope that the natural disaster clause might be circumnavigated, as this was clearly a disaster of the most unnatural sort, but there was also some concern that payment would still be withheld because the village had transferred ownership of the water tower to Harley and thus the illegal storage of toxic (to say nothing of profoundly flammable) materials was technically his responsibility and violated numerous clauses.

After Sloan released him from the final meeting, Harley went straight to the Kwik Pump, bought one of those dollar-off Old
Milwaukee twenty-four-packs, returned to his kitchen, and started drinking. He couldn't even find it in himself to summon Billy. He was lonely. He was devastated. He couldn't see his way forward. He had gone against his better judgment, sought revenge, and the thing had swallowed him whole.

And failed at love.

Again.

He was becoming bleary, and the beer wasn't numbing the pain but rather deepening it. He was feeling sorry for himself, maudlin over his own state, and for the first time in his life he didn't care to go on. His phone kept ringing. He dropped it on the floor and stomped it with his heel. He wanted only to escape.

Taking the box of beer from the refrigerator he went to the Silverado, spared from the flames along with his house and garage. At first it wouldn't start, but he wiggled the battery terminals and then it took. Leaving the truck to idle, he went back into the house, up to his bedroom, and deep into the back of his closet, where from beneath a pile of socks he withdrew his Bible case, hand-tooled by his mother and given him—with the crackling new Bible in it—for his fifth birthday as a reward for learning how to read. Dropping the Bible case on the seat he wove his way out through the blackened yard and around the remains of merchandise booths. When he got out to County Road M, he drove up past the twisted wreckage of the water tower, out across the overpass, beneath which the traffic flew back and forth with all disregard. There was no sign of activity in Clover Blossom Estates. Klute's Hummer was nowhere to be seen, and the empty houses looked even more forlorn now, decorated as they were with all those sagging banners advertising services Klute had never been allowed to provide.

The gate to Meg's junkyard was closed, and the boom of the crane was motionless. Even in his fogginess, Harley knew where Meg was—down at St. Jude's with Carolyn and Mindy, setting up a temporary food pantry in a shipping container on the parking lot. He felt another wave of despair and took another suck on his Old Milwaukee.

He drove on, silent and forlorn, until he came to the old abandoned farmhouse where he had gone to Sunday-morning meetings as a boy. Harley pulled the truck over to the shoulder, pulled his Bible from its case, walked through the rank grass to the building, and stared in through the window. The plaster ceilings were sagging. He could see mildew on the walls and porcupine poop on the curled linoleum. He could also see himself in a straight-backed chair, singing the meaningful hymns, bowing his head in prayer, rereading his chosen Bible verses for the week, readying himself to give testimony, his shoes polished and shining.

How clean-limbed it all seemed, that simple faith. He thought of his mother and his father and their quiet dedication to charity and humility, and the extrapolations required to go from there to a birthmarked calf worth millions and the conflagration of all he had known.

It made his heart hurt, and he wanted another beer. He returned to the truck, twisted another bottle open, ground into third gear, and lurched forward.

He drove until he came to Five Mile Road. He sat at the stop sign a moment before looking up and realizing he was at the old Nicolet Place.
Mindy's
place. The F-250 was parked by the granary, but the Norton was gone, its tarp in a heap on the ground.

Food pantry,
he remembered.
Food pantry. Helping out.

He felt the tears rising.

Then his emotions swung the other way. He leaned out the window. Flung the beer bottle to the asphalt, watched the shards skitter through the foam. Straightened up. Grabbed the wheel with both hands. He was done dithering. Done letting events direct him rather than the other way around. He'd drive to St. Jude's. Lay it on the line. Give Mindy some Bad Johnny Cash. Let her know he was ready to hit life running. Split for Panama.

Get that damn motorcycle ride.

He turned right, and headed south, back toward Swivel. On either side the Big Swamp stretched out, a morass of cut-grass, cattails, swamp water, ooze, and bubbling methane. Harley bore down in his focus, determined to keep his truck centered on the road so as not to wind up in the swamp, which festered right up to the edge of the road on both sides. It was dusk now, the sun laying a final red line across the horizon as he approached McCracken Hill, which would take him up and away from the swamp and into the last hilly stretch toward Swivel.

Right at the base of the hill, barely into the climb, the truck coughed and bucked, roared ahead again, then died. Harley stuffed the clutch and twisted the key. The starter wound but the engine wouldn't fire. He turned the key off, then on again. Still nothing. Because of the grade, the truck was losing momentum rapidly, so Harley popped it out of gear, steered it quietly to the shoulder, and set the emergency brake.

Lifting the hood, he waggled the carburetor flap, jiggled the battery cables, and tried the starter again. Nothing. Fetching the ball-peen hammer he crawled under the truck to smack the solenoid. After a few whacks, he shimmied out and tried the starter again.

Still nothing. He'd have to call Billy, then. Tow the thing home. Foggily he fished through his pockets for his cell phone, but found nothing. He slapped his pants fore and aft, slow in his tipsy concentration. He searched the truck cab, the dash, under the seats, ran his hand in the crack behind the seat and the backrest. He shook his head as if to clear it but couldn't recall where he might have left the phone. Then he remembered dropping it to the floor. Smashing it.

There would be no calling for help, then.
Probably for the best
, he thought.
Last thing I need is the constable coming to find me out here in this kinda shape and my truck engine still warm.

Okay
, he thought.
Walking
.

Leaning into the grade he imagined Mindy seeing him in this condition of drunkenness and dedication, interpreting it as a sign of the depth of his love, and relenting on the spot. He had this heroic vision then, her throwing her arms around him, drawing deeply of his scent, kissing him with tears in her eyes, and then she would kick-start that Norton, and they would ride, ride, ride.

With sunset, strands of fog had begun to drift across the swamp, and a few threads hung over McCracken Hill and the road ahead. He was about halfway up the hill when the glow appeared, a white hint of shine, growing and growing.

The glow waxed steadily, expanding and brightening with ethereal constance. It was a good night for the dispersion of light, the fog strands thickening in the humid evening air, the heaviness of everything serving to muffle all but Harley's footfalls. There was no sound associating itself with the swelling light, and this heightened Harley's susceptibility to the idea that it was more than headlights hoving. In the silence, everything seemed premonitory. Despite himself, Harley felt a surge in his chest. A little
what-if
ticklishness.
Maybe it was the beer, but for now he was willing to turn himself over to hope and belief. In his parlous spiritual state he managed to convince himself of at least the possibility that the glow was not that of a vehicle but rather of a nimbus backlighting the genuine Son of God, that the rapture had come, that it was northbound on Five Mile Road, and that if Harley kept walking, he and Jesus would meet right at the crest of McCracken Hill. Or perhaps it was the Virgin Mary inbound. Perhaps Mary Ann Van Hoof hadn't been the crazy one.

He knew one thing: he was ready for something other than what this dirty world had to offer.

Maybe it was time to believe again.

“I believe,” slurred Harley aloud, “I am fifty yards shy of meeting Jesus.”

He did not hurry. He walked stolidly, with study and purpose, as a man does when forced to think of balance and foot placement. But as the light grew, his gut grew more and more weightless, and as he stumped toward the luminous horizon he imagined what it would be to top that hill and see the light bust wide open to reveal the real-dang Jesus—not some pariedolic fake—Jesus in a nimbus, a broad, encompassing halo of light, a portable aurora borealis with maybe a smattering of sparks, Jesus there beneath it with his arms spread wide as a lake, returned to lift all the good-hearted and weary from their struggle, to levitate Harley out of a world of dead cows and twisted metal and ash and scorched dreams and charred hearts, and Harley had this image full and thrumming in his head, and then the light exploded into view and rather than the Second Coming the mystery broke as a single headlight popped over the horizon, followed by the sound of a motor, and it was Mindy on her Norton.

And Harley thought,
Well, that will do
.

He staggered leftward toward the centerline to wave her down, but she had gone deep into her tuck, the way she always said she loved to come off McCracken Hill, and so focused was she that she did not see him, but in the fading light Harley saw another body behind her, a man spooned tight to the curve of her back and gripping her with all his might, and as the two of them zoomed past, Harley recognized Yonni's ponytail blown straight back in the wind. They locked eyes in the gloaming and in that split second he took a sliver of comfort from the fact that the cartoonist looked terrified.

And then he felt his heart evaporate like cotton candy in a blast furnace, and he spun on his heel, and went stumbling back down the hill.

HE STOPPED AT
the truck for another dose of beer. To the north, Mindy's taillight was a patch of red fuzz in the fog, dwindling and dwindling until the glow was gone and with it the last echoes of the engine and then all Harley could hear was the sound of mosquitos and his own heart thumping and the gurgle of the beers as he drained them one after the other.

HE STEPPED INTO
the ditch and fell immediately face-first into the swamp water. It was lukewarm and amniotic slick. There was the sensation of larvae. Had it been colder, perhaps it would have shocked him back to sense, but it was medium soup, viscous with frog eggs. He staggered to his feet and spit. The water drained from his head down, sluicing and spattering around his shins. The air smelled of salt and rot. He loosed a reverberant belch.

It was tough going but he operated with the plodding
determination common to drunks and, for that matter, pilgrims. When his feet stuck in the muck, he pulled himself forward by gripping the saw grass hummocks, and soon his hands were a razored, bloody mess and his thighs burned. It was dark now, his only guidance the bulk of dark shapes and darker shapes and the reflection of starlight here and there in the water. Mosquitos came at him from all angles. At one point he stumbled into a channel where the footing was solid beneath the mud and he made good progress but soon the watercourse became choked with cattails and he plunged into them, the velvet-brown tops batting him lightly about the head, the spear-point leaves jabbing him painfully even as their whisking gave him a temporary reprieve from the mosquitos.

He broke through into a placid pond where the stars were so accurately reflected between strips of dissipating fog he became disoriented regarding the position of the heavens for a moment before he stumbled forward waist deep into the water and set the stars to rippling, as if the cosmos were cast in gelatin. As he crossed the open water, the mosquitos returned in a fuzzy swarm, whirring and jabbing, and he inhaled a few. Kneeling, he scooped muck from the pond bottom and smeared it through his hair and on his face and neck and arms. It helped. The mosquitos still buzzed but did not land. The far side of the pond was bordered by a floating bog. When he reached it he threw himself forward and into a half-twist Fosbury flop, landing on his back and using his elbows to crab himself out of the water and onto the bog, which undulated gently beneath him in ever-receding echoes of his movement. He began settling almost immediately, the water rising around his body as it pressed into the bog. Above him the fog had cleared and he saw all the constellations.

He remembered his Bible, then, in the pickup with the empty bottles.

Crap
, he thought.
I was gonna read that.

HE FIGURED THEY'D
never find him, which was fine. For the first time since he didn't know how long, he was at peace. Now and then one of the mosquito horde would find its way past the mud pack and he would feel the itchy pinch of the proboscis penetrating his skin, but he was beyond swatting now. He felt peace was within reach. As another mosquito bored in somewhere above his ankle, he wondered idly how much blood a single mosquito might extract, and by virtue of extrapolation, how many mosquitos it would require to bleed him dry.
The things we don't know
, he thought. For a passing moment, he felt fuzzy amusement at the idea of the mosquitos catching a buzz off the beer in his veins. Then he caught sight of the moon, which drew him to focus simply on the apparently infinite universe framed in a saw grass fringe, a perspective that led him to think of Billy and what he'd said about being beneath it all or above it all, and then he recalled the image—it played like a brief video clip—of Mindy flopping on her back in the barn to admire the frosty nails the first time she visited, and how keen his hope and hunger had been in that moment, and how it could all have come to this. From crystalline hope to mucky failure.
So
many
failures
, he thought. So many opportunities to be bold, and it was possible tonight's excursion would be the bravest thing he'd ever done—and even that driven by the twin catalysts of beer and heartbreak.