Dead Cows

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Mr. Supervisor, I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you think I’m batshit. You think I’m one step away from screaming about Jesus’ tonsils and pissing on tourists on Powell Street while they’re waiting for the cable car. You don’t understand how a respectable, educated person such as myself—someone you’ve known for thirty years and who works at a science museum—could possibly want to tell the world about the time we saw a field full of mutilated cattle. You especially don’t like my claim that these atrocities could only have been committed by a sentient life form, a conspirator—a sick fuck, if you will. This type of talk is for people who live in the desert in a trailer and call AM talk radio shows to tell some DJ about crop circles or the aliens who just abducted them. It’s not for people like me. And Greg—or should I call you The Honorable Gregory Fantini, Supervisor for the twelfth district of our fair city of San Francisco?—it’s especially not for you. You don’t want me to embarrass you by talking to the public about what happened that day. You think I’m too smart for that.

Well don’t kid yourself, Greg. I’m not that smart. I don’t actually do any science here at the science museum. You know that I used to be a scientist. You may not know that I’m not one anymore. In fact, I haven’t met a single scientist since I moved out west. I see them, yes, but I just stare at them in the halls here at work as they tromp by with their carts full of the coolest shit I’ve ever seen, like rare fish and butterflies and boar heads soaked in formaldehyde and dinosaur bones and living, breathing sea turtles. And I stare. But besides staring, all I really do is let angry yuppies push me around because their little boy Austin had to wait in line.

But just because I’m not so smart doesn’t make me one of them, Greg. It doesn’t make me a loony or a crackpot or a fuckup of any sort. I am one hundred percent, certifiably sane. And it’s funny, really, because whenever I close my eyes, I see a fly land in a dead cow’s eye socket in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, in 1987.

Don’t you?

Greg, where are you going? I know I may have just gone too far. Please be patient with me, sir. If you stay, it will be best for all involved. I give you my word.

First of all, let me take a moment to thank you for coming here to this lovely classroom in the museum to speak with me during what I know is a very busy time. It is election season. I’m honored to see you also have graced us with the presence of two or three of your top aides and several members of the world class San Francisco Police Department. I can only assume the presence of the latter is due to some letters I’ve sent you in the past that could only be called, in polite circles, overzealous. I have apologized for those in later letters, which I hope came across as much more reasonable, and I sincerely hope that you didn’t take those things personally.

It’s really quite amazing that we all fit in this tiny space. Two grown-up chairs and a half dozen kiddy seats, and you, stand up fellow that you are, give the other grown-up chair to the ranking officer. That’s just so Greg of you. Man I missed you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to trade seats with the man sitting in that kiddy seat right there next to you, Greg. Yes, you, the pencil-dick with the glasses. Don’t I know you? Here, you take my grown-up seat. Alright, Greg, now we can see eye to eye.

Oh, I got it! I do know Pencil Dick. He’s the same guy who escorted me out of the town hall meeting you held in the library a couple months ago, when I got up in front of everyone and asked whether or not you, standing right next to me twenty-five years ago, had witnessed proof of the existence of the real phenomenon known as cattle mutilation. And you, when everyone in the audience started hushing me and laughing like the bunch of ignorant pricks that they are, stopped them and said, and I’m reading from a transcript here, “I grew up on a farm. I grew up largely with you there at my side. I saw lots of things die, including, probably, some cows that day. I really think, though, that you should talk to a professional who could help you get through this. Ted, death is a fact of life. Not a conspiracy.”

You see, Greg, it was then that I knew I had to get to the bottom of this. I had to force your hand. You admitted you were there with me that day. You are ignoring something you saw with your own eyes. The second I heard you admit that you had seen the same thing, I stopped doubting myself. I went online to some of those sites that are trying to get to the bottom of the real phenomenon known as cattle mutilation, and I started requesting that people give small donations to your opponent until you came clean.

I’m pretty good at fundraising, huh?

You could at least say something instead of just staring at me with those creepy lemur eyes.

So here you are, all of a sudden, after ignoring me for months, coming to visit me at my place of business, telling me you want to hear me out. Telling me I have a half hour to say whatever I want to you, as long as I promise to stop supporting your opponent.

Don’t worry, Mr. Supervisor. By the end of this, you’ll be glad you came.

Listen, Greg, there’s no reason for alarm. I like you, and I always have. If you recall, we were only nine when it happened, but even then, Mr. Supervisor, you were a man. You had this way of carrying yourself that made me want to smell you. You had this perfectly cut, short black hair and all your features were exactly what they were supposed to be. You got all the sweethearts. When you laughed, you’d jump up and down and look people straight in the eye, and whoever else was there, grownup or not, they would start laughing and jumping up and down, too. Everyone else looked like an idiot. You looked like Greg.

I loved your house, Greg. You remember it?

You see, officers, Mr. Pencil Dick, I’m not sure how much you know about the great stock your boss here comes from. Greg lost his mother not long after he was born, but soon after that, his dad came into some money somehow. My mom was single too, but she was broke, worked too hard and wasn’t around much. So, great man that Greg’s father was, he helped to raise me while my mother tried to make enough money to keep me in private school. Greg and I hung out all the time, but we always had to go to his house because his dad didn’t want him to see the shithole I lived in.

Oh, but I remember his house, and it was fantastic. He lived on this hill overlooking a giant field for grazing animals, except that he didn’t have any animals. His dad was a doctor who wanted to live on an old farm, so I guess he ripped out the old farmhouse and did his own thing. The house was wooden, but it was freshly painted red and about two stories tall. It almost looked like a house in one of those old Samurai movies, what with the pillars and a roof that gently peters out. The front of it had this garden full of vegetables, and I remember there was a path made of stones that sparkled in the sun. The hill was so steep you had to walk zigzag up the path to get to the front door.

You remember all that, Greg? Oh man I fucking loved going to your house. When we hung out, up until we graduated high school, we didn’t “go play,” or “go outside,” or sit around all day and play videogames. No, we kicked fun’s ass. We went on an adventure, an escapade, a caper. We ran all over the place. We found boar skulls and arrowheads and we sat on old abandoned tractors, and we made bridges over creeks out of pieces of wood we found on the ground.

Then one day, we were out on an adventure, and we got real lost. The sun started coming down, and we had to take this shortcut to get to a road so we could make it home without being shot by a drunken hunter or eaten by a bear. We walked out of the woods, I remember—just a few hundred yards from the road—and then you ran ahead. You stopped—you were almost a quarter mile ahead of me, fast runner that you were—and you signaled to me not to go any farther.

Anything, buddy? You wanna tell me what you saw then?

It’s okay. I can wait for an answer.

My God you have turned into such a stubborn man. Very well. I’ll go on.

It’s so good to see you! Christ, we haven’t really talked since high school. We just kinda grew apart. But remember back then? You must be dying to know what happened to me after high school. With you, it was all over the papers. My life hasn’t been as public as yours. You probably heard I was doing well, that I was attending the best, priciest, preppiest universities around. That after I did all that I was working back in Philadelphia doing research in biology and getting tons of grants and making plenty of money.

You might have even thought you could get some campaign cash out of me. I know how you politicians think.

Was that a smile, Greg? It’s very becoming on you.

I felt terrible that I’d lost touch with you and your dad over the years. I really did. And then one day, I ran into your dad in the supermarket near my house in Philly. I saw him in the produce aisle. He was picking through a bin full of tomatoes, trying to find the ones that weren’t rotten. From the back, it was hard to tell who he was, but there was something about the way he carried himself that made me think it was him. So I went around to the other side of the tomato bin, and there he was. It was unmistakably his face, what with those big brown eyes. The ones that always made me feel like I’d done something wrong. They were magnified behind some of the thickest glasses I’d ever seen. I could see the big old veins popping out of his eyes. I had to help him, Greg. Three of the six tomatoes he’d picked were rotten already. He could barely see. All of his hair was gone, instead of just most of it. He’d shrunk by what must have been a foot. He was all hunched over. He was alone.

I asked him how your house was doing and what he was doing in Philadelphia, and he told me that developers had bought the house you and I grew up in. Nice of you guys to tell me that. No matter. All the farmers had lost their homes, too. It turns out your dad’s living in a condo now right near my old supermarket.

We chatted for a bit about all the trouble you and I always got in, and we had some good laughs.   And then we walked by the meat department and saw the butcher cut up a steak, and the steak was real tough for some reason, and the poor butcher was just hacking away and it just wasn’t working. The meat just wouldn’t let itself be cut.

And it reminded me of that day when we saw all those poor cows, and I’d always been curious, so I finally asked your dad about it.

He stopped smiling and said, “You still remember that, huh? I wish you guys wouldn’t have had to see that. It’s a miracle you didn’t get into any trouble.”

And I hadn’t thought about it in years, but I was confused as hell. What a thing to say! “We were nine,” I replied, “What could we have done wrong to get into trouble?”

He laughed and shook his head at me.

Greg, your father’s not looking too good.

Do you realize that we never spoke about it once after it happened? I understand that we agreed never to talk about it to anyone else. But we never even spoke about it to each other. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?

Not long after I saw your dad, the federal government, in all its wisdom, decided to stop my grants. Then I lost my job. I had all this free time, and I couldn’t get those damn dead cows out of my head.

It was around then that I started writing you letters asking you to tell me what you remembered. And when I finally got fed up with you avoiding my inquiries, I moved out here so I could be your constituent. So you would have to talk to me, Mr. Supervisor.

Greg, you can think I’m batshit all day long, but I’m about to tell you the honest to God, swear on Darwin, my mother’s honor kind of truth. Look at it like a scientist. It’s evidence for something. Something terrible happened that day. And if by the end, you think you can live with yourself and continue ignoring this, that’s fine with me. But I won’t be the crazy one.

When I finally caught up to you, you were standing in front of me and to the left; your back was to me, but I could see the right side of your face. Your mouth was open, just enough so I could see your missing front baby teeth.   You weren’t breathing. I was pretty sure why. Something was crushing my lungs, too. My guts were freezing.

This terrible smell had taken over everything. You remember. I see that you do. Your ears are twitching. Have you ever smelled a harbor being dredged, Pencil Dick? Have you ever smelled meat left in the refrigerator when the power goes out for a week? I moved my shirt up over my mouth, but my shirt reeked of it too. It smelled so strong I thought I was eating it.

Greg, a single dead cow lay ten feet in front of you on its right side, its left eye socket staring at the sky. When I looked up, I saw faint outlines of dozens of them in the dying sunlight, in neat horizontal rows, sitting on a slight hill, all lying on their sides, covered in some of the biggest, meanest, loudest flies I’ve ever seen or heard. The flies were half the size of my pinky; they were so big it was like I could see each one of their hundreds of little eyes. The flies were the only things moving. But there was something more wrong with the cows than just the fact they were dead. I could sense it, even when I was that young. Even the turkey vultures stayed away.

A fly landed in the cow’s left eye socket, but there was nothing left there to eat. I couldn’t see the right eye, because it was lying on its right side. I could see the right side of the snout, which was still there, but the left side had almost entirely been eaten away. Its stomach was cut wide open, in a perfectly straight line, and its guts splayed out on the field. The grass underneath the guts was dead, so the dark reddish brown intestines complemented the light brown of the grass quite nicely. The flies had eaten away all of the cow’s lips, so its skull was beginning to show, and the part of its teeth usually covered by gums were the only thing white enough to reflect what little sunlight was left. There wasn’t a drop – not a drop – of blood, except for a tiny bit of residue on the intestines that lay on the ground.

Both of us wanted to run, but that’s not the kind of thing you can run from.

Is this sounding more familiar now, Greg? You keep crossing and uncrossing your legs.

If my memory were right, Mr. Supervisor, it would point to the hypothesis that the cattle were all slaughtered and mutilated by an intelligent life form—a sick fuck, if you will? Am I wrong?

At the supermarket, your father also told me he was done being quiet and it didn’t matter anymore anyway. He said he knew someone was raiding cattle fields with a zeal that would’ve made the Apaches blush. They were poisoning cows with chemicals so terrible that nothing but the bugs could eat them, cutting them open, siphoning all the blood out of the carcass, and leaving them in neat rows. All to terrify the local farmers and put them out of business.

Do you remember your dad, Greg, when we went home afterwards and told him what we’d seen? We ran up your steps, even though it was dark, and into the house. He was waiting for us. He was rubbing one of his hands through the few hairs he had left on his head and sitting at your dining room table, listening to the radio, trying to hear any news of where we might have gone. He took one moment when he heard us and looked up, and it was almost like he didn’t see us, even though we were right there. He’d been crying.

After he snapped out of it, he was pissed as all hell. We were never supposed to go that far from the house, he said. “Where have you kids been?”

And then you started crying, and I just stood there. Christ, Greg, we were only nine years old.

You told him what we’d seen. He shook his head and took a very deep breath. “Seriously?” he asked. We nodded. “What you’re saying,” he said, “you’re sure that’s what you saw?” We nodded again. He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Where?” he asked. You told him. He looked at us again and didn’t say anything more. Then he looked over at the phone and made a call to the police, saying that we’d gotten home okay and that they need not worry about anything anymore. He took you upstairs and said something to you and asked me to wait downstairs. Then, when he got back, he took me aside and he told me the following words. I will never forget them.

“Ted. It is very, very important that you never tell anyone, ever, about what you saw today. Do you understand that? You can’t even tell your mother or your teacher or any of your other friends.”

He was right, I didn’t want anything to do with it. But it was too late for that. I had something to do with it. And then he said something else under his breath that he thought I couldn’t hear. Something I can’t explain.

Yes, Greg. You’re right. Maybe it is best if we are alone for this part. You can wait outside officers, Mr. Pencil Dick. If you’re concerned you can see us through that window right there. Goodbye.

Okay, here’s what your dad said. He said, “All so we could get a few bucks.”

Greg, what could your dad have meant by that? It sounds bad. But I know as well as you do he couldn’t have meant it.

Don’t worry, Mr. Supervisor. I have a solution: You and me. We’ll be scientists together. We both know that you’re innocent, that your dad is innocent. We just need to prove it. And we can do that, as friends.

Just like before, we’ll kick fun’s ass, only this time, we’ll do it for justice.

Don’t cry, Greg. It’s not becoming on you.

Who are you gesturing to?

What is Pencil Dick doing in here? I’m not done talking to you, Greg. Officer, what are the handcuffs for?

Greg. You can’t do this. I’m not crazy. I’m a scientist, for Christ’s sake. Hold on. Just let me say one more thing to Greg, and if you let me finish, I’ll let this whole thing die, at least on my end.

Thank you, Mr. Supervisor.

Greg, after we found the cows, do you remember how as much as we wanted to, we just couldn’t leave? So instead of taking off, we stood there in silence. And we were so still that a turkey vulture—the only turkey vulture we saw that whole day—flew down next to us. It didn’t eat. It didn’t pay any attention to us. It just stared at the dead cows. And the three of us—you, me and that vulture—stood there and did nothing while we watched the flies eat the cows until the sun finished its business and went back to where it came from.