We Eat Cow

August had the most painful heats that I could ever remember. I could feel the cinching that happens at the top of my forehead when my eyes have had enough of squinting. As I looked out of the passenger window a trail of orange dotted trees passed in a field. With the weight of my heavy head I pressed my cheek to my seatbelt feeling the sweat that formed in between. 

As a kid I wondered if I could ever catch a thing like the sky. I spent a lot of my life holding things very tightly in my hands. I spent a lot of time wondering what it felt like to hold your hands open. Crosby never thought like this, he never felt his hands. Crosby is the kind of man that tells it to you as it is, but by the time you understand it he has already spoken eight different tongues. Crosby was always right. Even when he was desperately wrong. He liked me because he believed I was always right alongside him. 

Crosby’s wide set teeth sat on his bottom lip as he chewed through his pink flesh. You could see just one droplet of sweat make its way down the side of his face from his hairline. It is almost as if he didn't feel the heat the way a normal person would. He smiled pushing his teeth deeper into his lip, like it was a grace given to him. He kept one hand out of the window and one on the wheel, developing his drastic farmers tan further. His blond hair looked like a dark brown at the roots from the sweat it had developed. His white shirt stuck to his body like styrofoam. 

“Cros, look at those orange trees.” I said with my last breath. He looked to me like a father, not mine, but one that I could be fond of. Then his green iris shrunk as his pupils took over his eyes. His teeth let go of their grip leaving his now plum mouth completely wide open. 

“I could cry so hard right now.” He said, keeping his gaze on the trees, moving his hand to push down my shoulder, moving my head deeper into my seatbelt. A gust of dust powdered over them, not making them any less appetizing. A barbed fence lined the field. Without a second thought I could feel the dirt road under us as Crosby drove our old Mercades right into the fence. The front bumper hugged onto the fence with enough force to make it lean, that's where he braked. 

“Get out.” He said with jurisdiction. 

“The fuck?” I mumbled lifting my barely mobile head from the hot seat belt. I could feel the dampness of the right side of my face come along with it. Crosby pushed his door open, throwing his skinny legs out of the car. 

“Right then.” He said. Then he took a pair of garden shears from the back seat. 

“Crosby, where the hell did you get garden shears from.” I yelled to him as he left the car. My squinted eyes pierced with a sharp venom. Crosby stood at the base of the fence and for a moment he looked terribly small in stature. He placed both his hands on his hips, holding the shears at his side.

Without looking back to me he said “Gardening.”

“Weird.” I said, mumbling the last bit of saliva onto my bottom lip. I I stepped out feeling my legs regain feeling. I had to piss more than I ever had in my life. My entire body felt like a bag of pins and needles. 

I stood next to Crosby and unzipped my jeans. We stood facing the field unaware of each other. I began to pee onto the fence as Crosby analyzed the situation. Then he started to hack at the wire. He crouched like a little man and cut himself a person sized hole into the fence. All while I stood and pissed. We were very uniquely unawarely aware of one another. 

“Okay, Cross.” I said zipping my jeans. 

“You can get in through here.” He said to me, pointing to the hole in the fence like an idiot. We stood as two parallel lines, the way golfers do. Hands on our hips, it was all very analytical. 

“Well, then.” He said gesturing to an imaginary hat on his head as he shrunk himself to fit. He was on all fours squeezing himself through the fence. I followed behind. As we reached the other side, the air got cooler. It was like a coastal breeze that had made itself apparent to us. The shade brought about a deep breeze that soothed our swollen muscles. 

“Oh that is phenomenal.” I said. 

Crosby made his way to the trunk of the biggest orange tree there was. He reached his slender fingers all the way above his head and jumped to grab one for himself. The orange rested in the entirety of his hand. He didn't bother peeling it, he just dug his thumbs into either side and carved out two halves. He tipped his head back and let the juice run down his neck as he took it in one bite. Then he hummed to himself. 

He looked at me as a wide eyed kid. He handed what was left to me of his orange and I took it upon myself to stick everything including the peel in my mouth. I let my teeth carve out the guts of the orange as they pressed themselves to the inside of the peel. I smiled revealing the peel as my new set of teeth. Crosby’s ears perched up like a blue heeler. Within moments he was leading his body through his nose, prancing through the trees. He had a sense of dedication. 

“What are you doing?” I said, spitting the peel out of my mouth. 

“Do you hear that?” All I could hear was the incessant buzzing of a summer's day. Crosby’s body sprung up straight as a nail. He paused for a moment completely still, then he began running deeper into the field. He gestured to follow him and so I did. I had no understanding of how fast we were expected to run so I kept closely behind Crosby. He knew where to go at all times. Crosby had this effect about him, conversationally and directionally. 

The orange trees began to bleed in my peripheral vision. Like a kid in the backseat of a car, the horizon became a stricken blur. I was running so fast that my knees had gone from hurting in stillness, to hurting in motion. Crosby kept his composure, jogging with his hands at his sides and his ankles firmly grounded in the earth. 

Then the trees opened into a vast field. The way your eyes adjust to smallness, I could begin to see hundreds of wild cows. Nothing like the front of a milk carton but real life rugged cows. There was something deeply relieving about it. The thought that somewhere in the world there were cows and we had nothing to do with it.

They moved slowly and intentionally, kissing heads. The way people do. The sun began to set, casting shadows of even the smallest blades of grass. Cros and I hadn't eaten for a couple days, not anything of sustenance. You could probably tell by looking at us, Cros had this look on his face. A sense of entitlement with childlike fear. 

Cros sat on the top of the hill that led down to the cows. It was us and the trees looking toward the cows, a clear division of us and them. I wanted to be what those cows were about. I trotted down the hill until I was running to catch up with myself. At the bottom of the hill I stood still. There was a clear distance between me and everything else. Inviting myself to a party. A large brown white-dotted cow brought herself to me. Slowly and with caution, I reached my hand to her side, letting my intentions be known. The cows welcomed me, folding their heads to kiss my stomach the way they did with their heads. I could feel the moist imprint of their noses graze my sticky shirt. In a way it was mutual respect. Nothing was blistering hot anymore. It was warm and the breeze cut us down to size. It whistled with the cows breath and the blades of grass, and now me.

From the top of the hill I heard a gutting blast. It cut through me swiftly and left my head ringing again. Then it was silent. The once soft spoken cows kicked their heavy hooves into the dirt to retreat deeper in the field. I felt the circle around me dissipate until I was alone and it was piercingly hot again. 

What the fuck! I look to my right to see one tall graceful beast, stricken down. An all white cow laid in the deep grass. He looked like a ghost, his body was so small in my eyesight that I confused him for lint. Until I could see an overpour of deep mahogany red leave him. The wind was silent, nor did it whistle. All I could hear was the incessant humming as he bled out. As a dot in my eye. My knees now hurt from the paralyzing shock that weaved through my body, pulsing at my temples. I felt my eyes go dry as I looked at him. Soon the grass underneath would take on his color. I looked up to the top of the hill for some refuge. 

That was when I saw Cros sitting at the top of it with a silver pistol that appeared much larger in my eyesight. I could see right into the barrel. He stood as impartially, his back straight but his legs slouched. There was nothing on his face, not even an indicating thought. His thick brows sat on his eyes, they did not furrow but rather sunk the deepest they could on his face without causing a disturbance. I didn't say anything to him. I watched him look around as if he would be caught and then tuck the pistol into the cargo pocket that sat at his side. The pistol swung in his pocket like loose change as he ran down the hill. He waved to me, then gestured to the white-now-red cow. 

“Help me pick him up!” He yelled from afar. I did not respond. Then I began to walk towards him. I did not want to see the shadows that the red blades of fur casted on itself. I did not want to see the form of Crosby’s pistol and how it hung in his pocket. As I got closer I felt a deep cry inside of myself and a sickness in my throat.

Crosby’s body stood arching over the cow as punishment. He almost mocked him. I could not look at the white cow as a beast or a child but a harsh truth. As soon as my feet met I jerked my head away. Maybe out of politeness. I like to think it was. I like to think that at that moment I kept a sense of respect. I felt a violent burst of hot breath punch the lining of my throat until it wasn't a hot breath at all. There was no sensation in between that moment and the moment I was looking at a yellow vomit puddle that made itself available next to the equally large puddle of blood. 

“Jesus Anton, get a grip.” He said to me, investigating the remains of it all. The worst part was now that I was here, I could see the cow wasn't that big at all. When I stood at the other end of it he almost seemed grown up. A tall beast. The cow was a kid. Now that I stood at the end of him, he was no longer a whistle in a field, but something impossibly still. 

I always thought that it would be much louder of a death to take down something like this. He was impossibly still and impossibly quiet and I found myself holding the end with his head. I chose this side intentionally, out of respect. My arms didn't ache when I lifted him, I did not feel them at all. I did not feel the hill as I walked up it nor did I feel the trees as I walked under them. I felt Crosby at the other end of me. 

Crosby led me to the trunk. It had already been opened, like he anticipated it or maybe I don't remember him doing that. For a moment as I saw how shallow it was, I felt a deep homesickness. I felt it right down the center of my chest like a hot thread. Not for anything I have ever had before but for somewhere deeply far away from here. The trunk had once been lined with a lime green rug material with divots on the sides for the fat wheels. Now it was brown and in moments it would be an even darker brown. Crosby rammed the bottom of the cow into one end of the trunk, leaving his stomach leaning over the end of it. I thought of how many times he had let the other cows kiss his stomach and now it leaned over a hot metal enough to brand him. 

Crosby left me holding the head. It wasn't even a moment of silence before he was back in the front seat starting the car again. I carefully placed his head like it had a pillow to sit on. It tucked itself behind the divot. I looked at his eyes for a moment which had still been pried open and would be until someone had something to do with it. I took my fingers to close them, like I had learned in movies. For respect. It occurred to me as I sat back in the car that his head had been the only part of him to not turn red. 

We couldn't smell it yet. I could feel him in the truck like a hand on the back of my head, though. I let my focus surrender.

“Anton. We have to fucking eat. I am so sorry you barfed, dude.” Crosby said, laughing-indicating that the smile on his face was mocking me. 

I sat like a kid. Fucking prick. I thought. I only meant it for a second. I meant it for the second that my stomach felt like hot fire and my throat felt tight. Then I made myself forget to think like that. 

Crosby pulled us into a motel off the highway. No explanation on our whereabouts. He pulled into a spot right off to the back where no one could see us. 

“I'll be right back.” He said. He took the keys out of the ignition and closed the door behind him. It was so overwhelming to see Crosby in the state that he was. Starvation looked familiar on me, friendly almost. Crosby was a man of indulgence. Watching him survive was like watching a badly written play in a community theater. 

I sat in the car until Crosby came back. I examined the empty lot in front of me that plateaued into a pile of useless things. I inventoried the pile. Wrench. Log. Beer bottle. Piece of a fence. To my right was a poorly kept swimming pool. I leaned my head over my shoulder pressing my forehead to my window. I amused myself with the mismatched furniture surrounding the fenced in pool. Long teal chair. Short wooden bench. Plastic stool that folds into a tight bowling pin. I did not turn to examine the motel. I was not curious. There was a deep part of me that resented turning around. Crosby came around the building and stood tall, waving me in.

“C’mon.” He said, clicking his tongue. I followed up the stairs and around the banister to a room on the side of the building

“Get the cow too.” He shouted. A pungent smell came from the trunk. The cow’s shape took on that of a matted brown rug. I hugged the cow to my body with part of it still laying in the trunk. 

“Oh shit. Yeah that's too dead.” I heard Crosby’s voice behind me on the banister. A rage filled in me that crawled up to my eyes. I took a deep breath and felt the heaviness of the cow on my chest. 

“What?” I said annoyed. 

“That's too dead. It's not good meat. I mean fucking look at it, it looks nasty. I wouldn't eat it.” He said nonchalantly. 

I dropped the cow's head, letting it hit the bumper. I felt a sharp ache run through my body at the sound. I physically recoiled the way you do when you head a scrape on a blackboard. 

“Just throw it in the pit over there, we can't eat it anyways.” He said walking back into the room. Once I got the cow onto the blanket I dragged it down the hill to the pile of trash. I let my body fall down to the palms of my hands as I sat. The cow next to me. The air was cool again but not in a relieving sense. A way that pointed out the cruelness and stickiness of my body. Then I began to cry. I think I cried due to the state of the cow. There was a sense of honor before, he had bled gracefully and white on the grass bed. Now he had been beaten in the back of a trunk with his head indented to the tires. Presumably, he decomposed with part of a fence and an empty beer bottle.