Holy Cow Read Online Free PDF Page A

filled with fireflies, and for a brief moment I forgot about what had happened to me, and I was happy. Happy for Mallory, happy for Steve, happy for the world. Happy. And I closed my eyes and slept.

 
    13
    THE BLACK DOG
    I guess the middle boy was embarrassed at getting pushed around by a cow and didn’t tell anybody, ’cause there were no repercussions from the head-butting incident. The ensuing months were kind of a blur to me. It could have been a week, a year, ten years. The thing is I didn’t care. I think humans refer to this state of depression as the “black dog” and I don’t really know why that makes sense, but there you have it—I had the black dog, and he was at my side morning, noon, and night, like he was my friend, but I knew he wasn’t.
    My mind would just turn over and over constantly like an old vinyl record stuck in a groove.
    (Hi, parents! You can take a moment to explain to your child what vinyl is, or what a record player is, or what music is, for that matter; you can even tell them about the Led Zeppelin song “Black Dog” if you want to bore the crap out of them. They don’t care about your music. They think it’s lame. But tell them something to make them understand the mental state that approximates the skipping back and forth in a groove on vinyl.)
    It was like I was banging my head against a wall trying to kill the pain or trying to break through the wall, or both.
    And in fact, I was banging my head against the side of the barn quite regularly. So much so that Mallory took me aside one day and said she was concerned about me, that I was rubbing the fur off my forehead and if I made myself bald no bull would want me. As if I cared. And then Mallory told me she was pregnant. That she was carrying Steve’s calf. And I was happy for her, but I knew that was no longer a life that I wanted. I didn’t want to bring another cow into this awful world. I didn’t tell her that, though. I kissed her pretty snout and said I was happy for her, and I leaned into her and closed my eyes, and when I opened them, there he was again, standing right beside me with a tennis ball in his mouth, waiting: the black dog.

 
    14
    MOM
    Banging your head over and over against a wall is not as bad as it sounds. Or rocking back and forth, or pacing like a panther in a zoo. It’s like you’re going over the same ground again and again and again, knowing that you will eventually wear a path so deep that you will break through to the knowledge that you seek, break out of this world that makes you want to bang your head against a wall and into another, better one.
    So that’s what happened. One day, as I was banging my head against the stall wall, I stopped and just spoke one word: Mom . I just kept repeating that word over and over, Mom , Mom , Mom . And I realized I’d been heartbroken over her disappearance, always nodding when people told me that’s what happened on a farm, that the moms and dads leave when the babies are ready to be moms and dads, but inside, I always heard a voice asking, Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me, Mom?
    I stopped banging my head because I realized Mom didn’t leave me. She was taken away. She was taken away and killed, and then she was eaten. I felt the bile rising again in me from stomachs three and four, and I vomited all over the ground, and maybe I passed out. It was horrible, but it was also freeing. I realized I’d been angry at my mom for leaving and now I wasn’t angry anymore. All my anger was now trained on the humans who had betrayed me, and betrayed her even worse.
    You humans drink our milk and eat the eggs of the chickens and the ducks. Isn’t that enough for you? Isn’t it enough that we give you our children and what’s meant for our children? And if not, when is it enough? All you humans do is take, take, take from the earth and its beautiful creatures, and what do you give back? Nothing. I know humans consider it a grave insult to be called an