The Jesus Cow

by Michael Perry

  Harley stood red faced and mute.

  “Look at ’er bead up!” said the woman, pointing proudly to her boot toes, where coffee trembled atop the leather in glossy orblets.

  Harley liked few things better in this world than a good pair of boots. But among those things was a woman in a good pair of boots. Not spiky pumps or furry winter clompers or thigh-high “bondage waders” (Billy’s term), but rather sturdy wafflestompers with some scuff on them. Harley kept his eyes locked on the coffee beads, waiting for the face flush to disperse. It only deepened as the nape sweat sprung.

  “Oiled ’em last night,” he heard her say. “With the beeswax and whatnot. Set ’em by the woodstove all night long. Melts it in good.” Harley stared resolutely at the boots. She stomped first one foot, then the other, and the coffee beads dispersed.

  “Christmas breakfast in the Kwik Pump?”

  Harley had no choice now but to raise his gaze and the woman was looking him square in the eye. His gut flushed as if he had misstepped on the top rung of the haymow ladder. Trying to focus, he didn’t so much see her face as take inventory. Long straight hair. Frank hazel eyes. Blaze orange bomber cap trimmed in rabbit fur, flaps down. A face that seemed wide open. And a grin. Not a smile, a grin. A grin like she knew exactly what he looked like in his skivvies. A buddy-style grin the full opposite of coquettish, crinkling into the very first hints of crow’s-feet, the kind of lines a man learned to look for after he wearied of petulance and chirping. And: creeping to the crest of one clavicle and just visible at the flare of her flannel collar, an ivy-vine tattoo.

  “Oh. Hey. Yah, I . . .” Harley’s ears felt molten as he stood there with a dripping coffee cup in one hand and a creme-filled maple-frosted long john in the other. The pastry was a true embarrassment. “Cow calved last night, and I—” He had this fleeting thought that talk of calving would render him in a sturdier light.

  “Don’t worry about it, big shot,” interrupted the woman, hoisting a plastic bakery bag so he could see her own creme-filled, maple-frosted long john within.

  Harley grinned in relief.

  “Mindy,” said the woman, pulling off one leather chopper mitt and extending the undressed hand. “Mindy Johnson.” Harley shuffle-juggled his coffee and pastry to the crook of one arm and met her grip, which was strong and naturally electric, with a coarseness that bore the implications of physical labor. The nape sweat formed a drop and slid down his neck. “Harley,” he said.

  “Off to see family?” said Mindy.

  “Nah,” said Harley. “No family.”

  “Oh.”

  “No big thing, just no family.”

  “But on Christmas?”

  “Not real big on Christmas. Nothin’ against it, but . . .”

  “You and me both,” said Mindy. “Rather have a quiet night in. Or a warm night in.”

  Harley felt himself seizing up.

  “Hey!” Mindy was holding up a wire-tied plastic bag packed with day-old blueberry doughnuts. “Four for a buck!”

  She lobbed them at his chest. “Y’know y’want ’em,” she said, laughing as he basket-caught the bag with his elbows and another slosh of coffee hit the floor, splat.

  “Well, merry solo Christmas!” she said, laughing again.

  “Yah,” said Harley. “You too.” He fled for the counter, paid the clerk, and hustled for the warmth of his truck. Backing away from the propane cage he clutched into first and steered a smooth arc around the lot to the exit, but then lingered, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mindy in the rearview. Soon enough she emerged and climbed into a well-worn Ford F-250. Red, with plow mounts. A beefy four-wheel drive but fitted with narrow tires—smart for the snow. A set of tire chains hung from the headache rack.

  The cab was warm and the coffee smelled better than it was. He was in the mood to drive. Rather than cross to his driveway, Harley flipped the blinker, turned right on County Road M, and headed for the overpass. And he didn’t even mind when he turned on the radio hoping for Loretta Lynn and got Christmas carols instead.

  CHAPTER 9

  Yer not a LAWYER, yer a WATER BOY!”

  Klute Sorensen’s face was a plum shade of purple.

  Vance Hansen’s face was a Kleenex shade of white.

  “But, Mr. Sorensen, these things take time . . . surely a man of your stature underst—”

  “A man of my stature shouldn’t have to be waiting on a mental midget like YOU!”

  The cold coffee in Vance Hansen’s Styrofoam cup was a trembling bull’s-eye of ripples. Clutching it with both hands in an attempt to keep it from sloshing over, Vance sat hunched in a pilled Christmas sweater on a swivel chair that was set too low for the village hall conference table, an unfortunate circumstance that left him looking like an uncomfortable grade-schooler who’d arrived late for school picture day.

  Klute Sorensen’s recent sleeplessness wasn’t solely attributable to the fact that his CPAP roamed his face like a possessive octopus. In fact, even when the machine hadn’t bothered him, he had been up a lot these past few months, trying to figure out how to stave off the failure of Clover Blossom Estates. The banker was getting nervous. Klute was certain that in time, when the economy and real estate markets recovered, Clover Blossom Estates would thrive again. History was on his side. To own property at the exit of an interstate was to own a gold mine. He had seen what had happened in Boomler. But he had also seen how it had come undone. How his father had anticipated how valuable the interchange property would become but had failed to anticipate just how valuable. And how by owning only one corner he was vulnerable to other developers. The ones who brought in the chain hotels and the franchise restaurants had understood: this was real-life Monopoly. Whoever controls the most spaces wins.

  But how to survive in the moment? How to bank against the future when there was nothing in the bank? Swivel was a dinky little village. Klute knew that. But bigger times were coming. All you had to do was drive on the interstate to Clearwater. Sooner or later, even the most remote interchanges were becoming points of commerce. Rather than bail out of Clover Blossom Estates, Klute believed he had to react boldly. Rather than dump and run, he needed to increase his holdings. Double down. The Kwik Pump was already in place, so that corner was out of the equation. But if he could get the rest of Harley Jackson’s farm, he would be up to half. That plan was already under way, although Vance Hansen had been a real slow-moving disappointment. He needed some jacking up.

  And the third corner of the exchange—the one owned by Margaret Magdalene Jankowski—would really close the deal. That corner had been costing Klute some sleep lately, too. He had offered to buy Meg out several times, but she had refused.

  Klute stood across the table from Vance, leaning in, his jaw jutted to within spittle range, his meaty hands braced on either side of an array of papers splayed across the table. Topmost on the stack was a large plat printout of the interstate interchange. With a flick of his fingertips, Klute spun the plat, intending to rotate it so Vance could read it. Instead, he spun it with such violence the centrifugal effect sent the other papers on the table flying in all directions. Setting aside his coffee, Vance scurried over to a corner of the conference room to retrieve the helicoptering plat, then scurried back to return it to the table, smoothing it before Klute with trembling hands.

  “THIS!” hollered Klute, jabbing a finger at a rectangle outlined in purple highlighter, “THIS SHOULD BE MINE!”

  The purple border delineated Harley’s fifteen-acre farmlet. Vance nodded vigorously. “Oh yes! Yes! I agree!”

  “A farm! What kind of village has a farm in it?”

  “Well, it’s—”

  “It’s backward!”

  “I certainly agr—”

  “I’m a forward man!”

  Now he adopted a more reasonable tone.

  “You know I care about Swivel.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I’m an entrepreneur.”

  “Yes. Yes you are.”

&n
bsp; “I’m a go-getter.”

  Vance nodded. Vigorously.

  “But I don’t just go-get for me.”

  Vance looked mildly confused.

  “I LIFT BOATS!”

  Now Vance looked lonely. Klute sighed.

  “I don’t just make investments, I make sacrifices—for the good of the community.”

  Vance went back to nodding, but the look on his face remained quizzical.

  “We’re here on Christmas morning, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Vance, looking down and picking at his sweater. “Yes, we are.”

  VANCE HANSEN JUST wanted to go home. The kids would be impossible and his wife, Katy, would be angry that he had gone in to work on Christmas Day, but he also knew there was a paper plate stacked with green-and-red-frosted sugar cookies on the counter, and all he wanted to do was carry them to his recliner with a fresh cup of coffee and eat them one after the other until they were gone, and then, as the kids screeched around through drifts of gift wrap, he would cross his arms across his crumb-dusted sweater and sleep like a man trying to forget.

  He wished he could forget the day Klute Sorensen had first pulled up to the village hall in his star-spangled Hummer. How Klute had flung the door open and strode to the front of the room as if he were six men. How his chest was broad and his suit was tailored. How heavily the gold chain hung around his neck, how solid his wristwatch looked, how his thick black hair gleamed beneath the fluorescents.

  The position of Swivel village attorney was a very part-time gig; Vance did wills and probate and small-claims work on the side, but it was slim pickings, and lately Katy had been picking up shifts at the Kwik Pump. In Klute, Vance had seen everything he had ever wanted to be. And if he couldn’t be that (he’d need a hair transplant and elevator shoes, for starters), he wanted to be around that. Part of that.

  If I make myself valuable to that man, Vance had mused, we—I—will go places.

  That seemed a long time ago, he thought, jerked back to the present by Klute, roaring again.

  “You promised me this would be done by now! You said you had everything all lined up!”

  “Y-yes,” said Vance. “Well, we’re well on our—”

  “YOU DON’T SNEAK UP ON SUCCESS IN FLUFFY SLIPPERS!”

  Vance recognized that one. Disc three, track five, Stomp Your Way to Success.

  Klute slammed his hand down flat on the plat, his palm covering the entirety of Harley Jackson’s property. Vance jumped, dumping his coffee across the table. Klute drew his fingers inward, scrunching the purple-highlighted section over and over, working his fingers until the entire map was balled within his fist. Then he flung the wad of paper in Vance Hansen’s face.

  “GET ON IT!”

  As Klute’s Hummer roared out of the parking lot, Vance dabbed at the coffee with a wad of paper napkins.

  Oh, how he wanted a cookie.

  CHAPTER 10

  Right about the time Klute crumpled Vance Hansen’s map, Carolyn Sawchuck climbed off her bicycle. Enough of that for the day, she thought, as she showered in the mini-stall originally designed for a motor home. After dressing, she brewed a mug of EarthHug tea, and curled up to read in her papasan chair. It was a cozy little setup: A thrumming space heater, a small writing desk stocked with hempen paper and her favorite fountain pens in a fair trade coffee can, a teapot and a hot plate, and over there behind the miniature refrigerator, a stash of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. She procured the Zebra Cakes via an online vendor known mainly for selling books, and most importantly, that shipped everything in plain brown boxes. Carolyn felt she couldn’t be seen buying the Zebra Cakes in public, as their preservative-laced sugar-bomb goodness was inconsistent with her public image as a cultural thought leader. Better that people think she was adding to her library.

  When St. Jude’s electronic bells rang, Carolyn looked up from her book. She hoped this day would be all her dear friend Meg prayed for, but as for herself, Christmas was rooted in a patriarchal mythology from which she had emancipated herself somewhere around her second year of grad school and she would be having none of it.

  It seemed improbable that the two women would have become close, and yet when Meg posted a homemade sign on the Kwik Pump bulletin board asking for volunteers to help her establish a local food pantry, the only person to show up at the planning meeting had been Carolyn Sawchuck. Together they cleaned up the abandoned pool hall kitty-corner from the Buck Rub Bar, together they completed and submitted the paperwork to establish tax-exempt charitable status, together they solicited donations, and together they met every other Tuesday to sort and stack the donated canned and boxed goods. Every other Saturday they sacked up the food and handed it out to anyone who showed up, no questions asked.

  They didn’t have a lot to talk about at first. Early on, Carolyn had tried to jazz things up a bit, suggesting that they offer poetry workshops and yoga for the “underprivileged.” Meg paused, a can of tuna in each hand, looked Carolyn square in the eye, and said, “We are here to feed the hungry.”

  “But man cannot live on bread alone—”

  “—and thus the Lord gave us mac and cheese,” said Meg, and turned back to the shelves. Carolyn spent the next twenty minutes stacking cans and trying to figure out if she had been the object of a threat or the butt of a joke.

  From that moment forward the two women worked in a mostly wordless tandem, meeting for the sorting and distribution, and responding to emergency requests when needed, like when a house fire put someone out and the chief called.

  In fact, they grew into an effective team: Meg in the service of the Lord, Carolyn in the service of humanism, both in service to their neighbors. But still, they didn’t talk much, until the day Carolyn revealed that she had lost her longtime partner to cancer fifteen years previously.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Meg, and tears leaped to her eyes. Then Meg told Carolyn about Dougie, and after that, they had more to talk about.

  RISING FROM THE papasan, Carolyn set her teapot to boil again and crackled open a packet of ramen noodles. When she received her severance package, an acquaintance who ran a small mutual funds shop in Clearwater had helped invest it in a real estate trust. Early returns had been robust, allowing her to accumulate savings even while withdrawing a modest monthly stipend. Then, after taking umbrage at the rank typos peppering the Weekly Dealio, she fired off a grammatically airtight and punctilious e-mail to the editor and was to her surprise hired as a freelance copyeditor. Thanks to these twin sources of income and her modest lifestyle, Carolyn was able to afford both her apartment rent and the water tower lease.

  But then she had gotten into the oil-recycling business.

  The way things were going, it was bound to break her.

  The whole idea had sprung from the burn barrel incident, after which Carolyn discovered that the burning of used motor oil was perhaps the least environmentally offensive means of disposal. It was also being poured down drains, into the grass out behind shops, or down the ravines where many of the locals tipped the rest of their junk. Although used oil collection services already existed, they were targeted mainly toward auto shops and not individuals. And then there was the fact that most of the area around Swivel was rural. Far easier to burn the used oil, or dump it on a roller chain, or use it to keep the dust down on the driveway than it was to lug it to a collection center. Furthermore, because the services operated under the auspices of government-driven environmental protection programs, the populace was generally leery and unwilling to participate. For her part, Carolyn figured if she couldn’t hector the locals into environmental consciousness, perhaps she could bribe them.

  And so she overcame the skeptics with an old-fashioned tool: cash. Carolyn paid by the gallon, at a rate matching the established services, plus a modest sign-up bonus. She also picked up the oil on site, free of charge. At launch, she financed the program out of her own pocket, dipping into her severance package reserves—at that time still in an appreciated
state. And as with her hopes for the water tower, Carolyn was confident that in the long term she would be able to fund the program through outside sources.

  Frankly, it took off better than she could have expected. Once word got out that the weird lady in the Subaru was paying good money for bad oil, the phone rang steadily. What she had envisioned as a few pints per month quickly multiplied. Soon her apartment above Reverend Gary’s Church of the Roaring Lamb was stacked with containers and plastic jugs of all shapes and sizes.

  Meg, who had tried to talk Carolyn out of the project from the get-go, offered to take the oil off her hands. “Just dump it in with mine,” said Meg. “Every time I crush a car, I have to drain the fluids, and all the oil goes in a container out back. Eventually I haul it to the collection center in Clearwater.”

  But Carolyn had refused. In fact, she insisted on collecting Meg’s waste oil as well, explaining that it would be easier to get funding support if she could document increased collections. Soon the apartment living room was full, and Carolyn was stacking overflow in the bedroom. The joists were beginning to creak. At one point she considered taking the oil to the Clearwater collection site, but then while researching environmental remediation grants she wound up on a Department of Natural Resources website and discovered that she was in violation of at least sixteen different hazardous waste statutes pertaining to collection, storage, and transportation of toxic chemicals. Prison time was not out of the question, and she became badly spooked at the idea of someone from the collection center making inquiries.

  And in a crowning setback, the real estate roller coaster was currently on a downslope, further accelerating the shrinkage of her financial reserves.

  It was in this troubled state of mind that she was returning from her rounds with yet another batch of full buckets in the back of her Subaru the day she drove past Harley Jackson’s place, looked up at the old water tower, and had an epiphany.

  DESPITE THE REVOCATION of state restoration funds, and the waning state of her severance package, Carolyn had maintained her lease with Harley, holding out hope that the governor might reverse his decision, or that she might locate a sympathetic benefactor. This was also a matter of frank stubbornness: after all the public declarations she’d made, there was no way she’d give those goobers the satisfaction of seeing her sacrifice the tower for scrap. Just as she had refused Meg’s offer to relieve her of the excess oil, Carolyn couldn’t stand the idea of bailing on the lease. Carolyn’s biggest obstacle wasn’t dwindling funds or lack of storage space. It was pride. She’d be damned if she’d fail the preservation of history, she’d be damned if she’d fail the earth, and above all, she’d be damned if she’d fail in front of these damned locals. From the poetry to the professorship, there had been enough failure. Swivel was her fresh start, dammit.