“Public relations,” said Sloan, nodding toward a cluster of four people working tablets and Bluetooths at the far end of the mobile home. “Apart from handling the news crews, they’re coordinating with the state tourism board and arranging visits by dignitaries. I understand the governor has already been in touch, as well as the National Association of Religious Broadcasters. We’ve also assigned one person to monitor animal rights organizations to anticipate and neutralize any difficulties in that direction.”
Another four-pack of people was clustered around flat screens. “Social media,” said Sloan. “The calf will have numerous accounts.”
“Which reminds me,” said Harley. “JesusCow.com?”
Sloan smiled. “We took the liberty of squatting on that one in advance. As well as the Twitter handle @TheJesusCow.”
“But it’s a calf. For a while yet.”
“Yes, but when it first blew up—I believe it was your mail carrier—”
“Dixie.”
“Yes, well, she hashtagged it #JesusCow, and it stuck. So we went with that. Better in the long term anyway. Our market research did yield affection and loyalty spikes around the term ‘calf’—due mainly to cuteness variables—but as a term it puts a hard horizon on long-term marketability thematics. Whereas ‘cow’ has us covered well into the future.”
“Um, also, that’s gonna be a bull, not a cow,” said Harley.
“We prefer to think of the term in the generic gender-neutral sense,” said Sloan. “Furthermore, and by way of update, during the hide repair surgery we took the liberty of . . . um . . . altering that status.”
“You steered that bull?”
“Yes,” said Sloan. “While bovine animal husbandry is not my chief area of expertise, it seemed best. Apart from the legendary Ferdinand, bulls in general do not project lovability. Whereas our research indicated the term steer charts much higher among children, housewives, and hard-core feminists. There were some outliers—a segment of Christians who prefer the image of a muscular, virile Christ—but there is a downside risk to deploying the term bull within a religious context.”
Harley looked at him blankly, then it dawned on him. Bull. As in bullshit.
“You know,” said Sloan, “the satirists and haters.”
“How do you keep track of all this?” said Harley, looking around himself worriedly. “And what about permits, and sales tax and zoning violations and trip-and-fall lawsuits and who knows what else?”
“Actually, in this case I agree with your archnemesis Klute Sorensen,” said Sloan. “In particular the way he proceeded with Clover Blossom Estates; the key is to go like mad, make as much as you can, and seek forgiveness later. You know, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ Sometimes opportunity has the shelf life of a Twinkie in a pigpen.”
Harley found himself booked into a lot of very boring business meetings in which he had to sign piles and piles of paperwork, most of it explained briefly and on the fly. Each time the small voice inside told him this was a bad idea, he imagined Clover Blossom Estates blooming in nothing but actual clover and Klute Sorensen driving a used Toyota. Oh well, thought Harley, can’t stop now.
Throughout the paperwork, Harley saw references to JCOW Enterprises, Inc., of which entity he was apparently president. At one point he signed a piece of paper titled “Agency Representation Agreement” and he had hesitated with his pen in the air for a moment when he read the part about International Talent Management claiming 20 percent of all proceeds. It seemed like an awful lot. Then he looked around at the hum and buzz of activity in the command center, and then he considered the scene outside where everything was shaping up for the reopening, and finally he reflected on the train wreck that resulted when he tried to do it himself, and then he figured whatever the deal was, it was a good deal.
Sloan slid another piece of paper into place. “Catchall,” he said. “On your behalf we will control film, media, and merchandising rights. In addition to development, we will vigorously pursue any and all unauthorized online videos and sales items.”
Harley signed, and the feeling was that of launching a boat he had never seen and could never bring back to dock.
“Last one for today,” said Sloan, placing a single sheet of International Talent Management letterhead into place. It was the simplest of forms, in fact one simple line:
I, the undersigned, grant International Talent Management and their qualified representatives to negotiate on my behalf with the bishop of Rome and all relevant subsidiary institutions and officials regarding the sanctified status of the property heretofore and henceforth referred to as “the Jesus Cow.”
“Bishop of Rome?” asked Harley.
“That would be the pope,” said Sloan. “Clearly we won’t approach him directly—at least not initially. We will initiate the process via our Vatican contact.”
“Your Vatican contact?”
“When’s the last time you ever heard of tour buses lining up to visit the Mary Ann Van Hoof farm?”
“Well, I . . .”
“You can visit her place. She’s long gone, of course, but a shrine remains. And there are plans for a giant cathedral, as directed to her by Mary in the visions.
“But if you go there, y’know what you’ll find?”
Harley shrugged.
“A half-finished cathedral, a few laminated Bible bookmarks in the gift shop, and a brochure asking for donations. They’re just scraping by. They failed to obtain approval from the Vatican, and in fact, the regional bishop placed them in a state of interdict—one step removed from excommunication. It really killed the business.
“Now then,” continued Sloan, “for the sake of comparison, let us consider the Our Lady of Good Help shrine in New Franken, Wisconsin. They were puttering along, maybe seventy-five to a hundred visitors on a good day. Then the bishop issues a decree certifying that the Virgin Mary had truly appeared there as reported, and, boom! five hundred to eight hundred visitors per day, even during winter. Bus tours. Faithful pilgrims from all around the world. A mention on Nightline.”
He handed Harley a scan of a newspaper article containing the story and these details.
“Yeah, but how about this?” asked Harley, pointing to a quote from a local priest: “We don’t want to become a kind of circus.”
“We at International Talent Management,” said Sloan, “are not lumbered with that particular compunction.”
HIS MORNING DOUBTS at bay, Klute Sorensen was back in his element, having blared his Hummer through the ranks of pilgrims to Swivel Village Hall, where he was once again fulminating at Vance Hansen.
“But—,” said Vance.
“But is where you sit when you quit!” hollered Klute, who had made that one up himself and intended to include it on his own motivational CD one day. Sometimes he liked to close his eyes and imagine himself stalking the stage of a giant conference center, wearing one of those invisibly slim flesh-toned microphones that attach right to your face, looking out at a sea of expectant faces as he boomed out business-savvy piths and gists backed by a PowerPoint projection the size of a drive-in movie screen.
“But I don’t control the school buses,” said Vance. “I can’t simply sign them over to you.”
“BUREAUCRACY!” hollered Klute. “BANE OF ALL ENTERPRISE! ENEMY OF PROGRESS! GUM IN THE GEARS OF GREATNESS!”
“Yes, well—”
“Who’s the president of the school board?”
“Freda Sigurdson . . .”
“You call Freda right now, and you tell her to convene a special session. You tell her Klute Sorensen is going to rent every single school bus on the lot for the foreseeable future.”
Vance looked confused. Klute pointed out the window. “You see all those damned cow worshippers? Clogging the streets? Parking all over the place?”
“Yes, it’s a problem,” said Vance. “Constable Benson is—”
“You see a problem,” said Klute, “I see an opportunity!”
“That
’s why you’re you,” said Vance.
“Transportation and housing! Those are your key sectors in a situation like this! Right now Swivel has a problem with both, and more coming! You tell her Klute Sorensen will cover all the costs and that twenty-five percent of the proceeds . . . ten percent of the proceeds . . . five percent of the proceeds will go to the school athletics fund.”
“But school is in session . . .”
“We’ll be using the buses from nine a.m. to two p.m. for starters, until I can figure out a backup system and procure additional vehicles.”
“But I’m not sure the board will approve—”
“Who pledged the entire cost of the new scoreboard down at the football field?”
“You did, Klute,” said Vance, reaching for the phone. “This community owes you so much . . .”
There was the tricky bit about the fact that while Klute had pledged the scoreboard money, he hadn’t actually yet paid the money, but Klute was already slamming out the door and Vance could see no reason to detain him on this point.
CHAPTER 25
All the paperwork left Harley unsettled. He called Mindy, and she said to come on out. When he opened the door to the granary, she was wearing a tool belt and was covered in sheet rock dust. She handed him a Foamy Viking and led him by the hand to her bed.
Mindy’s bed frightened Harley. Or more specifically, the headboard frightened him. Mindy’s sculptwelder boyfriend had made it for her. It was constructed of sheet metal welded inside a channel iron frame. Using a plasma cutter, the sculptwelder had scored designs and figures into the sheet metal, including dancing mountain goats and an army of flute-playing Kokopellis. Harley had spent only one night in the bed, but apart from the idea that it conjured up Mindy’s ex, he feared that during some particularly acrobatic escapade he might find himself gored by Kokopelli’s steel flute, or intimately strung atop the horn of a dancing goat.
In short, it was the equivalent of making love adjacent to a giant cheese grater.
Harley sat on the edge of the bed and took a swig of his beer. Mindy rubbed his shoulders. Harley sighed.
“That damn calf . . .”
“Damn calf? That damn calf is going to make you a lot of damn money.”
“I dunno. It better, I guess. You can’t get more all in than I’m all in.”
“You rather it had never happened?”
“Kinda moot, I guess. It’s just . . . with its . . . its connotations. I mean, if the thing had six legs, or two heads, well, y’know, maybe the local TV station would be interested for sixty seconds, and some folks would drop in now and then, but this thing, this thing is about religion, and I just feel like somewhere along the line . . .”
He stopped then, and shook his head.
“I mean, alls I wanted was a damn beefer.”
“And a lady friend,” said Mindy.
“Well, yah,” said Harley, allowing himself a small smile.
“Maybe I could pray on it,” said Harley, in a halfhearted attempt at sarcasm he didn’t really feel. “Like I learned growing up.”
“And how would that go?”
“Our Father, we pray that—”
“We?” interrupted Mindy.
“Well, it was sort of a royal we, I guess,” said Harley. “I never really thought about it. It was just the way we did it.”
“That’s kinda faith,” said Mindy.
“There was comfort in it, though,” said Harley. “Even saying it again now. Even as far as I’ve strayed.” He spun his dwindling beer. “The thing was, we didn’t believe in praying for specifics. No asking for help with the rent or your bad leg. Just guidance and humility and . . . well, concepts, I guess. I remember in a coffee shop in Clearwater once I eavesdropped on a Bible study group and heard a woman ask the Lord to get her out of a lease, and I just . . .” Harley shook his head.
“Well, I guess you could say our trials ride a sliding scale,” said Mindy. “I read a quote once, I think by a yogi: In certain circumstances the raindrop is a flood.”
“Yeah, it just seems . . .”
“Like it doesn’t really measure up? The bad lease as compared to any given genocide?”
“Yah, I guess that’s part of it. Plus the informality. Like you’d use your audience with the Almighty to ask for the spiritual equivalent of Cracker Jacks.”
“What drove you away?”
“I drifted more than drove.”
“Mm.”
“And not my folks, that’s for sure,” said Harley. “I should be half as good as them.”
“But you don’t believe.”
“I don’t think so.”
“So? How’d it happen? How’d you go from believer to Doubting Thomas?”
Harley looked at the beer in his hand like he had just discovered it, and took a deep swig. “In college, I had to write a paper. Your basic geography report. I was in the library reading up on Central America. I stumbled over this article that described—and this wasn’t ancient history, this happened when I was a kid—entire families being tortured. To death. Including children, with parents forced to watch. After that, the ol’ ‘sometimes bad things happen to good people’ thing never quite cut it for me.”
Mindy was silent.
“I was already slipping,” said Harley. “But that pushed me over. I couldn’t see how you could have it both ways: either God’s all-powerful but chose to let those babies suffer, or he isn’t all-powerful and couldn’t stop it.”
Harley paused, and shrugged. “It’s not a very original path to doubt. First time I discussed it with Billy, he said, ‘Welcome to the Epicurean paradox, son, a couple thousand years after the fact. Also, you might want to read up on theodicy.’”
“The Odyssey?”
“Ha! No, theodicy: t-h-e-o-d-i-c-y. It’s a theological deal. Supposed to explain how a good God can allow evil.”
“How about your parents? How did they explain it?”
“I don’t know,” said Harley. “I never asked.”
They sat together quietly then, until Mindy spoke.
“How did you wrap up?”
“Wrap what?”
“Your prayers.”
“‘In Jesus’ name, amen.’”
“That’s a sweet little poem, that’s what that is.”
It is a comforting rhythm, thought Harley as he finished the beer and turned to Mindy. She leaned into his T-shirt, put her nose at the level of his clavicle, and drew in deep. “Mmmmm, I love your smell,” she said.
He went cold. He remembered her telling him about the sculptwelder’s smell. “Mmmm,” she said again, nuzzling deeper.
He held her, wanted to be happy, or even just fool around enough to undo the whole theodicy bummer, but she could sense his unease. “What?” She was looking up, both hands flat on his chest. “What is it?”
“You liked the smell of the sculptwelder,” he said. “And then one day . . .”
“Oh, baby . . . ,” she said, moving her hands around his back. She linked her fingers and squeezed. “Oh, baby . . . ,” she said, as if he were a child afraid of the dark. She moved in, and he fell back on the bed, one eye on all the Kokopellis dancing dangerously above.
BACK IN SWIVEL, Klute Sorensen was driving through Clover Blossom Estates, counting empty houses. This was the housing sector portion of his plan. It was his intent to rent the empty houses to Jesus Cow tourists by the day.
Damn, if I had that hotel up, he thought, looking toward Meg’s place. He imagined what it would be like to see the parking lot filled with cars, every room full. The cash register singing.
Ahead of Klute, a car slowed, causing him to jam on the brakes. Rather than pay for parking in the village, tourists were parking on the streets of the development, then hiking across the overpass. Klute speed-dialed Vance Hansen.
“Yes, Klute?”
“How we coming on the transportation sector action plan?”
“The which?”
“Have you rented any damn sc
hool buses yet!”
“Well, I haven’t heard back from—”
“Never mind! I want Constable Benson down here now!”
“Well, I’ll just check—”
“I got people parked all over Clover Blossom Estates. I want ’em outta there!”
“Well, those are village streets, so legally they can—”
“Does the village not shut down parking for the Jamboree Days parade?”
“Yes, but—”
“So do it here! Now!”
“Well, I’ll just get the constable—”
“I’m fast-tracking this!”
“I see.”
“Not everyone can do what I do.”
“That is so true,” said Vance.
BY THAT EVENING Klute’s plan to rent Swivel’s school buses still hadn’t received approval from the school board, but he did manage to rent three from the private company that leased them to the Boomler school district. He also stopped by Signs-2-Go and had several all-weather banners printed up: some advertising the Clover Blossom homes for short-term rental by the room, others that read SHUTTLE PICKUP. And as long as he was there and had his American Express warmed up, he had the folks at Signs-2-Go crank out two dozen placards that said NO PARKING ON STREET BY ORDER OF VILLAGE CONSTABLE, since the actual constable still hadn’t done the job.
One day later, he cleared the snow from two empty lots and began offering off-street parking by the hour. Two days later, his three school bus shuttles were running. Three days later, he rented his first room.
On the fourth day, a trio of state inspectors showed up and shut down the whole works.
AS FOR JCOW Enterprises, Sloan and his crew kept things humming right along. A patch of land between the old water tower and Harley’s barn was subdivided into a bazaar where vendors in heated tents sold all manner of religious tchotchkes, from chalices to calf-shaped cheese curds served with bacon halos.
The barn had been transformed into something off a postcard. Sloan had brought in a set designer whose team had applied fresh paint—no easy trick in the cold—and trimmed the eaves in pine boughs, hung wreaths on the windows, and bathed the entire structure in hidden lighting.
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