Going West

He’d tried to warm the calf in the bathtub, but it still died. Born cold and without sound, there was little hope from the start despite his holding onto it. 

The only evidence of the birth was a grieving cow. A bathtub smelling of lemon Lysol and barn floor no longer crimson. A day’s work hadn’t even begun. 

Rural America was most unforgiving, alert before the swine, the producers, the barren, the scratchy call of the rooster and barn cat’s mewl. Austin basked, briefly, before returning to toil. Only when his hands were soiled could he return for supper. 

To first gain another knick, on his ring finger, from none other than a hen—the feistiest of the bunch, never fond of giving up her eggs, nor keen enough to realize they remain unfertilized. With calloused hands, thick layers of skin coating his palm, Austin wouldn’t even notice the cut until it’d start to bleed. And, then, after only a second of attention, he would neglect it. Bandage and ointment forgone—not even a pinch of dirt rubbed in—it’d heal itself. He’d dealt with harsher and expected worse to come. Alone on the farm, Austin could ignore warning signs all he’d like.

They weren’t optimal, like the alabaster dozen at the supermarket, still warm in Austin’s hands. Mom wouldn’t refrigerate them, because to her, eggs were meant to be kept at room temperature—her only reason for chilling them would be to appease the chemicals keeping them from rotting into green, or spotting mold spores, as they sit in the grocery aisle waiting, she’d say–we eat them fresh, adding, like good, civilized people. 

With Austin having worked through breakfast, and skipped lunch to water the crops, the freshly collected egg basket remained untouched all day. On an old oakwood table, once handcarved by a now-passed relative, but now covered up by a white and blue linen tablecloth, sat the basket in the center for hours. Pets, people, and pests ran, walked, and flew by, and, still, not a soul gave attention to the eggs. They sat. . .

. . . Until dinnertime.

When mom requested, in her fake-sweet voice, “Austin, honey? go out to the barn and fetch some butter.”

And, Austin, nothing-but-obedient-Austin, trained like a dog, ran. Fulfilling a task for mom felt easy, natural. Austin liked easy.

The light of the moon in the barn was sometimes enough, but the swinging pull-chain was yanked on, regardless. Habit. Constants. He knew the barn like the back of his hand, could blindly find their butter churn—navigating only with the earth beneath his feet, but he liked easy. 

Easy, however, hadn’t been charmed by Austin; when rustling, caught amongst the hay bales sent him jumping backwards. It wasn’t uncommon for foxes to get into the barn, he’d dealt with those before: scared of people, but ready to ravage the smaller farm animals, chickens mainly. Austin thought back to the minor altercation from earlier, the dull stinging every time he used his finger.

He turned on the ball of his foot, butter long forgotten, and prepared to dash. Against all readiness to flee, before there was chance to make it very far, or away at all, he heard his name called. 

Again, the shadows called, “Austin!”

 It was softer this time, closer, recognizable. He turned around with an idea in mind, “Carter? Why are you–”

“I just wanted to stop by,” the voice, Carter, said, then tenderly, “Hi.” He stepped from beyond the darkness, amber glow from the old lightbulb washing over his features.

“You can’t just be—”

The other sighed, cutting through Austin’s words, “Look at this,” phone still in hand. He elaborated, “One bedroom, one bathroom, kitchenette, two parking spaces.”

Austin blinked, eye’s adjusting to the screen’s light, “It’s in California.”

“I know,” he drew out the last syllable, tone bordering on a pout. Carter brought his phone back to scroll through the advertisement’s photos once more, “I know,” he repeated, softer, “but we’ve talked about it,” putting the electronic into the pocket of his tight jeans.

Austin had known Carter long enough to detect his disappointment, “I want a life with you,” he admitted honestly, dreading the ‘but’ that was about to follow, “Even if we do go west, that rent says it starts this month. We can’t just up and leave in a month.”

Austin hadn’t realized, but his shoulders were less tense than before. He replaced the phone with his own hand, and felt the warmth from Carter’s spread into his palms. He’d never met someone who could calm the flurry in his head, apart from the man standing before him.

“Why not,” the other pressed.

“Because I have–” Austin’s tone rose as he paused to consider his next words, tired of having another repeat conversation, dropping his hand “Because I have shit to do, Carter.”

Carter’s eyes lit up at the diversion, never one to just let something go. “What shit?” he pressed, “What shit is more important than our life— your life, Austin, tell me!”

“I get up before the sun. I do all the grunt work. I keep a village of animals alive,” he paused as his lips began to quiver, remembering that very morning. Not until he swallowed the nothingness in his mouth could he continue, “Alive, and healthy. I clean. I cook. I’m a great son. I’m a great brother.”

There was a pause.

“Are we fighting?” Austin asked.

“No. We aren’t.”

Another pause. 

“Meet my family tonight,” Austin chewed his lip.

And when they all sat down, Austin’s vow to the table was: “This is Carter, my friend back from school.”

Carter stepped on his foot underneath the table. 

Austin’s stomach turned every time he opened his mouth. 

“Mom,” Austin spoke after a pregnant pause, “the eggs are undercooked,”
“You always say that,” she answered.

“They always are.”

“Well, not everything has to be cooked all the way,” she poked at the meal with her fork, “You were even born early!”

Ahead of Carter’s leaving, mom spoke up once more: “Austin’s never brought a friend over before,” began her attempt at a long-winded story, “His brother Gabriel is always having people over—and I’ve been telling Austin to bring his girlfriend over, but he just won’t! She must be a shy thing,” mom gabbed on, shaking her head fondly over the woman she’d never met, would never meet, “But, I’m glad you decided to join us tonight, Carter.”

Before sunrise, he had to milk the cow. Her udders swollen, body not realizing what had happened or where its babe had gone, she paced circles around the barn. Austin set up first, before bothering her. Wiping her underbelly off with a rag, then taking one teet between his fingers. She had a hard time standing still, but squeezing with caution, a stream began to fill the tin bucket. Austin derived no joy from the task, nor did the vilomah. It was cold.

On large ranches, some of the dairy farms out west, there were machines that milked cows. Attached to the utter, clear tubes connected to a tin box—it looked alien. Austin typically enjoyed the process of milking: connecting with the cow, relieving her, providing for his family, doing his job. This time, it hurt him. He could imagine that his hand was cramping, every bump and scrape he’d ever ignored coming back for revenge. It wasn’t, despite his empty wishes for an excuse to stop.

At dinner that night, the table was quiet. As if the world knew the house’s secrets and shunned them for it—like the family was pinned against one another, it stood still. The plated centerpiece was meat and potatoes—golden brown on golden brown, haloed by napkins, forks, kives, butter, gravy, white and blue tablecloth, and the family. 

Austin took another bite, “What is this, again?”

“Veal,” mom answered. 

He swallowed, despite his body pleading with him not to.

“Where’s your friend,” mom asked.

“He’s gone.”

He brought the calf up to his eyeline, studying it, focussing with such intent that a blurry haze cloaked the background. Body buzzing, with no explanation—all rhyme and reason thrown out the door, a house turned upside down, cracked eggs and spilled milk—and dropped the utensil with such abruptness that the porcelain plate cracked and the table shook.

Without missing a beat, mom roared, “AUSTIN!” and commanded, “sit back down.”

He did.

“Finish your dinner.”

And so, with a hand trembling at the same frequency of his wobbling lip (erratic and noticeable), he picked up the fork, again. 

The feeling in his hand was foreign, like he’d never positioned his fingers in such a way to have manners at a table, to function like he should and used to. More so, it felt as though his hands were not actually hands at all, but rather a mangled claw—the hoof of a grunting baby pink pig, or, he realized, a calf. 

He dropped it again.

Austin gasped, and mom screamed: “FINISH YOUR PLATE!”

With the most panic and pain anyone in the family had ever heard Austin contain, in a whimper, he prayed “I’m trying!”

His hooves quivered, muddled and matted, as eight eyes sat upon him. Abandoning the familiarity of utensils—handing himself, fully, to the animal that was gripping him—he picked up the last piece that had been carved off. Pink and red enticed him—cooed sweet nothings into his ear like only one other ever had, shouted orders at him like another—he looked over the meat, how much closer to his line of vision it stood than previously, despite no remembrance of his conscious attempt to bring it forth. 

Using both hooves, he shoveled the small hunk past his pursed lips. 

Tears bubbled at his eyes immediately, and a strained bleat escaped around the remaining flesh stuffing his jaws. He couldn’t tell why he was crying, if it was the forceful tang of sour overpowering his head, or joy from almost accomplishing his task. 

The reason had no use, because he swallowed. 

“Good job, good boy!”

He looked at the door, white paint cracking from years of sun damage, compared it to his newfound splintering hooves.

It was starting to hurt–his arms, his stomach–

“Mom,” he cried, with a voice not sounding like his own.

“Mom?”

She laughed, a little, not even trying to hide it as her eyes crinkled.

The next time he called her name, only a familiar sound was spit out: A bleat, an overworked cow’s moo.

Tears turned to crust on faint white fur, and when he reached for another piece of meat, now unable to see at all, a second plate cracking, (from his own clumsy, uncontrolled, hairy and rigid, arms flailing), sent him tumbling to the floor. 

Nothing looked like his own, all bodily autonomy gone from reach, as he realized what he’d done. 

He missed Carter, the soft arms of someone else as opposed to his own arms growing soft. He missed who he was, what he could have been, and how his stomach felt before everything inside of it began to twist. He wanted to go back, stop the horrible crunching sound every time a new pain shot through one of his limbs. He looked up to his mother, his brothers, saw their smiling faces, and finally realized:

All he could do was moo.

Written by Sophia Marzi

Graphics by Victoria Lechon