Moo (43 page)

She moaned.

Dean decided that the kindest thing was to simply ignore this. He went on. “But calf-free lactation, if I may say so, is an even simpler and, between us, an even more brilliant idea. What I envision now, in these primitive stages, is actual manipulation of the hormones. For example, the first thing we have to do is prevent the regression of the corpus luteum without there actually being an embryo in place, thereby maintaining progesterone secretion during the early stages. Now, a mechanical insertion of an inert object in utero, or perhaps a progesterone-secreting IUD—”

It was here that she actually screamed.

Dean attributed this scream to some sort of internal distress, but then she turned on him and took it out on him, saying, “Shut UP! I can’t stand to hear about this anymore!”

But Dean was patient. He explained with great care. “But the early stages of any breakthrough are awkward. You could even say that, yes, there is a sacrificial generation, but the downstream benefit’s—Look, ultimately all of this technology will come together to produce lactating cows that are NATURALLY calf-free—the cow will reach a kind of apotheosis where all of its best, most productive selves, you know, the collective self and the individual self as sort of dissolved in, you know, I think, that’s exactly the right phrase, the individual herd animal is dissolved in, or maybe not dissolved, but let’s say suspended, in the herd, anyway—” He smiled to signal that he was
ON HER SIDE, but by now she was bananas, totally unavailable to reason, and she ran from the table right out the door, without her coat, too.

Dean sat there trying to decide where he had gone wrong. The gravy for the burgers was good, and after he finished his own, he reached across the table and picked up Joy’s plate. She had barely touched her food.

To tell the truth, anyone he knew would agree that he had been remarkably patient over the last months with her moods, and that was probably where he had gone wrong. Sometimes you simply had to draw the line and say, no more, or they would take advantage of you. And really, it was unfair, with all the pressure from the grant, and all the work he had to do, for her to give in to these emotional displays. It was a way of sabotaging his work.

Now he remembered those early days in the fall, when he had first come up with this idea, and the fact was that Joy was against it from the start. Of course he had never attributed any ill motives to her this whole time, had he, but it added up, didn’t it?

He went into the kitchen to see if there was anything more to eat, but the food had all been served, so he took out a piece of bread and began wiping up the gravy in the skillet.

He would not have thought that JOY, little JOY, would be capable of cynically subverting this project by distracting and disturbing him, but really, what else could it be? He stuck the greasy bread in his mouth. You know, women always accused him of being obtuse about emotional things, but he had figured this one out, hadn’t he?

With a small thrill of triumph, he opened the refrigerator door and began to forage for something else to feed his mighty hunger.

M
EANWHILE
, Joy could hardly feel the cold. Listening to Dean was getting more and more like receiving muffled blows, let’s say being hit over and over with a sofa pillow. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t raise bruises, and you could go on letting it happen for weeks, until you realized that the experience was numbing, and probably meant to be numbing. All fall, Joy had wondered why those companies were so eager to invest in Dean’s harebrained scheme. Clearly, they had been numbed into it by a barrage of sentences that circled back and back, yet spiralled forward and forward. Eventually you nodded just to have it stop.

It was intolerable that he should go on and on in the usual way today. It was as if whatever she said made no difference. She had clearly told him that Brandy had died, her favorite horse, the irreplaceably and dearly worst horse in the herd. She had SAID that. How explicit did she have to be? How many times did she have to mention the horse’s name in order for Dean to remember which one this was?

And the death had been a sad one, too. It had all happened right in front of her when she was forking the noon hay off the back of the pickup. It was snowing, and she was hurrying because of the cold. Some horses were gathered around the vehicle, and others were trotting in from another part of the pasture. Brandy was one of those. They were used to jostling each other, and Joy had hardly noticed, except that Brandy had been jostled and slipped and gone down and stayed down. The others pressed past her, and Joy had thrown out the last of the hay and then jumped down herself to break it up, all the time expecting Brandy to rise, but the horse simply flailed and grunted.

Then Joy had thought to help her by throwing a rope around her neck and pulling—sometimes your weight was enough to counterbalance gravity—but as soon as she got the rope around her neck, Brandy stopped flailing and lay still, and Joy saw blood on the snow. She dared not break her own rule of never tending to a down horse without a helper—those struggling, panicky back hooves could nail you without warning—so she had rushed to the truck and raced into the barn and found Harvey and called the vet. The three of them were back out to the pasture in ten minutes, with the portable X-ray machine. But there was no need to X-ray. The bone was through the skin. The vet had put the horse to sleep right there.

She was alive and then she was dead. Joy was still shaking from the suddenness of it. Somehow, it would have helped if they had gotten her into the truck and then into a stall, if Joy had fed her one last meal, or two or three. If they had contemplated the choices over a night or two. But Joy had known instantaneously and absolutely that inflicting that sort of pain on the animal was pointless, and death was the likeliest result no matter what. When the vet looked at her for the decision, she had made it at once. Now, selfishly, she regretted it, because she could not get over the suddenness of it, could not could not could not.

It didn’t help that Joy agreed with much of the substance of Dean’s rain of remarks. The deaths of animals were taxing precisely because
you gave them names and then they began to accrete personalities every time you said “Don’t put Frenchman in the paddock with Rudy, they always fight,” or “Brandy doesn’t mind having her teeth floated,” or “King really took to jumping, didn’t he?” With preference came point of view; with point of view, personality; with personality, uniqueness; with uniqueness, grief. Of course Brandy didn’t experience her own death the way Joy imagined it, but Joy couldn’t stop imagining how she would have felt, anyway, just trotting in, focused on the hay, looking forward to something good, then the sensation of the nudge, the going down, the pain, more pain, then oblivion. Joy couldn’t stop thinking about those moments before the nudge, when everything would have seemed normal and pleasant to the horse, when the animal’s only thought was anticipation of the sweet, summery hay.

Joy shook her head and started to run. Down the street, she saw the Red Stick County Bank time display: 6:47, twenty-three degrees. Sometime later she ran past her old apartment without realizing it. The world was dark and cold. She neither saw the dark nor felt the cold.

D
EAN WAS
full. He sat back in his chair and it came to him—he couldn’t eat another bite. He could bite another bite, yes. His mouth still hungered. But he couldn’t contain another morsel. He pushed his chair away from the table, got up, and staggered into the living room, where he fell into his recliner. He was well aware that by the hall clock it was after seven and Joy had been gone for over an hour. He reached for the TV remote, but he didn’t press any buttons. He couldn’t, so taken was he by a gastric pain. Now this was unusual. He had never eaten too much to work the remote before. The pain travelled upward, then diagonally across. It was succeeded by another, then another. Then it subsided long enough for Dean to push the on button and note that “Cosby” was on, then it started again.

Appendicitis? Dean pushed himself out of the recliner and headed for the downstairs bathroom. A stool and urine check, for blood, couldn’t hurt. On the way to the bathroom, he tried touching his chin to his chest. He knew for a fact that if you had a brain tumor, you would be unable to touch your chin to your chest. Given the concept of referred pain, a pain anywhere in your body could be a symptom of distress anywhere else in your body. As he sat down on
the toilet, he raised his left arm, allowing any potential shooting pains (which he imagined as passengers waiting for a train) easy access. Shooting pains in your left arm meant a heart attack, as everyone knew. After he got off the toilet (no blood), he checked some moles on his shoulder in the mirror. They did not seem to have changed in any way. He wondered where he had put that pamphlet on the seven danger signs of cancer.

Just then he heard the front door open. He thought of a greeting—“I hope you’re satisfied,” but spoken in a gentle voice, as if he really did hope she was satisfied. He shook his shoulders and patted the front of his shirt. He bared his teeth, and flicked away a piece of something dark with his fingernail. Then and only then, fully prepared, did he come out of the bathroom. Joy was leaning against the wall. Behind her, the front door was wide open.

“Good Lord!” said Dean. “Heat is expensive!” He brushed past her and slammed the door, then he turned and said, “I hope you’re—”

She was looking at him, but not as if she recognized him. Her entire body was shaking, too, in waves of shivers that ran from her head to her feet. He reached out and laid the back of his fingers against her cheek, and they seemed to burn with the cold. He said, “Joy? Are you okay? I don’t see why you ran out of here without your coat! Jesus. You’ve just got a little shirt on.” He put his arm around her to help her to the couch, and her eyes closed. Her whole body was like her cheek, burningly chilled. She fell against his arm, and he picked her up. “Fuck, Joy!” he said. “You know better than this!” He carried her to the couch and covered her with an afghan, then picked up the phone and called Helen.

Helen was there in two minutes. “Don’t chafe her hands,” she exclaimed. “Her hands aren’t the problem! Take off your clothes!” She ran up the stairs. As if divining his reluctance, she shouted from the landing, “TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES!” Dean took off his clothes. Helen returned with a blanket and the comforter from the bed. Joy seemed to have lost consciousness. “Good,” said Helen. She spread the comforter and blanket on the floor. “Lie down.” Soon she had Joy’s clothes off her, and immediately after that, she had Dean and Joy wrapped up together in a hot cocoon. “Hug her,” she said. “Put your leg over her. Pull her skin up to yours.” She went to the closet and got an old wool hat of Dean’s, nice and loose, and pulled it down over the top of Joy’s head.

Joy’s small body next to his was cold and inert. Her skin seemed waxy and thick, and he felt as if he were spreading around her.

Helen said, “Think of radiators.”

“What?”

“Do you know what mental imaging is? It’s a way of concentrating your physical forces. Think of radiators glowing red, blowing heat, giving off warmth. Just pick some kind of radiators that you are familiar with, and focus on that thought. Close your eyes.”

It was easier to think of Joy as an ice cube.

“Don’t think of Joy being cold,” said Helen. “Think of yourself being warm. Radiators. Steam. Hot metal lobes. Pipes, moisture coursing through, up from the boiler. Pouring coal into the firebox, building heat. More steam. Each rounded metal surface of your body pulsating with heat.”

It was intoxicating in a way. His forehead began to sweat, and then his thighs and his chest, but he didn’t mind. He felt Joy soften a little, warm a little. A while later, he heard Ivar’s voice, then Helen’s voice, but he had gone out of the state of mind that would have allowed him to understand what they were saying. Every so often, he felt Helen’s hands pull the comforter tighter, or wipe his forehead. Once or twice, he felt Joy move against him. After some period of time, Helen’s voice said, distinctly, right in his ear, “The ambulance is here,” and then they were loosening the covers and he was wiggling out, down to his underwear, which his belly hung over just a little, in front of everyone, and they were wheeling Joy out on the gurney, all covered up as if she were dead, but Helen was smiling and Ivar was holding the door, and Dean’s own feeling was indescribable, almost a dizziness, almost a chill, almost a not recognizing his own house.

“Good job,” said Helen. “Put your clothes on and Ivar will drive us to the hospital.”

He said, “How long did we do that?”

“Oh, well, it took the ambulance about fifteen minutes, so probably you were wrapped up with her about a half an hour.”

“It seemed like forever. It seemed like we were …” He paused, rooted around for just what it seemed like … “It seemed like we were buried in a common grave. But it was all right. I brought her back from the dead.”

Helen had gone to get her coat, but Ivar patted him on the back and said, “Maybe you did, Dean. Maybe you did.”

T
HANKS TO
budgetary constraints and new controls over university “publishing” (“The university defines ‘publishing’ as the production of hard copy materials by means of any computer printer, photoduplicating machine, or fax machine owned by the university and coming under departmental budgeting lines.—
University Operation Manual
, p. B-15”) that had taken effect over the New Year (“Memo: In an effort to restrict uncontrolled publishing [see
UOM
, 1989-1990, p. B-15], and the costs accruing therefrom, this office now requires the filing of Form B-2/54 one week before the publication of any literature designed to use more than two hundred sheets of paper. Departments and faculty members are urged to communicate through the computer network, by use of E-mail or voice mail. Our university investment in the VAX@ computer system will thus be made even more fruitful and efficient, while unnecessary usage of paper products will be minimized. Strict paper usage restrictions will be enforced by this office”), Chairman X was forced to pull from an old cupboard a ditto machine which was indeed still owned by the university (university equipment inventory number 254-0009) but which did not fall under “publishing” guidelines. He then bought from the secretary ten Thermo-Faxes and two reams of ditto paper. With his own money.