Short Story: Wanting to Be a Cow

by Karen Winters Schwartz

“Drive me,” Alveta said to her mom while she ate Sugar Pops with the fresh milk Daddy had just brought in from the barn. Her mom’s mouth was hidden by the rim of a coffee cup and all Alveta received in response was the one eyebrow. Alveta added quickly, “Please. Please drive me to school.” Her mom sipped coffee with the one eyebrow still up too high. Alveta looked around the kitchen. “Maybe Daddy’ll drive me?” A slight gesture with the tip of her mom’s chin and Alveta knew Daddy was already up and gone—maybe tilling that lower field in the rain.

“Take the bus,” said her mom. Alveta had held the spoon still for a moment and waited to see if she would say anything else. She did not.

Alveta brought her empty cereal bowl to the sink. She picked up her Snoopy lunch box and turned back to the table. “Bye. Guess I’ll be going. I think I’ll walk since the bus smells like moldy Fritos.” Alveta laughed right after she said Fritos. Her mom didn’t respond, but both eyebrows were back where they should be. “I’m wearing my new shoes today,” she offered. Her mom took another sip of coffee.

Maybe it was a good thing her mom didn’t talk much in the mornings Alveta thought as she carefully sidestepped puddles on her way to the road, because sometimes what came out of her mom’s mouth was scary.

It wasn’t long before Alveta heard Lucas coming up behind her. She wasn’t sure if she liked Lucas or not. Even though he was only eight, nearly a year younger than Alveta, a boy, and stupid, he was usually fun to pal around with. Just yesterday they’d spent hours catching frogs at the pond in Daddy’s Holstein pasture. They’d splashed in the muddy water until they had a whole bucket full of the beautiful green squirmy creatures.

He said hello and fell in beside her. Within a few yards, he splashed right through in a puddle with the work boots he was wearing, proving just how stupid he was. “Lucas, cut it out. Can’t you see, did you not notice, my new shoes?”

Alveta couldn’t keep her eyes off them. And it wasn’t just because she was trying to avoid getting them dirty. It was because they were amazing. Deep red leather with a large gold buckle right in the middle. It wasn’t real gold but looked like it could be. It looked like her mom’s gold band. Daddy didn’t wear a ring. She asked him once why and he said, “I like my fingers. All of them.” That was it. No further explanation. When she asked him more, he stood up, ruffled her hair, and headed back to his tractor.

Alveta had fallen in love with the shoes when they were just a black and white drawing in the newspaper. Then she saw them in the store window on their trip to Ashland, Ohio. Lots of pleading with her mom and six dollars of her own money later, they were hers. Alveta knew she should have worn her old brown shoes and waited for a sunny day, but that stupid Jennifer Mason had pranced about on Friday in her patent leathers like she was a princess. Alveta hated Jennifer Mason prancing around in her new patent leather shoes, her perfect straight blonde hair, her daddy a lawyer in Ashland, not even living on a real farm like most of the others. All the boys followed her with their eyes. And their noses. No smell of manure on Jennifer Mason.

“Don’t they look pretty against my white stockings?” said Alveta. Lucas grunted his answer like boys do but he didn’t really seem to hear. Under her raincoat she wore her favorite navy-blue dress. She really wanted to wear her black and white checked pants but the school only let the girls wear pants on the coldest of winter days.

Ten minutes and too many puddles later, Lucas moved to cut across the schoolyard at the side of the building. “I’m staying on the sidewalk,” said Alveta, pointing at her lovely shoes. The bus turned into the school’s circular driveway in front of them. Several kids waved through the window.

Lucas looked down at her shoes like he was looking at a dead squirrel. “They’re ugly,” he said.

Alveta was struck. Struck like the first time someone had called her Velveeta and said she looked like she belonged on a cracker. Lucas hit another puddle hard, sending a wave of mud that flew across her legs and her beautiful red shoes. They both stopped walking and looked at the row of perfect dots on her white stockings. Cow poop polka dots. She met his eye and he looked away.

“What sort of dumb girl wears white stockings anyways?” he said to the ground. She let her arms fall to her side. She sucked in a breath. Her fingers curled, making fists.

“I’ll kill you,” she yelled.

Lucas’s head popped up, his eyes grew wide right before she threw her body into his. They both went down in the mud and grass next to the sidewalk, Alveta’s bookbag hitting her on the head. She did her best to extract it from her body and at the same time find Lucas’s stupid thick neck, which she planned to squeeze between her fingers. He twisted like crazy. He was surprisingly slippery considering his short stocky body. They rolled back and forth on the wet muddy grass. Other kids on their way to school stopped and stared. The kids jeered from the bus.

“Hold still so I can kill you,” she said. Lucas bent like a pretzel and then sprung loose. He made it to his feet and squatted like a wrestler. Tufts of grass were stuck to his squashy face. One side of his sandy-brown hair was flat against his skull, the other side stuck out in wet peaks. He looked more toad-like than ever with his arms caked in mud and his clothes all rumpled.

Alveta got up slowly, never letting her eyes leave his. His mouth twitched at the corners. His freckles stood out against the red blotches on his face. She copied his stance and they began a slow circle. The jeering got louder. A small group of kids gathered. “Fight! Fight!”

Lucas’s mouth twitched again. He sprung forward, clamping his arm around her head and drawing it near. “Cheese,” he whispered so that only she could hear. Alveta closed her eyes and relaxed into his hold. He released her and smiled his big-mouth smile.

A small peep of a laugh popped out of Alveta’s mouth. And another and another like some sort of weird hiccups. She looked at her stockings which were now ripped, her pale knobby knees showing through, the polka dots smeared with new debris: grass, water, small sticks, brown smudges. She doubled over with laughter. Even her gold buckles, now caked in mud, were hilarious. She looked up at Lucas. He stepped near and picked a stick out of her hair. “Toad.” She managed to get the word out so that only he could hear. Sometimes she kind of liked Lucas.

When Alveta got home that afternoon, she pulled off and tucked the red shoes behind the rocker on the porch and slipped in the front door rather than the side door. Avoiding the kitchen, she stepped lightly up the wooden steps leading to the second floor. Once in her bedroom, she stripped off the white stockings and crammed them in the middle of the crumpled-up papers in her trashcan next to her desk. It was extra full due to the twenty-one failed attempts from the stupid essay assignment her teacher had given them last week: Person, Place, or Thing: what makes YOU who you are? She’d finally settled on Miles. Miles, the cat, had made her who she is. And then only because he’d walked into the room and stared at her with his big moon eyes.

At school, she had cleaned her face and patted down her hair the best she could in the girls’ bathroom. Becky Barnstable had loaned her a hair tie. She’d tried to pull her hair back; it was like trying to tame a Brillo pad. Now she looked at herself in the mirror above her bedroom dresser and decided there was no fooling her mom—one look at Alveta’s present state and the jig would be up. Taking a bath right after school, before supper, would not go unnoticed.

After changing from her dress to her old jeans and a dark pink Snoopy T-shirt, she checked the upstairs hallway. Seeing no one, she tiptoed down the hall to her parents’ bedroom, and quickly surveyed Daddy’s collection of baseball caps he kept hung on the back of the closet door: several choices of John Deere, Pioneer Seed, Holland Agriculture, Feed and Seed, a grey Ohio State one, Cincinnati Reds, a beautiful red Marlboro hat, Cleveland Browns…. She bit her lower lip gently. She wanted the red one, but her mom had finally managed to stop smoking. She stood on the tips of her toes, stretched as far as she could go. Her fingers were just able to knock the bright yellow one off its hook. She admired the silky green deer leaping right in the middle, ran her fingertip over its softness, and put it on her head. It flopped over her face and smelled of oil and grass. She tightened up the back strap, readjusted it on her head, and carefully tucked in every strand of her hair. A quick check in the mirror on the back of her parents’ door and she was ready.

Her mom, didn’t look up from her coffee as Alveta stepped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

“May I have a bit of cheese with some bread?” Alveta asked sweetly, her head well into the fridge. Alveta could feel her mom’s eyes on her. She held her breath until she heard her mom get up from the table and the squeak of the bread box. Alveta set the cheese near the bread box and watched as her mom cut off a slice of nutty bread and one thick chuck of cheese. Alveta would have loved a slice of Wonder Bread covered in butter—always a favorite at Lucas’s house—but she smiled broadly up at her mom and said, “Thank you, ever so much.”

The bread covered by the slice of cheese quivered in front of Alveta’s face. Alveta’s smile dropped away as she met her mom’s gaze. The edges of her mom’s lips turned down.

“Dammit, Alveta, what have you done?” Her mom slammed the bread and the cheese back onto the counter, the cheese falling free. “Yellow is absolutely not your color.” She snatched the hat from Alveta’s head. A rain of dried mud fell before Alveta’s eyes. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Alveta cowered, shook her head. No, no, no, no, no.

“And what? Do you think I’m going to hit you? Do you?”

Alveta shook her head over and over, stepping back, until her lower back felt the edge of the kitchen table.

“Stop it,” her mom screamed. “I am not going to hit you. I’m not.”

Alveta began to cry. She couldn’t help it. She knew it was a dumb thing to do, but she just couldn’t help it.

“Stop it,” her mom repeated. “Here.” She turned and smashed the cheese back onto the bread and swung it toward Alveta. “Take it. Take it. Here. Take your damn bread.” Alveta’s tears trickled down her cheeks but she kept her hands pressed to her chest and didn’t dare wipe at her cheeks. Her mom held the bread out. Alveta didn’t reach for it. “I. Said. Stop it. Stop it or I will hit you.” Alveta eased further away, her back sliding along the kitchen table. Her mom tightened up as if to carry out the threat, only to sink onto the floor, extending the bread like an offering to a god. 

Alveta used both hands to grasp the bread from her mom’s trembling hands. “Thank you, Mommy,” she whispered.

Once relieved of her burden, her mom kept her hands extended and slightly widened, asking for a hug. Alveta wasn’t buying it. She backed around the edge of the table toward the side door. She heard her mom sob as she pushed through the screen door. Alveta didn’t care. She clutched the bread and cheese in her left hand, and ran across the yard, into the thicket, shoving her way through the undergrowth, pieces of bread leaving a trail, ripping the back of her Snoopy T-shirt on the lowest level of barbed wire, feeling the scratch between her shoulder blades, reaching the edge of the pond only to see the most awful sight. By the upturned bucket she and Lucas had left there yesterday. Frogs. Three of them. Dead. Dried up sunken eyes. Their legs stretched outward. The ones that couldn’t crawl away.

It was nearly dark; the remaining frogs made such a racket that Alveta didn’t hear her mom’s approach until she was almost on top of her, making Alveta’s whole body jump. She put her hand to her chest. Her heart banged against it. Her mom sat down next to her on the little hill that overlooked the pond. Three stones sat a few feet away from Alveta’s feet—only just visible in the fading light. Each stone was decorated with wild strawberry flowers and violet petals pressed into the stone. In the muddy soil below the three small mounds, Alveta had written RIP with the end of a stick which she could still see if she used her imagination.

Her mom straightened out her legs and almost kicked one of the grave markers. She leaned toward her, draping her left arm around Alveta. The pinkness disappeared from the sky, small bats dipped toward the surface of the pond, what few clouds there were turned the deepest purple before fading out altogether. The stones and the little mounds completely disappeared. Stars twinkled, one by one, until the whole sky was wishable, and even though Alveta was shivering in her ripped Snoopy T-shirt, she continued to sit with her back straight and her head facing forward as if she were one of the stones. The frogs’ songs grew and grew. Lightning bugs—the first that Alveta had seen this year—blinked over the water. Two sets of lights—one real and the other fake. Her mom’s arm tightened just a bit. Alveta sighed. She tilted her head toward the warmth of her mom and leaned in. The arm tightened further. Her mom smelled like she always smelled, like the kitchen—warm cinnamon and pickles, yeast and milk, hot smells from the oven—pot roast with onions, stewed chicken, tuna casserole with potato chips. A full belly of smells which Alveta breathed in. The other arm came up around Alveta’s front. She closed her eyes and leaned until she was nearly on her mom’s lap. Her mom kissed the top of Alveta’s head.

Alveta wasn’t startled by Daddy. She was never startled by Daddy. She felt him ease down on the other side of her without a word. He put his arm around the two of them, and the three of them watched as the moon peeked over the upper field which was now plowed into ribbons of soil. It reminded Alveta of the sunrise they’d watched during their one vacation to Florida when she was seven—only an Ohio version: darker and dirtier. But still a moment, a family moment that she would put in her scrapbook of family moments. The day my mom almost hit me. The day we watched the moon rise over dirt.

The moon was crazy big, like it shouldn’t be real and when it was high enough to cast shadows, Daddy stood, extended his hand first to her mom and then to her. They walked close, stepping carefully through the rutted hoofprints of the Holsteins, not through the woods but along the front of the hedgerow, to the opening of the fence that led to the barn. Alveta could hear the cows in the barn, settling in for the night. They were blowing out gently, their mouths chewing, their feet stamping softly, tails swishing at unseen things in the night. “I’m going to say goodnight to the girls,” said Alveta, breaking away from her parents and heading toward the barn.

“Fine, but don’t be getting them all riled up,” Daddy said.

“And don’t be long,” her mom threw in. “It’s way past supper time. I have it all ready. Chicken soup. The kind you like with all the noodles.”

Alveta actually hated that soup with all the noodles.

Alveta watched them walk away. Now that she was no longer there, there was a space between them. A space bigger than what a child might fill. Take her hand. Alveta saw the image like a painting, their hands clasped in the middle of that space, the moon shadows stretched out around them, a lightning bug glowing near her mom’s head, the farmhouse with its windows lit and welcoming in the background, the tree silhouettes in the foreground, fuzzy and dark and not at all scary. Alveta watched her parents—their hands never touching—until they disappeared through the side door. Her mom entered the house first. Daddy followed a few beats later.

“Cows, cows, cows,” Alveta sang softly as she stepped into the dimly lit barn.

It was true, what Daddy had said, she did love to rile them up.

The girls turned their sleepy eyes her way.. They always made her smile. “Girls, girls, girls,” she sang louder. There were a couple soft moos of welcome. Alveta flicked on a light and sucked in the aroma of fresh manure. “Hello, Elizabeth,” she said. “Let’s get that all picked up.” Elizabeth blinked and flicked her tongue into the holes of her nose, first one and then the other. Alveta removed the shovel from the wall and scraped, easing the pile onto the shovel. She held the shovel as high as she could without losing its contents and skipped down the aisle toward the wheelbarrow. She dumped the contents into the barrow, then held the flat end up toward her face.

“Hello, fine sir,” she said loudly to the blade of the shovel, which still glistened with green juice. “Yes, most certainly. I’d love to dance.” The cows watched with mild interest as Alveta spun down the aisle—slowly at first as not to rile them up.

“I know you,” she sang. “I danced with you once upon a dream. I know you! I do, I do, I do, I do!” Alveta spun and spun with the shovel until she was beautifully dizzy. She wobbled and had to steady herself on Cleopatra’s rump. It was a good thing it was Cleopatra’s; Muriel might have given her a swift kick. Once she recovered, she took Mr. Shovel back toward his hanging place. “Thank you, fine sir. It was a lovely dance indeed.”

She went down the aisle patting each of the girls on the rump. “Goodnight, Harriet. Sweet dreams, Annie. Hey Amelia, don’t let the barn bugs bite.”

There were thirty-one Holsteins. Tomorrow morning Daddy would milk them all before the sun came up. When all their udders were empty, they’d walk in a straight line, Bella always leading the way, back out to the field where they would stand and swat flies and eat and mount one another and poop and eat some more and lick their noses until it was time to come in to be milked again. Day after day after day. Not one of them seemed to mind. Not one of them ever seemed afraid.

Sometimes Alveta wanted to be a cow—to do the same things day after day after day. To know that Bella always took the lead, that feed would always be placed in her bin, and that although an occasional disagreement might arise, she was safe—and loved. As a cow Alveta’s main worry would be keeping the flies at bay as she followed Bella to the field, knowing that all her cow buddies were there, and if it rained they’d all lie down together chewing their cud. If it were sunny, they’d all stand close eating and swatting until it was time to once again follow Bella to be milked and fed and settled in for the night, only to do it all over again and again and again.