Atu Ep.2 (2) “Okay, right, no I get it Bill – you want money – but what I mean is, Bill, why? I mean what for? We’re all just-” “What for? Jeesas – what for?” He lifts his gun and fires two shots BAP BAP into the sky and Juno rears up with a triumphant neigh and gives me a crazy look then quickly subdues herself onto four legs and resumes looking bored again while Bill just stares at me intensely, clearly feeling that he has made his point and doesn’t need to say anything more so we just ride on in an uncomfortable silence for a while, the air that now bristles with a schizophrenic tinge... “...You shouldn't shoot your gun like that anymore Bill. Seriously. It scares the cows.” Where the hell does he get all the bullets? “Now listen to me Bill, I get that money is important to normal people. But please understand me when I say this – We’re not in normal circumstances. We’re following a huge nomadic herd of mystical cows – no scratch that – prehistoric mystical nomadic cows through the plains of the Prairie. Money isn’t important.” “Well Carl was sayin that-” “GOD DAMMIT!.” I punch my thigh once in a masculine way. Carl. “Carl.” I utter the name – slowly – so that I could saturate it with venom. I knew it. Furious, I shade my eyes with my left hand and scan the horizon like an Eagle. “Yeeah, Carl was talkin' ta me an Harlan bout how we don’t never get paid enough no more. I can’t even take a woman out.” “In many cases like that money isn’t the problem Bill – yours is one of those cases – now tell me, where the fuck is Carl?” “Yeaah Layst I spoke to him he was a down on th' front end of the herd arguin' about the best month to plant rye grass. He says that he sure it's September but one cow insists October's the sweet spot -me? - I just know that when it comes to rye grass that if by May that motherfucker hasn't sprung up like a bitch then I'm gonna be fuckin-” He stops talking and just shoot his gun once up into the air again BAM then Juno kicks her back hooves out and in this moment I realize that Bill isn't going to be talking to me anymore so I spur my horse on with a masculine kick and a mean 'Heeiyaa!' making off to look for Carl and I ride right through the middle of the herd who look well fed as always - constantly grazing for four stomachs with fantastic fat reserve and animal muscle about three times of a man’s. Harlan had told me a lot about how the cows organize themselves. For instance they dot parts of their memories and personalities across the herd which had many thousands of years ago arranged itself into five distinct partitions and individual cows of every one of the five partitions remembers both it’s own memories and pieces of other cows' memories from other partitions and this knowledge becomes 'redundant' in the sense that their knowledge is exactly the same as other cows at other locations in the herd and the locations of this superfluous data are 'mapped' and memorized by the Alpha Mediums in a cow memory file table so that in effect the whole consciousness of the herd is replicated upon itself in patterns so that if there ever was ever any loss of information in one of the five sectors then a corresponding locale of backed up data would be able to remind and repair the corrupted data of the damaged sector but this data prevention loss arrangement can only offer complete data loss prevention of original memory space equivalent of only only four of the five sectors because the storing of the redundant data requires a space equivalent to the size of one of the five sectors and in Bovinus terminology this arrangement is what is referred to as R.A.I.C. or 'Redundant Array of Inexpensive Cows'. (It was changed from 'independent' cows because of the implication of un-homogenistic thought*from the word 'independent'.) But where is Carl? We are riding in the shade around the foot of a massive butte with birds perched up in its crevices and roots hanging out of its walls opposite another enormous raised plain which rises up about thirty meters on the other side across of the massive burning hot prairie where the sun hits straight on and when I look up at it I imagine having a small wooden house on that fourteen square meters of land and having to live up there on the top of it, having to sweep the floors all the time and I shiver inside: How would one get down? How would I buy food? The world would seem like a Grey cold dream in an eternal evening up there, all alone. That made me think that we really must find some other food than Datura – the constant hallucinatory dreams are coming a bit too hard and fast. I start to ride to the front of the herd. I see Carl off in the distance on his horse and I immediately burst into a gallop and headed straight at him. I could tell he senses me when I start to ride up on him by the way he turns his face not enough for me to see he is looking at me but enough to see me while making it look like he isn't looking at me – what a Dickass. “Carl!” “Rueben.” “You're a Dickass.” “Fuck you.” “You're a loser prick who wants to take over the herd but you can't take over the herd.” “There's no 'taking over the herd', Rueben. Were all equal and –“ “Save your bullshit dill-hole, I'm the Big Banana around here and you're rocking the boat. It’s as simple as that.” “That's a mixed metaphor, Rueben.” “Face it Carl you're just a pawn in this spider-web: Nothing.” “Like three times. That was indecipherable. And 'dill-hole? A twelve year-old would say that.'” “Whatever – look Carl, this is not a good time to be getting Bill all excited.” “It's never a good time with you Rueben, it's always 'We're stuck out in the prairie in Middle America' and 'We've all taken too much Datura' or 'Ooh, the big one is coming, the big one is coming and the stupid little caterpillar and-” “The Big One is coming you f–“ “Well with you in charge we’d be lucky to live long enough to get killed in the big one. Seems to me either way we’re fucked.” I lunge off my horse at Carl and socked him clean off his saddle with a right hook that comes straight out of nowhere, land on my feet and shoo his jittery horse out of the way by shoving it's big shiny brown rump roughly then I come down on Carl hard and fast while he's still lying shocked in a dust-cloud on the ground and I punch him quickly one two three square in his left eye socket which made him bleat like an animal groping his face which is starting to spurt blood then kick him a good few times in his kidneys with my boot and a couple just below the ribs with all my strength until he can't get up then I hit him in the face once or twice again making sure not to break his nose and mostly just bashing at the sides of the features rather than directly striking them; Carl is an asshole but he's a good looking guy and I don't want to ruin that for him. His hat rolls off his head and his horse tramples on it accidentally. “My hat!” he blubbers, pointing at it as he lies on the dirt like a dirty dead dog. I push the horse away again and speak down at him: “This is how things work Carl! Yes. We're following a herd of prehistoric, wait, spiritual historic cows across the prairie of Middle America and we're lost.” Carl starts to make like he's going to get up again and, worried that he might try to get me down like the foxes I boot him squarely and straight-on in the trunk again in an exhausting burst of mostly right-footed kicks for about 7 seconds which makes him go out briefly and then wretch inconsolably for a minute or so on the grass coughing up things half-lying down trying to hold his torso up with his hands like he was sick and there is a lot of blood coming out of his mouth now and it makes it look like his teeth are broken but they aren't actually, they're just tainted by the blood and so I kick him a couple more times around the face making sure to catch his cheekbone rather than directly on his nose or to his mouth and then strike him a couple of times on the side of his right temple with my fist – the soft bit right above the ear where the joint of his cranium and the top of his jaw meet but then I feel something come loose a bit and I feel bad for him so I stop and quickly push down on his shoulders with my hands to make him lie on his back where he can't get me and when he is sprawled on the ground I bend over him and yank his collar and shake it coming in real close and yell at him, “Why the fuck are you talking to everyone about money when there's so much more than that at stake than that?! Why do you guys only seem to want to improve your spiritual life for material gain?” “Yeah? What about Gabby's new jacket?” he sputters, holding his bloodied nose and looking at the blood on his fingers like he's checking for something. “Gabby's a maniac.” I shoot back, and let go of his collar, disgusted with him. “If we didn't keep her happy she's kill us all in our sleep.” “That's bullshit Rueben – she'd kill the horse first – face it, you're a weak leader and the fact that you always resort to violence undermines your authority – we all think that you're about as dependable as a Lada Niva.” When he says that something snaps inside me – I run to pick up a large rock that is lying a few feet away and lift it over my head then start stumbling back, struggling under the weight of it to bash Carl's fat head in once and for all. I wondered what a lada niva was. “Rueben!” Gabby yells. I freeze. She looks at me then gestures coldly to Carl with her head and much to my surprise says “Drop the rock.” I pause for a second then say “Well what the hell does it look like I'm trying to do you idiot – c'mon stop fucking around this thing's heavy as shit–” and then continue stumbling towards Carl to crush his stupid face in. “NO NOT ON CARL!” Oh that's what she meant. I put the rock down gently. “You idiot.” She seems to be having trouble with her horse. “You can't go around beating Carl like this Rueben! What the hell is the matter with you?” She had appeared from nowhere and was wearing her new fox-fur jacket. It looks nice but its easily 30º in the shade so I can't imagine a reason why she would be wearing it now. She is sweating profusely and looks uncomfortable. I notice that sometime earlier in the day she had tied a big pink fabric ribbon in a bow around Muffy's neck which he is desperately trying to tear off with his teeth but can't reach it. The horse clearly hates it. I try to explain the situation to Gabby and begin by pointing at Carl. “He keeps on trying to stir discontent amongst the ranks – It's like he doesn't comprehend how a cult is supposed to work; it's like I'm fighting an uphill battle and I'm up shit creek without a paddle and we're going down in flames –” “Rueben please – easy on the meta-” she rubs her left temple while trying to control her horse. “NO, Well do you think I'm a bad leader Gabby?” Gabby tries to answer but can't say anything because Muffy is now trying get the ribbon off from around his neck by shaking it's head violently while stomping it's front feet in irritation. Gabby tries to steady him but it isn't working. “Stop it you son of a bitch! Hey, heih there! Wait, Rueben-” She tugs at the reigns forcefully trying to pull his head back but that just makes Muffy start rearing up, whinnying and snorting even harder. I turn back down to Carl. “Harlan has never said a fucking thing to me about any bullshit like this. Ever.” I turn back to Gabby and make a single point in the air with my finger “And you can't say I'm a bad leader - you burnt a whole fucking town down two weeks ago.” “Rueben, I – woahJesus – Fuck it horse! What's your God-damn –” Then Carl pipe up from behind me; “You want to be a good leader, Rueben?” I glance back and see that Carl is sitting up still touching his bloodied nose but now dusting his stupid messed-up hat off by hitting it on the rock. My rock. “Fuck off,” – I turned away from him in disgust – “You prick – I'm asking Gabby.” But he continues speaking on in a prescriptive drone behind me, “Then you can do something about our circumstances. I'm tired of being hungry, I'm tired of being lonely, I'm tired of being broke, I'm tired of being fucking lost on the fucking prairie: Rueben I'm tired. We're all tired of it.” Without turning back I give him a mean dig with the heel of my boot to shut him up hoping that Gabby wouldn't notice because she is busy with the horse but she does see me and points while yelling “NO! Rueben – NO!”, simultaneously fighting to get the ribbon out of the horse's mouth which it has finally managed to get a hold of and is in the process of ripping off – “No No NO! Stop it muffy you piece of -” She keepstugging the ribbon from on top of the horse and is trying to get it out of his mouth but fatally and in one triumphant whip of the neck the horse rips the piece of festoonery off, ruining it. “FINE! Fine then!” she yells in furious resign hitting her hands on the saddle and then covering her face in frustration and the horse tosses the pink ribbon up into the air with it's teeth and when it lands on the ground he tramples it angrily into the ground trying to rip it apart with it's hooves. Gabby leans forward in the saddle and screams “I HATE YOU!” into horse's ear which gives it a fright and makes it do a little distraught circle on the spot. “That horse is playing with fucking fire.” I speak back to Carl while watching Muffy, “Oh yeah -” says Carl while checking for loose teeth, “Muffy's got it comin to him in a big way” The horse soon composes itself and Gabby looks at me as directly as she can manage and says “Okay I'll be straight with you Rueben.” Carl and I snicker because the bitch is myopic as a bat really and was literally looking a little off to my left when she spoke to me right now but she didn't get that that was funny for her to have said that and mean it ha! – 'straight' – but the dope just went on speaking anyway “You're not really leadership material – psychoactive substances or not – I don't think you ever really had it, Rueben. And certainly you don't – I mean you could never – 'have it' – like Gary had it.” Gary. ... Gary was the most inspirational cow boy that I had ever met – and the only black cow boy. I don't know why I mention 'black' – his color wasn't what made him special obviously but I guess you could say that it was 'remarkable' in the literal sense. Anyways I met Gary in that town just outside Pasadena – I was working in an abattoir and he came by one day and asked me if he could give a message to a specific cow whom he referred to as 'Maru' who was 'going in' that day. I threw my half eaten tuna sandwich at him told him to fuck off and made a derogatory joke about his ethnicity - I can't remember what joke exactly but it was colorful and hilarious and it made me and all the guys who worked there at the time laugh about it for a long while after he left. What made Gary so special was how he talked to the cows – I mean, the way he could speak about anything was shocking and amazing – but he really opened the book on cows and cow-related subjects about grasses and different grass types and the descriptions – the descriptions were like he knew – he really – like he had actually tasted it himself – you see that's why all of us – and I don't just mean me, Gabby, Harlan and Cody – I mean every cow in the herd, even the Alpha Mediums – even the horses – and sure, yeah, Carl a bit too I guess sure but fuck Carl -whatever- fuck anyways the point is that everybody, every 'thing' felt it – I mean that's what was special about Gary: even a total waste of life like Bill could, with Gary, start to understand and feel that what we were doing meant something because being with him was actually being in the presence of something greater that was lending it's power to him because he was reticent as well as being beau- Gabby has disappeared. She's masturbating again I know it. I turn to Carl who's still lying on the ground like a dirty dead dog and I say “I don't feel sorry for you. This whole thing is falling apart and you're picking holes in it.” Its a cliché, but I really mean it. “Rueben, the only holes here are the one you’re digging – for yourself.” This is why I hate Carl so much. He shamelessly hijacks my clichés and turns them back on me. I can overcome anything in this world except apathy and that's all I ever get from Carl these days and lately confronting our issue head-on only ever ends up in violence because he is such a prick. He really looks quite bad so I don't start hitting him again and instead start awkwardly trying to help him up. I try to wipe some of the blood off his face in a nurturing gesture but he pushes my hand away so instead I just try to explain my point to to the jackoff. “How I see it Carl is that the only way that money would be of any use would be if we found a place where they still use it. And if we found such a place the only way for us to get money would be to take it or make it.” he covers his right nostril with his thumb and blows a bloody spattering of gob out of the left then says “Couldn't we borrow it?” “Yes sure, we could borrow it but no matter what we'd have to work for it or pay it back and we'd probably never be able to make enough to feel that we had enough to last us forever because everything that we can see and experience in this physical existence is finite.” I feel my point had been made. “What about light?” he says while walking towards his horse who had quit the ruckus a while back and is eating grass by some cows who were standing near us. “I don't know.” I say. I really don't know. Is light 'finite' or 'in-finite'? This is what I'm talking about: Once again Carl, being the cock he was has literally blown my ship out of the water – no – figuratively – and I start to feel anxious. So now we have to get money. But for what, I wonder? I decide to clear this all up right now. “Carl – just answer me one thing – I'll do my best to sort all of this out I promise but I just want to know one thing first.” “What?” He takes hold of the leather rein that is dangling from his horse's round jaw and I can hear it strain around his hand as he wrapped it tightly into his fist locking it in a grip, and without him having to tauten the rope at all the horse simply acquiesces while flicking a fly off it's ear and moves its flank closer to him with a snort. Carl takes a cigarette out from his rolled up shirt-sleeve and lights it. The rolled up sleeve makes him look like a prick and Carl's horse is stupid and doesn't even have a name – but that's simply what you come to expect from a guy like Carl. “Carl, explain to me what everyone wants the money for.”
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