‘A Calf’s Tale’

‘Less than 1% of animals killed for meat in America come from family farms.’

***

I’m going to go. I don’t care what she wants. And if it isn’t so, then I’ll find out what is so. And if what she told was true, then I’ll know ahead of time and the one I will charge at is The Man With The Hammer.

***

Part 1.

Mother told me that it is a great honour to be chosen to stay on the ranch here in Bolinas, Marin County, California. Only silly, careless and ordinary cows go to Utah. I was born here at ‘Niman Ranch’ on the 8th of July, 2016. The weeks prior to parturition, many calves were born here. Those born between January and May last year have now left. They’ve gone to Utah. Mother says it’s because when we undergo puberty we become ‘uneducated juveniles’, or something along those lines, and so Nicolette and Bill, our owners, ordered their dispatch to Salt Lake City Schoolhouse. My older brother Heluka was amongst them. He was a spring baby, born in April, 2015. I only knew him for two months before he left. Mother said that he’s going to meet Brisket, Sirloin, Flank and Chuck very soon. I don’t know them, but they must be the teachers at the Schoolhouse who apparently wear long white teaching gowns, often covered in blood from dissecting things in their biology lessons.

Heluka was very sociable. He was friends with many of the other boys, and even crept out a few times to meet Maddock, a girl from the dairy barn. But, that only happened three times because Maddock became plagued with hysteria. She was only thirteen months old when she got pregnant. Heluka thought that she was just promiscuous, but it turns out that Bill’s neighbour, Donald, artificially inseminates his herd. I don’t know what this means, but according to Maddock’s friend, Ilana, it involves threading a rod through a cervix, which, whatever that is, sounds painful. The last time Heluka saw Maddock was just two days after she gave birth to a little boy. However, Heluka couldn’t meet him because he was taken away for Bob Veal. Bob must have lots of little calves on his farm. I wonder how far it is from here. I heard Nicolette telling Bill that Bob Veal also sends his herd off to the Schoolhouse, but they are sent away when only a few days old. Nursery must be fun at the boy’s school, they are allowed to play with crates and stalls and sleep in big dormitories all together. Although, tongue-rolling sounds like a strange game! At break times, they are given formulated milk- based proteins with lots of added vitamins and minerals. They must be super healthy! I asked Mother why I wasn’t allowed to go with them, but she said that Nicolette and Bill believe ‘in things like lying in the sun, mating, and rearing their young’. I mean, it must be sorrowful to be taken away from your mother at such a young age, but I’m sure Maddock will be allowed to visit. That’s why I just don’t understand why Maddock was so hysterical. Surely, she should be happy that her son can be educated in fields such as Italian Cotoletta and Austrian Wiener Schnitzel. I hope I can meet him there one day. Mother’s very peculiar friend said that I can meet him between a bun in McDonald’s Cheeseburger when I am slightly older. He said that the chocolate milkshakes are really tasty. I will order that when I go. I love milk! I can’t wait for next September now. I keep asking Mother if I can go now, but she just says “there’ll be time enough for that when you’re grown up”. I envy those at Bob Veal’s, I want to go now!

On Tuesday, me and Dunstan, my best friend, were branded. We must have been naughty because Bill moved us into chutes, where we were secured and laid on our sides. He put an iron on my bottom and it hurt so so much. I felt as though I was on fire. I cried to Mother all afternoon and she said that Bill wasn’t being unkind, we just simply had to be stamped with an identity so that we don’t get muddled with Donald’s herd. The stamp was circular with ‘Niman Ranch- Raised With Care’ surrounding a strange ‘N’ on it. She said that it was an honour to wear this new badge, because it meant we were able to stay at home on the ranch. However, it felt more like a punishment. Maybe it is because I didn’t reach my target weight gain for this month of 64.3 pounds. Nicolette said to Bill that we need to be 900 pounds in order to go to the Schoolhouse and now, at the age of eleven months, I should roughly be 707 pounds not 642.8. I think I have disappointed Bill and Nicolette. This makes me very sad. I hope I still get to go.

Today has been an interesting day. A rather weedy looking man came for tea with Bill and Nicolette. He had a piece of scrap paper and kept jotting down notes. He patted my head. Bill called him Jonathan, but Nicolette called him Mr. Foer. Why don’t I have two names? Nicolette’s Great Dane followed him all around the ranch, wagging his oversized tail and drooling on his hands. He’s so uncultivated! Mr. Foer said that it is remarkable how Nicolette knows ‘every heifer, cow, bull and calf’ here on the ranch. She apologised for Bill’s absence when showing him around. Apparently, he was ‘busy working to ensure sales for beef and pork produced by his company’s hundreds of small family farms’. Bill was always busy, answering calls, responding to emails and faxes from Chipotle Mexican grill, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s. He is constantly talking about a man named Paul Wilis and his ‘Paradise Locker Meats’. Bill must be like Heluka, very sociable. Mr. Foer mentioned Paul Wilis too. I don’t even know this man, but he told Nicolette that ‘Because of the structuring of the meat industry, and USDA regulations, Paul [is] forced to send [his] animals to slaughterhouses that [he] only [has] partial control over’. I am going to ask Mother what a slaughterhouse is later. It doesn’t sound quite as fun as the Schoolhouse where I am going. I wonder why Paul’s animals go there. I wonder if I will meet them inside the bun. 

Mr. Foer and Nicolette sat on the bench near my pen with mugs of pungent, hot, black liquid. Mr. Foer kept questioning her on different aspects of the ranch, and then they started speaking about something called ‘vegetarianism’. Nicolette proclaimed ‘I am a vegetarian rancher’. What does this mean? Is she a special rancher? Has she got a medal or a rosette to prove this? She says that Bill is not a vegetarian. Is she better than Bill? She said to Mr Foer that ‘Bill and I owe our animals the highest level of existence because we’re taking their lives for food’. I feel confused. Are we to become grain and grass, food? Has this anything to do with the Slaughterhouse Nicolette mentioned earlier? I thought that only Pauls hogs went there. Will I not be able to go to the Schoolhouse or meet Maddock’s son between the bun in McDonald’s Cheeseburger? Has mother lied to me? I just don’t understand. I was really looking forward to my milkshake!

Part 2

Last night I dreamt of my ranch. But, instead of a scene filled with cows and pigs and Nicolette, it was empty, except in the background, a tall, angular, grey building stood bearing the sign ‘Chipotle Mexican Grill’. Lots of Bills wandered in and out holding giant plates with Dunstan on. Men in suits handed out bottles labelled ‘Walmart’, containing red and dandelion coloured liquids that the Bills squirted all over Dunstan. The larger, more rotund Bill, stood on a small, square,  black stool and announced ‘choose responsibly raised meat’, whilst pointing his protruding finger at Dunstan. Then he chuckled a little. A Mr Schlosser was amongst the crowd talking to Mr. Foer, or Jonathan, or whoever he is. They ate little rubbery cubes of what must have been tofu, because they sat on a different table to the Bills and the Pauls and the Donalds who, had upon their plates minuscule versions of Dunstan that they weirdly referred to as ‘beef’. Must be a nickname, or the name of the role he was assuming, or maybe they can’t see him at all. Maybe to them he looks different, because they ordered ‘shredded beef’ and ‘braised beef’. Dunstan is not shredded, and I don’t know what braised means. I’m not sure what they see, but it is certainly different to my friend Dunstan that I know. Then they started talking about Chuck and Brisket and how rare they are. I mean it must be rare to find such amazing teachers, not all of us get the opportunity to go to the Salt Lake City Schoolhouse in Utah. I’ve heard that the cows who go to Madison, Wisconsin, don’t get quite the same education. They specialise in the subject of foreshank and only really learn about soups and stews, which is far less exotic and European. Mother’s peculiar friend told me this. Apparently, they go there because they are tough. Does he mean that they are bullies? Anyway, the Bills kept ordering additional smoky, spicy chipotle pepper adobo, cilantro-lime white rice, black beans, pinto beans, tortilla chips, guac and barbacoa; to fill their crispy corn tacos. Meanwhile, they were getting fatter and fatter and fatter. Words and phrases, such as ‘fresh’, ‘antibiotic-free’, ‘sautéed’, ‘richly marbled’, ‘premium’, ‘spicy’, ‘lean’ and ‘prime-aged’ resounded loudly around the room. Mr Foer and Mr Schlosser rolled their eyes. Mr Foer told Mr Schlosser that ‘too often arguments about eating animals aren’t arguments at all, but statements of taste,’ and that there was no point in engaging in conversation with the Bills about Dunstan, because they wouldn’t listen, because Dunstan is, at this moment in time, absent to them. Whilst this was going on, big moving crates continuously rattled around the back of the building, more and more Dunstans appeared, more words were spoken,  and the men just kept on growing. Meanwhile, a thick blanket of lard consolidated upon their foreheads, and then, just as a bead of sweat dripped into Paul’s mouth, I woke up.

Part 3

I ran up the hill as fast as I could and stopped sharp.

"Mamma!" I cried, all out of breath. "What is it! What are they doing '! Where are they going?"

One of those wooden crates rattled past. It was full of calves from Donald’s farm, but on the front, it said: ‘Salt Lake City, Slaughterhouse- Becoming Vegetarian is a Big Missed Steak’. I felt confused. Why does it say ‘Slaughterhouse’, what does this mean? Mother looked into my ignorant eyes.

“Away”, she said.

“Where?” I cried. “Where? Where?” I cried again.

“On a long journey”

“But where to? The Schoolhouse?” I shouted. She

could not see that I was losing my patience. Ever since the arrival of Mr Foer, I have felt as though my life has been a strange lie.

“I’m not sure”, she said. The silence that fell upon us was so cold that she was unable to avoid my eyes for long. I starred at her and began to moo profusely.

“Well, I’m not really sure. Because, you see," she said in her most reasonable tone, I've never seen it with my own eyes, and that’s the only way to be sure; isn’t it?”

I don’t understand. She had been so sure of the school. Her peculiar friend had even spoken about the different topics taught at the school, like soups and Italian Cotoletta, and the yummy milkshakes I could drink between the bun at McDonald’s Cheeseburger. Why now is she saying that she isn’t sure? Is it because I’m eleven months old and in three months I will be in that moving crate? I just don’t understand anything. 

Through the upsurge of dust, I could just about see the calcified faces of dozens of calves peeping through the rolling, wooden shutters that barred them in. I’ve seen crates like this many times before, but something was different about this one. I felt a prodigious sense of peril come over me. That truck might be going to ‘Chipotle Mexican Grill’ like the one in my dream. Was Slaughterhouse the ranch whereby we go before we must sit upon the giant plates and be covered in dandelion liquid? Something isn’t right. I know it!

“Mumma, where are they going? Tell me now!” 

“They are going to the railroad” she said. “There are great hard bars of metal lying side by side, or so they tell me, and they go on and on over the ground as far as the eye can see. And great wagons run on metal bars on wheels, like wagon wheels but smaller, and these wheels are made of sold metal too. They are pulled along on the iron bars by a terrible huge dark machine, with a loud scream. The railroad is said to lead to Utah. When we arrive at the Slaughterhouse, apparently, the wagons enter through the tall gatehouse that stands ahead of the barracks. The railroad extends about a mile into the house and leads to the Krema II and Krema III kill floor.”

I looked at her in complete perplexity. Why had I not heard of these things before?

“But, what about the Schoolhouse Mother? Where is the Schoolhouse?” I asked.

A growing sense of terror built up inside of me. My ribs began to ache. My loin became tender. Was the Schoolhouse actually the Slaughterhouse, and what happens at a Slaughterhouse?

Mother looked at me for several moments and sighed, snorted and swished her tail. I could tell she was agitated. But then she told me that there was ‘really nothing at all awful about what happens... if only one could know why.’ 

Mother’s peculiar friend’s son trotted over. His name is Ivy; an odd name choice for a boy, but apparently, when he was a baby he ate ivy and was never sick from it. So, they decided he should be named Ivy. The girls at Donald’s used to take the miccy out of him, calling him a ‘sissy’. He had clearly been listening to our conversation because he asked:

"Are they taking them somewhere they don't want to go?” Ivy looked as perplexed as me. His dad was the one who told me about the bun. Clearly Ivy has been misled just as much as I have.

"Oh, I don't think so," mother said. "I imagine it's very nice."

"I want to go," I cried with ardour. "I want to go right now. Can I, Mama? Can I? Please?"

Mother looked from Ivy to me. Her eyes seemed overwhelmed with sadness. A flush of tears glazed over her bulbous pupils, her eyelashes trembled. Mother called me silly. She said that she hopes I stay here at Niman Ranch and become intellectual. But, I thought that was the Schoolhouses purpose. I am never going to be clever if I never have the opportunity to attend Chuck’s biology lessons, am I? But, she just called me ‘silly’. She told me that only ‘silly, careless’ calves go to Utah. Is she implying that I will inevitably go, despite wanting me to stay here? Am I becoming an ‘uneducated juvenile’? 

“Mumma, what is the difference between the Schoolhouse and a Slaughterhouse?” I asked.

Ivy’s dad let out a grim laugh. Mother ignored my question. She said that if I want to stay I have to work hard to be brave and bright and strong. But if I am to become strong, why does she nudge me away from Bill’s grain every supper time. I love the milo grain Nicolette and Bill feed us here. I overheard Nicolette talking to that Mr. Foer about the stuff. He said that humans need to ‘consider the environment and the food crisis’. Apparently, ‘it takes six to twenty-six calories fed to an animal to produce just one calorie of animal flesh’. Maybe that’s why I have been slacking on my weight gain recently. I need more calories. I will get them, because I will go, whether Mother says it’s an honour to stay here or not. Anyway, I am digressing.

“Mumma! Answer me! What is a Slaughterhouse?” I cried again.

Silence. Three minutes passed.

“It is safe here” she moombled under her breath.

I watched her closely. She gulped.

“Well”, she said, “I am a modern mother. I suppose it is my duty to tell you the truth about the goddamn mechanisation of meat, or the truth as how my Grandmother saw it. You are beef!”.

Yay! There we go, now I have two names like Mr. Foer. But wait, am I to be shredded? That sounds painful. Remembering my dream, I moved closer to her.

“Beef”, I repeated. 

“My Grandmother told me the story of ‘the one who came back’. Or so they say! She was told it by her mother, who claimed she saw it with her own eyes. However, Great-grandmother was rather senile. She had dementia and would make up ludicrous stories about how a TGI Friday opened in a place called Osaka, and that the little yellow people will soon be eating Hereford and Angus.” (They are popular names for little boys here in California).

Mother told me how Great-grandmother said they are 28 day matured for extra tenderness and flavour. Does that mean they have to spend 28 days at school to become well refined, educated bulls? Great-Grandmother said that at TGI’s you can choose between a 7oz Fillet, an 8oz Sirloin, a 12oz Ribeye, or a 16oz rump. And, once more, with that you can choose two sides and a sauce, such as garlic butter, Jack Daniel’s Glaze or a Bleu Cheese and Peppercorn. Jack Daniel must be important to have a glaze named after him. She said that on a radio broadcast a suited man called Den Fujita, an eccentric billionaire, who brought McDonald’s to Japan said ‘If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white and our hair will be blonde’. I want to go to McDonald’s Cheeseburger. I want my milk shake. I don’t understand what all these things are. I don’t know what a steak is, or a fillet, or a ribeye; sounds like a one- eye ribbed fish. But I do know that my bottom is called a rump. Maybe it was Jack Daniel’s glaze they were pouring all over Dunstan in my dream. However, it was labelled ‘Walmart’. Perhaps Walmart and Jack are friends. I’m guessing TGI’s is like Chipotle Mexican Grill, but I don’t know why Hereford and Angus would be eaten. That’s cannibalism. A human animal eating a non-human animal. That doesn’t make any sense. Great-grandmother must have been loopy. People can’t change colour or live for a thousand years. What nonsense!

“What is the story of the one who came back, Ms Moore?” Ivy interjected.

“Great-grandmother said that the one who came back told her how the men, like Bill, tightly pressed all the cows together into a wagon, so that nobody could lie, or even sit down. Everyone kept falling into one another. The youngest boys, some of Great-Bob Veils, were crushed and died in transit. Some died of dehydration, and at a stop in Nevada they weren’t even allowed to step off for fresh air, or food, or water. Over time the cows got used to ‘seeing the country turn like a slow wheel, and the long, cruel screams of the engine and the steady iron noise beneath them which made the cold, darkness so fearsome and the hunger and the thirst and the continual standing up, and the moving on and on and on as if they would never stop”.

“Why did the train stop?” I asked mother with sombre gratification. She knew I was taking this to heart. How could this be? I feel compelled to believe her, but Great-grandmother was said to be very into her folk tales. If this is a folk tale, what kind of didactic message is it supposed to leave me with? Hmmmmm.

“Whilst on Highway 50; the stretch across Nevada from Carson City to the Utah border, he said that two automobiles passed by. One of which was an old, beaten, buttercup coloured Ford Mustang. He loved cars; according to your Great-grandmother. Anyway, this car was full of humans, a little boy probably at a similar age-intelligence to him who was eating a Happy Meal, and twins with straw coloured hair. One of them looked at him. She smiled melancholily, whilst licking her salt ridden fingers. It was as if she knew him, or knew ‘only too well how hard the journey was’.  She pointed directly at him and mouthed something to her mother, who turned back in reverence. When he finally arrived in Utah, after seven days, he was amazed by the sight of the Salt Lake City Slaughterhouse. The barracks, just as he had been told were there. The larger dormitory at the far end, where the little ones went, were there. A shed of empty crates, labelled, ‘Bob’s’ were there. Everything was in order, just as it should be. Amidst the backdrop of this highly institutional creation sat a labyrinth of fences, ‘so many, and so spiderishly complicated, and shining, so pure, that [he said] there’s no use trying even to hint at the beauty and splendour of it to anyone who knows only the pitiful little outfitting of a ranch’, such as Niman’s. But still, beyond the maze, through the dark smog stood a large outlandish building. It was grey, angular and pristine.”

“Like Chipotle Mexican Grill from my dream!” I interrupted. She threw a confused glance at me.

“Anyway, he said that there was a constant iron humming. A humming that sounded like the engine of Bill’s harvester, only louder, more mechanical. Knock, knock, knock. Silence had ceased to exist in it’s non-existence He described the smell that permeated into the very soil. A stale, almost brutal smell that made him want to run away. However, he was told that that is just how humans smell in concentrated conditions. Apparently, there were thousands of them outside, so there must be thousands of them in there too.”

“Well yes, because how else would we get taught Mamma? Brisket and Chuck must smell like Bill does after a morning on the ranch, or when he staggers out in the moonlight with Captain Morgan, before projecting his stale breath upon us. And he says that we smell! I can only imagine what that stench must have been like”, I said. 

Mother continued to tell me that after a while, once all the cows had been unloaded and lined up a selection process took place. Men with sticks jabbed the cows, sending them either left or right. The right led to Krema II and III, whilst the left led to the barracks. Apparently, his female friend, Alvie, was separated from her daughter, who was led to Krema II, but she was able to keep her son. They tried to take the son but she pushed her daughter forward and rumour has it, she never saw her daughter again. Anyway, he was jabbed to the right. He felt excited to see inside the large building. In lines, the cows were guided down a long narrow lane into a rubber-lined chute. Then a large bar dropped, and the cow in front disappeared. His turn came. A man with a large hammer stood looking at him. The steel hit his skull and within seconds he was hanging from a conveyor belt, twisting and shrieking to his comrades. The line moved, orbiting hell. One after the other, knockers, shacklers, pritcher-uppers, stickers, headers, rippers, leg breakers, caul pullers, fell cutters, rumpers, splitters, vat dippers, skinners, gutters, pluckers, scalding vats all began to appear before him. This was the Krema kill floor, a death factory. He was sliced across the neck. Left to bleed out. When the horror of what was happening rendered him completely conscious he broke free. Using all his strength he tore himself from the hooks and chains and ran. ‘He ran down a glowing floor of blood and down endless corridors which were hung with bleeding carcasses of our kind and with bleeding fragments of carcasses, among blood-clothed men who carried bleeding weapons and out of that vast room into the open, and over and through one fence after another, shoving aside many an astounded stranger and shouting out warnings as he ran, and away up the railroad toward the West.’ He made it all the way back to Niman’s Ranch to share his story. He lay down, still bleeding, his eyes rolled backwards and his hooves kicked for the final time. The mark from the hammer ‘was like the socket for a third eye’, an eye that has seen the cogs in the meat packing machine, an eye that one day we might acquire. He died that evening, in the summer of ’98, not in a spaghetti bolognaise, or a beef leek and swede Cumberland pie, or a stroganoff with herby pasta, or sliced into a beef wellington, or mixed into a rich Ragu, or stuck on a skewer, or buried in a casserole, or clamped in a broad bean and beef quesadilla but, here, on Niman’s ranch, as a cow, a sentient being.

Part 4

“All who are put on the range are put onto trains. All who are put onto trains meet the Man With The Hammer. All who stay home are kept there to breed others to go onto the range, and so betray themselves and their kind and their children forever. We are brought into this life only to be victims; and there is no other way for us unless we save ourselves,” Mother said.

The problem is, I don’t trust Mother. ‘If she said a thing was so, she was probably just trying to get her way with you. If she said a thing wasn’t so, it probably was so.’ The Schoolhouse probably does exist and the Slaughterhouse is just her tactic to scare me and make me want to stay here with her. I don’t care if she wants me to stay, I want to be sure that the Schoolhouse exists, and one cannot be sure if one does not witness these things for oneself. ‘And if it isn’t so, why then I’ll find out what is so. And if what she told was true, why then I’ll know ahead of time and the one I will charge at is The Man With The Hammer. I’ll put Him and His Hammer out of the way forever, and that will make me an even better hero than The One Who Came Back.’ 

Part 5

The title ‘The One Who Came Back’  is almost a goal for me now. I will have that title. I will come back. Three months on, 902 pounds, I am ready. Mother kissed me goodbye this morning. Nicolette patted my head and Bill stood, arms crossed, nodding complacently. Ivy and I jumped onto the wagon ready for our adventure. Ivy was sweating profusely, trembling and mooing quietly under his breath. A little boy, only a few months old stood next to me. He was a baby from the dairy farm. I asked him why he wasn’t going to Bob Veil’s farm, but he just cried out for his mother. More and more cows were pushed onto the wagon. It became stiflingly hot. I couldn’t move one inch without stepping on the hooves of a fellow cow. That’s when I saw Dunstan. He too was shaking nervously, and underneath his rump lay a small, crimpled little calf, not moving. Dead. The gentle hum of the engine rattled in my ears. The smell of shit lodged itself in my nostrils and with an insufficient supply of water I started to feel marginally disassociated to the world around me.

‘Highway 50’ the sign read. We were here, crossing the Utah border. A car went past, I’m not sure what car but it was the colour of the blotches on my back and had a little 3D circle thing on the front of it. A tall man, wearing a snap back cap held a red square box labelled ‘McDonalds Bigmac’. Two golden arches poked out the top and a large golden smile was spread across the front. In his free hand, he held a burger with two patties and three slices of bread; one between the patties and a sesame round bread thing surrounding the outer side of the patties. His belly hung over the front of jeans and his chin tripled as he ate. Ivy said that the patties were inside a bun. What did this mean? Were those patties friends? I thought that the bun was a place, and why was the name not ‘McDonalds Cheeseburger’, but instead ‘Bigmac’?

We arrive, I am herded right, right into Krema Kill Room II. I am bulkier than a lot of my peers, thanks to Bill and Nicolette and that milo grain. The smell is overwhelming. I feel nauseous and the labyrinth of fences are nothing like I imagined. The suns mirages have blurred the industrial landscape, and the stench of congealed blood has uncomfortably blended with the sight of  the angular building. The sign ‘Walmart’ has now appeared again on the side of a large, blue lorry. The back doors are wide open and men in striped aprons are loading in boxes labelled ‘Brisket’, ‘Chuck’, ‘Rump’, ‘Flank’, ‘Plate’, ‘Sirloin’, ‘Tenderloin’. Now, here, in my rubber lined chute, I realise that this is indeed Salt Lake City Slaughterhouse with no teachers, no biology lessons, no dormitories, but simply a cataclysm at the end of an exploited life. A holocaust. The bar goes up. There he is. There is the hammer. There is the orbiting hell. There is the scalding vat. There are the pluckers. There is Dunstan. There is Ivy still twitching ‘to the shuddering drum of the skull crush machine.’ There is the USDA inspector that Mr Foer mentioned. There are the men in white gowns. There he is, The Man With The Hammer. There is the hammer. I will charge, now.

Knock!

Part 6

Tills clicked. Burgers were handed. Nuggets were served alongside fries fried in fish fat, The South African Stack and Coca-Cola.

“Can I have a Bigmac and a Double Cheeseburger please, with a banana milkshake and nine chicken nuggets?” Ordered Max.

The cashier, Marija, a Lithuanian immigrant, handed Max his burger.

“Right, Rhiannon, watch this”.

Max mutilated the burger, taking apart the cheeseburger and placing the Bigmac inside. Bread, cheese, burger, bread, burger, salad, bread, burger, salad, gherkin, cheese, bread, cheese, burger, bread. Ketchup.

“You do realise that if one McDonalds hamburger contains over 100 cows, you are eating over 400 cows in that one meal alone?” Rhiannon replied.

Max Smiled gluttonously. Ten minutes passed. Gone. The calf was sure to have met Maddock’s son in that burger. If not him, then Dunstan or Ivy. His vision came true, he met them inside the bun, but instead of drinking his milkshake, he was flushed down with it, by a capitalist!

“Thank you”, Max said.

“You’re welcome”, Marija replied.

Explanation:

‘A Calf’s Tale’ was inspired by James Agee’s short story ‘A Mother’s Tale’ published in Harpers Bazar, 1958. I decided to write a short story that exposes the nature of America’s meat industry. I chose this topic because my dissertation explored literature that focuses on America’s meat industry, and how it exposes sexual, social and animal oppression, whilst advocating a shift in universal political and moral thinking. My text was inspired by a few non-fiction and fictional texts: My Year of Meats by Ruth Oseki, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol Adams and primarily, both Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffron Foer and A Mother’s Tale.

I have embedded quotes from these texts, to highlight the blurring between fiction and fact. I feel that when using literature as a protest, it is important to, not only avoid seeming bias, but to communicate the truths that meat-eaters render absent. Therefore, facts and minor details become integral. For example, the dishes such as ‘Italian Cotoletta’ are real Veal dishes that I researched prior to writing the piece, and revelations, such as Paul only having partial control over the slaughtering of his hogs due to USDA regulations, is a direct, factual quote taken from Foer’s Eating Animals.The quotes lie within quotation marks, which can cause some confusion and add to the obscure nature of my text. 

The location of the slaughter-house is significant. Salt Lake City, Utah, was home to the first KFC outlet that opened in 1952. By 1960, KFC was the largest restaurant chain in the United States and continues to dominate the fast food industry. I felt that the name was also ironic, as salt contributes to high blood pressure, and a McDonald’s beef hamburger contains 1.2grams of salt; the exact level of recommended sodium per day. Ultimately, my aim was to subtly hint at the unhealthy, unnatural nature of the industrial kitchen that epitomizes capitalism and contributes to global health concerns.

Each character has an identity or name, yet I decided to exclude the narrators. Foer mentions: ‘The farmer must somehow raise an animal as a commercial endeavour without regarding the animal as a mere commodity.’ However, it is exactly what the Calf becomes, a hamburger; sold within the McDonald’s corporation. I wanted to reinforce this message by projecting a real, strong persona onto the calf, whilst simultaneously rendering him absent. 

When visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, I realised how similar the holocaust and animal slaughter is, particularly in regards to transport systems. The slaughter houses are therefore, named after two gas chambers at Birkenau. This allegory brings home the true, exploitative nature of meat eating, and the binary between inferior and superior beings. People often mention the 6 million that were killed during the holocaust, but not specific individuals. So, the final comment, ‘“You do realise that if one McDonald’s hamburger contains over 100 cows, you are eating over 400 cows in that one meal alone?” highlights the practice of mass execution and consumption.

‘A Calf’s Tale’ is a protest against the mass consumption of meat and is a tool to bring back the absent calf and give him a voice in a world which objectively disassociates non-human and human animals. Although fictional, I have quoted factual sources in order to establish a serious and truthful undertone. Play on words, such as ‘Bob Veil’, are incorporated to add a level of sadistic humour to the piece, in a pursuit to evoke feelings of guilt in my meat eating readership. With the rise of Vegetarian and Vegan diets, alongside Brexit’s proposed trade deal that England will consume America’s hormone infused beef, I felt encouraged to write this piece to increase consciousness in the global, meat eating consumer-market. Similarly, to Sinclair’s The Jungle, I have given a political voice to a minority species and thus, helped animal rights advocates in their political and social agenda.