Jim's eyes had begun watering 20 minutes ago, both from the hay and the stench of afterbirth and animal shit. He would wipe away the tears if he wasn't ass to elbows with the fleet of all-terrain strollers, sweaty hicks, and interlopers sticky with fried ice cream, all of which fueled his distaste for the CHS Miracle of Life Center. In his appraisal, anyone here out of genuine or ironically detached interest was sick. Periodically, he made eye contact with other men dragged along by their family, and gave a nod of solidarity. Through this nod, he saw many caps. Mostly the emblems of far-flung sports teams, these men were transplants like himself. He pulled the brim of his Bruins cap, featuring the slightly dough-y bear logo, lower over his eyes, to hide his annoyance from Kay. Her brimming excitement always made him feel slight shame for his cynicism, and chose to avoid a clash on this day. She was blazing a path with their youngest, Frankie, through the corralled crowds, straight to main stage.
Arena lights shone down on the center pen. Reflections from the rusted railings glittered against the hangar walls. The pained howls of Gerty, this year's star cow, shot shivers into the crowd. A hushed anticipation fell. As Jim approached, he could only catch snippets of the action between the sea of bobbing heads. A window formed between the cocked elbow of a portly man who was wiping his sweat into his greasy hair, racked by what he saw. Gerty had been experiencing contractions for most of the morning. Veteran observers had recieved the notice and brought their camping chairs at 6 AM to see the calving through. Now, her bulging stomach flexed tersely, the baby blue first prize pin attached to her rear bucked wildly. From his vantage, Jim thought he could see the calf's face press against Gerty's side. The swirling spots of her belly drew his gaze in, brown and cream, and it seemed that her pulsing veins intermingled with those of the calf. He tried to trace back the source of each vein and was soon lost entirely.
With a whimper, Gerty produced the water bag. Its murky contents were a mystery to Jim, but a roar of approval came from the crowd. A healthy contingent excused themselves, citing long-held knowledge that the calf was now at least 30 minutes away. It was apparently a good time to step outside, cross the lane, and power down some all-you-can-drink standard or chocolate milk. Kay materialized from the thinned crowd and saddled up next to Jim, her calloused hand sliding pleasantly up his inner arm, the other waving to Frankie. Her coo tremoloed, "It's incredible, isn't it?"
Jim could only hear the first half of Kay's words, as Gerty crowed again, and more fetal membranes fell to intermingle with the hay she lay on. He spoke automatically, "It's definitely something."
Kay's tremelo paused, "You're not doing the thing where you're being a too cool Boston guy right now, are you?"
These words were clear and pulled Jim out of the performance, "No. Are we doing this?" What this may refer to was clear between the two of them and dripped with history.
"We're not doing anything. I just think, sometimes, the world humbles you." She smiled up at him, and playfully removed his hat, which she used to gesture at the sweaty crowd, "Humble people."
The cieling mounted fans passed hot air through Jim's thinning hair. He patted his head, "I just don't think I need to have this poor cow performing childbirth for me to be humbled. I think a good car crash is humbling. This is maybe gross and somewhat inhumane."
"Well, firstly, her name's Gerty. Secondly, it's calving, because it's a calf, not a kid. And anyways, a car crash is not the same. It's not how close you are to death, it's about how close you are to life." With that, Kay went to join Frankie at the egg incubator wing. Jim watched her form glow red as she crossed that threshold. He considered what Kay had said, and looked around. A substantial sow munched lazily at feed, locked into place by leather straps while her litter fought for purchase from a low-hanging nipple. One piglet was plucked from the group by a young girl, evidently a worker on the farm, and was swaddled in a towel. She wiped the milk from its peach-fuzzed snout. A flock of children gathered around the worker who held the piglett in one hand and ran a finger along it in the other, displaying its newly developed muscles, hooves, and hair. The children paid rapt attention as they nibbled on buttered ears of corn.
Unusual for his typical posture at the state fair, Jim took a curious walk of his own. He wanted to see the lambs; he recalled a picture book from childhood with textures, he would rub the wool against his cheek on rainy days. On the chalk board that tallied the score throughout the two-week get-together, he clocked that two had been born yesterday. A ragged ewe, hair matted and nappy, napped wearily in the corner. Her pair circled each other with nips and short pecks, to taste fur and to taste air. They were too young to have much wool at all, and instead floated around the pen like half-formed clouds. A young boy stuck his fingers through the grate to garner their attention and was spurned. After a moment, he produced a chocolate and sprinkle covered twizzler from his pocket and waved it around. The farmer, half-asleep from his part in the birth, shouted at the boy to put it away. The shock of recognition shook the twizzler from his hand and it fell to the ground. The lambs were too quick for the farmer, and managed a bite and a half each before he could nab a lamb under each arm, scolding them, then, pausing to admire their naivety. He planted a soft kiss on each of their developing skulls, and laid them back down.
An older gentleman, hunched and hurried, bumped into Jim, shaking him back into his mudder boots. He felt a mucky steam about his feet, the product of a dewy morning that was only getting hotter. The gentleman was shaped something like a bowling ball, and used his form to his advantage, rolling an arching path through the crowd towards the front of Gerty's cage. To her credit, Gerty had taken a break from her efforts to allow the room to recompose. Her many rubber-booted and flannel-clad attendants primped and swabbed her exterior. One brave soul drew too close and she shook her mighty head back and forth, her ears slapping against her jaw in irritation. The older gentleman wore a heavy leather jacket and combat boots and was joined by no one. An older lady attempted to make conversation with him, and he politely declined to engage. He scanned the crowd and a prickle along his neck alerted him to Jim's watching eyes. He turned and they made momentary eye contact, before Jim looked elsewhere in the crowd and thought to rejoin his family by the eggs.
The lamps of the corner room cast a stickiness about the air that caught in Jim's arm hair, alongside the corndog crumbs. He suddenly became conscious of the feeling of his clothes against his body, damp and heavy, and walked in awkward sidewinding steps to change his mind. He approached his family, wrapped an arm around each, and whispered in Kay's ear. "How about another one?" She groaned and elbowed him in the stomach. The chicks huddled together in a puddle of dandelion yellow. Periodically, one would stand tall and stretch its wings and reveal its still un-plumed underbelly. Frankie laughed at their nakedness. Eggs in incubators sat on a counter, behind which a clan of young people adjusted temperatures, coached by a slightly older young person. The viewing crowd shuffled along. Children picked their noses in the reflection of the incubator's plastic casing.
A middle-aged woman entered the crowd, dazed. She stumbled oddly, as if she had seen a ghost, and pointed back towards Gerty's pen. Before any words could escape her mouth she backed into a young, hip couple, knocking them into the eggs. The sea of people crashed against her, asking her what she thought she was doing and to watch where she's walking, thank you. Jim noticed movement behind the counter. One of the eggs had split open when the table was bumped, and a half-formed embryo had spilled out. The air and light of the world filled the small body with death immediately. The pink form deflated. Jim adroitly shuffled his family along towards Gerty's pen. Two teenage girls worked silently at the incubator, one lifting its plexiglass cover, the other carting the dead away in gloved hands, not to be seen again.
"Have you changed your mind on this whole 'performance'?" Kay produced finger-scrunching quotations in Jim's face. He grabbed her left hand and kissed her knuckles. They were glazed with canola oil and soil.
"Lambs are cute, I like cute things. I like you guys."
Kay didn't accept that as an answer, "It's not cute. It's power. That sheep made something that didn't exist before."
The dazed woman had left the egg corner to find something, and Jim spoke as he watched her tug on the coat of one of the event organizers, "I think Newton would have something to say to that." His eyes moved to the source of her pointing, the older man had moved to the far side of the pen to watch Gerty. He shuffled along, noticing some extra attention.
"You know what I mean. A thing, with a soul, and thoughts. That's more than reorganizing stardust, which isn't easy by the way." Sweat trickled down Kay's forehead, she paused a moment to wipe the sting of salt out of her eyes. "You can feel it in the room." At that moment, Gerty loosed a bellowing howl, and the hooves of the calf peered out. A mad dash ensued, and the audience engorged. The farmers, who had found a spare moment for a smoke break or to repack their chewing tobacco, rushed in, cigarette butts skittering in the damp hay aside the stand. There was no fire hazard as the crush of bodies stamped out any smolder. The hot air of excited mouth breathers almost filled the tent to the point of take-off. A young farmer girl sporting a trucker hat pulled low, ponytail streaming out the back, pulled a three-legged stool next to Gerty, who no longer fought off the attention. She instead laid her head in this lap. Familiarity bled back and forth between their bodies. The hooves of the child disappeared back into Gerty. A voice from the crowd consoled another that that was normal. The listener asked how they knew that.
In lieu of losing his child, Jim grabbed Frankie under their armpits and placed them on his shoulder, a movement that typically required the assistance of Kay. She was caught up in the rapture and lost to the world. Frankie's thighs were sweaty, and their jean shorts chaffed awkwardly against Jim's neck. He held their legs around the knees, they held onto fistfuls of his hair. Jim was not a tall man, and his feet were pushed deeper into the muddy ground by the weight of Frankie. The wide men that stood around them, clad in flannels and boot-cut jeans, grew wider. Through the thicking forest of people, Jim made fleeting eye contact with Gerty. Her heavy brow creased with focus, obscuring her eyes into two half-moons. Past the upside-down reflection of the room, past the watery tears, Gerty resolved.
Their link was broken when the hooves re-appeared, followed then by the slender legs. Gerty closed her eyes to breath. The young farmer placed a small hand on Gerty's ribs and breathed in time with her. The breath formed a new chain, and the other attendants joined the rhythm. The room pulsed together, a fast breath, and the edges of Jim's vision blurred. This couldn't be enough oxygen for everyone, he thought, but could not say. The crowd in front of Jim rippled and the dazed woman knifed through, leading with one hand, the other covering her eyes.
Through the parted sea, Jim spotted her torment. The bowling balled-shaped man allowed his jacket to fall to the ground. He held his penis in his left hand and slowly pulled on it. He watched the cow. His leftover hand trembled at his side with the shake of age. No one else noticed. To Jim, the world fell away, and the narrow strip of earth between himself, Gerty, and the elderly man was all of reality. It was then that Jim understood something. It wasn't the cow, to the elderly man, it was this exact moment, and maybe everyone else was denying what brought them here. Frankie shifted slightly and Jim became conscious of the feeling of their skin underneath his hands.
Every taste in his mouth turned sour and he fought the gagging introduction of vomit. He quickly dropped Frankie to their feet and connected their hand with Kay's and attempted to run through the crowd towards the elderly man. The earth sucked at his boots and he left behind detailed footprints. Well-meaning Midwesterns jostled backwards and forewards in an effort to get out of the way, somehow only making the process slower. Suddenly, a cheer called out and everyone around him lept into the air. Hands clasped in front of Jim and he ducked under. The calf was born. He snuck a look towards Gerty, who nestled into the young lap that comforted her and rested a moment. The duties of motherhood would come soon enough. As he turned his head back, Jim found himself in the space the old man had occupied, though he was nowhere to be found. A small pool of semen was all that was left behind. Jim kicked a few pats of dirt overtop.
He walked back towards his family as a farmer helped the newborn take its first few steps. Kay slugged him in the arm, "You chicken out of watching to the end?"
Jim shook his head and rubbed his shoulder, trying to clear the haze from his head, "I saw the whole thing. The cow looked at me."
"Gerty," she interjected.
He smiled at his wife, who was always right. Thinking for a second, he continued, "Right, yeah. Gerty looked at me. She's a good performer. Let's get some milk, I need a cigarette."
She slugged him again.