September Fair (16 page)

We stood off to the side, out of the way of most of the traffic, and Lars numbed my brain with sleepy facts about how many boxes were packaged each day, how many pounds of stock moved through the place, and what innovations they’d made in the shipping of their products. Soon, all his words ran together like a buzzing drone, oddly soothing in its banality. “… to 122 countries …cows six times more productive than they were 20 years ago … by stimulating the mammary glands and hormone level, which then produces … harmless … thoroughly tested … progress.”

He insisted I take notes in case I wanted to write an article about BPM. I obliged, surreptitiously scribbling the layout of the place and particularly the location of the testing lab. That took all of five minutes, but his lecture continued interminably. When I was about to bleed from my eyes from boredom, his pocket began buzzing. He smiled apologetically before pulling out the phone, but his face turned gray as the person on the other end of the line spoke.

“I see. When?” He grimaced. “Yes. I understand.” He snapped the phone shut, his posture rigid. “Tour’s over. I have a meeting.”

“You’ll help me find the exit first, right?” I thought I was joking.

“Why? You seem pretty good at finding things out yourself.” His light tone from earlier was entirely absent. He walked briskly ahead, much more quickly than he’d moved on the entire tour. I wondered what terrible news he’d just gotten.

He tromped out of the warehouse, across the open courtyard, and to the gate surrounding the byzantine main offices. There was a commotion to my right, at the testing lab, but I couldn’t do more than glance over or I would have missed my chance to slip inside the gate he had unlocked and then charged through. All I saw was a second bulldozer coming out of the side of the lab and behind it, a blurry pile of brown. I ran to catch up with Lars as he stalked into the main offices. Once inside, the antiseptic white of the halls smothered me like cotton. I couldn’t imagine having to work in this lonely, sanitary building every day, particularly after the bustle and brightness of the warehouses and manufacturing centers out back.

“Lars, could you slow down some?”

“Sure. Sorry”

He pulled back a little, but not much, and the sucking clop of my flip-flops was the only sound as we hurried along the fluorescent-
lit hallways. “So how much does it cost to be a sponsor of the Milkfed Mary pageant?” I asked. I had let him do his P.R. patter, and now I was hoping he’d answer the questions I’d really come about.

“I’m not sure of exact figures.”

“And what does BPM get in return?”

“Positive publicity, certainly, but it’s important for us to give back to the community, and that’s priceless.” His answer was rote, a sound bite he was used to handing out.

“I see. And did you spend time alone with any of the candidates?”

I had crossed a line. He stopped dead in his tracks, facing away from me. He didn’t immediately turn, and I was afraid of what his face would look like when he did. When he finally swiveled, however, he was the picture of composure. “I think your tour is done.”

“I don’t know how to get out of here.” He’d taken a left and then a right when we’d entered the main offices, which put us in a white hallway that looked like every other white hallway in this massive building.

“You strike me as the type who can find her way.” He smirked and strode off, disappearing behind a door marked “Private.”

I looked up and down the endless, ominous hallway, and suddenly, my chest felt like someone was sitting on it.
Don’t be crazy
, I told myself.
You’re in a public company, and there’s people here, even if you can’t see them.
I tried not to let other thoughts pollute that mantra as I flip-flopped quickly away, but it was hard not to notice that the interior of the main building looked as much like a mental institution as a modern business.

I tried the door Lars had disappeared into. It was locked and no one answered when I knocked. Rather than stand still and let the burbling panic of being trapped in a strange place boil over, I chose to keep moving. I’d find an exit door or a person sooner or later. I took a right, then a left, and another right, finding myself in a hall exactly like every other hall in this structure. The doors were numbered, but they didn’t follow a pattern I could understand from one hall to the next. I spotted a change in lighting ahead, indicating an outside window, and my confidence level rose. It occurred to me to wonder where all the BPM employees were. The warehouse had been humming with activity, but these halls were like underground tombs. Far off, I thought I heard a sad moo followed by the agonized squeal of a monkey, but I wrote it off to my imagination.

Still, this place made me undeniably nervous, and I started to get the suffocating feeling that I remembered from the haunted house so many years ago. In light and layout, they had nothing in common, but the trapped feeling they imparted was the same. I picked up my pace, nearly running, only to be greeted by a peculiarly inset door. The change in light I thought I had seen was just a trick of my eyes, shadows from the door playing off the white walls. I leaned against the door, breathing deeply and trying to calm my heart. I considered yelling until someone came to find me when I heard voices coming around the corner and down the hall to my left. My heart leapt with joy and I was about to attach myself to whomever was approaching when I caught their words.

“… it’s fucking disgusting, is what you should have told him. We’re scientists, not butchers. Maybe the USDA
should
find out about it.”

“And maybe you want to spend the next decade in jail, reading about your kids graduating from college or getting married instead of being there to watch it.”

“You think it’s that bad?”

“I think if anybody finds out about it, we’re as dead as the …”

That’s all I needed to hear. The only thing worse than possibly going to jail is having a stranger accidentally overhear you talking about the bad things you did that might get you sent to jail. I needed to make myself scarce. I swiveled in place and jiggled furiously at the doorknob I’d been leaning against, crazy relieved when it opened. I stumbled in, off balance, and fell forward as the automatic hinge on the door closed it behind me, taking all light with it. But as I fell, I whimpered in blind terror because before the door had swung shut, I’d seen the terrible secret it hid: freshly dead animal carcasses piled five feet high.

The stench was overwhelming. I thrust out my hands to catch myself, and they plunged into soft fur pulled tight over cold, atrophied flesh. I jumped up and back, wiping my hands on my dress, trying to rid them of the traces of death. The room was so dark I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. The dominant color before the door had closed had been black, white, and red, the soft hides of cows matted with grime, their eyes staring glassily at nothing. I thought I had seen an exploded stomach, a gory mess where a cow’s udders should be, but worse than that, I had seen the legs of smaller animals, animals with paws instead of hooves, poking out from the bottom of the pile. Like a zombie, I backed up to the door until I felt the smooth, cool handle in my back. My heart was in my mouth, and all I wanted to do was flee.

Unfortunately, I felt the doorknob turn under my hand. I cowered behind the door as it opened and the same two voices I’d heard in the hall spoke.

“Jesus. You were telling the truth.”

“You think I’d lie about this?”

“You know what the USDA’ll do if they find out we’ve been testing animals in this building? You know how many codes that violates?”

The man grunted. “Got no choice. Olafsen said we gotta speed up the experiments, both the type and number of animals, and the testing lab just isn’t big enough.”

My heart was splitting my chest open with its beats. I knew the name. Per Olafsen, BPM laboratory director. The men were standing in the doorway, the light from the hallway shining over the grisly display in the center of the room. It was a small space, no more than twenty feet by twenty, and looked to be a storage room for cleaning supplies.

“And so what the hell are we supposed to do with these?”

“Get ’em out of here. Move ’em to the grinder.”

“I went to six years of college so I could drag dead cows down a hall?”

“No, you went to six years of college so you’d know that a wheelbarrow’d work much better. Let’s go out to the warehouse and see what we can find.”

“Fucking USDA …” The door swung shut. I was again immersed in darkness, the only live animal in the room. I counted to twenty, my brain floating above my body so fear didn’t overwhelm me. When I got to twenty-one, I cracked the door and peeked out cautiously. Empty. I stepped into the bright, horribly white hallway and let the door sigh closed behind me.

Swallowing my bile, I looked down to assure myself that my hands and knees were not covered in blood from where I had fallen into the pile of animal corpses. My extremities looked normal. Cold, but normal. I had to get the hell out of here. I forced one foot after the other and kept taking rights until I arrived at the viewing window of the lab Lars had taken me by on the outset of the tour. Sucking in a deep breath, I noticed for the first time the white cameras discreetly nestled near the ceiling. Surely, somebody had viewed me enter and exit the dead room, but I couldn’t turn back time.

In the lab, nothing had changed. The three scientists still leaned over their microscopes on the stainless steel tables. They could have been building a nuclear deathray for all I cared. I just needed to escape before the scream percolating in my belly reached my lips. I took the next two rights and found myself at the door that led to the antiseptic lobby, which was the picture of warmth compared to the grisly graveyard I had just left.

“How was your tour?”

I jumped at the voice, then smiled wanly at the receptionist, trying for normalcy in the off chance my gruesome detour had not been witnessed. “Fine. Don’t these white walls make you a little crazy?”

“I like them. Everything feels clean and safe here.”

“That works out well for you, then. Thanks.” As I stepped into the healing sun of a wonderfully unsanitary day, I realized what that unidentifiable odor I had first detected beyond the automatic doors had been: the scent of terrified animals.

I returned to the protective arms of the State Fair: the bustle, the smiling families on vacation, the air redolent with the smell of fry oil and the burnt-sugar smell of cotton candy, the warmth of the sun. It was past lunchtime but I was pretty far south of hungry. The dead animals at BPM were probably not an anomaly at a plant that tested drugs on living creatures, but stumbling onto them had unsettled me deeply. I wasn’t certain where the overheard conversation about the USDA fit in, but I had a good guess it was connected to the bovine growth hormone issues Aeon had referred to. And I was certain it had absolutely nothing to do with me.

I stopped at the trailer to get a change of clothes before heading to the showers for a full-body scour. I tossed the purple sundress, one of my favorites. I couldn’t scrub the smell of death off of it. When I was as clean as I could get without an exorcism, I traveled toward the Cattle Barn, the path becoming as familiar as my driveway. My plan was to pet some cows and visit with the Otter Tail County people who were exhibiting their animals to get a story for the paper but also find out what they knew about Ashley and Bovine Productivity Management. The second goal was a long shot, but if nothing else, I found myself looking forward to hanging out with happy, live cows.

I was on Judson Avenue, poised to enter the Cattle Barn, when a commotion up the road caught my attention. I figured it was Aeon and his gang continuing their protest, but then I heard a scream and saw people jumping into buildings. In seconds, I could see directly down the street with not a single person in my line of sight, so I had a clear view of the charging bull barreling toward me, its head down and massive horns curling at the edges. It snorted and growled as it pounded closer.

What the hell?

Was someone filming a commercial?

Was I dreaming?

The immobilizing force of surreality kept me anchored to the spot even as the bull kicked up his enormous hoofed heels and puffed angrily at the ground. He stampeded down the road toward me, his horns as far across as my arm span and much thicker. He tossed his head and looked at me, white showing in his crazily rolling eyes. Still, I couldn’t move.

His grunts were ferocious
as he bore down, and other than peeing my pants a little, I was paralyzed. All my flight response had been used up in the horror room at BPM. The few slippery seconds it took my frazzled nerves to react was all the bull needed to cover the three hundred yards separating us. When he was close enough to smell, my brain finally sent a message through to my nerve endings and I tensed to move, but it was too late. If I hadn’t been jerked roughly from the side and into the Cattle Barn, I’d be decorating the beast’s horns.

“Why didn’t you run?” Aeon asked me, panting, his expression shocked. We were leaning on the inside doorway of the barn.

I started to tremble as I realized I’d almost been gored. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem real.” Thirty seconds late, my reactions fully caught up with me, and I slumped to the ground, my legs too shaky to support me.

He ran an unsteady hand through his hair. “I told you to watch out for the dairy industry.”

I appreciated his attempt at humor even though I felt like I was going to vomit on his shoes. “I have a hunch that one wasn’t a good milker anyhow.” I laughed weakly at our lame jokes. “We should call security. He could hurt someone.”

Aeon nodded out the doors, where people were screaming and running for high ground, staying just ahead of the rampaging bull. “Looks like someone already did.” We watched as three men with electric prods raced past from one direction, three from another. They slowly directed the brute back the way he had come as a seventh guy stood by with a handgun. The scene was ripe with tension. This immediate section of street had been cleared by the creature’s initial pass, but small groups were moving forward to catch a glimpse of the action like stormchasers on the heel of a tornado. One angry lunge of the bull and he’d be on the idiotic rubberneckers in seconds, smashing them like mosquitoes. The seven herders seemed to know what they were doing, though, and kept the animal moving back, away from the crowds of the fair. After an interminable half an hour, the bull was coaxed into a trailer at the end of the block, and people swarmed out of the buildings, buzzing with the collective high of disaster averted.

“Where’d the bull come from?”

“There’s a rodeo here tonight,” Aeon said darkly. “One of the bulls must have escaped.”

“Let me guess. You’re going to tell me how cruel the rodeo industry is.” My delayed adrenaline rush had passed, and I was able to stand.

“It is. But that’s not my thing right now. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay.” Thoroughly cured of my cow crush, but okay. “What’re you doing here, anyway? I don’t see your sign.”

“My sign?”

“Your protest sign.”

“It wasn’t sewed on.” He smiled genuinely. “I can walk around without it.”

“Good to know.”

“Anyhow, I gotta run. Take care.” After a searching look to make sure I was okay, he took off in the same direction the trailer carrying the bull had gone. I watched him go, collected myself, and then walked toward the rear of the Cattle Barn to seek out the Otter Tail folks. The area was still vibrating with excitement, and people whispered as I walked past. I imagine they were sussing out how someone too stupid to jump out of the way of a charging bull was allowed out without a helmet and a fulltime caregiver.

“I didn’t think it was real,” I mumbled, confirming their suspicions. I ducked quickly to the back of the barn where most people had missed seeing exactly which silly girl had played impromptu toreador. The name of the county the entrants were representing was painted in green on a white placard over every stall, but there didn’t seem to be any method to the organization—Mahnomen, located in the northwest region of the state, followed Kandiyohi, which followed Stearns, both located in central Minnesota, and so on. When I finally found the Otter Tail County stalls, all three were empty of people but full of cows. I stood for ten minutes until two grizzled men and a broad-shouldered teenager in T-shirts and jeans showed up.

“Nice animals you have here,” I said, indicating the two black and whites and the brownish-reddish one. My brain was still a little jangly or I would have come up with a much better greeting.

The tallest guy appeared to also be the oldest. His gray hair put him at about sixty, but when he smiled, his eyes crinkled merrily and took ten years off my estimate. “Thank you. You a farmer?”

“No. I’m a reporter from the
Battle Lake Recall
.”

“Ayuh. How’s old Ron Sims doing?”

“The usual. Eating too much, trying to run the world from behind his desk.”

The tall guy chuckled. “That sounds about right. I’m Jim, this is my grandson Dan. We’re from over by Fergus. Jack here is from Underwood.”

“Pleased to meet all of you. I’m Mira.” I pointed at the ribbons nailed to the front of the stalls. “Looks like you came off pretty well. What’d you guys win?”

“I’ve got dairy cows here, Holsteins, but you probably knew that,” he said kindly. “Lucinda won a blue ribbon, but Jenny didn’t place this year.”

I pulled my pad and paper out of my purse. “All right if I use some of this in an article? Ron has me covering the State Fair.”

“That’s fine. And Dan here has a grand prizewinning Araucana over in the poultry barn that he wouldn’t mind showing off if you want to head there next.”

I was scribbling furiously. I wrote “lizard?” “duck?” next to the word
Araucana
. “You must be very proud.”

Dan beamed but didn’t respond.

“Jack, your cow won something too, right?”

“This one here’s a beef cow, a Limousin, and a red ribbon will have to do for him.”

Thoughtfully, I stopped writing, my competitive spirit rising to the top. “Do they have any housecat exhibitions? I’ve got a real beauty at home.”

Dan snorted, a failed attempt to hold back a laugh rather than a sniff of judgment. “Just livestock.”

“Bummer.” Tiger Pop would have to settle for being grand kitty in my own little world. “Say, did you hear about Ashley Pederson’s death? She was from Battle Lake.”

Darkness fell over their faces at my painfully awkward segue. “I know Gary, her dad,” Jack said. “His heart is broken. Saddest thing I ever heard when I found out his daughter died.”

I nodded. “The police say she was poisoned.”

“I don’t know who’d do that. She was a sweet girl, and all of us Otter Tail farmers were so proud of her. She represented us well.”

“Her family didn’t have any enemies, did they?”

Jim held out his hand. “Hold on. This isn’t CSI New York. You’re talking about Battle Lake. People there don’t get ‘murdered by enemies.’ Worst thing that’ll happen is you lose some fingers in a farming accident. We look out for each other.”

“So what happened to Ashley?”

They shook their heads and studied their feet. The cow nearest Jim bent its leg and leaned on him, a restful gesture like a dog leaning against his owner. Jim pushed the cow away, firmly but kindly. It was odd for me to see people so comfortable with huge animals. I tried a different tack. “Do you guys know anything about Bovine Productivity Management? They’re the company sponsoring the Milkfed Mary pageant.”

Jim spit on the cement. “We prefer to farm the old-fashioned way. One year, only once I needed the money bad enough to try their Milk Enhancer, and never again. The milk tasted funny, salty and sweet at the same time, and I couldn’t keep up with the milking. Hurt my cows.”

“I heard worse stuff about what that ME does,” Dan said, speaking up for the first time. His dad shot him a look, and he shuffled his feet. “Nothing I know for sure, though.”

“Ayuh,” Jim said. “You should ask the shyster over at the BPM booth.”

“Bovine Productivity has a booth here?”

“Absolutely. We can’t afford most of their stuff, but they figure it doesn’t hurt to try. Ask him about ME.”

My talk of BPM and Ashley had brought down the congenial mood we’d started with, and I felt bad. “Thank you for your time.” I was walking away when something occurred to me. I walked back and addressed Jim. “When your cows have calves, do they get to drink their mom’s milk, or do you feed them formula?”

He appeared thoughtful, patting the back of his cow. “Formula’s expensive, so I let them nurse as God intended. They eat only organic grass and feed for the same reason. Mind you, small family farmers like me are a dying breed. The agribusinesses are choking us, squeezing all the milk and meat they can out of an animal with their chemicals and corporate farms.” Dan and Jack nodded in agreement.

“Thanks.” As I walked away, I wondered what else Aeon had been right about. If most of the milk we drank was stolen from the babies it was intended for, did that also mean that every glass of milk really did have eight drops of pus in it? My stomach did a greasy flip as I thought about all the cheese I’d eaten since I’d arrived at the fair. Maybe I’d need to try life without cheese, I thought as I caught sight of the BPM booth. It was on the far side of the cavernous barn, in the middle of a long line of agricultural product stalls. BPM had more signs than the rest, so many that I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it on a previous trip. I strode up, introduced myself to the fifty-something overweight man behind the counter and asked him if ME really worked.

Not bothering to ask why I wanted to know, he beetled his bushy eyebrows and pointed to the cow tethered to his booth. Her udders were engorged and popping with veins. She stood lightly on her back feet and munched on the feed in front of her.

“Doesn’t all that milk hurt her udders?”

“Not at all. Cows love to make milk. It’s what their bodies were created for.” As he came around the front of the counter, I noticed there was something oddly feminine about him. It wasn’t his height or build—he came from some hearty stock and was a good five inches taller than me. His hair was close-trimmed, too, and his arms and hands were as hairy as a hobbit. I couldn’t put my finger on what was giving me that impression, and so I pulled my stare away from his body and watched as he leaned over to squeeze a teat. The cow recoiled as if she’d been poked with a hot iron. White milk whizzed out, hitting the ground with a ricocheting force.

“Wow. Impressive. Do you have any materials I can take with me?”

He handed me a stack of brochures which I intended to throw away as soon as I left the building. They wouldn’t tell me anything the BPM website hadn’t. I neared the entrance of the Cattle Barn, sidestepping manure deposits and keeping a wary eye out for escaped behemoths. It was time to discover what the Milkfed Mary sculptor knew for sure, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.