The two of them not being too late in heading out on this Saturday was unusual. Monday through Friday you never had anything to worry about. Chat up the clients between sets and possibly get some drinks laid on you. You were there for the week. But Saturday? If you had to haul ass for the next gig, this sometimes meant staying late to get all the equipment packed up and into the trailer. Of course, you could always do it Sunday but ofttimes the contract specified that all band members had to vacate their rooms by Sunday at noon or even 11am. If the next gig was a long way away, it might be better to get as early a start on Sunday as possible. Don't forget that you usually wanted to get the equipment out of the trailer and into the club. A trailer full of musical equipment seemed like too much of a temptation and who wants to risk their bread and butter?
This time, though, Mike and Jake had double luck. First of all, they were staying two weeks at this bar. There was no need to pack up because they didn't have to move on as the nomads they were. Secondly, their gig was in the next town and they were slightly less than an hour from home. Instead of staying in just another nondescript motel room, they both got to go home. Ah, the pleasures of the domestic routine if only for two weeks.
"Anybody going to be up when you get in?" asked Jake as he idly looked out the side window at the dark landscape. It was a clear night but there was no moon. If he looked straight up, he could the vast expanse of the Milky Way.
Mike chuckled. "Lori may wake up. The kids will be dead to the world." Mike was the leader of the band and the only one who was married. He had been out on the road for over fifteen years but still remained married to the woman of his children. That didn't mean Mike didn't have a few telephone numbers in various ports. When a man is far from home, he gets lonely. However, that doesn't necessarily mean he still doesn't love his wife and children.
"What happened to you?" asked Mike.
"What do you mean?" replied Jake still gazing out of the side window.
"You spent enough time carrying on with that Michelle chick. I thought you were going to get lucky during our stay."
Jake sort of grunted, whether it was a yes or a no was hard to tell. "Beats me. I thought I was getting to base then it seemed like I struck out." He paused the added, "Well, there's always next week. Let's see if she comes back next week. It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."
Jake was the keyboard player and probably the intellectual of the group, read: nerd. He didn't spend as much time as the other guys in the group chasing skirt as it were but periodically he would surprise them. Everybody gets lonely sooner or later.
Mike on the other hand was a dedicated showman. He didn't just play guitar and sing. No, he entertained. And the word entertain for him was something that did not stop once he walked off the stage. He was at it schmoozing with the audience as soon as he walked into a club until he walked out at the end of the night. Attracting an audience wasn't just providing music; it was developing a rapport with them so they were coming out to see their best friend.
Warrenton was less than an hour from home so Mike had decided to take a back road. It was not quite as fast but it was a lot shorter. It was mostly farmland however from time to time there were pockets of houses as though somebody had decided right out of the blue to plop a clump of homes somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. It would certainly be an odd place to live as you would be miles from any services like grocery stores or gas stations.
The two of them arrived at a country crossroads and Mike turned left onto Montrose Road, the final stretch into town. This was a long straight part of the road so Mike gunned it. At this time of night there wasn't another set of headlights anywhere.
"Did you get us signed up for that week in Porterville?" said Jake.
"My agent phoned me this afternoon and said it was a go." Mike flicked on the high beams. The road stretched out into the distance. It was completely deserted.
"Good. With that week taken care of, we have the next two months booked up." said Jake. "I'd like to see some steady money for a while."
"Who wouldn't?"
Off in the distance, another car turned onto the road and headed in their direction.
Mike said, "Since we have this time, I'd like to plan on a practice or two. There are a couple of new songs out on the radio that we should learn. I've had a number of customers ask me if we could play some of the newer material and I think it's about time we added some numbers to our repertoire."
"Sure," said Jake. "If you want, I'll work out the cords and jot down the lyrics."
The car coming towards them was getting closer so Mike lowered the beams of his headlights. It was merely common courtesy to not blind the other driver.
"Thanks, that would be appreciated. I was thinking that we should work out some vocal harmonies. I kind of like hearing all four of us singing at the same time. I think it adds some depth to the number."
The other car had lowered its headlights as it too judged the distance between them too short for high beams. Nevertheless, Jake noticed that the low beams of the other car were still brilliant. It was odd that the front of the car bathed in the headlights was visible but beyond the car was pitch black as though there was nothing behind the car.
Jake said, "I was hesitant about the all vocal number you wanted to do but I have to admit it turned out pretty good. I didn't think we could do anything a cappella and have it turn out as good as it did."
"Hey," said Mike. "I've heard a lot of compliments about our vocal work, especially that song. I know you and the other guys didn't feel too enthused about it, but the audience really goes for that type of stuff."
"Well..." Jake sounded a little sheepish. The other car was almost upon them passing in the other lane. There was this moment of blindness when the other car's headlights completely blacked out anything behind it.
Jake continued, "Yes, I was hesitant, but..." The other car passed them and for less than a second, maybe a tenth of a second, the headlights of Mike's car beamed out into the darkness now unhindered by the lights of the other car. This was just enough time for the two of them to get the briefest of looks at something brown in the middle of their lane before they ran into it with a loud bang. The hood of the car immediately popped all the way up almost flush with the windshield. There was a narrow strip in between the edge of the upraised hood and the dashboard through which Jake saw whatever the brown thing was travelling away from them in an arc.
"What the hell was that?" said Mike.
"I think we just hit a cow," said Jake. He had instinctively put one hand up onto the dash to stop his forward movement. The impact had slightly slowed the car and made him slide on the seat but it was Mike slamming on the brakes which necessitated bracing himself. Considering the speed, it still took a moment for the car to come to a full stop. The two of them sat there for a moment still somewhat shocked by what had just happened. Mike shut off the engine.
"Let's go take a look," said Jake. "This might be messy."
Mike and Jake opened their respective doors and got out to survey the damages. They walked around to the front of the car. Despite the damage, both headlights were still on. It was dark and difficult to see but they were able to make out the extent of it. The front bumper was pushed through the grill, through the radiator and seemed to be up against the engine block. The hood was sitting straight up exposing the motor which was still pinging and creaking from the heat.
"Holy crap! Look at my car!" said Mike. "What the fuck did we hit?" They both could hear something leaking and Jake bent over to look under the car.
"Oh, oh. It looks like the radiator's busted. You're losing all your coolant," said Jake. Jake stood back up and the two of them stood there for a moment looking at the car. No doubt about it, this baby wasn't going anywhere.
They both turned around and looked down the road. Off to one side not quite on the shoulder was a brown lump. "That's a cow?" said Mike. "Seems kind of small." They both started walking towards it.
"Hmmm," said Jake. "I think it's a calf. Too small for a full grown cow." They proceeded a little tentatively not just a little worried of gore and guts. As they moved away from the car and the headlights, it got more difficult to see. It was pitch black and without the moon, there was no ambient light at all. They moved to one side to make sure the headlights shone unobscured on the animal.
"Yep, it's a calf. And a very dead one at that," said Jake. The two men looked at the animal. "My recollection - mind you I only had a glimpse of it before we slammed into it - was that it standing in the middle of our lane looking right at us meaning we hit it head on. I'm guessing we probably immediately broke its neck. After the hood came flying up, there was a gap in between the hood and the dashboard and I thought I saw this brown body, brown something or other go sailing down the road away from us."
"Lord," said Mike. "What would have happened if it had been a full grown cow?"
Jake laughed. "Maybe instead of us knocking it down the road, it might have brought us to a full-stop! Ha! What happens when you drive a car straight into a brick wall?"
Mike looked at Jake and smiled. "I'm surprised. I can't really see all that well, but it looks like the cow isn't in bad shape. I was thinking we'd have blood all over the place."
Mike and Jake turned as a car pulled up in the other lane. It had come up behind them but was obliged to drive around them since they left their car in the middle of the right hand lane.
"Hey," said some voice from inside the black interior of the car. "What happened?"
"We hit a cow," said Jake.
"Really?"
Jake stepped to one side. "See for yourself."
"Wow. Are you guys all right?"
"Yeah, we're fine. I guess though somebody will have to look at this."
"Want me to phone the cops?" said the stranger.
"Thanks, that would be great."
The stranger drove off into the night and Mike and Jake settled in to wait. Mike left the parking lights on as they opted to leave the car as it was until the authorities had a chance to survey the crime scene. Ha, crime scene! The two of them had murdered a cow, well a calf. But more importantly, the insurance company was going to want some details about the damages before they would spring for the repairs. Jesus, what was this going to cost? Front bumper, grill and a new rad. Did running into the animal do any other damage to the motor? Mike figured he had been doing about 65 mph (104 km/h) at the time. A fully grown cow would have weighed, what, two or three times as much?
After a wait of fifteen minutes - or was it twenty minutes? - a lone cop in a squad car showed up. After he pulled up and parked on the other side of the road, he put on his flashing light. He surveyed the scene and took a statement from Mike. He then radioed into the station to see if somebody could find the farmer who owned the land next to the road. The cop didn't know and Mike and Jake didn't know but their best guess was that the calf had gotten out of a pasture somewhere and had wandered into the road. By this time it must have been three o'clock in the morning. Jake figured that some farmer somewhere was going to get a call and be woken up to the news one of his cows had been mowed down in the prime of its life.
Now that the cop had made a report, he decided it was okay to push the car out of the way. Jake got in behind and pushed while Mike steered and pushed from the driver's door. At least now the car was out of the middle of the one lane. The cop contacted the station again and asked for a tow truck. It was obvious the car was too damaged to be driven anywhere.
Shortly thereafter a farmer showed up. He wasn't too happy. In fact he started by trying to accuse Mike of having deliberately killed his cow however with the police there and a slow retelling of the events, the farmer didn't have a leg to stand on and was going to have to accept that an accident is an accident. The group of them walked down the road a bit and discovered that a gate to the adjoining pasture was in fact open. Why? The farmer didn't know but it was pretty obvious where the fault was.
Mike, the policeman and the farmer were standing by Mike's car discussing the various aspects of the accident. For the farmer, there was the speculation of who was going to be held accountable and whose insurance company would eventually pay up. Jake got bored and wandered around. Out of boredom come inspired ideas?
Jake went to Mike's car and opened the back door to fish out his trumpet from the back seat. Since the two of them were going to be home for a couple of days, they had taken their instruments with them to possibly do a little practising during their time off. Jake carried the case down the road to the calf. Mike, the cop and the farmer were up the road continuing their heated conversation.
Jake took out his trumpet and found his mouth piece. He inserted the piece into the trumpet and puckered his lips. He put the instrument up to his mouth then slowly started to play "taps" over the dead cow. Mike later told him that the three of them, Mike, the cop and the farmer, immediately stopped talking at the sound of the music and turned to watch Jake. While the policeman and the farmer didn't know what to make of Jake's playing, Mike said he immediately cracked up laughing. It's three o'clock in the morning. It's a dark moonless night and there is Jake playing taps over a dead cow out in the middle of nowhere. The policeman apparently chuckled but tried to remain professional while the farmer then got slightly pissed. He was still mad at having lost a cow.
Finally a tow truck showed up. Mike's car got hooked up and then the truck drove Mike and Jake to their respective homes before dropping the Mike's car at the garage. By that time it was about 5am.
Mike got a loaner car as it took over a week for his car to be repaired. The garage said that while the car was still okay, the impact had bent the frame a bit. Jake still wondered what would have happened if they had hit a cow instead of a calf. A write-off?
Neither one of them ever did find out what happened to the farmer and his calf. How did the farmer haul the calf away? Was the calf sent to slaughter or did the law require it not to be used for meat? Dog food maybe?
Years later Jake periodically told his story of hitting the cow in the middle of the night. And with a certain relish, he recounted how he played taps over the dead animal. Sometimes life presents you with the most absurd circumstances and heck, if you've got a trumpet handy, don't you have to take advantage of the situation? After all, how many times in one's life do you get an opportunity like that?
2011-10-04
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