Cars, Coffee, and Cows
It was hot. It was always hot...and muggy. We didn’t care. We didn’t know any different and was to be expected when we lived just a few miles from the New Orleans bayou. My brother, my friends, and I lived in a small trailer park on one of the busiest highways in New Orleans East. Yes, it was and is still called New Orleans East and not East New Orleans. Everything in that part of the Parish was backward. But, whether backward or hot, we didn’t know any different. And we liked it that way.
Surrounding us on both sides and back was the Vietnamese part of town and yet only one Vietnamese family actually lived in the park and not for long. Off in the distance stood Folgers Coffee factory what could be best described as a giant square robot, which was not unaccustomed to burning large batches of coffee that would fill the air for miles.
On one particularly hot, burnt coffee smelling day, My friends, brother, and I were playing some kind of rough and tumble game or another as we often did. But, something disrupted that playtime by something that caused us all to stop dead, staring down the east side of the highway. A large brown and mostly dirty cow was running down the highway as fast as a cow could run. I, being the good son that I was, ran to go and tell my mother. This is a mistake that I have lived with my whole life because of what happened in those brief moments of me yelling out those familiar words to every parent, “Hey mom come quick!!!”
I ran out as fast as I could to the scene that was unfolding, my mom expectantly far behind. When I arrived, my brother and my friends were hysterical. But, not just that. They were actually leading the cow buy the rope that was tied around its neck into the front lawn of the trailer park. I instantly noticed that the cow seemed docile and was also covered in bloody wounds all over its hide and some having exposed bone around its shoulder blade. “What happened!?”, I said demanding an answer. “You aren’t going to believe this!”,
“That was crazy!”, “Holy Crap!”, the guys were yelling over each other. “WHAT!?”, I asked. My brother calmed down and explained, “This guy, in a small little car, came screaming out of the parking lot down the road. Then, at full speed rams into the cow! But, even after that, he backs up as far as he can rams into the cow a second time and then sped off in his messed up car!” Remember that regret I mentioned? I had missed it. But everyone else had seen it, and we had a bloody cow in our possession to prove it.
My mom went off to call the SPCA. As an increasing larger crowd of park neighbors began arrive to witness this unlikely event, and rumors about where this common farm animal had come from, the image of a cow in a trailer park gave everyone heightened feeling of redneck status. While feeding the beast water and allowing it to graze in one of the vacant trailer lots. About an hour passed when the SPCA truck showed up which was obviously too small to transport a one ton cow. A short, portly woman exited the vehicle and approached the crowd. “Don’t think you are going to fit her in that thing.” said the park manager. The woman chuckled then informed us that they were going to be able to get a truck large enough to take the cow til morning. She asked if we would be able to keep the cow somewhere until then and assured us that it wasn’t our responsibility but would be a kindly public service. So it was agreed that we would tie the cow up to one of the magnolia trees behind the laundromat. Naturally, all the kids in the park loved this idea and took care of it throughout the evening.
The most likely reason for this wounded cow being a victim of attempted murder and ending up our good graces was that the cow was being raised illegally for slaughter by one of the restaurants in the area. We thought maybe they were trying to get rid of the evidence. I must say that this was never confirmed. And as unusual as this event was, for us, the unusual was very usual.
