Holy Cow

35 ISTANBUL IS CONSTANTINOPLE

I took a few cat naps en route. I very much enjoyed the hot towel. At one point, a woman leaned over her seat and complained about the service. “They treat us just like cattle up here, just like cows.” Like cows, I thought, you mean they’re gonna slaughter us and cut us up into unrecognizable segments and eat us? I think not. But because I can’t speak, I did the only thing I could do to let her know I heard her. I mooed. “Moooooooo,” I said. The lady laughed. “That’s right, like damn cows, moooo.” I kept mooing ’cause that’s all I could do, and she said, “Wow, that is a really good cow imitation.” I smiled and lowed, and gave her some of my other cow sound repertoire, and soon she was laughing, having forgotten how pissed she’d been, and, in a bit, she had the whole cabin in on the joke and mooing.

For much of the flight, Shalom studied his Torah and denounced anything he found unrealistic in Babe. At one point yelling out, “Bah, Ram, F-U!” Tom, the comfort turkey, strutted up and down the aisles as if he were the captain, making sure that everybody was having a good ride, was being attended to, and felt emotionally “connected.” The flight attendant was kind enough actually to let him up into the cockpit with the pilots, where he stayed for what seemed like hours. He came back using all the airline lingo, saying, “I could fly this baby.”

Right before final descent, Tom leaned over me ’cause I had the window seat, and we could start to make out the landscape beneath us, the land of Turkey coming into view. The blue of the Aegean, and then the beautiful seaside and dwellings. Tom just sighed and shook his head and said, “There she is. There she is. She is so beautiful. My country.” Then a melancholy seemed to fall upon him momentarily, and I thought it might be the sadness that lurks under the happiness of achieving your life’s goal-you know that feeling? A feeling like, okay, this has happened-now what? And Tom said, “You know, in France, they thought turkeys were from India so they called us ‘d’Inde.’ And in Turkey itself, they often call us ‘Hindi’ for the same reason, and I was thinking maybe things won’t be so bad for me if I wanna go to India with you if I’m named after their language after all, right?”

I didn’t say anything. I just smiled and nodded. I knew he was nervous about his new life and this was his way of saying he was going to miss me.

Tom’s reverie was interrupted by the purser, who came to us with a metallic pin, one of those cheap little captain’s bars they like to give little kids, and asked Tom if he would accept an honorary pilot designation and could she pin the little doodad on him. Tom shrugged like no big deal, said, “Sure, I mean, if you have to get rid of them.” As she pinned the bar on the bird, Tom could front no more. He wrapped his wings around her and started sobbing. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he cried, and then, “Do the guys up front need any help bringing this big bird down into the ’Bul?” The purser smiled even though of course she had no idea what the sounds were coming out of his goblet. “I’m just sayin’,” Tom added, “just in case things get wonky up there, I’m a bird, mama, I’m here. On the case.”

He saluted the purser with his wing, and she understood his body language enough to stand and give him a big salute back while she winked at me. Humans can be decent and understanding at times. Which makes me think there’s hope for them.

When the announcement came over the PA system to buckle up for our final descent, I saw that Shalom was sweating like a pig. I thought I knew why. I leaned over and whispered, “I know Turkey is predominantly Muslim, but we’re just gonna be in and out of there.”

“I’m cool,” Shalom mumbled, “it’s just I’m a really nervous flyer. You’ve heard the expression ‘When pigs fly’? Well, there’s a reason for that-we are not supposed to be up here. I took three Ambien when we took off, but now they’re wearing off and I’m out! This is unnatural. Oh geez…” He turned back to the rest of the passengers and yelled, “Anybody got an Ambien? Xanax? Oxycontin? A mimosa? I need drugs, goddammit, get me drugs!!”

There was some turbulence, and Shalom squealed, “We’re all gonna die! Animals should not attempt to be gods. We are flying too close to the sun, too close to the sun. We’re all gonna die!” Tom, the emotional-support turkey, sidled over, whispered to me, “Leave this to the professionals,” and took Shalom under his wing. He held Shalom’s hoof the whole way down, telling him that the myth of Daedalus and Icarus was not about actual flying, but rather a pre-Freudian Oedipal psychodrama about when man overreaches, and distracting him with aeronautical details and facts about flight.