Looking for a Cow

Last week, my friend Doug over at Pipeline wrote a hilarious post where he spoke about his strange desire to write stories about cows. Knowing Doug to be a talented writer of short-stories, I figure that he was talking about writing fiction. On the other hand, I have an actual true-life story about a cow that is one of my favorites to tell, but I figure this time is as good as any to codify it into history. So this is my story of the night I went looking for a cow with a Kansas Highway Trooper.

In January, 1989, I was a junior at Kansas State University. After having spent the Holidays at home in Colorado, I was going back to KSU for the spring semester. Back then, I usually preferred to drive at night, when the traffic was lighter and I didn't have to become hypnotized by the endless plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas. This particular time, I decided I would drive back on a Saturday night so I could have a full day to unpack and readjust before classes began.

At this time, I was still driving my first car, my beloved 1978 white Honda CVCC hatchback. Man, I loved that car. We called it the "microcar," for reasons you can probably guess. But it was awesome; being a true Honda, the interior was much larger than you would think, the car was very nimble and light, and the space in the hatchback was exactly the size of a keg of beer.

Like I said, I loved that car.

I left this particular night at around six in the evening, so it was already dark. It was also bitterly cold that night--about 5 degrees. So there was even less traffic on the road as usual. Perfect for me. I set out with all my clothes and stuff piled in the back seat and hit the road.

The drive was perfect for the first four hours. Nobody on the road; just me and the Denver Nuggets on the radio after a while. However, things began to go bad right before I hit my usual gas stop in Colby, Kansas, about an hour across the border. Right before Colby, the electrical warning light on my dashboard turned on. This had never happened before, so I pulled into the full-service part of the gas station (remember full-service?) and had the surely-lonely attendant take a look at the car. He said my alternator belt was a little loose and tightened it back up. I thought my problems were solved and went back out into the cold night.

The problem was that the light hadn't turned off. I figured it was probably one of those dealer things where they have to reset the electronics even though there isn't a problem anymore. So I didn't think much of it. Unfortunately, what was really going on was that it wasn't just the alternator belt that was a concern; the alternator had actually died. What I didn't know at the time was that I was driving completely on my battery.

Unbelievably, in retrospect, I made it another fifty miles. Then, about five miles outside a small town in the middle of nowhere, a town called Quinter, my car suddenly came to a quick and sudden stop. And it wouldn't restart. I still had power: my lights worked and I still had the Nuggets on the radio, so I wasn't able to put one and one together. All I knew was that it was about midnight on a Sunday morning, it was five degrees outside, and I was stuck in BFE with no one on the road.

Nevertheless, I wasn't that concerned. If there is one thing that Kansas excels at, it is their State Highway Patrol. Unlike most states, each county in Kansas has their own post, so there are patrols every approximate 30 miles. Most of the time, that is a royal pain in the ass, because you really have to watch your speed. This night, however, I was banking on it being a boon and life-saver for me. I had a good coat and all of my clothes in the back seat, so I wasn't really concerned about freezing to death. I just had to wait until the inevitable trooper came by.

After an hour went by with no trooper, however, I began to get worried. My battery was dying. And I began to get more and more concerned about one other thing: my appearance. At the time I was still a pre-Vet student, and since I hated Wranglers and big belt buckles, I figured I should be as different as I could from my fellow pre-Vets. I was also debating at the time, so I was in the middle of this kind of rebellious, New-Jack kind of phase. Now this was Kansas in the late-80s, when the mullet was king. But I have this gross, fine hair that ironically happens to be extremely curly: growing a mullet was not an option for me. So I did the next best thing: I just let it grow. I hadn't cut my hair in about five months and, as a result, I had this ugly, nappy, afro that was my best attempt to look like Lindsay Buckingham on the Rumours album. I also had this scraggly beard that hadn't completely filled in. And now I was stuck in the literal ground zero of red-state America. Quinter, in fact, was a town that as you drive into it had a series of road signs that said, "THE . . . CHURCHES . . . OF . . . QUINTER . . . WELCOME YOU." Jesus, what would they think of me?

Not only that, but I had no money. I was covered by AAA due to my parents, but at this stage in my life I was yet to have a credit card. And I had exactly seventeen dollars in my wallet. And now it was Sunday. There probably wouldn't be a mechanic in all of western Kansas open for business on a Sunday.

I was screwed.

Anyways, after about another half-hour I finally saw the lights of a State Trooper pull behind my car. With relief, I got out of my car and walked back to the window of the trooper's car. He rolled down his window and there before me was this enormously fat man with a crew cut, the kind of person that strangely seems to come only out of the midwest. The kind of guy you would expect to be chewing tobacco on the job.

Boy, am I glad to see you. My car broke down about an hour-and-a-half ago, I said to him.

"Well, why don't you get out of this cold and come sit in the car and we'll see what we can do," he replied.

So, I walked around and got in the car, wondering what this guy must of thought about the looks of me. I got in and told him my story, about how I have AAA and asked if could call me a tow truck. But he cut me off.

"You know, you're a lucky lad tonight," he said in his western Kansas twang. "It's so late and so cold out tonight that we haven't been on the road. The only reason I'm out here is that we got a call about a loose cow on the interstate. I'm looking for it. You haven't seen a loose cow, have you?"

Half in shock, I told him I hadn't. There hadn't been anything out on the road that evening.

"Well, I don't think there really is a cow out here. But you know them tourists; they see a deer and can't tell the difference, right?"

Uh, sure. Yeah, you know those tourists.

And then, the guy pulled out a can of Copenhagen from his shirt pocket and took a dip. Now I was really kind of going, "what the hell?" And then, he looked at me and with all sincerity asked:

"Well, are you doing anything at the moment?"

Uh, well, no. I'm stuck on the highway in the middle of BFE. I didn't say the last part.

"Well, then. How would you like to come look for this cow with me?"

What?

"I don't think were going to find anything, so it shouldn't take long. We'll take care of you after we're done."

Um, okay, I guess.

"Great. I'll turn on the exterior lights and we'll drive down the road a few miles. I'll take my side of the road, you take yours."

Sure. Sounds great.

Okay, so I was in a weird, surreal world at this point. We started driving down the highway on the shoulder of the road, and I was looking into twenty feet of night for any sign of a goddamn cow. After a few miles, he spoke again:

"Have you seen a cow yet?"

Nothing.

"Me either. Damn tourists. Must have been some deer."

You bet.

"Okay, we'll cross over and go back to your car. But in the meantime, keep looking, just in case."

Sure, just in case.

So, at the next crossing point, we went to the other side of the highway and started back toward my car. Still no cow.

"Goddammit, what a waste of my time. I knew there wasn't going to be a damned cow on the road."

Yeah. Tourists.

After going about an extra mile down the interstate, we crossed back over and drove back to my car. But as we came to pull over behind my car, in the headlights we could see the figure of a man walking by my car, inspecting it. This mysterious figure was wearing one of those tweed farmer coats and an oversized Elmer Fudd hat with earflaps hanging down. The trooper looked as surprised as I was.

"You weren't driving with anyone, were you?"

No. Just me.

"Well, I wonder who the hell this is."

Beats me.

Seeing our car, the man of mystery started walking toward the trooper's car. As he approached the trooper's window and the trooper rolled down his window, there was a flash of recognition:

"Oh hell, that's Earl!"

Earl?

"Hey Earl, what are you doing out here on this cold night?"

A grizzled old man stuck his face into the light of the window.

"Hey, Vern," he said. "Have you seen my cow?"

Now I knew I had been abducted by aliens and taken to some strange, parallel dimension.

"Nah. We were just out looking for it, and we didn't see anything. You know I think someone just mistook a deer or something."

"Yeah," Earl replies. "Tourists."

Tourists.

"Okay," Earl says, "I'm just going to go home, then."

"You stay warm, Earl," says the man I now know as "Vern."

And Earl walked over to my side of the car and in a flash just disappeared into the Kansas night. To this day I don't know where the hell he went.

"So," Vern tells me, "what should we do about you?" New dip of Copenhagen.

Just call AAA and I can get a motel, I guess, I say. Vern calls it in. And then we found out the nearest AAA truck was in Oakley, 45 minutes away and probably and hour-and-a-half away from actually getting to us, given the time.

"Well, that's no good," Vern says. "We can't have you freeze."

No, that would be undesirable.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. There is a median about a 1000 yards up from here. I'm going to get behind you and I'm going to push your car up to it, then we'll cross and I'll push you back into town. Sound good?"

Considering the alternative, that sounds just fine.

"Great. Let's go."

I got out and went back to my car, still kind of numb from the surreal experience I just had. But immediately when I get behind the wheel, I noticed a whole new problem. My battery was now almost completely dead. I had no headlights. And as soon as Vern pulled up behind me, his lights were buried in my bumper.

I couldn't see where I was going. It was a new moon. That didn't deter Vern. I stuck my head out of the window into the freezing cold.

"Okay, let's go!" Vern yells. "Keep your eyes open!"

I tried. But as the car began to gain speed, I could barely see the side of the road, let alone a median in it. As I was searching, my heart dropped as I finally caught in my peripheral vision a glimpse of what looked like a dirt road passing by my left. Vern honked his horn. I leaned out.

Did I just miss it?

"Yeah! Pull over!"

I did. I got back out and walked to his window with my tail between my legs.

Uh. Sorry.

"Get back in the car."

I did, wondering if he was going to rip into me as being a stupid blind hippie or something.

"Okay, this makes things different. Here's what we are going to do. We will wait until there is no one on the road. I am going to get back behind you and I'm going to push you up to about 50 miles and hour. When I give you the signal, I want you to cross the median and wait for me on the other side. Sound good?"

Great. I got back in my car.

Once again, Vern pulled up behind me. Again, with my head hanging out of the window in the frigid cold, I waited for his instructions. He had heat. I didn't. I was freezing. Vern announced that things were going to start. He started accerelating. 20 . . . 30 . . . 40 . . . 50 mph. Vern honked.

"NOW! GO!" he yelled out the window.

And in maybe my only Starsky & Hutch moment, I took the microcar and shot first down, and then back up the median, ripping across the pavement and screeching to a halt on the shoulder of the other side of the interstate. Exhilerating. Vern came in behind and called me back.

"Okay, now I'm going to push you back to a motel in town."

Okay, Vern. Whatever you say.

And so for six miles, Vern's trooper car bumped and pushed me back to Quinter. In the meantime, he managed to take off what seemed like half my back bumper. But we eventually got to the motel, which was thankfully right off the interstate. I pulled into a parking place and Vern and I made our goodbyes. And then he just left. Didn't even come in to help with the motel staff. And so suddenly I realized again that I: 1) looked like a hippie, 2) had no money, and 3) it was now about 3 in the morning. This was not good. But I had no choice. I went inside the motel.

This was an old-fashioned motel, the kind where the owner lived on the premises and there wasn't a night staff. I rang the bell.

After a short pause, a very perturbed looking middle-aged man came out a door in his nightrobe and pajamas. I sheepishly told him my story. And the fact that I didn't have enough money to completely pay for a room. And that I was sure my parents could wire me the money in the morning. I could call them and have them talk to you. Can you help me?

He squinted his eyes as he slowly looks at me.

"Well," he said, "we can't have you freeze."

That's the crux of the story. I called my folks and they talked with the owner. He told them he would have probably thrown me out on my ass if I hadn't been a K-Stater. I don't know if that was the truth or a joke, but you never know. Anyways, my folks drove out the next day and saved my ass. We couldn't get the car fixed, but we recharged the battery and it gave me just enough juice to get me back to KSU with my folks following in support. A week later some friends of mine installed a new alternator for me. When I look back, I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't driving to California or something, so that my poor parents could save me. But what an experience to treasure afterwards; so surreal, so funny, so Kansas.

Years later, when I was living in Austin, Texas, we had one of those rare days of freezing rain. The sports radio show I would listen to driving home from work did a thing where they asked people for their best "stranded on the highway stories." I knew that was my cue to win a prize. So I called in and told them my story. At first they didn't believe me, but when I insisted it was true, I ended up winning the prize. I got a good steak dinner out of that, which was rather ironic.

I wonder to this day if Earl ever found his cow.