Holy Cow
The New York Cow Parade, described by the NY Post as “only slightly more
interesting that Hillary Clinton,” has come and gone after providing on the
hides of the 500 beasts enough low art to make MOMA squirm.
New York streets are a little meaner. Bored teenagers have fewer object
d’art to vandalize. Bemused tourists from the Midwest will have to find
something else to milk. Parade organizers will have to find another scam to
attract corporate donations.
The most splendid, jeweled cows have found homes on the Upper West Side
where they serve as towel and coat racks. The less beautiful cows have been
sent to the slaughterhouse to make sure the city’s fleet of miniature
terriers have sufficient roughage in their diets.
The Yankee Cow made a brief appearance during the team victory parade, but,
like most of the players, immediately hot-footed it to Florida to soak up
the sun, breed, and wait for spring training. A few small, forlorn cows
still sit in store windows in Manhattan, but they are fast being displaced
by Santas and the Thanksgiving turkey. The remaining inventory will be sold
by Haitian street vendors on 42nd street.
But there has been one cow sighting--on the eastern side of Cadman Plaza in
Brooklyn Heights. This cow has been called the Puma cow because that is one
of the motifs that decorates the hide of the animal. The cow has attracted
considerable attention because Cow Parade organizers said all animals have
been accounted for and any strays had been made into dog snacks weeks ago.
Parade spokesperson Muriel Parts thanked everyone for keeping the dream
alive but insists there “are no more cows roaming the four boroughs of New
York”--Staten Island was denied cows because it is not really a part of
the city.
The NY Post sent a reporter to find this renegade cow but came back
empty-handed, insisting the cow sighting was by bovine lovers who couldn’t
accept the fact that the cows had really left town. The Post quotes
psychologist Beverly Starfish who said that “People became attached to
these cows because the animals willingly accepted the projections of a
city. Cows, after all, are dumb animals, and they can be anything you want
them to be. Even cows. Some religions hold the cow as a holy symbol. It is
quite understandable that New Yorkers would find solace and meaning in a
cow.”
Even though the cow is nowhere in sight when anyone shows up in an official
capacity, cow worshippers insist the Puma cow resides in Brooklyn Heights.
Through word-of-mouth the cow has become something of an icon. Before the
New York Marathon hundreds of runners, especially those in Puma shoes, came
to pray to the cow and rub its udders, a common practice among the popular
Kenyan runners. Americans runners showed up in droves to rub the Puma’s
udders, figuring it was the only way they would ever win the marathon. It
didn’t help the American runners but didn’t stop the tall cow tales being
told in various Manhattan watering holes after the race. The cow had been
sighted at the start of the race, running at a gallop away from Staten
Island, across the Narrows Bridge, though television cameras failed to
record this sprint. More than one exhausted runner reported the Puma cow
had offered milk at a water stations--and that this milk was more like
manna, filling the runners with an almost spiritual energy.
The Puma cow has become something of a religious icon, showing up
mysteriously to settle domestic disputes and to convert the crack addict.
So popular has the cow become that the number 2 and 3 subway lines had to
put on extra cars to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who go
to Brooklyn Heights to visit the cow. Because the cow is reported to have
healing properties, transport authorities have been forced to put in
wheelchair ramps at the Clark Street station for the thousands who come by
wheelchair. Engineers fear that the large crowds who cross the Brooklyn
bridge on foot, day and night, to pay homage to the cow, are taxing the
bridge beyond its specifications. Special ferries have been provided to
handle the increased traffic to Brooklyn Heights.
The spot where the cow was originally reported has become a religious
shrine, covered with flowers, poems, and empty milk containers. There is
almost no need for a fiberglass cow as penitents brings pieces of the real
cow--steaks, rib roast, and neck--to toss on the pyre. Small children
meekly approach the cow pile with McDonald’s Happy Meals, still untouched.
Elderly people bring week-old hamburgers to the shrine. Some bring
leftovers. The more adventurous visited rendering plants in Queens and
purchased the waste product of slaughtered cows to leave at the shrine. A
few Fendi leather bags have been thrown into the mix.
There have been some unconfirmed reports of spontaneous healing from people
who have touched the cow or cow pieces. One French woman threw her
wheelchair onto the cow pile, claiming the cow god had healed her. Not
surprisingly, an unofficial religion has developed around this cow worship.
Called “Cow-A-Bongers, for the worshippers who thump on cow hide drums, the
religion encourages people to be a cross between a Puma and a cow. The
motto for this movement is: “Run fast and graze,” which is one reason
runners are so attracted to the message.
The Vatican is reluctantly investigating a number of purported cow
healings, including an incident when a Bronx woman reportedly saw all the
Fatima mysteries in the shank of the holy cow and regained her eyesight. A
woman from Lisbon, Portugal who had been reportedly refused by Lourdes,
discovered that touching the cow slowed her hair loss.
The Puma Cow exists under a short ton of flowers, cold cuts, and Happy
Meals that are creating a rat problem in Brooklyn Heights. Locals residents
have invoked zoning ordinances, written in the nineteenth century, that
forbid cow from grazing within walking distance of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Puma Cow worshipers counter that Puma cow represents a religion and is
protected by the First Amendment.
The Puma Cow Pile is beginning to stink and city officials have to decide
whether to take everything to the dump in New Jersey. That will not be easy
as Puma advocates have a twenty-four hour arm lock around the sacred cow.
Complicating matters is that the Puma Shoe Company has officially sponsored
the shrine and is seeking to declare it a national monument. The New York
Road Runners Club has staged an endless 24-hour marathon around Cadman
Plaza making it difficult for city workers to clean the site.
Puma officials hae agreed to restrict the placing of food on the cow pile
in the interest of sanity. Nonetheless, the homeless who cluster in Cadman
Plaza seem to continuously feed off what’s left of the cow, treating the
shrine like an all-night diner.
One homeless man, popular to tourists because he carries a steel guitar,
said this was almost as good as barley loaves and fishes.
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