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are Jews?
    JERRY
    It’s a long story, some say the greatest story ever told, but basically, Jews are Christians with longer sideburns. And a better sense of humor.
    ELSIE
    Wha?
    JERRY
    And funny hats.
    ELSIE
    Wha?
    JERRY
    The yarmulke … the original Hair Club for Men.
    ELSIE
    Wha?
    JERRY
    You with all the wha, wha, wha … keep your eye on the ball, cow, keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole, and pick up what I am layin’ down. The ancient Jews thought pigs were unclean for some reason that historians argue about, they called us swine, they called us “traif” (along with shellfish, don’t ask). They were disgusted by us. Can you imagine? I cannot. [ He held up the old book. ] These are the people of the book. The word, the law.
    ELSIE
    What book word law?
    JERRY
    This is the Torah, in the Old Testament, but I just call it the testament ’cause it didn’t need a new one, got everything right the first time around.
    ELSIE
    Fine, fine, but what you describe sounds terrible, why would you wanna go somewhere you’re hated?
    JERRY
    Hatred can be as useful as love.
    ELSIE
    You lost me, bro.

    “Call me Shalom.”
    JERRY
    Because they hate us pigs so much they won’t eat us!
    ELSIE
    Ahhhhh …
    JERRY
    It’ll be heaven. I’ll walk down the street, and people will get outta my way like I’m Clint Eastwood. Nobody will talk to me, they won’t even look at me, but best of all, I won’t wind up on their damn plates next to some friggin’ apple sauce!
    I had to admit, Jerry had a point, a very valid point, and I agreed that being a pariah was better than being eaten, especially for someone with the stunted social skills of a Jerry, who might actually enjoy living the life of an antagonist. I’d be a god and he’d be a devil, and we both would live. Humans are ridiculous, but we were desperate. So I relented. I nodded. I said that he could come and I would do my best to get me to India and him to Israel, but I couldn’t promise anything. He smiled, grunted, kissed my knee with his snout, and said—“Next year in Jerusalem, my friend.”
    Then he added, “Call me Shalom.”

 
    21
    LET’S GO: TURKEY
    Finally I had my route to the city plotted out. Jerry, I mean Shalom, was a pain in the tuchus, but he was proving to be pretty helpful with logistics. I have to admit, Shalom is pretty smart. One night, about three days before Jerry and I were gonna make a break for it, I was just standing, thinking about life in India and how much fun it would be to be worshipped as a god, when I heard a very strange noise by the barn door, a kind of shuffling and a gargling sound, like somebody was simultaneously trying to swallow a bunch of marbles while saying the word marble . Certain sections of the barn were lit where the windows let the moon in, and whatever it was was walking, or maybe strutting is a better word, to a spot on the ground where I could see who it was. A turkey.
    Now, we cows don’t know the turkeys well at all. They are kind of kept in an area away from us. Sometimes we pass them on the way out to pasture, but we rarely talk. They’ve always struck me as really nervous, the kind of nervous that wears out your sympathy and just ends up making you nervous too, so you avoid it, and them. But I couldn’t avoid this turkey ’cause he was walking right at me.
    TURKEY
    Are you Q, the cow formerly known as Elsie Bovary?
    ELSIE
    Who wants to know?
    TURKEY
    The name is Turkey, Tom Turkey.
    Now, he said this the way “Bond, James Bond” says it, so I really had to stifle a laugh. I acted like I had a chicken feather in my throat.
    TOM
    Meleagris gallopavo , Mama-san. Not to be confused with Numida meleagris , the helmeted guinea fowl. You okay there, little lady? ’Cause I totally know the Heimlich maneuver.
    ELSIE
    No, no, I’m good, I’m good.
    (As he got closer, I could tell this turkey didn’t take care of himself. He was rail-thin and his feathers were all uncombed, flying off in every direction.