Schillaci

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Seamus sat at the table, leaning forward, cereal box in one hand and his spoon moving methodically from his bowl of Corn Flakes to his constantly accepting gob. He was ferociously consuming the ingredients that were printed on the back of the box, ingredients he had probably read half a hundred times now. He finished the cereal, drank the remnants of milk in the bowl, and excused himself from the kitchen table with a loud burp. 

His mother swooped in behind him to clear the table as he made his way to the bathroom to do the needful. As he sat astride the toilet, he picked up the toilet paper package and read every inch of that. Down the hall, he could hear the back door open because he hadn’t bothered closing the bathroom door. His father was back from the shop! He gave a hurried wipe and flushed the toilet. His hands passed the sniff test and he ran down to the kitchen.

“Where is it? Where is it?”

“Here, I got a shite one for you and a good one for me. If I catch you so much as glimpsin’ at Page 3, I’ll burn the fuckin’ thing.” His father handed him the folded Sun newspaper.

While Seamus was definitely going to sneak a look at the tits on Page 3 later, that’s not why he wanted the paper. Today was the day, the Quarter Final. Not only were Ireland in the World Cup, but they were in the knockout stage for the first time – and they were playing the hosts. There hadn’t been a bigger sporting event in Ireland in his lifetime, probably ever.

He rifled through the back pages, reading every column inch he could find about the World Cup, the match today, what the experts thought, what the regular person on the street thought, how many people were still making their way to Rome for the match even as late as yesterday, the convoys of cars all dressed up in green, how the Irish fans were beloved by all other fans at the World Cup. The entire thing was magic to Seamus, absolute magic. 

The flags and bunting and painted cars all about town were something he had never seen before. It was similar to when Galway were in the All-Ireland a few years before but on a different scale and all over the country.

“… and I’ll be back late tonight. The old lady out in the dirty paddock might go tonight so keep an eye on her.” His father was talking to him now.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you goin’?”

“There’s an auction up North, I might buy a blast of heifers if they’re half decent.”

“Alright, sound.”

“Make sure you get the cows milked in good time.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“Make sure you keep an eye on the aul wan.”

“Mam or Granny?”

“The fuckin’ cow in the dirty paddock.”

“Sound, good luck.”

“Will ya shake a couple of bags of manure in the cliff field, too?”

“I will, yeah.”

Seamus went back to reading the paper but had exhausted the sport section so scoured the rest of the paper for more articles. It was front and back page news. Thirty extra flights had left Dublin the previous day. There were now reports of 20,000 Irish fans in Rome. Cinemas were closing. The buses in Dublin were stopping for the few hours around the match. The match was all anyone could talk about – except for his father, who was only interested in the farm. Heifers, grass, milk, land. 

His grandfather would have been vying to go up north today too, right up until a few short months ago when he finally took to the bed. Even then, he continued to give his opinion on every single matter up until the very end. During his last couple of weeks, Seamus was the only one who could understand any of his rambling utterances during his more lucid moments and became his de facto translator. 

This bothered Seamus as he didn’t hold too much love for Auld Mick. Christ, his own father was an old man when Seamus was born, a few days shy of his 57th birthday. Auld Mick had been nearly 30 years older again and had lived a few months past his 100th birthday, long enough to get his letter from the President that sat proudly on the mantelpiece. 

Proudly for most of the family, at least. His grandfather didn’t like President Hillery because “he’s a sex pest and he’s too close to the Brits.” Seamus was admittedly a political novice but didn’t see any evidence to support either of these accusations. He did think that there was a distinct possibility that Auld Mick had died at the thought of a woman being the next President of Ireland, which was starting to look like a real possibility.

Seamus didn’t know much about his grandfather but didn’t really care to know. The fact that he spent probably 90 years of his life farming did give him some room for sympathy at times. 90 years! That was two full careers, and to dedicate them both to the abject misery of farming was unthinkable to Seamus. No wonder he was such a miserable old bastard.

Seamus knew as the only son, only child, that the farm was coming to him whether he liked it or not. He did like it well enough but not full time. No, he would be a teacher and keep a few beef cattle that he could take care of on weekends. The milking parlour was both an escape and a prison in equal measure but farm life was never not lonely. He didn’t want to be lonely.

Seamus rustled the paper in his hand in an attempt to remove himself from inside his own head. He opened it to Page 3 and exhaled sharply. They were nice. He could hear the telly in the kitchen. His mother was obviously engrossed in some shite. He jumped up off the couch and headed for the bathroom, newspaper in hand.

************************

Seamus threw a third bucket of water on the aisle and ran it over with the brush again, making sure it was spotless. For a milking parlour that had seen 37 shits this evening, it was in surprisingly good shape. The cows could often sense a bit of added excitement or a change in schedule, and that caused them to shit a lot more often in the parlour. 

Seamus didn’t care. It was half six now and he was done with the milking, about an hour earlier than usual. He turned off the machine and ran out the door of the dairy and jumped on his bike to cycle back to the house. The tractor was parked in the front yard, manure spreader on the back from when he had shook a couple of bags of nitrogen earlier. 

A quick wash in the sink now and he’d cycle into the village for the match. You couldn’t be watching this one alone or worse, with just your mother. Seamus was picking the team in his head when he passed the dirty paddock and squeezed the brakes hard. 

This silly bitch. 

He glanced at his watch and looked on up the field. The old cow was a good hundred yards away. She looked fine from here. Her pins probably weren’t down, there was no visible slime around her tail, she was standing up eating grass. She was ready to go to be sure but she wasn’t going to calf between now and the end of the match. She probably knew how big a night it was. 

Seamus washed up in the sink, scrubbing his hands four or five times with the nail brush to try to get the smell of the ingrained cow shite out of the ridges in his hands. He soaped up his armpits and, after quick consideration, his balls too. He didn’t know what girls might be at the pub and he didn’t expect this to be the night of his first handjob, but you can never be too prepared. 

He brushed his teeth, shouted bye to his mam, and jumped on his bike. The village was just a short cycle away and he made it there shortly after 7 o’clock, leaving his bike around the back of the pub. No one was going to steal it because everyone knew everyone and, if he saw some prick cycling around a shit covered BMX in the next few days he’d know whose it was. 

The pub was already jammed but shockingly quiet. The telly in the corner was turned up full blast but was so small, only the ten or so people around it were able to see what was happening. Father Hoop was tinkering with a projector over by the far wall and seemed to be having some success. 

Mass would usually be at 8 o’clock on a Saturday evening but even the Catholic Church had sense enough to move it to 6 o’clock so people could be home or in the pub on time to watch the build up.

Seamus saw his friends in the corner had saved him a tiny stool so he headed over there and was soon deep in conversation about tactics, how they were going to keep this new fella Schillaci quiet tonight, and other such talking points he had read in the paper.

By the time the teams entered the stadium, the projector was beaming a perfect image on the back wall of the pub, and the telly had been hooked up to a couple of speakers that were booming sound, both inside and out. The crowd was substantial enough that there was an overflow outside and some of the late comers would need to be content with hearing the commentary and catching the odd glimpse through the door.

The Irish national anthem was sung with gusto in the pub and the first half hour of the match went by in a flash. Devastation reigned when Schillaci hit the back of the net to put the Italians one-nil up and all of a sudden it was half time. There was great belief around the pub that Ireland could still pull off a surprise goal.

“Is Mick the Ram not with you, Seamie?” Seamus recognized Jaws, their milkman. He didn’t know his real name but thought it was something fairly generic like Mark Kelly. Jaws was better.

“He’s off up North looking at springing heifers. You’ll see him in the mornin’.”

“Typical Mick the Ram,” Jaws chuckled. “You can tell him I’ll be a couple of hours late in the morning,” and he held up the three pints he was carrying by way of explanation.

The second half wore on and it felt at times like Ireland could pull off the unthinkable but with each wasted chance it felt more and more unlikely. When the referee blew the whistle to end the match, the pub was like a morgue. Seamus’ friends were talking about trying to get a bottle of something and go drinking behind the church but he was too deflated to join in. 

He said he needed to go home and check on a cow and that he might be back but he had no intention of returning. He exited the pub into what was still a perfectly bright evening, even though it was after 10 o’clock now. The sun was getting low in the sky and it would be dark in the next hour. When he got home, there was no car outside the door so he figured he better check the cow once more before his father came home.

He wasn’t ready for bed yet anyway. He cycled down as far as the dirty paddock and could see the cow was sitting down near the tree line at the far end of the field. Just my luck, he thought, the bitch is calving. He didn’t know what it was about that spot but there was usually a good chance if they were sitting over there that they were in active labour. 

Seamus hopped the gate and closed the distance between him and the cow, all the while trying to gauge how far along she was in the process. He couldn’t see any crubeens protruding from her arse but she did seem to be actively pushing. He knew nothing actually came out of the arse in this situation, it was just too weird to talk about a cow’s vagina so they always talked about anything in that area as the arse. 

She was definitely trying to get this calf out but the lack of any sign of hooves was worrying. Seamus pulled up his sleeve past his elbow and knelt in behind the cow. The family did not name their cows which Seamus was glad for, but it would also be useful at times like this to have something to say as he was about to get very intimate with the anatomy of this particular bovine. 

He pressed his five fingers together and pushed his fist inside the cow as far as the wrist. There he was met with a little resistance and probed with his fingers to understand better what the situation was. These were no crubeens and that was not a good sign. He felt a nose and the rest of the head as he ventured a little further in. 

The sun was descending now and it was getting chilly. The inside of the cow was always so warm that there was a shock when his hand came out and the warm slimy goop met the cold air and started to crust up. Seamus looked back towards the house. Still no car. This cow was in trouble and he had no idea how long she had been like this. 

She was fine when he was leaving for the match but his father wasn’t going to see it that way. He wasn’t known as Mick the Ram for no reason. They didn’t even have any sheep on the farm. At least Jimmy Bull down the road did breed and sell bulls. 

His father was just hard headed. He was going to assume Seamus neglected to check on this cow and that was why she was in difficulty. 

He traipsed back to the dairy for a bucket of warm water, Fairy liquid, the calving ropes, and overalls so that he wouldn’t ruin his good clothes. He would come back for the calving jack if he needed it later.

Back at the tree line, he decided it was going to be necessary soon anyway and shed all clothing from the top half of his body. He squirted Fairy liquid on his right arm up to his elbow and threw a handful of water on it. The lubrication would make things easier for all present. 

His fist entered the cow again and began to search. The head was definitely in the right position and wasn’t upside down or anything out of the ordinary. The only problem – and it was a big one – is that the crubeens didn’t precede it. When a cow is calving, the front feet come first with the head resting on top of that. Once the head is fully out, the rest of the calf usually follows very easily.

Seamus had dealt with big calves, with cows that just weren’t ready or able, calves coming slightly sideways, and he’d been present for a couple coming backwards, but always needed help with those ones. This was a new one to him. 

He felt around the entirety of the head. It was hard to tell but felt a little swollen to him. Venturing off to the right side, he finally felt something. That was surely a crubeen. He felt the little points of a hoof and continued up along to what he was certain was a leg. The whole thing was at an odd angle to the side of the head and pointing outward. He delved deeper, all the way to his elbow now and this didn’t seem that bad. 

He grabbed hold of the leg, pushing the calf back inside its mother a little to free the hoof from where it was pushing up against the cows hip and then pulled the entire leg in under the calf’s head. It didn’t line up perfectly but he knew it would once he found the other leg. 

He pulled his arm back out from inside the cow and the cold air hit it all at once. He washed his arm with the now lukewarm water which wasn’t much better but got rid of the crustiness. Lubing up his arm again, he guided it back inside the cow who seemed thoroughly unperturbed at this point. 

This time Seamus went searching along the left flank, assuming he would find a crubeen stuck in a similar position to what he just had. There was nothing there. He pulled back out to the forearm, finding the nose again and tracing along the calf’s head. He followed the neck down along the left side and to the shoulder. Things felt very wrong here and he drove his arm further now. He was inside this cow up to his shoulder with his head resting on her and he was mapping out the ultrasound in his own head. 

The calf’s left leg was folded in underneath its body. Seamus had never dealt with this before, with his father or without. With just one hoof accessible, he could try and pull but he suspected that, if he was able to get the calf out, it would almost certainly break her shoulder or damage the cow somehow. The calf was small enough that she was almost certainly a heifer so getting her out alive and unscathed was a priority. She was worth a lot more money than a bull.

He looked back at the house. Still no car. Why the fuck had he rushed off to the match without properly checking on the cow. If he had done what he was told, this wouldn’t be happening. 

But it was happening. Right now.

Should he call the vet? That was going to cost money and he was afraid to make that call and he didn’t know the number and what an awful night to call him into work anyway. No, this was happening now and he needed to make it work. He had seen his father twist and bend a calf to his will inside its mother before. There was no reason he couldn’t do that right now. 

Seamus took his arm out and lubed up both arms with the now cold water. This was going to be a struggle. This time he went in with both hands. The cow’s passage was loose and accepting at this point as she was fully ready and expecting to push a calf out. 

Using his right hand, Seamus tried to push the calf back into the womb while at the same time he went in all the way deep to the calf’s right leg and tried to find enough space to bring the leg forward. 

It was a long leg. 

The womb was finite and this was not advantageous to bending the leg how he needed. The further he pushed the calf back into the womb, the more room he had to play with but the womb was simply not big enough for what he was looking to do.  

The leg was jammed and Seamus needed to pull it towards him another few inches before it would be free again. Those inches were simply not there. He did everything he could, pushing the calf up towards the top of the womb to try to give a little more room to move the leg, pushing the calf back as far as possible into the womb. Nothing was working and he found himself getting more impatient.  

He began to exert more force now, and found there was a little more give. He wrapped his fist around the hoof and gave one last pull and the hoof came all the way with him. 

He had done it, he’d freed the leg and the calf was now in the correct position. 

Seamus pulled both arms out of the cow to take a well earned breather. His muscles ached and his forehead was beaded in sweat that was sticking to his head against the chill of the night. 

When we retracted his second arm, it was accompanied by a significant amount of blood. Not uncommon with dealing with the birth of a calf but an uncommon amount and it seemed to be pure blood. No mix of mucus or fluids or shit, just straight blood. This was not good. He needed to get this calf out immediately.

He took the ropes from the bucket and made a large loop in each, slipping them onto the calf’s front legs which were still inside the cow at this point. The ropes extended to the outside and he pulled until they were taut. The calf started to slide a little towards the opening. The cow had obviously been dealing with two muscly arms of a 14 year old somewhere between elbow and shoulder deep for the last 30 minutes so she was very much ready to pass a calf through her opening. 

She was breathing heavily.

Seamus relaxed a little on the ropes and waited for her to push, but her breathing was becoming a little more ragged and there was no push forthcoming. He pulled the ropes taut again and waited for any sign of effort from the cow. He pulled with all the strength he had left in him for the next four seconds that felt like an eternity and the calf’s nose and most of its head were now touching the fresh night air. He relaxed, letting the cow also relax and the calf slipped a little back inside. 

Nobody got much of a break as he pulled again, this was the toughest of all pulls as the widest part of the calf’s head needed to slide out next. Seamus pulled steadily but firmly, all the while judging whether this was the time it would happen or not. It was and the head slipped out relatively easily. Another 10 seconds of breathing before Seamus pulled tight on the ropes again and the entirety of the calf’s body slipped out as easily as a windy fart. 

The cow took in some sharp breaths but Seamus couldn’t relax. He moved to get the calf’s hind legs out from inside its mother, while ensuring the umbilical cord was still intact. There was a lot of blood coming from the cow and Seamus couldn’t tell if it was all part of the birthing process or if there was something wrong. He couldn’t worry about it now. The calf was his priority.

With the calf’s head in his lap, he started to shake it to loosen the mucus from its mouth. It didn’t appear to be breathing yet so he stuck his baby finger up her nose to try to force that first breath. Nothing was working so he took the calf by the front legs and dragged her around her mother, breaking the umbilical cord in the process, and presenting the calf to the mother who would hopefully lick her to life. 

Seamus took a couple of steps back, breathing heavily as he wiped his bloody hands on his overalls. He looked up to see if it was working. Not only was the calf still laying motionless but so too was the cow, her head resting on one side in the dried mud and her visible eye wide open looking up to the starry sky above. 

Seamus slapped her face. 

Nothing. 

She was dead. 

He started to cry which quickly morphed into an open sob. Desperate now, he moved back to the calf and tried frantically to save her life. 

“Come on, you bitch. Breathe. FUCKING BREATHE!”

When a finger in the nose still didn’t work, he took her by the hind legs, lifting her high into the air and swinging her back and forth.

This is how his father found him.

Mick the Ram wordlessly took the calf’s hind legs and pushed his son forcefully out of the way with his own body. He lay the calf down on the ground and moved to inspect the cow, first her head and then her hind quarters.

“What the fuck happened here?” he finally asked gruffly, as Seamus sat in a ball sobbing his eyes out. He couldn’t answer, only cry harder.

“Hey,” his father asked sharply, “what did you do?”

Seamus tried to compose himself through the tears and told his father everything. He told him how he checked her after the milking and she was fine and how he went to the pub to watch the match and how he checked her straight away when he came back and he’d only been gone two hours but he’d obviously fucked up because the calf was coming wrong and he wanted to fix his fuck up and he managed to fuck everything to the point where it now – beyond fucked.

His father listened in silence save for his heavy, measured breathing that was barely masking the anger inside the man at that moment. Seamus fully expected that he was going to hit him. He probably deserved it. It was madness going to watch the match when there was a cow due to calf. They didn’t even have a chance of winning. He deserved whatever he got here, on top of the guilt of killing a cow and her unborn calf.

When Seamus finished his story, the heavy breathing continued for what felt like several minutes before he heard movement. He braced himself but instead his father knelt beside him and removed the ropes from the calf’s leg and threw them in the bucket of water. 

“C’mon,” he beckoned. “They’re already dead, there’s not much more we can do here tonight.”

************************

Half an hour later, Seamus had showered and changed and was sitting on his bed, alternating between crying and berating himself for how stupid he had been.

The door to his room creaked open and he could see his father’s lanky silhouette in the light from the hallway. It struck him how tall his father looked now, like a stick figure he would have drawn at the kitchen table while he was still in National School. Seamus, who was just coming to the end of a cycle of crying, dabbed at his stinging red eyes with his damp sleeve.

“That calf was dead before you even finished the milkin’, I reckon. You had no chance of savin’ it.”

Seamus sniffed and steadied his breathing. “I still killed the cow though.”

Mick the Ram moved softly into the room and sat at the end of his bed.

“That’s true alright, you did kill the cow, but she was old and should never have been in calf in the first place. If Lynch’s bull hadn’t got at her, she’d have been fattened up and on her way to the factory around now. If anything, I should go and murder Lynch’s bull in retribution.”

Seamus let out a laugh then, one of those really ugly ones when you’ve been crying where his face became subsumed by a ball of mucus and caused him to laugh even more. His father cracked a smile.

“It could be worse, I suppose,” said Seamus, for the sake of something to say.

“It couldn’t really,” countered his father, himself almost laughing now. “A dead cow and a dead heifer calf is about as bad as it can get in this scenario. Tomorrow morning, Jaws will pick up the milk, we’re going to have to bring the tractor up the dirty paddock and drive them down to the gate and write a big check to Burnhouse to take them away.”

Seamus had composed himself enough to be able to look his father in the eyes now, albeit with body language that reeked of shame and guilt.

“Do you think I’ve ever done anything like this?”

“I doubt it,” the guilt already beginning to rise up again in Seamus, his eyes welling up unbidden.

“Cold winter morning and there’d been a right, dirty frost the night before. One of the heifers had sat herself at the base of the dung heap. I went to check on them in the morning and she was calving but she was frozen solid to the dung heap.” His father stopped long enough to suck his teeth. He was clearly starting to relive the memory.

“She had a big bastard of a calf in there and she was already weak from pushing and under serious stress from trying to free herself from the dung heap. There was no way she could push this calf but I’d be fucked if I didn’t try anyway. I forced him out as fast as I could. Tore her half to pieces. The calf came out dead and the heifer never recovered when we did get her unstuck. She died a week later.”

“That… that doesn’t sound like it was your fault?”

“It was or it wasn’t. Doesn’t matter now. What age do you think I was when that happened?”

“I’m sure you’re going to say you were fourteen, just like I am now?”

“I was 47 years old. That was the first calf I’d ever pulled on my own.”

They both sat with that for what felt like several minutes until Mick spoke again.

“There was no good outcome here, a mhacin. We’d have needed to get the vet to get the calf out. C-sections are expensive and hard on the cow, especially an old one like her, she might not have survived it – and we’d still likely have no calf to show for it at the end. Once the Burnhouse lorry rolls up the road tomorrow with them in the back, we’re going to take a breath and forget about this one.”

Seamus nodded, trying his best not to set off the waterworks again. Minutes passed in silence.

“Why do they call you Mick the Ram?”

“Because I’m a thick cunt,” his father smiled, without moving his mouth.

Seamus laughed.

“How was the auction?”

“Never mind that, what about that bollocks Schillaci?”