XERXES

What’s your name?

DANNY

Xerxes.

XERXES

Mine’s Danny.

DANNY

Sometimes I go outside and kill one of the cows.

I just go outside and leaned up against the house is a rake, a pitchfork and a shovel. And I take one of ‘em and I go out back and kill one of the cows.

Usually I don’t use the rake.

XERXES

I hate cows.

DANNY

I don’t hate cows.

But I do kill ‘em.

XERXES

My father sits in his easy chair all evening after he gets home from work. He works all day, then he watches the news, then mom has dinner ready. And he eats it, then he watches Designing Women or something. Then on weekends he gets to sit all day and he gets to eat twice.

He reminds me of a cow.

If cows had television, they’d wear the same kind of reading glasses as my father.

DANNY

I saw a cow with reading glasses once.

XERXES

Out in the pasture?

DANNY

Yeah.

It looked like your father.

XERXES

I hate cows.

GEORGE

Was this in Iowa?

BOYD

Nooo. I’m from Georgia.

GEORGE

I didn’t know they had cows in Georgia.

BOYD

Oh yeah. Cows and Artichokes.

GEORGE

Hmm. So we’re talkin’ Georgia cows?

BOYD

Yep. Georgia cows, you hit ‘em with a shovel, they don’t die.

GEORGE

No? Yer kiddin’ me.

BOYD

Nope. They move to the suburbs. Then when they get enough money saved up, they move down to Miami.

GEORGE

I hope I’m never a cow.

BOYD

I hate cows.

GEORGE

Chewin’–

BOYD

All the time.

GEORGE

I hate cows.

BOYD

What’s that called?

GEORGE

What?

BOYD

That stuff.

GEORGE

Oh, cud.

BOYD

Cud.

GEORGE

It’s like TV Guide, but it’s cud.

BOYD

I could never put that stuff in my mouth.

GEORGE

Well, you get old...

BOYD

Yeah, I know.

XERXES

You know what we used to do?

DANNY

With cows?

XERXES

We used to, if there was one that took too long crossin’ the road, we’d hit it with a pickup. But the trick is, you gotta get goin’ really fast, ‘cause if you’re not going fast enough, you hit the cow, it destroys your engine. But if you can get going more than ninety miles an hour–

DANNY

Which is hard, on a gravel road.

XERXES

You know it.

But if you can get goin’ that fast, you hit the cow and there’s this popping sound and the cow splits right in two.

DANNY

You’re kiddin’! Two pieces?

XERXES

Two pieces.

DANNY

And it’s still alive?

XERXES

Oh yeah. Back half gives milk.