Friday morning in Greeley is known as “blood boil day.”
Thursday night, the cattle roll in – wide-eyed, fate-sealed, stacked in semi-truck trailers waiting to be unzipped and gutted by the gods of industry. No good blood pools in rivers. They put it in a pot and raise the heat. They torch it, vaporize the evidence, and fumes rise. a hellish stench seeps into every pore of the town.
Welcome to the Greeley, where the air reeks of death every Friday.
Thursday night, I’m driving through Greeley on O Street, heading to my grandparents’ house. There’s an event in the morning that needs preparing. The road is a barricade of semi-trucks – diesel-draining beasts, each one stuffed to the brim with cattle.
One by one, the trucks peel off into the meat plant’s gate: the final destination for their souls.
I’m not a vegan by any means; hell, I love a cheeseburger, but the whole ritual baffles me. It’s an industrialized bloodletting that keeps the wheels of modern society greased and spinning.
Greeley is a Cow Town. It holds this title like a badge of honor.
Oceans of farmland, livestock everywhere, and a persistent stench of manure hanging in the air like a bad joke. I’m not here to trash Greeley. I grew up on the stagnant southwest edge, where the city meets with endless fields and Highway 34.
Even there, the aroma of burning blood from the meat plant would creep in.
Most people in that town are used to the routine. If you decide to make your trip to Greeley on Blood Boil Day, you’ll understand the term “Cow Town.”
But that’s all background noise. The next morning, I grab my coat, my keys, and trudge to UNC for the “Future Educators of America” event.
What future is that, exactly? The day before, I passed a cluster of protesters armed with cardboard signs, shouting in rhythmic chants, their numbers gaining by the hour.
I didn’t see fear in the protesters’ eyes – I saw hope, I saw power, I saw ambition. They’re fighting to stay out of the cattle cars, refusing to become more bodies for the grinder.
At UNC, we ask: Is this the future we want? The leaders of our children’s fate were in attendance. Fighting for justice, others are just smelling the blood boiling.
The event was on, and it was going fast.
I was bored by lunch and left right after. I escaped to my car, and I was on the road.
Greeley is a known red city. propaganda hangs around every corner. On the edge of town, a banner is posted on a parked, lonesome trailer.
“Justice for Charlie Kirk,” his smirk plastered beside an American flag, asking a question to all who enter: What is American?
Is it stolen culture, colonization, racism, segregation, sexism, and homophobia mixed in for good measure? Or is it the endless, ragged brawl for freedom?
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” – Emma Lazarus.
Back in Loveland, I collapse onto my bed as my phone buzzes. My friend Kai texts me to remind me of tomorrow’s jam session. I’d almost blanked on it.
Now I’m scrambling to turn my basement into a makeshift studio – frantically untangling cords, searching for amp plugs, mentally preparing for the chaos.
Kai has recruited a new bassist and a singer. I had never heard either of the two play. The band, without a name, a genre, or even a single song to call our own.
I set a time, and the band carpools in pairs. The bassist and singer rolled up half an hour late. We scribble lyrics on crumpled notebook paper to pass the time. The guitarists finally make their way in, two hours behind schedule. By then, we’ve already got the skeleton of a song.
The bassist plays a makeshift melody that forms in real time. I work in a basic punk rhythm, and then BANG, the vocals crack open the room.
With our bold start, we jam, we improvise, every pause birthing new ideas in the basement bunker.
Near the end, a clumsy smash on the tom slices my finger, and blood stains my drumsticks.
As I looked at my finger, I remember the stench of blood boiling, the helpless cattle in trucks, and the army of protesters armed to the teeth with their cardboard weaponry, and I think to myself – Am I part of it?
