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Advance Praise

“Jerry’s Vegan Women takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions, from laughter and excitement to disdain and heartbreak for what might have been. It’s an irreverent and fun look at the intersection of dietary and relationship ethics. You won’t want to put it down.”

— Paul Shapiro, Vice President of Farm Animal Protection, The Humane Society of the United States

“Jerry’s Vegan Women is an absorbing collection of stories about a thoughtful guy whose life is changed through his relationships with vegan women. Through Shaberman’s storytelling, the reader empathizes with Jerry and his compassion for our planet’s amazing animal kingdom.”

— Carole Hamlin, Board Member, Vegetarian Resource Group

“You don’t have to be hardcore vegan to enjoy and appreciate the engaging — and often insightful — stories of Ben Shaberman. He writes with flair, humor, and compassion about characters, relationships, and situations that have a universal appeal, even to the steak-and-potatoes reader.”

— Roland Goity, Editor, WIPs: Works (of Fiction) in Progress Literary Journal

“The most engaging aspect of Ben Shaberman’s writing is his distinctive voice. Typically lighthearted, often amusing, Ben’s voice grabs you by the hand and pulls you along for an entertaining ride.”

— Tiffany Hauck, Editor, Split Infinitive Literary Journal

Jerry’s

Vegan Women

Ben Shaberman

Apprentice House

Loyola University Maryland

Baltimore, Maryland

Copyright © 2015 by Ben Shaberman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).

First Edition

Printed in the United States of America

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-079-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62720-080-6

Design: Sara Killough & Kelley Murphy

Cover Art: Maria Gruzynski

Cover Model: Amanda Jones

Published by Apprentice House

Apprentice House

Loyola University Maryland

4501 N. Charles Street

Baltimore, MD 21210

410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)

www.ApprenticeHouse.com info@ApprenticeHouse.com

For Happy, Chutzpah, and Olive

Contents

Gail 1

Sarah 9

Suzy 23

Missy 35

Mandi 49

Betty 53

Karen 61

Francesca 69

Joanie 83

Josie 105

About the Author 125

Acknowledgements 127

Gail

“Jerome, Jerome, Jerome,” Gail pleaded. “You have to challenge him to a rematch. You just lost your queen too early. It was a stupid mistake. Otherwise, you would have beaten him again. I know it!”

“I dunno,” Jerry replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Mr. Feldman said I didn’t have a chance, if the room was quiet. And it was. You were there. It’s not like indoor recess where he’s shouting at someone every two minutes to stop horsing around.”

“You gotta go for two out of three. Even if you lose, you’re eleven! But if you win — that would be so cool. Beating the teacher!”

“Maybe, I dunno. He really smeared me. Like, in five moves.”

Gail shook her head, got up from the barstool, and walked over to the jukebox to play her proverbial “Rockin’ Robin,” “Joy to the World,” and “Let It Be.” That was her ritual every time she came to Irv’s Sandwich Shop. If she happened to have an extra quarter on a given day, she’d play the medley a second time. If someone else’s songs had queued up ahead of hers, she’d anxiously watch the jukebox when one of their tunes was ending, trying to will one of hers to play next.

Gail and Jerry had been classmates for the last three years, but it wasn’t until the sixth grade that they began to bond. Maybe it was their budding hormones. Maybe it was because they were the only two kids in Mr. Feldman’s class who were selected to tutor kids in the lower grades. Or maybe it was because they began to run into each other at Irv’s after school and both loved to devour heaping plates of crinkle-cut French fries smothered in salt and ketchup.

For Jerry in particular, the scales began to tip when she started calling him Jerome. Until she came along, he couldn’t stand his formal name. Everyone, including his teachers, knew not to call him Jerome, because if they did, he’d lash out. But coming from Gail, it was an expression of affection, and despite his adolescent self-absorption and indifference, he picked up on it.

Their relationship was never consummated physically — they never exchanged even a single kiss nor did they ever talk about going steady — but that might have been why it endured throughout the entire sixth grade.

Gail was a loyal friend to Jerry. She could often be found on the sidelines of his pick-up football games during recess. When he stayed home from school because of one of his many his asthma attacks, she made sure he was brought up to date the next day on whatever lessons he missed. And she witnessed those two agonizing chess games with Mr. Feldman, when Jerry went from feeling like the next Bobby Fischer after his victory in game one to giving up chess entirely after getting creamed in the rematch. Gail didn’t cling. She was just present and supportive.

Her parents were both from Italy, which gave her classically Italian features — olive skin, dark auburn hair that ran nearly to her waist, brown eyes, and a welcoming, radiant smile. She was a small girl, and hadn’t started filling out the way many girls begin to do at eleven.

Gail had a soft spot for underdogs, especially other students who weren’t popular or successful. On Friday mornings, Mr. Feldman led the class in a game he called Academic Challenge in which the students were separated into teams to answer questions about history, sports, current events, music, and other assorted topics. He selected five captains, usually the smartest kids like Gail and Jerry, who in turn picked the members of their teams. As in any pickup game, most captains chose the best players first, and those selected last were embarrassed and demoralized. It was the Darwinian reality of being a kid. But unlike Jerry and the other captains, and to the disbelief of everyone in the class, even Mr. Feldman, Gail always picked the underachievers and misfits first. Kids like Kevin Feifer, who often dressed in fatigues and was obsessed with all things military. He was a poor student and never had much to say about anything; he just sat in the back of the classroom picking his nose and making occasional exploding noises. So, unsurprisingly, Gail’s team never won Academic Challenge. For her, the victory was the team itself.

When Gail retuned from the jukebox, the waitress brought out fries and Cokes, and she and Jerry began to munch away and watch life at Irv’s proceed the way it usually did on a weekday afternoon. They sat among chain-smoking construction workers, retired Jewish men reading newspapers, and a black mechanic from the garage next door who prefaced everything he said to the waitress with “Hey, baby”: “Hey, baby, how bout warmin’ up my coffee? Hey baby, I’ll take it black with a little sugar, just like you. Hey, baby, ain’t I see you on the cover of Ebony?”

While groups of other kids came to the diner after school, they congregated in booths in the back. But Jerry and Gail liked hanging out at the bar up where the action was, where they could watch the cook in his dingy white hat and apron grilling burgers and cheese sandwiches, making quips about the Vietnam War and the president. “They don’t call him Tricky Dick for nothin’,” he’d say to the customers while he worked the grill and deep fryer. “Old Tricky, heh, heh.”

Jerry and Gail weren’t quite ready to grow up, but they did like their excursions into the adult world where important things seemed to be happening. There had been several fights and race-related bomb threats at the high school in nearby Cleveland Heights, and every nightly TV newscast featured dramatic footage from the war — helicopter rescues with gravely wounded soldiers being taken away on stretchers. At the elementary school, the undercurrent of unrest wasn’t being addressed in the classroom. And for the most part, the diverse population of kids — black, white, Jewish, Christian — got along. But outside the school, the adult world was uneasy with itself.

After Jerry polished off his last French fry, he reached down into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill and three quarters. He turned to Gail and said, “Man, I’m still hungry. How bout splittin’ a cheeseburger with me? We can celebrate the end of my chess career.”

“Can’t do it,” she replied. “Didn’t I tell you? I don’t eat meat anymore. I just can’t. No way.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Jerry asked in surprise, thinking that she must have developed some type of allergy.

“Huh. I guess I didn’t tell you. Here’s the deal. Last Saturday, my Girl Scout troop went to Sunny Acres Farm. We saw the whole place. Pigs, sheep, cows, chickens. We actually got to milk the cows, which was a little creepy…Anyway…”

As if receiving a cue from some omniscient disc jockey, Gail stopped, looked over at the jukebox, and began bopping around on the barstool, as young Michael Jackson crooned “Tweedily deedily dee, tweedily deedily dee” above the chatter of customers and clanking of dishes.

Jerry let her go on for a few seconds, but then let out a big sigh to prompt her to return to her story. Gail obediently continued, “Anyway, we got to pet one of the cows, her name was Josie, and while I wasn’t looking, she licked me on the neck. At first, it freaked me out. Her tongue was huge! Everyone laughed. But this big cow was so gentle. Like somebody’s dog, but with big eyes and a humungous nose. I just stared at her and she stared back. Then I stuck my hand out to pet her and she licked me again. I dunno. It was just so cool.”

Gail stopped to take a sip of her Coke. Jerry looked back at the grill, and then at the waitress, who was writing up a check while talking to one of the old Jewish guys. Jerry was ready for that burger. Maybe he’d ask for two slices of cheese on it.

“Anyway, before we left, Lizzie Davis asked the farmer if the animals on the farm were going to be killed for food. He said yes, eventually, and then she asked him how they were killed, and he said something about slitting their throats and carving them up, and, I dunno. It really freaked me out. I just couldn’t believe they could murder that cow. She was so beautiful.”

“Murder?” Jerry asked, looking at her increduously.

“Murdered, killed, whatever, Jerry!” Gail snapped back. “They are going to slit that poor animal’s throat and then chop her up. Geez, Jerome!”

“Yeah, I guess they gotta do that to make steaks and burgers. But how can you stop eating meat? That’s crazy. Do your parents know?”

“Don’t get me started on them. My dad is not happy, but I just got my report card — straight As, of course — so my mom told him to back off. But she doesn’t know what to cook for me. So she’s upset about that.”

Jerry flagged down the waitress, ordered the cheeseburger and watched with anticipation as the cook flipped it over, back and forth, pressing it down with the spatula to make it sizzle on the grill. Just before the burger was done, he slapped on the slices of American cheese and covered it with a pot lid to make the cheese melt.

When the burger arrived, Jerry dug in. He didn’t think twice about eating the juicy concoction in front of Gail. Who doesn’t eat meat? He figured she was just going off on another one of her wacky tangents.

And Gail didn’t say anything as Jerry ate. In fact, she looked on with a little envy. The burger did look delicious, ketchup spilling over the sides as he bit into it. Gail wondered if she could really pull off this new, radical commitment. No meat for the rest of her life? At that moment, she felt like she had dug a major hole for herself. Maybe she had gone too far. But there were few people on the planet with the will and determination of Gail Antonizzi. While this was a pivotal moment in her young life, she would later take on challenges that would ask much more of her than giving up meat. But for any eleven-year old, this huge dietary change was a big deal.

Within a few weeks, she gave up chicken and pork. For a while, she continued to eat the two-piece platter from Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips — the only fish she ever liked — but then the local franchise went out of business. So by the time summer rolled around, she was a bona fide vegetarian.

As Jerry and Gail left the diner and turned up Taylor Road, they noticed an unusual figure off in the distance — a kid dressed in what looked like a dark green uniform — walking toward them. They soon realized it was Kevin Feifer. He had gone full tilt; his Army getup that afternoon included a helmet, boots, and a belt loaded with unidentifiable gadgets. Never before had he looked so officially military. While everyone was used to seeing him wearing Army pants, t-shirts, and caps, never before had he looked so much like a real solider ready for action. It was as if he was waiting for a helicopter to pick him up and drop him into enemy territory.

Gail and Jerry were spooked. Was he loaded up with guns and ammo? Everyone wondered if Feifer might snap someday. Maybe today was the day.

When Feifer got about a block away, he stuck his thumb up his nose, fished around inside for a few seconds, pulled out a booger, examined it momentarily, and flung it onto the windshield of a red Plymouth Valiant parked on the street. Mission accomplished.

Gail looked quizzically at Jerry, who was summoning all his willpower not to break into laughter. He looked away from her to maintain his composure. The Booger Incident, as it would be infamously known, completely diffused the tension. But they had had little to worry about anyway. Little did they know, they were actually two of Feifer’s favorite classmates. Unlike virtually all the other kids, Gail befriended him. And unlike the many other kids who were unrelentingly cruel, Jerry treated him with indifference. For Feifer, neutrality made you an ally.

For Feifer, this appeared to be just another ordinary day — another day to play soldier. As he approached the pair, he raised his palm up as if swearing on the Bible, forced a smiled, and said, “Howdy folks,” with the accent of the guy who runs the general store in Western movies. They both waved back. Gail said, “Hey Kev,” and everyone continued on their way.

The next day, Jerry’s father, a salesman for three top women’s clothing lines, announced that he had gotten a more lucrative territory in Southeast Florida, and that when school ended next month, the family would be moving there. “Better money, better weather,” he said. “Hell, Jerry, you can go fishing every day if you want.”

For Jerry, there wasn’t much anticipation for the move. Obviously, he’d be leaving his friends and the neighborhood, but he hadn’t imagined how difficult starting over might be. It really didn’t hit him that his life was being turned upside down until the family started packing up boxes, and the long blue and white moving truck pulled up in their driveway. Suddenly, the house was empty, and the family was heading south on the freeway through the rolling hills and farmland of Ohio.

School had ended that year much like it always had with the students getting more and more out of control during the last two weeks. And while the sixth graders would be starting junior high next school year, they weren’t thinking that far ahead — not with little league baseball, overnight camp, and afternoons at the community swimming pool in their immediate future.

Jerry never said much to anyone about the impending move. He didn’t mention it to Gail until a few days before classes ended. It didn’t give either of them much time to think about it. Except for their ventures to Irv’s, they were just school buddies, so they hadn’t planned to see each other over the summer anyway. There was no dramatic goodbye. During their last conversation, Gail said that Arthur Treacher’s had closed, and given that Irv’s was nowhere near the junior high, she didn’t know where she’d go after school. Jerry realized that that information didn’t matter to him anymore. Wherever Gail decided to go, it wouldn’t be with him.

Sarah

The first time Jerry saw Sarah, he was futzing with his walkie talkie while standing under the window at the end of the fourth-floor hallway of the freshmen women’s dorm. Her room and Rosie’s were also at the end of the hall, directly across from each other. He had met Rosie just two weeks earlier at the freshmen orientation party, and she had oriented him well. He lost his virginity to her less than two hours after asking her to share a joint with him in back of the Student Union. As luck would have it, Rosie lived smack dab in the middle of his patrol area. The radio reception wasn’t good in her room, so while he was on duty, he had to hang out in the hall where the signal was strong.

Being a student marshal was already the perfect part-time job for a freshman — all he had to do was wear a yellow vest and call in suspicious activity, mainly students who’d passed out from excessive drinking — but patrolling a women’s dorm, especially the one where his new girlfriend lived, made it sublime. In his dorm, he was known as Sergeant Sensimilla, because of the irony that he had a campus security job, but with a bushy head of hair and scraggily beard, looked like the consummate stoner. He also quickly gained notoriety on his hall for making a connection to a local pot dealer, a guy he’d met in a small jazz club a few blocks outside of the French Quarter.

When Jerry saw Sarah, she had just come out of her room wearing nothing but a large white t-shirt that fell just above her knees. She was startled and embarrassed to see Jerry just standing there, so she hurried to the bathroom. About halfway down the hall, she turned and glanced back to see him mesmerized by her jiggling breasts and rear end. Sarah was petite, and not as generously proportioned as Rosie, but with no bra and panties on, it didn’t matter. There was plenty for Jerry to admire. She looked part Asian, perhaps half Chinese or Japanese, with long, dark brown hair, a small turned-up nose, and tiny feet.

A few seconds after she disappeared into the bathroom, Rosie came out with partially burnt pizza bagels. “Sorry, I keep fucking these up,” she said. “I’m still figuring out the toaster oven.”

“It’s cool,” he said. “I am so hungry. I kinda like’m crunchy anyway.” But he cringed as he bit into it, the hot cheese having singed the roof of his mouth.

Before they finished the bagels, Sarah came out of the lavatory and scooted back to her room. Jerry tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help but catch another glimpse of the scantily clad girl. Rosie acknowledged Sarah with a quick smile. After she shut the door, Jerry asked in a low voice, “Who was that?”

“Oh, that’s Sarah,” Rosie replied quietly, rolling her eyes, twirling her finger in a circular motion near her head in demonstration of the universal sign for “crazy.” “She brought two cats from home. Can you believe that? And in the freshmen handbook, she listed vegan as her hobby. Weird.”

Jerry nodded as he ate the bagel. She might be wacky — though he wasn’t sure what a vegan was, some kind of witch? — but she looked quite delectable in nothing but a t-shirt.

Jerry’s first two weeks at Tulane had been pure hedonism. Daily pot smoking. Daily sex. Daily deliveries of pizza and po boys to his room. And, he was getting paid to hang out in the residence of young women who were away from home for the first time and eager to sow their sexual oats.

His only mistake was committing to Rosie so quickly. He should have played the field. Gone to more parties. Slept around. Experimented, whatever that might have entailed. The first case of AIDS in the U.S. would not be reported for another two years, so the risks of promiscuity were still manageable.

But alas, Jerry was already operating like a married man, spending most of his nights with Rosie, a free spirit from old Jewish money in Connecticut. With far more sexual experience than most freshmen girls, she didn’t have the need to lose or prove anything. The fraternity party circuit didn’t interest her at all; she had Jerry and his reefer and that was basically all she needed.

Though Rosie did find Sarah a bit strange at first, over time, they became friends, because they lived so close to each other, and Sarah didn’t socialize much with other girls on the hall. Being around the dorm so much, Jerry inevitably became part of their little clique.

On the weekends, the three occasionally took the streetcar down to the French Quarter for some beignets and coffee at Café du Monde or uptown to the Camellia Grill for their famously humungous omelets. But usually, they hung at The Boot, a divey bar and grill just off campus. Rosie and Sarah would watch Jerry play pool. He often controlled the table for an hour or two, not only because he could shoot well, but also, unlike most of his competition, he wasn’t drunk.

Sarah mystified Jerry and Rosie. She didn’t smoke. She didn’t drink. She didn’t eat meat. She ordered her Boot Burgers without the burger, but with extra tomato and pickles. She was often quiet in public, but sometimes got testy. One time when she was ordering, the bartender thought he misheard her. “You want a burger without the meat?” he asked in disbelief. “I don’t eat animals, asshole!” she yelled back. “Gotta problem with that?”

Many men found Sarah attractive — she had an exotic, Protestant-Asian kind of look — but she always got irritated when they flirted with her. It only took a few minutes of conversation with them before she looked disdainful, as if she had eaten a rotten piece of fruit. Jerry and Rosie figured she was just prude.

But she did need someone to confide in, and Rosie was her confidant of choice. A French-Spanish double major, Sarah studied hard and earned excellent grades, but didn’t take pressure well, which made Rosie’s friendship and support important to her. Rosie complimented Sarah frequently and effusively on her academic performance, though it never seemed to sink in. Rosie concluded that Sarah found comfort in her unhappiness. “I don’t think she knows any other way to be,” she told Jerry. “She needs to be complaining or depressed about something.”

After a few months, Rosie and Jerry had developed their own problems; they barely eked out C averages for the first semester, and their grades went downhill from there. Like many of the freshmen who chose Tulane for its reputation as a party school, they lacked the discipline to do the necessary work to succeed. By March, they both knew that returning to Tulane next year was not in the cards, but their future was uncertain. Would they live together in Cleveland or Connecticut? They both wanted to resurrect their academic careers, but how could they afford to do so? There’d be no support from their parents after their miserable grades. Could they make it financially if they both worked and went to school? Maybe they should both go home to their families, work, save some money, and then reunite in another year. As much as they discussed the options, they had no clear path forward, and the uncertainty of their future put a strain on their relationship. And most significantly for Jerry, the novelty of having sex whenever he wanted was wearing off. He desired someone different — someone black, skinny, chubby, or whatever. He wanted variation. He wanted to explore. But having put on twenty pounds, he didn’t have the same confidence in himself he had when he first arrived on campus. And who would want to go out with a guy who was flunking out?

••••

Early on Easter Sunday morning, Sarah came to Rosie’s room in tears. Francisco, one of her cats, was seriously ill. “He stopped eating and peeing last night,” Sarah said to Rosie while wiping her eyes. “Then he began howling this morning. I need to get him to an animal hospital quickly. This kind of thing is serious. I think his urethra is blocked.” Sarah was often in a crisis mode, especially when it came to school work, but never had she been this upset.

“I know where a twenty-four seven animal hospital is,” Jerry said, sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. “It’s right by the liquor store the guys on my hall go to. Maybe a fifteen-minute walk from campus. Get the cat and I’ll meet you in the lobby and we’ll go.”

“OK. I’ll put him in the carrier and meet you downstairs,” Sarah said. “I really appreciate it, Jerry. Really.”

After Sarah left, he jumped out of bed, put on his jeans and t-shirt, and began brushing his teeth at the sink. “It’s about time I did something productive,” he said with a mouthful of toothpaste foam. “I’ve been with security for the whole damn year, and except for calling in a few plastered frat boys, I haven’t done a damn thing.”

When Jerry reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Sarah in the lobby holding the carrier, he realized he had forgotten his cigarettes. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself, but decided not to go back to get them. There was no time to waste.

Jerry and Sarah stepped out of the dorm just as the sun rose. The campus was desolate, because most of the students were on spring break. The morning was cool and cloudless, unusual weather for New Orleans in early April. Sarah handed him the cat carrier. To Jerry, Francisco’s howls sounded horrific, but Sarah said that he always got upset when transported in the carrier, so it might not be as bad as it sounded. But then again she wasn’t sure.

Walking as fast as they could toward the pet hospital, they didn’t say much to each other — focusing rather on the task at hand. Jerry felt a sense of responsibility and purpose he hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. For the first time, he was trying to save a life. He didn’t want this cat dying on his watch. He tried his best to keep the carrier as steady as possible, to keep Francisco comfortable.

During their mile journey, they saw virtually no one as they passed through two neighborhoods — the first of mansions and spacious, finely manicured lawns, and the other of shacks made of loose and peeling wood boards. Whenever he went through these sections of town, he felt like he was in some third-world country. The juxtaposition of wealth and poverty unsettled him. How could these communities exist right next to each other? This wasn’t middle-class Cleveland suburbia.

As Jerry had hoped, the animal hospital was empty, so a vet tech, a young, blonde woman in green scrubs, took Francisco right away. Sarah went back with them while Jerry sat in the waiting area. The hospital looked like a typical doctor’s office, its walls painted light blue with a few requisite photos of its canine and feline patients. It smelled like it had just been cleaned, which relieved Jerry, because he didn’t have his inhaler. All that dog and cat dander could trigger his asthma and end up sending him to the human ER. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Jerry was surprised how concerned and anxious he felt about the cat and Sarah. He wanted Francisco to be ok, not only for the cat’s sake, but for Sarah’s, as well. She loved her two short-haired black cats; they were like her children. Jerry had only seen them a couple of times through her open door. To him, they looked like two little panthers, prowling the dorm room. And even though Jerry’s transportation of Francisco had been the most interaction he’d had with either one of the cats, he was becoming attached to them.

When Sarah first met Jerry and Rosie, she told them how a few years earlier her family had taken in a stray female cat, which turned out to be pregnant, and Francisco and Gino were from that litter. They became Sarah’s, and she couldn’t stand to be separated from them, even for a few hours in the evening. Jerry suspected that the dorm’s resident advisor knew Sarah had cats, which was a major violation of the student housing code, but let it go knowing that Sarah would likely have a conniption without them.

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, Sarah walked out of the examining room by herself. She was sniffling, her eyes red and swollen. She looked overwhelmed. Jerry got up out his chair and walked toward her, but she couldn’t make eye contact with him. “The vet said they were going to try a procedure to unblock his urethra and give him antibiotics. He said there were no guarantees, but he was hopeful. He said it was a good thing we got him in here as quickly as we did.”

“Well, I guess overall that’s good news,” Jerry said as he put his hand on her arm. A few seconds later, Sarah broke down. Jerry hugged her as she sobbed on his shoulder. “He’ll be ok, he’ll be ok,” he said, trying to be reassuring. Then he walked over to the check-in desk and pulled a few tissues from a dispenser and handed them to her. As she wiped her eyes, the vet tech came out and told them that the doctor suggested they go home and relax, that he’d call in a few hours with an update. “He’s in good hands,” the young woman said confidently.

As they walked back to campus, the city came to life. They passed several black families heading to church. The women wore funky, broad-rimmed hats topped with arrangements of feathers and flowers. The children were in suits and dresses of yellow, pink, lavender, and powder blue, which shone brightly in the morning sun. Some of the little girls carried straw baskets filled with bunnies and painted eggs in artificial grass. For Jerry, it was surreal to see people so beautiful and well-dressed living in such impoverished conditions. Back in Cleveland Heights, the faithful were Orthodox Jews who uniformly wore heavy black attire — the men and boys with fedoras and yarmulkes on their heads — when they walked to Friday night and Saturday morning Sabbath services.

“So do you celebrate Easter like that back home?” Jerry asked Sarah, trying to make light conversation to take her mind off of Francisco.

“Not really,” Sarah answered with a quick half-smile. “My mom comes from a Buddhist family, and my dad, well, he doesn’t practice anything. Well, except golf.”

Jerry chuckled. “So are you headed back to San Francisco after the semester ends?”

“Yeah. And I’m not coming back to Tulane next year. In case you couldn’t tell, I hate it here. I may just stay near home next year or at least on the West Coast.”

“Well, your grades are good, so you should be able to transfer pretty easily.”

“I guess.”

“In case you didn’t know, Rosie and I aren’t staying here either. Even if we wanted to, we can’t, because our GPAs are so shitty. We’d need to go to summer school full time to have a chance of returning, and, well, that ain’t happening.”

“Sorry,” Sarah said, turning to Jerry.

“Well, we just really fucked up. That’s all there is to it.”

Jerry was hesitant to talk further about his future with Rosie, namely because he wasn’t sure what Rosie had already said to her. He also didn’t know what Rosie was really thinking about their future.

Two days later, Jerry and Sarah went back to the animal hospital to pick up Francisco. He was doing well; the swelling in his urethra was gone and he was urinating and eating normally again. And though he was still on antibiotics, they were just a prophylactic measure — the doctor didn’t think there had been an infection. He howled as Jerry lugged him in the carrying case back to campus. Sarah kept reassuring Jerry that he was fine. She was touched by his concern, smiling when he commented about it.

When they arrived back at the dorm, Jerry hung out in Sarah’s room for a few minutes to see for himself how Francisco was faring. The cat scampered out of the carrier as soon as Sarah opened it, and then stopped and looked around to get its bearings. Gino strolled over, and the cats began sniffing each other, happy to be together again. They were handsome animals — trim, sleek, and jet black, except for a white spot on Gino’s left paw. They both had hypnotic, bright-green eyes. Unlike other cats Jerry had come into contact with, Gino and Francisco weren’t hyper or skittish. They didn’t mind their new guest.

“Hey guys, this is your Uncle Jerry,” Sarah said. “Say hello to him. He’s your buddy.” Jerry kneeled down a couple feet from Gino. The cat walked over and sniffed around him, checking him out. Jerry slowly reached out and scratched Gino on the top of the head. The cat pushed its head into Jerry’s hand, purring in approval.

“He likes you. You’re good with him,” Sarah said as Jerry scratched under the cat’s chin.

“Yeah, I like him, too, but I can’t do this for long. I have really bad allergies to animals.”

“Wow. That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, it really sucks. Everyone back home has a cat or a dog. But I am honored to meet Francisco and Gino. I know they’re you’re secret.”

“Well, with a few weeks of school left, I think I’m safe. Actually, I think what saved me was Barbara, my RA. Second week of school, I came to her room early on a Sunday morning, because my phone was dead, and when she opened her door, I saw some woman sleeping in her bed. The woman looked older, too — older than a student. So I think she was afraid that if she ratted on me, I’d rat her out for being a lesbian.”

“I guess that was pretty lucky for you.”

“Yep, it really was. And having you and Rosie as friends was lucky, too. You guys are all I’ve really had here.”

“Same for us, Sarah. Same for us.”

••••

On the Saturday night after finals week, more than half the students were gone from campus. Rosie’s parents had arrived earlier in the day to help her move back to Connecticut, and the three of them were having dinner down in the Quarter. That was one meal Jerry was glad to miss. Talk about a last supper. They were reasonable people and understandably pissed that Rosie had wasted her freshman year at college. And they blamed her relationship with “that pot-smoking degenerate from Cleveland” as the main reason for her academic failure.

Jerry didn’t know if he’d get a chance to say goodbye to Rosie. She and her parents were leaving Sunday, and Rosie asked him not to come around during the move. Jerry understood. But given that Rosie might be spending the night at her parents’ hotel, he might not see her again — ever. Maybe that would be for the best. Because Jerry and Rosie still hadn’t made any plans for their future, their relationship appeared destined to just fizzle out.

Since Jerry was on duty that night until eleven, he decided to station himself outside of Rosie’s room for the last hour of his shift — maybe he’d run into her if she came back to campus that night. As much as he knew that he and Rosie were coming to an end, it was still hard to let go. They had been together virtually every day of the last eight months. Jerry wanted some closure — at least to say goodbye.

A couple of girls on the other end of the hall were still moving out at that late hour, but it was unusually quiet. As he stood under the window at the end of the hall, Jerry wondered about all those girls who spent the year in the dorm. Would they be coming back next year or transferring or had they let the hedonistic trappings of campus life in New Orleans get the better of them? The year had gone by so incredibly fast. All Jerry knew was that he had to leave and start anew.

At a quarter to eleven, Jerry got a call on his walkie talkie from one of the campus sergeants. There had been a minor collision between a parked moving van and a passing car right outside the freshmen women’s dorm. He wanted Jerry to get to the scene and direct traffic as needed until an officer arrived. “We’re a little short-handed right now, so I just want you to make sure everything is under control,” the sergeant said. “There are so many knuckleheads out at this hour, including the New Orleans PD. Call us if you need back up.”

“Ten-four, I’m close by. I’ll be there in a minute or so,” Jerry said, peering out of the window to get a view of the accident. As he turned around, still listening to the sergeant on his walkie talkie, Sarah came out of her room, and just like their first-ever encounter at the beginning of the school year, she was wearing nothing but a white t-shirt. She smiled at Jerry and gave a little wave as she walked toward the lavatory. But this time, she moved slowly and deliberately down the hall. And Jerry noticed right away that her t-shirt was enticingly short, barely covering her firm, curvy cheeks. Before Sarah got halfway to the bathroom, she bent over as if to brush or scrape something off of her right foot, completely revealing her ass to Jerry. He could even see a tuft of black hair nestled in the small gap between her smooth, slender thighs. She held the position for a number of seconds to make sure he didn’t miss her show. For Jerry, the image of Sarah from behind was sensual perfection. She looked like a goddess. As she continued walking down the hall, she turned around briefly and smiled once more at Jerry. But he never saw her again.

On Monday, Jerry and three other guys from his hall rented a Ryder truck to move home. The good news: Cleveland was the first stop on the journey, because his pals lived in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The bad news: Limited room in the cab meant that two guys had to ride in back with the furniture and boxes. Jerry was the only one who didn’t go to pick up the truck, so he didn’t sign the necessary form to be an authorized driver. That meant he rode with the cargo most of the trip.

Riding in back was hellacious — the space was cramped, stuffy, and dark. Jerry wasn’t sure if the truck had bad shocks, or the continuous shaking and jostling were just the consequence of being in a part of the vehicle not designed for human transport. The back door was left ajar six inches so some air could come in, but it also let in exhaust and noise from the tires rolling on the pavement. It was difficult to carry on a conversation, so Jerry and his fellow passengers could only sleep or share a joint and stare at the small sliver of light coming from under the door. The thousand-mile trip from New Orleans to Cleveland began at seven in the morning, and ended just after midnight. Later that night, as Jerry lay in bed trying to sleep, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was still speeding down the freeway in the back of the rumbling truck.

As unpleasant as the ride home was, it gave Jerry time to think about his future. With his mom alone in Cleveland after the divorce a few years earlier — his dad was still in South Florida — she’d be glad to have Jerry back again. Sure, she’d be upset about his grades, but he knew that in a day or two, the disappointment would pass for her. When it came to discipline, she was as soft as parents came. Maybe he’d live at home for six months or a year, until he had enough money to get his own apartment or share one with a roommate. He’d probably need to go to night school at a community college to get his grades back up so that he could return to a four-year program. As for Rosie, he came to the conclusion that he never really loved her. But she probably didn’t love him either. They had their good times together — their year of smoking and screwing — but it had come to an end. It had to. They both needed to move on with their lives.

Jerry also thought a lot about Sarah during the trip home. He’d had sex with Rosie more than a hundred times and in every position imaginable — they even fucked standing up on the ninth green of a local golf course late one Saturday night — but none of those encounters compared to the last time he saw Sarah. Sure, she was a piece of neurotic work; it was hard to imagine being in a long-term relationship with her. But that moment she revealed herself to him — that instant of unrequited lust — was so erotic, spontaneous, and improbable, Jerry could never shake the wanting of her from his memory.

And Jerry could never forget the sense of urgency and purpose he felt — the empowerment — as he transported the yowling Francisco to the animal hospital, and the delight of bringing him back home, happy and healthy, to Sarah. It was perhaps his greatest accomplishment at Tulane. And, Sarah’s cats had touched him in a way he’d never been touched before. He had found a new connection. He began to see that those humble, loving animals weren’t all that different from him. At the end of the day, they were just trying to get along.

Suzy

As Jerry held out the brochure to a woman at the entrance of the fairgrounds, he tried to explain why a vegan diet was better for health, the environment, and the animals. But just twenty minutes into his activism career, he didn’t have his pitch down very well. “The dairy cows are given antibiotics, and they’re lactating all the time,” he said before pausing and opening the brochure to a photo of what he thought would be a downer cow but was a pig in a gestation crate. He kept flipping the panels of the trifold, looking for a cow picture, but realized there wasn’t one. “Anyway, sometimes they can’t even standup. It’s really, really bad.”

The woman was a short, stout, blonde wearing a bright-pink halter top that did little to support her enormous chest. She had three little kids in tow. Jerry couldn’t believe he was using the word “lactating” in front of her and her children. He tried to maintain eye contact, but her cleavage was like a hypnotic force controlling his gaze.

She took the brochure from Jerry, glancing at him skeptically. “I have some health issues, so maybe I should eat better,” she said as she looked over the pamphlet. “You look like you’re in good shape. How long you been a vegetarian?

“Honestly?”

“Yes, honestly,” she answered, looking quizzically at him.

“Well, it’s only been about a day.”

“A day? Holy crap!”

“Well, I had been thinking about it for a while, and then when I came here yesterday, and went to the animal barns, and, well it’s a long story.”

The woman stared at him intently. “And now you’re handing out this propaganda at the county fair?”

“I guess I just wanted to help. The people in this group are really nice.”

The woman and Jerry turned toward the shouting that suddenly came from the other end of the entrance gate. “You get your hands off her motherfucker!” yelled a biker with long unkempt hair, a scruffy beard, and black leather sleeveless vest. He was directing his anger at one of the other vegetarian activists, a scrawny guy in a baseball cap, who Jerry hadn’t met yet. Despite being physically dwarfed by the biker, the guy wasn’t dissuaded and yelled right back. Within a few seconds, the two were on the ground fighting. Four other people with the Vegetarian Action Committee, all women, ran over to try and break up the skirmish. Jerry followed.

The biker was on top of the activist, landing some strong punches to his face, as Jerry and the women tried to hold him back. The activist yelled, “Stop asshole! Stop asshole!” as blood flowed from his nose. The biker also had blood on his face, but it wasn’t clear whose blood it was. Within a minute, three policemen arrived on the scene and broke up the fight.

The biker insisted to the police that the “vegetarian jerk-off” had assaulted his girlfriend, a young woman in a halter top and leather shorts looking on, who angrily concurred, “He was touchin’ my ass and my tits! Guy had his hands all over me! What a pervert!”

The activist, who identified himself as Bill Kyle and a “loyal longtime volunteer” with the Vegetarian Action Committee, rebutted, “I was only trying to extol the virtues of a vegetarian diet to her when Easy Rider over here went ballistic on me.”

Suzy, the Committee outreach director who Jerry had met the previous afternoon, introduced herself to the policemen and explained that there must have been a misunderstanding. “Officers, we’re all about non-violence,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re vegetarian.”

The biggest of the cops, a young guy in aviator sunglasses with a shaved head, bulging tattooed biceps and a massive chest, listened to Suzy, and looked over the group as the other two officers handcuffed Kyle and the biker. Jerry noticed several families slowing to watch the spectacle as they made their way through the fair entrance gate. For them, the afternoon’s entertainment had already started.

“Do you have a vendor’s license?” the lead officer asked Suzy.

“No, we’re not selling anything, and we’re not actually part of the fair.”

The policeman frowned. “You’re standing here at the main gate handing out this crap to every person who walks in, and you’re telling me you’re not part of the fair?” he said. “And then your little friend over here starts to inappropriately touch the women?”

“Officer, all I did was put my hand on her shoulder,” said Kyle as one of the policemen adjusted handcuffs around his wrists.

“KYLE. SHUT UP,” Suzy interjected, trying unsuccessfully to temper her irritation. “Officer, I am really sorry this happened.”

The policeman stood shaking his head. A dozen or so people had now stopped to watch the action. Jerry could hear someone off in the distance laughing and singing, “Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?” The officer began talking into the radio clipped to his shoulder, saying something about getting three cruisers around to the main gate.

“We’re bringing you all in. Vending without a permit. I am not putting up with this shit at a family event. Charge the two guys with assault.”

Jerry and the other volunteers looked at each other in disbelief. Suzy, with her hands on her hips, glanced in the direction of the officer, and then turned around to look at the volunteers. She had no idea what to say, afraid that any more remarks in their defense would only make things worse.

Two more policemen walked over, one carrying plastic handcuffs. After frisking and cuffing the volunteers, they escorted them to three cruisers. Suzy and Jerry were put in the back seat of one of the cars.

“This is crazy! I’ve been doing outreach for six years and never once had anything like this happen,” Suzy said to Jerry as they sat in the police car. “What are they going to do, put us in jail?”

Suzy was a cute, svelte woman about Jerry’s age, perhaps thirty, with a big colorful tattoo of a peacock running up and down her left arm, and a silver stud just above her right nostril. She had short brown hair with blonde streaks, and wore a tight-fitting green t-shirt with a black and white cow on the front. When Jerry talked to her the day before, he was impressed with how articulate and thoughtful she was. Sure, she looked a bit radical, but she had told Jerry how important it was for the vegetarian movement to reach the general public. “We need volunteers who are respectful and not too preachy,” she had said to him when he first inquired about helping the group. “We need to get our message across to people who have been eating animals their entire lives. Too many groups in our movement are busy preaching to the choir, and they don’t know how to talk to the average person on the street.”

Suzy had been with the Vegetarian Action Committee since graduating from college, and while she went into the grassroots nonprofit with great expectations for changing the world, she had no idea how difficult it would actually be to inspire people to give up their carnivorous ways. Meat-free since the age of fourteen, she believed that once people learned the horrible truth about factory farming, the conversion would be easy. And she was convinced that she was the ideal person to carry the message to the masses. But she quickly found that people couldn’t wrap their heads around the concept of life without meat. Despite handing out graphic photos and descriptions of animal suffering — chickens in tiny battery cages, calves hauled away from their mothers to become veal, pigs in gestation crates so small they can’t turn around — they weren’t enough to alter people’s eating habits. Not only did throwing information at people not work, it often turned them away.

Recruiting volunteers was a major part of Suzy’s role at the Vegetarian Action Committee, and that, too, was fraught with challenge and disappointment. There were always several no-shows for events and protests, and ironically, the most reliable volunteers were the most radical and ill-suited for communicating with the public. Enter Bill Kyle — a master of what Suzy called “obnoxious antagonism.” With limited success, he was trying to become a professional comedian, working with a community improv group, and appearing at occasional open-mike nights. He had his clever moments, but he was more often inappropriate than amusing. Yet, to Suzy’s dismay, he showed up at virtually every Committee event, despite her pleas to Marty to have him banned from the group. Maybe this latest debacle would change Marty’s mind.

The officer who put Jerry and Suzy in the cruiser walked away without turning on the air conditioning, and the inside of the car was already hot from being parked in the midday sun. They sweat profusely, but were unable to wipe their brows, because of being cuffed behind their backs.

“Marty is going to shit a brick,” Suzy said looking through the window at one of the other cruisers. “We’ve never been arrested. Some stupid shit has happened, but not this. Kyle has always had a mouth. I shouldn’t have let him come here. He thinks he’s funny, but always ends up pissing people off.”

“Well, I don’t know if you guys have a lawyer, but my Uncle Mitch can probably help. He does mainly DWIs, but he’s gotten people out of jail for all kinds of stuff.”

“I guess I should call Marty. He’s the executive director of the Committee, but I don’t think he knows what to do.” Suzy turned to Jerry. “So your uncle is a lawyer?”

“Yeah, like I said, he handles mainly DWI cases, but when I was in high school, my buddy and I were protesting the Three Mile Island meltdown, and we got arrested for mouthing off to the cops. He had us out in less than two hours.”

Suzy nodded her head. “Well, that’s impressive. He might be a good option.”

“Sure,” Jerry said, glancing out at the darkening sky. A storm was approaching from the west.

The two sat in the car for several more minutes, incredulous that the police left them in the sweltering heat. Finally, the officer came back, turned on the car and the AC, and told them they’d be heading to the station in a few minutes. Someone had had an apparent heart attack, and that was the cause of the delay. “Once the ambulance is en route, I’ll be back and we’ll be on our way,” he said. “Sorry, folks.”

Jerry and Suzy sat quietly watching the line of ominous clouds and occasional flashes of lightening move closer. The fair’s pedestrian traffic had reversed direction because of the deteriorating weather; now most people were leaving instead of arriving.

Despite the prospect of going to jail, even if only for a couple of hours, Jerry was intrigued by the novelty and excitement of being in the back of a police cruiser in the company of a cute, edgy vegan organizer. It sure beat his weekday life of wearing a suit and tie, selling modems, multiplexers, and other Com-One computer networking products to other guys in suits and ties. For being his first job out of college, it wasn’t bad money, it got him out of ho-hum Cleveland and into the thriving metropolis of Washington, DC, and the corporate life boosted his ego; it felt good to have some disposable income, go to the beach on vacation, and take women on dates to nice restaurants. Last year, when he bought his first brand new car, a sporty five-speed Subaru coupe, one of the salesman in his office said, “This car is going to get you laid, buddy.” But after being a sales rep for five years, and not getting much additional sex as a result of the car, Jerry had gotten a little bored with his career.

As the skies opened up over the fairgrounds, the walking pedestrians became running pedestrians, heading quickly to the parking lot for shelter in their cars. Ground strokes of lightning cracked loudly through the air. A call came over the police radio that a couple of power lines had come down near the ferris wheel.

“Glad, we’re not out there,” Jerry said, “though now it’s getting a little chilly. I wish we could turn the AC down.”

“Yeah, I am surprised they left us here in the car for so long, but I guess they have their hands full. A storm. A heart attack. And, of course, us — us, the vegan brawlers,” Suzy said just before a bolt of lightning ripped behind them. “You know, I was wondering. What inspired you to get involved with us? Normally, getting volunteers is like pulling teeth. To get someone to approach us the way you did yesterday — that never happens.”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story. You’re really not going to believe it.”

“After watching Bill Kyle take on a biker, I’ll believe just about anything.”

“Well, I came here yesterday with my neighbor and her kids, and we spent a lot of time in the barns. The kids really loved the animals. And me, too. So, we’re petting this black and grey sheep — maybe a lamb — her name was Wilma, and she’s loving the attention. She was like somebody’s dog. So affectionate. And she was just shorn, so you could feel her warm skin. Really, a beautiful animal.”

“Sounds like you got attached.”