Herculodge

My Friend the Vegan, Part 5

That night Julia and I were reading in bed. Our dog Gretchen was in between us. My wife and I had been avoiding each other because I feared Benson’s departure might cause us to assign blame to one or both of us for what appeared to be the possible termination of my thirty-year friendship. Finally, Julia turned to me and said, “So how’d it go?”

“I’m not sure. Before he took off, he wished us good luck on our pregnancy quest, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not.”

“I’m sorry I laid into him,” Julia said, “but he had no right to impose his beliefs on us while living here.”

“That’s fine. The problem isn’t that.”

“What, then?”

“That stuff I said to him today. It all sounds good on paper, but I didn’t really believe it. I feel I may have been grandstanding, to impress you.”

“Grandstanding or not, everything you said was right on the money.”

“I’m not so sure. One thing Benson has that I don’t have is moral clarity. I can argue things forcefully and sound convincing, but most of the time it’s just bullshit. Deep down I don’t really believe what I’m saying.”

“Does that include eating meat?”

“When I look into my heart I suspect it’s wrong to slaughter animals for our benefit.”

“Jesus, Graham, you did drink Benson’s Kool-Aid.”

I shook my head and said, “I didn’t need to. I believed eating meat was wrong long before Benson’s conversion. He’s not the first one to show me videos of animals being slaughtered. Actually, I think I started to have more compassion for animals after we adopted Gretchen. I’m sure I love her more than life itself.”

“But you don’t feed her a vegetarian diet. Her dog food is full of lamb and chicken. And if we’re ever had children, you wouldn’t force a vegetarian diet on them either.”

“I know. That’s where the confusion sets in. Science tells me the vegetarian diet is not the ideal, especially for children or Gretchen, but my moral conscience tells me eating meat for myself is wrong. I weep at night when I think of the calf being separated at birth from its mother. Both mother and calf are crying. It’s worse than the scene in Dumbo.”

“So all that stuff you said to Benson about moral compromise was complete bullshit.”

I nodded.

“So you won’t eat red meat like the fertility books said?”

“No, I’ll eat it for now.”

“And then after the baby comes, you can be a vegetarian.”

“Yes, I’ll compromise my morals when it’s expedient and then return to them at the nearest convenience. What a role model I’ll be for our kids.”

“But let’s say you didn’t follow the doctor’s orders. Then there’d be no child at all. Then you being a role model would be irrelevant.”

“I just want to give some moral clarity to our child. Am I asking too much?”

“There is no moral clarity.”

“But you said you wanted to take our child to a place of worship. You said you wanted to give our child a belief system.”

“Yes, the studies show it’s better to give children clear values and a regular place to go where those values are reinforced.”

“But you’re not even religious.”

“So. That’ doesn’t mean I can’t give my children the comfort and assurance of belief. When they get older, they can make up their own mind about what they believe.”

 “And suppose they become true believers in veganism like Benson and compelled by their moral clarity they force veganism on their children and our grandchildren become malnourished.”

“Jesus, Graham, your brain need some animal protein, and animal fat for that matter.”

She got up and returned to the bed with a glass of nonfat milk and a carton of Mongolian beef, which she had just microwaved.

“Eat this,” she said, “and stop thinking so much. You’re freaking me out.”

I looked down at the Mongolian beef as it steamed into my face and said, “Itadakimasu.” I explained that it was a Japanese saying one of my students taught me. It means, “We receive lives from others.”

After eating most of the beef and sharing a little with Gretchen, I felt medicated. I was suddenly sleepy.

“You feel better?” Julia asked me gently, guiding my head on the pillow.

“Yes and no,” I said. “My brain craved the amino acids, but my soul says I’m a monster.” She rubbed my forehead and told me not to worry so much.

“I’ll never be the same,” I said. “I wish I could go back to my days of ignorance when I ate ribs and steak and never thought of the animals suffering. But now it’s too late.”

“And you’ve sucked me into it. While we’re trying to get pregnant no less. I wonder.”

“What?”

“Did you do this to sabotage the whole pregnancy thing?”

“Stop it.”

“Bad timing anyway.”

“I’m sorry.”

After a while Julia said, “We’ll have a baby and then you can be your old miserable self again. Okay?”

“I’ll try.”

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 1"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 2"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 3"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 4"

My Friend the Vegan, Part 4

Later that day Benson stood on the sidewalk flanked by two suitcases and a canvas bag containing all his vegan food and herbal teas. I walked outside and asked him where his car was.

 “I let Robert have it.”

“You gave him your car?”

“He needs it more than I do. The volunteers use it to transport the animals.”

“So he’s picking you up now?”

Benson nodded and said he was going to move into one of Robert’s dog foster homes. It was a better fit than living with Julia and me, a couple of carnivores.

“God, Benson, did you have to piss off Julia like that?”

“I’m sorry. I was just expressing my beliefs. They offend some people. But I thought you and Julia would be more understanding than most.”

“I think I understand all too well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your extreme position is not as moral as you’d like to believe. I think it’s the semi-vegetarian, the person who eats dairy, fish, and occasional meats, who is morally superior to the strict vegan for several reasons. One, he can convert more people to eat less meat than abandon it altogether. The result is that less animals would be slaughtered. Your way is so extreme that potential converts are turned off. For me, pragmatism takes priority over some unattainable ideal. When people compromise, less suffering occurs. But people who push their extreme ideals, pedal to the metal, as some might say, alienate the majority of the population. I hate to say this to you, Benson, but if the world were full of more people willing to compromise, and not absolutists like yourself, the world would be a better place.” 

Benson furrowed his brow at me and said, “You’re just justifying your compromised diet and your compromised morality. You conveniently ignore Kant’s Moral Imperative, which we should act only on a principle that we would wish everyone to follow in a similar fashion. If the roles were reversed, with animals having power over you and they had a choice of being vegans or meat eaters, you would rather they choose to be vegans rather than sink their teeth into your flesh. But with you in power, you conveniently won’t afford this earth’s creatures with the dignity you demand for yourself. Pathetic.” 

Robert pulled up in Benson’s white old-model Volvo wagon. He certainly must have known that Benson was leaving my house under hostile circumstances, but that didn’t stop him from waving and smiling at us in an upbeat manner that annoyed me.

When I turned around and headed back for the house, Benson wished Julia and me good luck with our getting pregnant. I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic. 

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 1"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 2"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 3"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 5"

My Friend the Vegan, Part 3

The next morning, a Saturday, Julia made buttermilk cinnamon raisin waffles slathered with real maple syrup. Benson couldn’t eat the waffles because they weren’t vegan. He ate cold cereal with soy milk and peaches.

During my second helping of waffles, Julia gave me this look that told me I needed to bring up the matter of Benson looking for a job.

“So what’s cooking on the job front?” I said.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I got a job with Redondo Rescue.” It was an adoption agency for dogs and cats rescued from shelters. I was familiar with Redondo Rescue and had had an annoying interaction with its founder, an unctuous, bearded man named Robert who called himself a “life coach,” which from my standpoint was pseudo career embraced by charlatans and other unsavory characters.  It was my impression that Robert used his rescue center for networking. He had licenses for selling real estate and life insurance. Several years ago, I went to his adoption center looking for a dog, but he spent most of our time trying to sell me a life insurance policy, so I left and went across town to South Bay Rescue where I got our dog, a timid Finnish Spitz named Gretchen.

Trying to be careful with my words, I looked at Benson and said, “Isn’t that a volunteer job?”

“Right. I work for free, caring for the animals and transporting them from the shelters to the adoption center. But Robert said he could hook me up with something. He said it was just a matter of time.”

Julia then said, “So this is a stepping stone to a real job.”

“Yeah,” Benson said, “A real job. Though I have you know my passion is fighting for the animals, so whatever kind of paying job I eventually get, my real job will be working for Robert.”

Benson watched me as I downed my second glass of milk. He said, “That is soy milk, I hope.”

“No,” I said. “It’s cow’s milk. Nonfat.”

“That is disgusting. Do you know what kind of squalid conditions dairy cows suffer for your cow milk addiction?”

“Graham can’t drink soy milk,” Julia said. “Too much soy will elevate his estrogen levels. So don’t push soy milk on him.”

“All that soy bashing is biased," Benson said. "But even if it were partly true, that would be no reason to consume cow’s milk. It’s not even digestible.”

“I digest it fine,” I said. “I’m very tolerant of lactose.”

I knew Benson was lactose intolerant. Most of his vegan friends claimed some intolerance or allergy to lactose, gluten, eggs, shellfish, chocolate. Sometimes I speculated that they were so resentful for being unable to eat a certain food that they wanted to prohibit the rest of the human race from eating it as well.

Benson said, “I want you to see some new video footage I have of cows on the dairy farms. Squalid conditions. Diseased cows left untreated. Some cows getting squashed to death. Consuming dairy is indefensible.”

“Sorry, Benson, I can’t go off dairy. I need the protein and calcium.”

“Get yourself a soy protein supplement.”

“Can’t do it. Didn’t you hear what Julia said? All that soy will soak my system with estrogen. It’s bad enough that I eat those soy burgers. I’m not going to make it worse by ingesting a soy protein supplement.”

Julia perked up and looked at me. She said, “You didn’t tell me you were still eating soy burgers.”

“Just two a day.”

“Jesus, Graham, that’s a lot of soy. We’re trying to have a baby here. I’m taking Ovidrel, progesterone suppositories, Clomid. If I can do all this bullshit, the least you could do is go off soy.”

 As Julia had warned me, the Clomid made her volatile. I needed to nip the bud right there, so I nodded obsequiously, walked to the freezer, and discarded the remaining two boxes of soy burgers into the garbage. Then I looked at Benson and said, “She right. The science just doesn’t support a vegan diet, especially for a middle-aged dude with motility issues.”

 “So you’re using science to justify being a barbarian toward other animals.” 

“If that’s your definition of a barbarian, then for now I will have to concede that title.” I then looked down at Benson’s canvas shoes and said. "Of course, you'll have to concede that you too are a barbarian. Those shoes of yours were made by Indonesian slave girls who are unlikely to ever see their parents again. And you aided and abetted their masters. Join the Barbarian Club, bro, because in real life we all make compromises. Moral absolutes don't exist."

“That is so weak, using two wrongs to make a right. Even if these crappy old shoes were made by slaves—and I doubt they were—you have no right to inflict cruelty against helpless animals.”

Julia stood up and said, “You guys need to cool it. I’m trying to get pregnant right now and I don’t need this kind of stress.”

Benson was about to say something, but I cut him off. “Benson, we need to strive for some positive energy in the house right now. We’ll discuss this later—when Julia’s not here.”

Julia looked at me and said, “Thank you,” and then turning to Benson said, “Can you tone down this whole vegan thing with Graham? My husband really needs to eat red meat, now more than ever. And if you can’t deal with it, then you need to think about living somewhere else.”

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 1"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 2"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 3"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 4"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 5"

My Friend the Vegan, Part 2

Benson had been trying to convert me and my wife Julia to veganism for a couple of months,  starting when we let him stay in our spare room. After he separated from his wife Barbara, a drug addict, who squandered all their income, he had driven down from Portland in an old Volvo, a hand-me-down from his mother. Benson had never had much money.  Since graduating college with an art degree twenty-five years earlier, he worked odd jobs, his most recent one driving an elementary school bus. He had been fired for showing the children pamphlets of cows and pigs being slaughtered. Since being terminated from his bus-driving duties, he had been making a living from selling pricey items, mostly music equipment, on eBay. Now Julia and I were letting him recuperate from his failed marriage and get back on his feet while living in our Southern California home. The only reason we had a spare room for him was that we were without child in spite of two years of earnest effort to get Julia pregnant.

My wife tried to be understanding about Benson’s situation, his crazy wife, his financial situation, and the fact that I had known him since high school, but I sensed some resentment roiling underneath her veins for two reasons. One, his presence reminded her of the baby we wanted to have and so far could not. And two, he was enjoying our hospitality while scolding us for not being vegans. As Julia put it during bedtime one evening: “He's got some big balls coming in here and preaching veganism at us, especially when you consider that veganism and pregnancy don't mix."

The "big balls" comment hit me below the belt. I was unusually sensitive ever since my tests showed "compromised motility" resulting in the fertility doctor's recommendation that I eat more red meat.

“Jesus,” my wife continued. “Your friend talks about the glories of veganism. But look at him. He looks malnourished, anemic. You had better promise that if we ever have children, we will not force them to be vegans. You understand me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“You’ve been listening to him.”

“So.”

“I think he’s getting to you.”

I was not a big meat eater. I didn’t eat pork. I ate chicken or turkey about once a week. And I ate red meat about three times a year. My last hamburger was the previous summer at an In-N-Out Burger in Barstow, on the way to Las Vegas. But I called myself a “flexitarian” and was somewhat agnostic where veganism was concerned. 

I said to Julia, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to drink Benson’s vegan Kool-Aid. And even if I did, I would never force veganism on our children.”

We heard a noise from the guest room. Benson was apparently moving in his sleep, making the bed creak.

“He’s probably having nightmares,” I said. “That damn wife of his gave him post-traumatic-stress syndrome.”

“He needs to get a job and find a place. All the time he spends trying to convert you to veganism and using your computer to work on his vegan blog could be spent looking for a job.”

I didn’t tell Julia this, but I didn’t think Benson was very employable. Tall and gaunt with a faraway look in his eyes, he could be extremely shy and reserved, as if he were saving all his energy to unleash his militant streak whenever he wished to proselytize the moral imperatives of veganism. Apart from his vegan passion, he struck me as lazy.  I knew that if I were an employer I wouldn’t hire him, for I knew him well enough that deep in his heart he was insulted that his life circumstances forced him to work and that he was a liability to most jobs.

Before turning out the light, I told Julia I was hopeful he’d find a job when we heard a cough and the kind of muttering people do when they’re conversing in a dream.

“Poor Benson must be having one helluva nightmare,” I said. “Probably being stalked by his ex wife.”

“Or he’s in a slaughterhouse. Watching cows getting their necks slit. Tomorrow I want you tell him he has to start looking for work.”

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 1"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 2"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 3"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 4"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 5"

My Friend the Vegan, Part 1

(edited and expanded from previous version)

My friend Benson converted to vegetarianism, or I should say veganism, about five years ago. He went whole hog, excuse my bad pun. He didn’t eat dairy. He didn’t wear leather belts or leather shoes. He wouldn’t go inside my car, a Nissan Maxima, with its leather seats. 

“Converted” was his word. He didn’t gradually move toward veganism for health reasons or because he was revolted at the thought of eating dead animals. He had a powerful conversion experience on a religious level.  For Benson, the world was Light and Darkness, vegans and non-vegans. 

One afternoon while Benson and I were in my kitchen eating falafels and couscous with raisins, I explained my need for a little animal protein.  I said, “As you know, Julia and I are trying to get pregnant and we read that adding a little red meat is better for my motility and general testosterone levels.”

“That’s very convenient for you,” Benson said. “Worry about your macho testosterone while allowing animals to suffer before and during slaughter.” 

“That they do,” I conceded. “In nature, we kill to survive. Take the Eskimos. They slaughter whales and seals for their survival. Are Eskimos immoral? Should they be required to be vegans just because you wish to impose your cultural bias on them?” 

“Really, that’s such a red herring to bring up the Eskimos,” Benson said. “What percentage of humans need meat to survive? Less than five percent, I’m sure. The fact of the matter is that you can perfectly live without eating animals and yet you choose to eat them for your own pleasure and convenience. And of course your precious testosterone.” 

“I offer a blood sacrifice to the Reproductive Cult.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m sorry, bro. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I do try to exercise compassion toward my fellow creatures. For example, I stopped eating lobsters after reading the David Foster Wallace essay.”

In Wallace’s famous essay, “Consider the Lobster,” he describes how lobsters desperately bang the lids of the pots as they’re suffering an agonizing death in boiling water. 

Benson was not appeased. He said, “Selective morality doesn’t cut it. We can agree over the lobsters. But I can show you video footage of chickens, pigs, cows, dogs, cats, monkeys, and other animals—all bred for human consumption—and you’ll see the look of despondence in their eyes. And their worst suffering is yet to come.” 

“I feel sympathy for mammals, I admit. But fish are too removed from me. I could quit eating mammals, for sure. But I’d still eat fish, which means I could never be a member of your Vegan Tribe.” 

“It’s your selective, arbitrary morality speaking again. Any creature that is sentient should not be consumed.”

He was quoting from Peter Singer, his Vegan Messiah.

I said, “I don’t believe in Peter Singer’s sentient being theory. I’d kill rats if I needed to. And mice and other mammalian pestilence. That’s not an issue with me. But I do share your objection to making animals suffer, shedding their blood for our delectation. That can, under certain circumstances, be barbaric.” 

“It’s not certain circumstances. It’s most circumstances. Ninety-nine percent of meat comes from factory farming, which in an ongoing atrocity. What can you say to that?”

“What do you want me to do, Benson? I don’t have a magic wand.”

“So just shrug it all off because of apathy. What a courageous friend you are.”

Benson lowered his head and poked his fork through a mound of couscous. Since becoming a vegan, he was overcome with depression—the kind of overwhelming sadness that results from seeing 99% of the human race as unfeeling, cruel, self-centered and completely immoral. The worst part of his becoming a vegan, he recently explained, was that he had developed an overwhelming hatred for the human race. He knew he had to face the despair of knowing he could not convert everyone on the planet. His mission in life was to convert what few individuals he could.  

He looked up at me and said, “I know you care. I could tell when we were watching those videos of the newborn calves being separated from their mothers and those pigs languishing in those tiny cages.”

“Of course I care. You think it gives me pleasure to see animals suffer like that?”

“You seem better than most of them,” he said. “If only I could convert you. If only I could get you to take the next step forward.” 

“Sorry, my man, for the sake of my declining middle-aged testosterone I’m still going to eat some animal protein, mostly fish and some dairy like yogurt and nonfat milk. Can you be cool with that, at least while you’re living under my roof?”

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 1"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 2"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 3"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 4"

"My Friend the Vegan, Part 5"