Benson had been trying to convert me and my wife Lara 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 Lara 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 Lara 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 Lara put it during bedtime one evening: “He's got some big balls coming in here and preaching veganism at us."
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 Lara, “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 Lara 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 was generally 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 Lara I was hopeful he’d find a job when we heard Benson. He was muttering the way 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.”
Comments