That night Lara 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, Lara 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,” Lara 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 own 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?” Lara 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 Lara said, “We’ll have a baby and then you can be your old miserable self again. Okay?”
“I’ll try.”
Comments