Part 8 (2/2)

”What?” he asked.

”What?” Melford asked.

”What did you say?”

”What did you you say?” say?”

”I don't know what in f.u.c.k you're up to.”

”To be honest, I'm not up to anything.”

”I don't like no f.a.ggots coming in here,” said the one in the black T-s.h.i.+rt.

”I think our foreign policy in El Salvador is misguided,” Melford said.

The black T-s.h.i.+rt guy knit his brow. ”What the s.h.i.+t are you talking about?”

”I don't know. I thought we were just saying, you know, stuff we think. Your comment seemed pretty random, so I figured I'd come up with one of my own.” He lifted his beer and drank down half the bottle, finis.h.i.+ng it off with a mighty gulp. He wiggled it at them, doc.u.menting its emptiness. ”You want another beer?”

”What's it to you?”

”Nothing. I was just going to order up some beer, and since we're having a conversation, it seemed polite to order one for you. You want it?”

The guy paused as his desire for beer clashed with his pointless anger. Maybe if Melford had seemed nervous or twitchy or afraid, it might have gone differently, but I was already beginning to understand the power of Melford's calm.

”Okay, sure,” said the black T-s.h.i.+rt guy. He blinked rapidly and bit his lip, as though he had misunderstood something and now didn't want to admit it.

The two pool players exchanged glances. Bob's Oysters shrugged.

Melford signaled the bartender and ordered the beers. The pool players took theirs, the black T-s.h.i.+rt nodded his thanks at Melford, and he and his friend wandered back over to the table. They were dazed, not looking at each other.

”What the h.e.l.l,” I whispered into a basket of steaming onion rings, which had arrived during the confrontation. ”I thought we were going to get our a.s.ses kicked.”

”I didn't. See, that guy figured one of two responses-I'd fight him or I'd turn coward. All I did was take a different angle, and suddenly the threat of violence is gone. Nothing to it.”

He made it sound so simple. ”Yeah. What happens if he decided to knock you off your stool and go upside your head with the pool cue?”

Melford patted his pocket. ”Then I'd have killed him.”

I let that hang in the air for a moment, unsure if the answer pleased or terrified me.

”Why didn't you just kill them anyway?”

”I'm willing to defend myself, and I'm willing to fight for what's right, but I'm not indiscriminate. All I wanted was to get out of the situation without you getting hurt, and I took care of it in the way I thought would cause the least harm.”

I stared at him, feeling not only relief and grat.i.tude, but a strange sort of admiration. It was then that I first realized that, in the same way I liked it when Bobby praised me for books well sold, I liked Melford's attention, too. I liked that Melford seemed to like me, wanted to spend time with me. Melford was somebody somebody-a crazy, violent, and inexplicable somebody, but a somebody all the same and, as I'd just seen, an occasionally heroic somebody.

”What are we going to do about the checkbook?” I asked.

”We're going to wait.”

”For what?”

”Well, you know where that mobile home is located? What the jurisdiction is?”

I shook my head.

”The city of Meadowbrook Grove, a remarkably unpleasant little slice of land carved out of the county, that consists of a very large trailer park and a small farm with a hog lot. The cop you saw outside the trailer is the chief of police. Also the mayor-a monumental creep named Jim Doe. And he doesn't much like the county cops. Chances are he's going to hold off on calling the real cops until the morning. Otherwise he'll have to be up all night. So we're going to wait. We're going to wait until it gets good and late, and then we're going into the trailer, sliding under some yellow crime scene tape, and getting the checkbook.” He looked over at my basket. ”Can I have an onion ring?”

I didn't know when, if ever, bars around here closed, but this one showed no sign of slowing down at a quarter of three, when Melford tapped me on the arm and said it was time to go. I followed dutifully.

In the car, Melford was playing another tape now, a sad and jangling something that I liked, mostly despite myself. Maybe it was the four beers. ”What is this?”

”The Smiths,” Melford said. ”The alb.u.m's called Meat Is Murder. Meat Is Murder.”

I laughed.

”Something's funny?”

”It just seems a little strong,” I said. ”I mean, if you want to be a vegetarian, that's fine. But meat isn't murder. It's meat.”

Melford shook his head. ”Why? Why is it okay to expose creatures who have feelings and wants and desires to any pain we choose so we can have unnecessary food? We can get all the nutrients we need from vegetables and fruits and beans and nuts. This society has made the tacit decision that animals aren't really living things, just products in a factory, due no more consideration than automobile parts. So the Smiths are right, Lemuel. Meat is murder.”

I probably wouldn't have said it without the beer, but I'd had the beer. ”Okay, fine. Meat is murder. But you know what else is murder? Wait, let me think. Oh, yeah. I remember now: murder. Murder is murder. That's right. Killing a couple of people who are minding their own business. Breaking into their home and shooting them in the head. That's murder, too, I think. The Smiths have an alb.u.m about that?”

Melford shook his head as if I were a kid who couldn't grasp some simple idea. ”I told you. They were a.s.sa.s.sinated.”

”But I'm not ready to know why.”

”That's right.”

”And I'm a bad person for eating meat.”

”No, you're a normal person for eating meat, because the unchecked torment and painful slaughter of animals has become the norm in our culture. You can't be judged for eating meat. Up to this point, anyhow. On the other hand, if you listen to what I tell you, if you think about it even a little, and then you go back to eating meat-then, yes, you're a bad person.”

”Torment my eye,” I said. ”It's not like they drag the cows off to dark cells and wake them up for mock executions. The animals stand around, they moo, they eat gra.s.s, and when the time comes, they get killed. Their lives are a little shorter than they would be otherwise, but they don't have to worry about starvation or predators and disease. Maybe it's a decent trade-off.”

”Sure, that sounds great. Farmer Brown comes out once in a while to pat their rumps or maybe pick a little on his banjo while he chews on a stalk of hay. Wake up, friend. That idyllic farm doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did. Small farms are being absorbed by giant corporations. They're building what are called factory farms, in which the maximum possible number of animals are warehoused in dark buildings, pumped full of drugs to make it possible for them to survive in these unnatural conditions. They're given growth hormones so they'll get big and meaty, even though they don't want to eat. They're given antibiotics so they won't get sick, even though they're spending their whole lives on top of each other. And then you, my friend, nibble on your big, juicy porterhouse, and you know what? You're eating antibiotics and bovine growth hormone. Eat enough beef, and who knows what's going to happen to you. If a woman eats beef and pork and chicken when she's pregnant, what is she pa.s.sing along to her baby? Besides being unspeakably cruel, this is a public health disaster waiting to happen.”

”Yeah, if the public is so threatened, then how come the public doesn't care?”

”The public.” He let out a dismissive sigh. ”Remember ideology. The public is told meat is safe and good and healthful, and so the public complies.”

”So, what do you live on-eggs and cheese?” I asked.

He laughed. ”No way. I'm a vegan, man. I don't eat any animal products. None.”

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