only solution is veganism.” After all that I had read, it was easy to agree.
Medical, psychological, and cosmetic testing on animals were, I discovered, equally problematic, and much of what went on in labs shocked and saddened me. The animals used in circuses, rodeos, horse and dog racing, and wildlife parks were exploited, and often mistreated. Oh, how my ovary ached. There were too many living beings who were treated as unfeeling objects—and all so people could have the luxury of eating favorite foods, using particular products, wearing certain clothes, or being entertained.
I deposited my genuine leather peep toe shoes, along with all my other animal-derived adornments (an angora cardigan, a wool coat, glossy oxfords, the fur-lined mittens with which Dad had gifted me one Christmas that I’d never had occasion to wear), at the Goodwill. I stopped, as Simon had put it, “consuming the products of cruelty.” My cheeks became silky, my hair shiny, my eyes bright.
Simon and I talked about animals every evening. “You’re so beautiful. Your heart is so wide open,” he said, looking amorous and awed after I summarized (with tears spilling from my eyes) the travesties about which I had most recently learned, or read aloud from an animal rights–angled essay I had written for one of my classes (“An Unnatural Life: The Practice of Beekeeping in Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
”).
Annette observed us quizzically from her perch in front of the extravagant three-story dollhouse her maternal grandparents had presented to her after her mother’s passing. Sometimes she interrupted us with questions (“What is a ‘bucking strap’?”), and sometimes she crawled onto my lap to comfort me, patting my forehead and cheeks and singsonging, “Don’t worry, Margie. Everything dies at some time.”
About six weeks after I moved in, Simon decided I had graduated from my survey of Crimes Against Animals and introduced me to what, were it to be included in a course catalog, could only be described as Collaborative Fieldwork.
“I can see you have a feeling about all of this, a genuine feeling, as I do,” he said one night while I cleared the table of our dinner plates, which still held mostly untouched portions of a tempeh-and-fennel casserole that resembled shredded paper. (I had agreed to prepare our nightly meals but was new to the art of vegan cooking. “Dad, I’m still hungry,” piped Annette, chewing on a fork tine.) “I lead an activist organization called Operation H.E.A.R.T.,” Simon continued. “That stands forHumans Enforcing Animal Rights Today. It has a small student membership. Would you like to take part?”
A FEW DAYS LATER, I PUT ON my lucky red Chinese shoes and Simon took me to Gelato Amore, a two-story café I had never before visited in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. Bluesy tunes came through the sound system. Upstairs, a narrow-faced fellow wearing a tweed newsboy cap sat alone, chewed his bottom lip, and studied a big book entitled
America’s National Parks
. A smiling young man in a torn T-shirt came up the stairs with a tub full of dirty dishes and disappeared into a hidden kitchen, leaving an inexplicable smell of gardenias in his wake. A group of five college students sat around a table in an obscure corner. They heralded our arrival with a few waves. Simon introduced me. “We have a new crew member,” he said with one hand resting impersonally on my shoulder, betraying no hint of his familiarity with the rest of me. “This is Margie Fitzgerald.”
The members of Operation H.E.A.R.T. had all renamed themselves after creatures. There was a pretty blonde with a flower in her hair named Bear, a bespectacled gentleman in a wheelchair who called himself Ptarmigan, a girl with a blue-black bob who strummed a guitar and said her name was Raven, and a sturdy tomboyish type who tipped her hat and introduced herself as Orca. “And I’m Bumble B.,” said a red-haired boy with baby
Medical, psychological, and cosmetic testing on animals were, I discovered, equally problematic, and much of what went on in labs shocked and saddened me. The animals used in circuses, rodeos, horse and dog racing, and wildlife parks were exploited, and often mistreated. Oh, how my ovary ached. There were too many living beings who were treated as unfeeling objects—and all so people could have the luxury of eating favorite foods, using particular products, wearing certain clothes, or being entertained.
I deposited my genuine leather peep toe shoes, along with all my other animal-derived adornments (an angora cardigan, a wool coat, glossy oxfords, the fur-lined mittens with which Dad had gifted me one Christmas that I’d never had occasion to wear), at the Goodwill. I stopped, as Simon had put it, “consuming the products of cruelty.” My cheeks became silky, my hair shiny, my eyes bright.
Simon and I talked about animals every evening. “You’re so beautiful. Your heart is so wide open,” he said, looking amorous and awed after I summarized (with tears spilling from my eyes) the travesties about which I had most recently learned, or read aloud from an animal rights–angled essay I had written for one of my classes (“An Unnatural Life: The Practice of Beekeeping in Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
”).
Annette observed us quizzically from her perch in front of the extravagant three-story dollhouse her maternal grandparents had presented to her after her mother’s passing. Sometimes she interrupted us with questions (“What is a ‘bucking strap’?”), and sometimes she crawled onto my lap to comfort me, patting my forehead and cheeks and singsonging, “Don’t worry, Margie. Everything dies at some time.”
About six weeks after I moved in, Simon decided I had graduated from my survey of Crimes Against Animals and introduced me to what, were it to be included in a course catalog, could only be described as Collaborative Fieldwork.
“I can see you have a feeling about all of this, a genuine feeling, as I do,” he said one night while I cleared the table of our dinner plates, which still held mostly untouched portions of a tempeh-and-fennel casserole that resembled shredded paper. (I had agreed to prepare our nightly meals but was new to the art of vegan cooking. “Dad, I’m still hungry,” piped Annette, chewing on a fork tine.) “I lead an activist organization called Operation H.E.A.R.T.,” Simon continued. “That stands forHumans Enforcing Animal Rights Today. It has a small student membership. Would you like to take part?”
A FEW DAYS LATER, I PUT ON my lucky red Chinese shoes and Simon took me to Gelato Amore, a two-story café I had never before visited in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. Bluesy tunes came through the sound system. Upstairs, a narrow-faced fellow wearing a tweed newsboy cap sat alone, chewed his bottom lip, and studied a big book entitled
America’s National Parks
. A smiling young man in a torn T-shirt came up the stairs with a tub full of dirty dishes and disappeared into a hidden kitchen, leaving an inexplicable smell of gardenias in his wake. A group of five college students sat around a table in an obscure corner. They heralded our arrival with a few waves. Simon introduced me. “We have a new crew member,” he said with one hand resting impersonally on my shoulder, betraying no hint of his familiarity with the rest of me. “This is Margie Fitzgerald.”
The members of Operation H.E.A.R.T. had all renamed themselves after creatures. There was a pretty blonde with a flower in her hair named Bear, a bespectacled gentleman in a wheelchair who called himself Ptarmigan, a girl with a blue-black bob who strummed a guitar and said her name was Raven, and a sturdy tomboyish type who tipped her hat and introduced herself as Orca. “And I’m Bumble B.,” said a red-haired boy with baby
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