A Crime of Compassion

Being an animal rights activist isn’t always what it’s cut out to be. Sure, the work is exciting. After all, how often does one get to say that sneaking onto factory farms and slaughterhouses in the dead of night is in their skill set? Makes for a great CV if you ask me. It’s the getting caught part that has its downside. Take my case, for instance. I had spent the last thirteen months placing hidden cameras in these types of facilities in order to document animal cruelty. And by that, I mean the absolute worst of the worst. I won’t go into the gory details of what I’ve witnessed but a mere glimpse of the footage would instantly turn anyone with a heart vegan. To be clear, that’s exactly why we do what we do. By capturing the evidence and bringing it to the masses, we investigators hope to win in the court of public opinion and perhaps move the needle ever so slightly.

On occasion, my covert team would perform open rescues. That’s when we enter a barn to find a chicken, duck, piglet, turkey, calf, goat, you name it, that has suffered a horrific life and bring them to a medical professional to receive urgent care. Finding an individual with life-threatening injuries and diseases with names that will make your head spin was just par for the course in these types of places. Nearly everyone that we come across has at least one debilitating ailment. Once a good candidate has been identified, we’d livestream the event and unlike the Animal Liberation Front (better known as the ‘ALF’), our faces (and therefore our identities) would remain uncovered. Our mantra was everything we do is done openly (hence the term ‘open rescue’) and in doing so, we’d announce to the world that we are unafraid and believe whole-heartedly that our actions are legal or at least they cause less harm than what was going on inside the walls of the facility. For us, saving an innocent life from the torturous hell of their reality is the right thing to do, maybe not in today’s world but in the one we are trying to build. The animals that we rescue are destined to spend the rest of their natural lives in a sanctuary. These havens are few and far between but are perhaps the most peaceful places on earth.

So, this brings us back to my story. Animal liberationists are indeed a bunch of busy bees. Quite frankly, if we aren’t making people irate over disruptions like the ones that disturb diners inside their local steakhouse or commuters trapped in their cars lamenting over our march taking over two lanes, then we aren’t doing our jobs right. It’s not that we relish the idea of a horde of angry carnists spitting in our faces; rather, we want to keep the issue at the forefront of public conversation and hopefully plant seeds in the minds of a few spectators (either in person or on social media). It was at one of these events where the cops nabbed me. My cohorts and I were participating in the mildest form of First Amendment protected activity that I could think of. Carrying placards that read ‘I Support The Right To Rescue’ and walking the half block from the county courthouse to the sheriff’s office really felt like a risk-free action. Little did I know that the boys in blue already had a warrant for my arrest. You see, the big business that I had targeted finally dipped into their profits and bought the state-of-the-art security cameras that had allegedly caught me trespassing onto their giant industrial complex. Conservative estimates had shown that one million ducks were processed inside the on-site slaughterhouse every year and with over thirty barns (each having around fifteen thousand birds), the factory farm was enormous. It looked more like an actual Death Star than the “family-owned” operation it purported to be. As I walked down the street, an unfamiliar voice called my name. I turned around just as the plain-clothed officer pulled out his handcuffs while a uniformed one approached the two of us to provide backup for the man with the star clipped to his belt. As I was taken into custody, my fellow marchers were stunned. Many must have wondered, “Why was the mild-mannered guy with a promising career and lovely family being placed in the back seat of the cruiser?”

After the long drive to the sheriff's office (all one hundred yards felt like an eternity), I was checked by a nurse, fingerprinted, and my mugshot was taken (how I wished for a copy). Bail was set for $35,000. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “that’s quite a hefty sum for just trying to expose a bit of the truth.” As it turned out, the DA’s Office never really felt as though the trespass would ever qualify as the crime of the century, but the animal agriculture giant had been known to finance the campaigns of local politicians and the district attorney was running for re-election. The booking officer said that I could wait to be seen before a judge. I inquired, “When do you think that would happen?” His response was disheartening, “Oh, probably first thing Monday morning.” After the words registered in my head, the Thursday afternoon just felt a whole lot longer.

Being processed into housing was another experience I’d soon be happy to forget. Stripping down to my birthday suit and raising my nut sack in front of an officer to prove I wasn’t somehow hiding contraband wasn’t as bad as turning around, bending over, spreading my cheeks, and coughing twice. I had been given a new wardrobe: t-shirts, tighty-whiteys, and tube socks that had all been somehow dyed a strange lavender. The notion of wearing the same recycled underwear as past jailbirds did not appeal to me in the slightest. Matching sets of dark blue tops and bottoms were also included. The shirts had the letters MADF printed on the back and for the life of me, I could not figure out what it stood for. I guessed, “Could it be Male Anarchist Devilish Fiend?” Later, I would discover the correct acronym: Main Adult Detention Facility. To finish my attire, a pair of orange footwear that resembled generic Crocs was provided. “Well, this completes the ensemble nicely,” I marveled. For the most part, the prison guards seemed cordial enough. I could tell that they viewed me as different than the other prisoners and probably questioned, “What’s the bookworm doing in a place like this?” As I entered my cell, it was clear that the ten-by-eight accommodation was in desperate need of an interior designer. Perhaps, I could give it my own personal touch. Alas, without any help from the outside, I was resigned to enjoying the cinder block walls and the tiny window that allowed daylight in but not a view of the free world beyond. I noticed a few speckles of brown turd on the ceiling. I pondered, “How did that happen? No, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Being an architect by trade, I used the back page of the ‘Inmate’s Rulebook’ to draw my new home. I made sure to add the steel commode right next to the lower bunk, grateful that I didn’t have a roomie. I enjoyed drawing with the tiny pencil that reminded me of the ones the golf course of my youth supplied along with the scorecard.

Paper being such a scarcity, I made an executive decision. For nearly four decades, I had kept within the vault of my brain the stories that my father and granddad had shared with me about living under Japanese occupation during World War Two. Coming from an island nation with a bounty of natural resources made absorbing the territory a priority for the Imperial Empire. With little bits of embellishment here and there, a full-fledged novel could be hashed out using the tales as inspiration. Lights out quickly approaching, I asked myself the obvious question, “What on earth do I know about writing? For crying out loud, I design buildings for a living!” It was true that the last amazing piece of fiction that I authored was in Mister Stuckey’s seventh-grade history class. The assignment called for each student to draft a first-hand account of a family traveling in a wagon train during the good ol’ prairie days. Clearly, I hadn’t the track record or the pedigree to become an established writer but what did it matter? The first-hand chronicles of my elders were so vivid and harrowing that the print was sure to be a great success. In my mind, putting the narrative on paper would keep the stories alive. Otherwise, their adventures would end with me. That night, I wrestled on the thin vinyl-covered mattress hoping that sleep would arrive. It never did. All I could think about was the loose outline that I scribbled on the prisoner intake form (how did I only have five dollars in my wallet?). I had been pleasantly surprised by the amount I had accomplished in the final hour before I had been forced to turn off the tiny room’s fluorescent tube light.

The following morning, the sound of the automatic door lock being released drew my attention. A moment later, an inmate entered carrying a brown paper bag. Behind him, the watchful eye of the guard made sure that no shenanigans would occur during the transaction (or at least I had hoped that’s what he was there for). “Here’s your breakfast,” the young man said. I quickly explained, “I’m sorry, if it isn’t vegan, could you please…” The clinking sound of the door being shut guaranteed that my request would go unanswered. The food now sitting in the sink, I told myself, “OK, so that’s how it is.” Peering inside, I was met with my worst nightmare. Sadly, a few of the animals I had fought the better part of two decades to protect had been represented inside the sack. My only recourse was to push the frightening artifact as far from my bunk as I possibly could. “Oh well,” I resigned, “I could survive a four-day fast.” At least I could continue working on the novel’s blueprint. I looked forward to the only thing that kept my mind engaged in this institutional environment.

On the back of the instructions on how to make phone calls, I wrote in the tiniest block letters I could muster the fresh ideas that were streaming inside my brain. Fitting as much information on such a limited amount of note-taking material had become the upmost priority. As the hours went by, I used more of the mundane forms to capture my thoughts (the one titled ‘How To Use The Commissary Kiosk’ had loads of empty space) and thanked my drafting class professor repeatedly for instilling me with such a valuable talent. By sundown, I felt as if the book really had legs to stand on (the tiny window proved to be useful as it gave me a rough sense of time). I had figured out the cast of characters by adding little blurbs as to who they were and how they fit in the plot. I pondered, “What were those terms from high school English again? Protagonists were the good guys and antagonists the bad, right?” So on it went, adding a little here and a bit more there until the notes took proper shape. Bribing the guard with humor helped with procuring the much needed paper.

By Monday morning, the framework for the potential Pulitzer Prize winning tome had been completed. “Now all I need is a good literary agent,” I half-joked to myself. As the judge released me on my own recognizance and set the date for my next court appearance, I couldn’t wait to get home and plop in front of my laptop to begin my new and exciting journey as a writer.