Chapter 26
JUSTIN
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I need my parents’ van, but I doubt my dad will let me use it.
Six months ago, I borrowed the van to drive around town and slap CANCELLED stickers on circus posters, a bottle of Johnnie Walker keeping me company.
After overcorrecting on a curve, I landed up in a ditch with a broken nose, an enraged father, and a hefty repair bill.
I’ll bet the bike, though, that my folks are away on some or other rescue jaunt, which means I’ll only have to contend with Joel, who lives with my folks.
After a quick detour to my townhouse to contact the whistleblower and print out the report, I pull into my parents’ driveway and cut the engine.
The porch light snaps on and Joel’s gruff voice calls out, “Who’s there?”
“Your worst nightmare, my friend.”
“Justin!” The front door opens and a tall, lanky frame fills the doorway. “I was wondering when you’d pay a lonely old man a visit.”
I find myself enfolded in a rib-cracking hug. Closing my eyes, I breath in Old Spice and breath mints, the familiar scents of childhood.
Joel ushers me into the house. “It’s too bad we missed each other Monday.”
“Yeah.” I deliberately picked a time when I knew Joel would be out to collect the two Alsatians for my meeting with Heather at the park.
I hang my jacket on the coat rack in the entryway, making sure the report is still hidden inside. My dad’s homemade plaque—Animals have no voice and no vote. They need us to defend them—still hangs crooked on the wall.
“How is dear old Dad?” I ask, taking in a lungful of air warm from cooking, still feeling like a stranger in a house that had never been a home.
“The same. Still refusing to slow down.”
“Only a coffin will solve that problem.”
“It wasn’t a criticism, Justin.”
I shrug. “Where are they off to this time?”
“They left a couple of weeks ago to hitch a ride on the Sea Shepherd. Probably in a Zodiac facing down a Japanese whaling ship as we speak.”
“Sounds like them.”
“You had dinner yet?”
I shake my head.
“I got leftovers.”
In the kitchen, I study the waterlogged noodles. “I see your cooking hasn’t improved.”
“Neither has your complaining.”
We exchange grins. Whenever my parents had to leave on one of their endless liberation missions, I was palmed off to various relatives and friends who had little time for a confused and bitter boy. Then Joel lumbered into our lives.
My folks and Joel met for the first time as members of a large raiding party targeting a battery-hen farm.
A talented graffiti artist, Joel was in charge of damaging the conveyor belts and spraying slogans on the walls, while my folks were tasked with filming the conditions in the shed—the overcrowded cages, dying birds trapped in manure pits, filth coating everything.
Halfway through the raid, someone spotted the break-in and called the police.
Although the other activists managed to escape, along with thirty battery hens, Joel and my parents were caught and charged with trespassing and theft.
Three days later, the charges were dropped after an animal welfare group released footage of the conditions at the farm.
Three days in a prison cell, however, sparked a lifelong friendship.
Arthritic knees eventually prevented Joel from continuing a more active role, and he was the one who volunteered to look after our menagerie of rescue animals, including a lonely six-year-old boy, while Mom and Dad saved the planet.
“You still seeing Kelly?” Joel asks, scratching his beard.
“Nah.”
“What put you off this time?”
I open the refrigerator and poke at the contents inside. “I discovered the jungle lurking in her armpits.”
Joel smirks. “You not into the European thing?”
“I’m not into the hair thing,” I correct. A ginger cat entwines itself around my ankles. “She’s new.”
Joel glances down, rubs the cat affectionately behind the ears. “Rescued her from a breeder. One more litter would’ve killed her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ticiana.”
Taking out a container of marinated tofu, I feel my throat catch on a sympathetic breath.
Joel named the cat after his wife, a brilliant lawyer who’d specialized in animal abuse cases.
Three years ago, I was standing next to Joel when a doctor diagnosed an inoperable brain tumor as the cause behind her migraines.
Two months later, I held Joel up as Ticiana’s coffin was lowered into the ground.
“Good name,” I say.
“Came from a good woman.”
“One of the best. I still miss her.”
“So do I,” Joel says softly. “Every day.”
I pop a tofu cube into my mouth and pick Ticiana up. She gently headbutts my chin. “I miss having these guys around. I can’t keep any animals in the townhouse.”
“You still share your place with the two stooges?”
“Alex and Jason? Yeah.”
Joel frowns. “They vegetarians yet?”
I laugh. “They’re meat-eating monsters. The perfect cover.”
I know my roommates’ carnivorous habits irk Joel and my parents, but that’s precisely why I picked the two bodybuilders to share the three-bedroomed townhouse with. Like me, they come and go all hours of the night so no suspicions are aroused by my nocturnal activities.
Juggling Ticiana in one hand, I scan the masses of paper scattered across the kitchen counter. “What are you up to?”
Joel accepts the change of subject with a grunt.
“There’s been a spate of dog poisonings in the area.
Criminals killing off the security and then robbing the homeowners a couple of days later.
I’m putting together a first-aid info kit that might save a couple of lives if the owners react quick enough. ”
I set Ticiana down. “Good idea.”
Joel folds his arms. “Why are you here, Justin?”
I face my mentor, taking in the network of lines webbing that steady face, the gray taking over his hippie-length hair. “You ever miss being in the field?” I ask quietly.
“I am in the field.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “You write press kits, answer the phones, and raise funds. You’re a paperwork protester. I’m talking about dirtying yourself on the front lines. You miss that?”
“I don’t miss trouble,” Joel says flatly. “And that’s mostly where I landed up.”
“Welcome to my world.” I wait a beat. “Any point in me softening you up?”
“You’re wasting your breath. Whatever you’re up to, I want no part of it.”
His voice, though, lacks conviction. I smile inwardly and retrieve the report from my jacket, tossing it onto the kitchen counter. I watch Joel glance involuntarily at the block-lettered title: RELATIVE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE ON FETAL DEVELOPMENT IN A CANINE MODEL.
Silence suspends the air around us.
“Coffee?” Joel asks finally.
“Not if you’re the one making it.”
“Help yourself then.”
We busy ourselves with the mechanics of loading as much caffeine as possible into our systems, knowing a long night looms ahead of us. I let Joel ramble on about inconsequential matters, curbing my impatience, knowing he moves at a different pace to me.
At last, he taps the report, glancing again at the title. “Looks bad.”
“It is.”
“Darn it!” he growls. “I’m doing my bit. I’ve carved a life for myself here.”
“And I bet the boredom is eating away at you.”
“You were always too smart for your own good,” he grumbles. “Where’d you get the report?”
“Whistleblower.”
Joel stares unseeingly at a spot on the wall. Eventually, he sighs in defeat. “You might as well give me the details. But let’s sit down. The bones start buckling if I stand too long.”
We grab our coffees and head for the living room.
I settle in a wingback coated with cat hair, a ceiling fan shuffling the hot air around the room.
I wait until Joel finds his imprint in the couch before starting my spin.
“Six days a week, five hours each day, pregnant beagles are put in smoking chambers and forced to breathe in cigarette smoke. Just short of full-term, the pups are cut out of their mothers and their lungs dissected to examine the effects of nicotine.”
“Where?”
“Werner’s Science and Health University.”
“Who’s funding the experiment?”
I give him the names of a prominent cigarette manufacturer, a government agency, and a cancer charity.
Joel’s eyes narrow. “If taxpayers know where their money is going, and if donors realize what their charity contributions are funding, the university could have a PR disaster on its hands.”
“Exactly.” After a moment, I say, “There’s more.”
Joel hitches his chin as if preparing himself. “Tell me.”
“In another experiment studying the relationship between emphysema and cigarette smoke exposure, experimenters have performed tracheotomies on ten beagles, allowing tobacco smoke to be pumped directly into their lungs. So far, half of the beagles have died.”
Joel is quiet for a long time. At last, he says, “How can anyone justify animals being forced to pay the price for our addictions?”
“Nicotine research is big money. You can justify anything when the incentive is money.”
“Don’t know why I’m getting so riled up,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve spent most of my lifetime reading reports like this, yet each one still hits me like a sledgehammer.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. So this is riled up for Joel. I remember my reaction when I first read the report, how I punched a hole in Kane’s door and how Kane nearly punched me when he saw the damage.
Joel picks up the report. “Might as well start reading. Make me another cup, will you? I’m gonna need some sludge to get through this.”
In the kitchen, while waiting for the water to boil, I let Ticiana out the back door to play with the two Alsatians.
Then I hear Joel yell from the living room, “You can forget it, Justin. There’s not a chance I’m gonna do it.
You might have a death wish, but I’m not spending the last years of my life rotting in jail. ”
While Joel continues his diatribe, I finish making his coffee, humming under my breath. I let him vent a little more before I stroll out of the kitchen.