“They left a couple of weeks ago to hitch a ride on theSea 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.”
