Jerry's Vegan Women. Ben Shaberman

Everyone back home has a cat or a dog. But I am honored to meet Francisco and Gino. I know they’re you’re secret.”

      “Well, with a few weeks of school left, I think I’m safe. Actually, I think what saved me was Barbara, my RA. Second week of school, I came to her room early on a Sunday morning, because my phone was dead, and when she opened her door, I saw some woman sleeping in her bed. The woman looked older, too — older than a student. So I think she was afraid that if she ratted on me, I’d rat her out for being a lesbian.”

      “I guess that was pretty lucky for you.”

      “Yep, it really was. And having you and Rosie as friends was lucky, too. You guys are all I’ve really had here.”

      “Same for us, Sarah. Same for us.”

      ••••

      On the Saturday night after finals week, more than half the students were gone from campus. Rosie’s parents had arrived earlier in the day to help her move back to Connecticut, and the three of them were having dinner down in the Quarter. That was one meal Jerry was glad to miss. Talk about a last supper. They were reasonable people and understandably pissed that Rosie had wasted her freshman year at college. And they blamed her relationship with “that pot-smoking degenerate from Cleveland” as the main reason for her academic failure.

      Jerry didn’t know if he’d get a chance to say goodbye to Rosie. She and her parents were leaving Sunday, and Rosie asked him not to come around during the move. Jerry understood. But given that Rosie might be spending the night at her parents’ hotel, he might not see her again — ever. Maybe that would be for the best. Because Jerry and Rosie still hadn’t made any plans for their future, their relationship appeared destined to just fizzle out.

      Since Jerry was on duty that night until eleven, he decided to station himself outside of Rosie’s room for the last hour of his shift — maybe he’d run into her if she came back to campus that night. As much as he knew that he and Rosie were coming to an end, it was still hard to let go. They had been together virtually every day of the last eight months. Jerry wanted some closure — at least to say goodbye.

      A couple of girls on the other end of the hall were still moving out at that late hour, but it was unusually quiet. As he stood under the window at the end of the hall, Jerry wondered about all those girls who spent the year in the dorm. Would they be coming back next year or transferring or had they let the hedonistic trappings of campus life in New Orleans get the better of them? The year had gone by so incredibly fast. All Jerry knew was that he had to leave and start anew.

      At a quarter to eleven, Jerry got a call on his walkie talkie from one of the campus sergeants. There had been a minor collision between a parked moving van and a passing car right outside the freshmen women’s dorm. He wanted Jerry to get to the scene and direct traffic as needed until an officer arrived. “We’re a little short-handed right now, so I just want you to make sure everything is under control,” the sergeant said. “There are so many knuckleheads out at this hour, including the New Orleans PD. Call us if you need back up.”

      “Ten-four, I’m close by. I’ll be there in a minute or so,” Jerry said, peering out of the window to get a view of the accident. As he turned around, still listening to the sergeant on his walkie talkie, Sarah came out of her room, and just like their first-ever encounter at the beginning of the school year, she was wearing nothing but a white t-shirt. She smiled at Jerry and gave a little wave as she walked toward the lavatory. But this time, she moved slowly and deliberately down the hall. And Jerry noticed right away that her t-shirt was enticingly short, barely covering her firm, curvy cheeks. Before Sarah got halfway to the bathroom, she bent over as if to brush or scrape something off of her right foot, completely revealing her ass to Jerry. He could even see a tuft of black hair nestled in the small gap between her smooth, slender thighs. She held the position for a number of seconds to make sure he didn’t miss her show. For Jerry, the image of Sarah from behind was sensual perfection. She looked like a goddess. As she continued walking down the hall, she turned around briefly and smiled once more at Jerry. But he never saw her again.

      On Monday, Jerry and three other guys from his hall rented a Ryder truck to move home. The good news: Cleveland was the first stop on the journey, because his pals lived in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The bad news: Limited room in the cab meant that two guys had to ride in back with the furniture and boxes. Jerry was the only one who didn’t go to pick up the truck, so he didn’t sign the necessary form to be an authorized driver. That meant he rode with the cargo most of the trip.

      Riding in back was hellacious — the space was cramped, stuffy, and dark. Jerry wasn’t sure if the truck had bad shocks, or the continuous shaking and jostling were just the consequence of being in a part of the vehicle not designed for human transport. The back door was left ajar six inches so some air could come in, but it also let in exhaust and noise from the tires rolling on the pavement. It was difficult to carry on a conversation, so Jerry and his fellow passengers could only sleep or share a joint and stare at the small sliver of light coming from under the door. The thousand-mile trip from New Orleans to Cleveland began at seven in the morning, and ended just after midnight. Later that night, as Jerry lay in bed trying to sleep, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was still speeding down the freeway in the back of the rumbling truck.

      As unpleasant as the ride home was, it gave Jerry time to think about his future. With his mom alone in Cleveland after the divorce a few years earlier — his dad was still in South Florida — she’d be glad to have Jerry back again. Sure, she’d be upset about his grades, but he knew that in a day or two, the disappointment would pass for her. When it came to discipline, she was as soft as parents came. Maybe he’d live at home for six months or a year, until he had enough money to get his own apartment or share one with a roommate. He’d probably need to go to night school at a community college to get his grades back up so that he could return to a four-year program. As for Rosie, he came to the conclusion that he never really loved her. But she probably didn’t love him either. They had their good times together — their year of smoking and screwing — but it had come to an end. It had to. They both needed to move on with their lives.

      Jerry also thought a lot about Sarah during the trip home. He’d had sex with Rosie more than a hundred times and in every position imaginable — they even fucked standing up on the ninth green of a local golf course late one Saturday night — but none of those encounters compared to the last time he saw Sarah. Sure, she was a piece of neurotic work; it was hard to imagine being in a long-term relationship with her. But that moment she revealed herself to him — that instant of unrequited lust — was so erotic, spontaneous, and improbable, Jerry could never shake the wanting of her from his memory.

      And Jerry could never forget the sense of urgency and purpose he felt — the empowerment — as he transported the yowling Francisco to the animal hospital, and the delight of bringing him back home, happy and healthy, to Sarah. It was perhaps his greatest accomplishment at Tulane. And, Sarah’s cats had touched him in a way he’d never been touched before. He had found a new connection. He began to see that those humble, loving animals weren’t all that different from him. At the end of the day, they were just trying to get along.

      Suzy

      As Jerry held out the brochure to a woman at the entrance of the fairgrounds, he tried to explain why a vegan diet was better for health, the environment, and the animals. But just twenty minutes into his activism career, he didn’t have his pitch down very well. “The dairy cows are given antibiotics, and they’re lactating all the time,” he said before pausing and opening the brochure to a photo of what he thought would be a downer cow but was a pig in a gestation crate. He kept flipping the panels of the trifold, looking for a cow picture, but realized there wasn’t one. “Anyway, sometimes they can’t even standup. It’s really, really bad.”

      The woman was a short, stout, blonde wearing a bright-pink halter top that did little to support her enormous chest. She had three little kids in tow. Jerry couldn’t believe he was using the word “lactating” in front of her and her children. He tried to maintain eye contact, but her cleavage was like a hypnotic force controlling his gaze.

      She