Jerry's Vegan Women. Ben Shaberman

      “Honestly?”

      “Yes, honestly,” she answered, looking quizzically at him.

      “Well, it’s only been about a day.”

      “A day? Holy crap!”

      “Well, I had been thinking about it for a while, and then when I came here yesterday, and went to the animal barns, and, well it’s a long story.”

      The woman stared at him intently. “And now you’re handing out this propaganda at the county fair?”

      “I guess I just wanted to help. The people in this group are really nice.”

      The woman and Jerry turned toward the shouting that suddenly came from the other end of the entrance gate. “You get your hands off her motherfucker!” yelled a biker with long unkempt hair, a scruffy beard, and black leather sleeveless vest. He was directing his anger at one of the other vegetarian activists, a scrawny guy in a baseball cap, who Jerry hadn’t met yet. Despite being physically dwarfed by the biker, the guy wasn’t dissuaded and yelled right back. Within a few seconds, the two were on the ground fighting. Four other people with the Vegetarian Action Committee, all women, ran over to try and break up the skirmish. Jerry followed.

      The biker was on top of the activist, landing some strong punches to his face, as Jerry and the women tried to hold him back. The activist yelled, “Stop asshole! Stop asshole!” as blood flowed from his nose. The biker also had blood on his face, but it wasn’t clear whose blood it was. Within a minute, three policemen arrived on the scene and broke up the fight.

      The biker insisted to the police that the “vegetarian jerk-off” had assaulted his girlfriend, a young woman in a halter top and leather shorts looking on, who angrily concurred, “He was touchin’ my ass and my tits! Guy had his hands all over me! What a pervert!”

      The activist, who identified himself as Bill Kyle and a “loyal longtime volunteer” with the Vegetarian Action Committee, rebutted, “I was only trying to extol the virtues of a vegetarian diet to her when Easy Rider over here went ballistic on me.”

      Suzy, the Committee outreach director who Jerry had met the previous afternoon, introduced herself to the policemen and explained that there must have been a misunderstanding. “Officers, we’re all about non-violence,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re vegetarian.”

      The biggest of the cops, a young guy in aviator sunglasses with a shaved head, bulging tattooed biceps and a massive chest, listened to Suzy, and looked over the group as the other two officers handcuffed Kyle and the biker. Jerry noticed several families slowing to watch the spectacle as they made their way through the fair entrance gate. For them, the afternoon’s entertainment had already started.

      “Do you have a vendor’s license?” the lead officer asked Suzy.

      “No, we’re not selling anything, and we’re not actually part of the fair.”

      The policeman frowned. “You’re standing here at the main gate handing out this crap to every person who walks in, and you’re telling me you’re not part of the fair?” he said. “And then your little friend over here starts to inappropriately touch the women?”

      “Officer, all I did was put my hand on her shoulder,” said Kyle as one of the policemen adjusted handcuffs around his wrists.

      “KYLE. SHUT UP,” Suzy interjected, trying unsuccessfully to temper her irritation. “Officer, I am really sorry this happened.”

      The policeman stood shaking his head. A dozen or so people had now stopped to watch the action. Jerry could hear someone off in the distance laughing and singing, “Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?” The officer began talking into the radio clipped to his shoulder, saying something about getting three cruisers around to the main gate.

      “We’re bringing you all in. Vending without a permit. I am not putting up with this shit at a family event. Charge the two guys with assault.”

      Jerry and the other volunteers looked at each other in disbelief. Suzy, with her hands on her hips, glanced in the direction of the officer, and then turned around to look at the volunteers. She had no idea what to say, afraid that any more remarks in their defense would only make things worse.

      Two more policemen walked over, one carrying plastic handcuffs. After frisking and cuffing the volunteers, they escorted them to three cruisers. Suzy and Jerry were put in the back seat of one of the cars.

      “This is crazy! I’ve been doing outreach for six years and never once had anything like this happen,” Suzy said to Jerry as they sat in the police car. “What are they going to do, put us in jail?”

      Suzy was a cute, svelte woman about Jerry’s age, perhaps thirty, with a big colorful tattoo of a peacock running up and down her left arm, and a silver stud just above her right nostril. She had short brown hair with blonde streaks, and wore a tight-fitting green t-shirt with a black and white cow on the front. When Jerry talked to her the day before, he was impressed with how articulate and thoughtful she was. Sure, she looked a bit radical, but she had told Jerry how important it was for the vegetarian movement to reach the general public. “We need volunteers who are respectful and not too preachy,” she had said to him when he first inquired about helping the group. “We need to get our message across to people who have been eating animals their entire lives. Too many groups in our movement are busy preaching to the choir, and they don’t know how to talk to the average person on the street.”

      Suzy had been with the Vegetarian Action Committee since graduating from college, and while she went into the grassroots nonprofit with great expectations for changing the world, she had no idea how difficult it would actually be to inspire people to give up their carnivorous ways. Meat-free since the age of fourteen, she believed that once people learned the horrible truth about factory farming, the conversion would be easy. And she was convinced that she was the ideal person to carry the message to the masses. But she quickly found that people couldn’t wrap their heads around the concept of life without meat. Despite handing out graphic photos and descriptions of animal suffering — chickens in tiny battery cages, calves hauled away from their mothers to become veal, pigs in gestation crates so small they can’t turn around — they weren’t enough to alter people’s eating habits. Not only did throwing information at people not work, it often turned them away.

      Recruiting volunteers was a major part of Suzy’s role at the Vegetarian Action Committee, and that, too, was fraught with challenge and disappointment. There were always several no-shows for events and protests, and ironically, the most reliable volunteers were the most radical and ill-suited for communicating with the public. Enter Bill Kyle — a master of what Suzy called “obnoxious antagonism.” With limited success, he was trying to become a professional comedian, working with a community improv group, and appearing at occasional open-mike nights. He had his clever moments, but he was more often inappropriate than amusing. Yet, to Suzy’s dismay, he showed up at virtually every Committee event, despite her pleas to Marty to have him banned from the group. Maybe this latest debacle would change Marty’s mind.

      The officer who put Jerry and Suzy in the cruiser walked away without turning on the air conditioning, and the inside of the car was already hot from being parked in the midday sun. They sweat profusely, but were unable to wipe their brows, because of being cuffed behind their backs.

      “Marty is going to shit a brick,” Suzy said looking through the window at one of the other cruisers. “We’ve never been arrested. Some stupid shit has happened, but not this. Kyle has always had a mouth. I shouldn’t have let him come here. He thinks he’s funny, but always ends up pissing people off.”

      “Well, I don’t know if you guys have a lawyer, but my Uncle Mitch can probably help. He does mainly DWIs, but he’s gotten people out of jail for all kinds of stuff.”

      “I guess I should call Marty. He’s the executive director of the Committee, but I don’t think he knows what to do.” Suzy turned to Jerry. “So your uncle is a lawyer?”

      “Yeah,