Killing It

by Camas Davis

  “If I saw someone hurting a rabbit,” Noah said, “I’d hurt them.” Bubba and Levi stared at him—they really didn’t have to do much to look menacing—and then Noah got nervous, jumped into a shiny new Prius, and drove off. Levi wrote down his license plate number.

  While Levi and Bubba were confronting the Prius-driving rabbit crusader, I posted on social media that the rabbits had been stolen. Ten minutes later, the first comment I received was from a Ronald Grandon: “I am thrilled that [these] rabbits get a second chance at life, and if true, 10 baby rabbits aren’t going to be raised for your sadistic blood lust!”

  Through a little more detective work—someone had decided to mess with the wrong ex-fact-checker—I deduced that Ron V Green, Ronald Grandon, Randall Green, and Noah Schwartz were very likely the same person, although I couldn’t yet figure out what his real name was. More research revealed that some vegans often used V as part of their online pseudonyms. When Bubba and Levi returned, our rabbit slaughter students had already begun to arrive. We had another class to teach. We had rabbits to kill—those we had transported to our class location the night before the rabbit-nappers had shown up at Levi’s house. We were all a bit of a mess.

  In the middle of class, I received another call from our multinamed friend.

  “Is class still taking place?” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Why is it still taking place?” he asked, vocally frustrated.

  “Because it’s still sold out.”

  He hung up on me.

  Back online, another intriguing post after the phone call:

  “Ron V Green,” it said, “is disturbed by this ‘collective’ and would like to see these bunnies thump these fuckers to death!”

  The cops had come out to Levi’s house to talk to Chris, and I was just about to call the cops myself with information about our new friend when I got a phone call from a reporter at The Oregonian, our state newspaper, asking if we’d be willing to comment.

  All the media attention I’d received thus far, along with the knife ad, had felt surreal already, but this—which Levi and I later came to call Bunnygate—raised my life in meat to the next level.

  Oh, the shit storm The Oregonian story unleashed. Within an hour, readers had posted hundreds of comments. Rabbit hunters and those who kept rabbits as pets butted heads, as did meat eaters and vegans, PETA activists and right-wingers. Some people accused us of neglecting to save the baby rabbits—the logic being that we didn’t care about the babies, since we were going to kill them eventually anyway—while people who raised rabbits for a living stated that their chances of surviving without their nursing mothers were zero. One conspiracy theorist suggested that we’d made the baby rabbits up to rally public support. We, too, had had trouble believing an animal rights activist—which is who we assumed had stolen the rabbits—would leave ten baby rabbits behind, but the nappers had indeed left them. Had they not seen them? Had they left them on purpose to make a statement? And if so, what statement were they trying to make, exactly?

  Just as we were finishing cleaning up, Chris called us, his voice shaking, to tell us that all the babies had died. When Levi hung up the phone, we sat in silence. The babies had been destined for the dinner table and the nature of their deaths troubled us deeply. They had suffered greatly, in a way that they wouldn’t have if their nursing mothers had not been stolen. They would have had a good life, a good death. Whoever stole them probably believed that killing these rabbits for food was the real crime, that there was no such thing as a good life or a good death for these rabbits.

  After the first headline appeared in The Oregonian, other stories followed—in The Huffington Post, even as far away as The Washington Post, as well as on local television news stations. It was all very funny and very Portland to these news outlets—like a sketch straight out of Portlandia—but it didn’t feel funny to us, especially when I woke up to this e-mail:

  Things you should do today:

  1. Get cancer.

  2. Rot. Slowly and painfully.

  Cunts.

  Comments along these lines began pouring in to my Web site:

  You are horrible people for doing this. You have forgotten your souls. You have buried your empathy. You have lost what it means to be human and have compassion in this world.

  This one kind of stood out:

  Killing animals is a sign of developing sociopathy. I would love to kick your ass and make you feel the fear of the animals you think it’s so neat to slaughter. . . . I’d love to see you in a lion’s cage and see what you think of butchery then. You’re Going Down.

  A lot of comments relied on a particular brand of circular logic:

  People enjoy eating meat. Animals are made of meat. Therefore we must eat the animals. Small woodland creatures such as rabbits, rats, mice, etc. are just the chicken nuggets of the animal world anyway. And yes, I’ll eat damn near any animal as long as you cook his ass up right.

  There were the patriotic folks, too:

  I’ll die to protect your right to preach your creed. I’ll also shoot the neighbor’s dog that raids the chicken coop.

  Every once in a while, someone openly grappled with their contradictory feelings:

  While my husband and I are vegetarians and concerned about animal welfare, we were also saddened that someone(s) hurt your group as they did . . .

  But this was my favorite:

  I wanted to let you know that even though I’m a vegan, I wholeheartedly support what you stand for. It’s obvious that your organization cares about the animals, and fosters . . . respect and humane treatment. So, even though Meat is Murder, I guess you guys are the Dexters of murderers, and I respect you for it.

  * * *

  —

  MEANWHILE, still refusing to return the stolen rabbits, the Rabbit Advocates hired an animal rights lawyer, whose name—I could not have made this up—was Geordie Duckler. The lawyer told Levi and Chris that the foster parents of these rabbits had grown attached to their new pets and that they wanted to offer fifteen hundred dollars for all the rabbits. (That’s eighty-three dollars per rabbit. Levi and Chris typically charged between fifteen and twenty dollars for a live rabbit, which reimbursed them for the cost of raising it. To adopt a rabbit as a pet from the Humane Society costs thirty-five dollars.) Levi and Chris were not interested in making a profit. They were, however, interested in the principle of the entire situation.

  “These rabbits were stolen,” they told the Advocates’ lawyer. “We would like for you to return them. If you would then like to knock on our door and buy them from us at cost, we would be happy to see you.”

  Chris and Levi waited to hear back. The Advocates waited for them to change their minds. I got my lawyer friend Matt involved. Matt and Mr. Duckler acted as go-betweens.

  After a few more days, the Rabbit Advocates returned the rabbits to Levi and Chris, via their lawyer. The handoff occurred in the parking lot of Mr. Duckler’s office. According to Chris, the women—curiously, they were all women—who’d adopted the rabbits all showed up in purple Rabbit Advocates T-shirts, with tears in their eyes. The Portland Police Bureau detective assigned to the case came, too, as did a few news channels. Just before Chris drove away with his reclaimed rabbits, however, he realized that one was missing: one of their breeder rabbits, named Roger.

  The cops put out an APB and posted it on their Web site:

  Update 4:15pm: The Portland Police Bureau has issued a description of Roger the missing rabbit. “Roger is described as small, gray and fury.”

  Update 4:40pm: The PPB makes a correction: “Roger is described as small, gray, and furry, not fury . . . he is anything but angry.”

  A day or so later, Levi received a letter from a different lawyer, this one hired by Roger’s foster mom. The letter stated that the woman who had “found” Roger had grown attached to him and would like to offer two hundred
dollars or the cost of replacing Roger, whichever was greater. In describing her client’s feelings for Roger, the lawyer quoted the French writer Anatole France: “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”

  Levi and Chris responded in the same manner: “Return the rabbits, please. Then, just come knock on our door and we’ll sell him to you at cost.”

  Our lawyer drafted a letter in response.

  “Your client,” the letter began, “has willfully refused to return what is indisputably stolen property—not lost property . . .”

  Eventually, the woman decided to return Roger the rabbit to Levi. The handoff happened in her lawyer’s office. Roger’s foster mother did not show up.

  However, a few days later, Levi received yet another letter. Roger’s foster mom had found out that Levi volunteered for a charity that took doctors and nurses to Haiti to provide community development services and free medical treatment, and so instead of simply knocking on Levi’s door and offering twenty dollars for Roger, the woman offered to donate a thousand dollars to Levi’s charity. He accepted the offer and returned Roger to his foster mother. The handoff, once again, occurred in her lawyer’s office. It was just Levi, the lawyer, and Roger sitting alone together in a conference room.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Levi said to the lawyer. He offered her a jar of his homemade rabbit rillettes to thank her for her trouble.

  The lawyer handed Levi a check made out to his Haitian charity for one thousand dollars. Rabbit Advocates shortly followed suit, offering the charity another sizable donation in exchange for the rabbits.

  In the end, everyone was happy, no one more so than the Haitians, who benefited from a new program launched by Levi, which was seeded by the two generous donations. The purpose of the program? Teaching a community of Haitians—in need of affordable protein in their diets—how to raise rabbits for food.

  * * *

  —

  BUT THAT WASN’T ACTUALLY the end. Shortly after settling with Roger’s new mom and the Advocates, a small group of angry protesters with masks covering their faces decided to pay a visit to Levi’s house. The same Prius that “Noah Schwartz” had parked in front of Robert Reynolds’s kitchen studio was parked on Levi’s street.

  “We know where you sleep,” the protesters yelled into bullhorns. “We will not let you keep your rabbits. We will be back. This is not over. Murderers! Blood is on your hands. You are not men!”

  With the help of local authorities and Matt, our lawyer, we determined that Ron V Green, Noah Schwartz, Ronald Grandon, and Randall Green were indeed all the same people and that Ronald Grandon was his actual name. Levi reported seeing Grandon lurking outside of his house several times after that and, once, being followed by him in his car. Levi took to sleeping with a gun under his pillow. Chris, who never locked the doors, began locking them. Nearly a month later, I was still fielding angry e-mails and death threats.

  Eventually, the cops advised Levi to apply for a stalking protective order, and we all ended up facing Grandon down in court, Matt acting as Levi’s lawyer. Grandon, who had recently been accepted to law school, decided to represent himself, to somewhat humorous effect, although I admired him for his attempt.

  Levi, Bubba, Chris, our lawyer, and I sat on one side of the courtroom. Across the aisle, a ragtag group of Grandon’s supporters scowled at us. There were maybe ten of them, most in their twenties, with shaggy hair, dressed in well-worn hoodies and frayed band T-shirts. They reminded me of my vegetarian self, in high school and college, young activists in appropriate West Coast uniforms. I felt a motherly protectiveness toward them, even if I also loathed the inflexible dogma they hewed so tightly to.

  We could be talking right now, I thought, finding common ground. But instead, we all just stayed on our respective sides of the room.

  In the end, the judge granted Levi the stalking protective order against Grandon and ordered him to pay our legal fees. Grandon, flanked by two young women he said were acting as his “security,” showed up at Matt’s office holding an oversize bag full of change and crumpled bills. Matt asked Grandon to count out the nickels and dimes on the conference room table between them.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER EVERYTHING, it was my hunch that few, if any, minds were changed. People who didn’t eat meat continued to not eat it. People with bacon fetishes continued to wax poetic over pork belly. Those who think of Levi and Chris and me as sociopaths continue to think of us that way. My classes continued to sell out. Levi and Chris continue to raise rabbits for food. Factory farms continued to cram thousands of animals into confined spaces.

  And yet, we all had something in common—Levi, Chris, and I, our students, Grandon, whoever stole the rabbits, and the Rabbit Advocates who took them into their homes. All of us had held the rabbits in our hands at some point. Felt their pulse. Contemplated their lives, their deaths. Each of us had tried to find meaning and make a stand within our very different acts. All of us thought we were doing the right thing.

  For those of us who choose to raise and kill animals for food, it’s anything but a simple choice. We look the animal in the eye as we breathe the same air. The same tree shades us. The world slows just long enough for us to see our shared place within it. And just before that moment that so few of us want to admit we’re capable of—that moment in which one animal chooses to kill another for food—we’re not only forced to realize what it means to be human. We’re forced to realize what it means to be animal, too.

  * * *

  —

  AT LEAST ONE MIND did eventually change, however. In the years since Bunnygate, Grandon has kept in touch with our lawyer, first sending news that he’d graduated from law school, then that he had passed the bar. Recently, he let Matt know that he no longer identified as vegan, writing that, while he still ate a plant-based diet, he felt that the term vegan was divisive and that it prevented him from meeting people at their level.

  “It’s nobody’s business what somebody . . . does with their body,” he wrote. And then, “Most of my ‘friends’ who were with me in the courtroom are no longer in my life.”

  FORTY

  After the protesters and death threats and courtroom drama, I didn’t think it was possible for me or the Portland Meat Collective to become even more of a flash point, but the year of the rabbit was just the beginning. If it wasn’t yet entirely obvious to me that a lot of people—not just vegans and vegetarians but meat eaters, too—found my particularly unapologetic this-is-where-meat-comes-from stance threatening, the year of the pig head, 2013, made it very clear.

  I kicked off the year by posing with a pig head on a silver platter for The New York Times Magazine. In the photo, I’m standing at the head of a dinner table. Eight high school students and two of their teachers, all from Oregon Episcopal School, an independent preparatory academy in Portland, sit on either side of the table. In the center we’ve placed the various parts of the side of pig we’ve just broken down—chops, hams, shoulder roasts, belly, trotters, hocks, skin, bones—in such a way that the outlines of the pig are mostly discernible. The two students sitting on either side of me gaze at the pig head on the silver platter, their faces a mixture of trepidation and hunger. The other students and teachers alternately eye the pig parts in front of them, some with reluctant smiles on their faces, others looking more somber. A few look to one another inquisitively. Only one student looks directly at the camera, smiling, almost as if he were part of a less serious photo shoot than this one.

  The photographer’s inspiration for the photo had been Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting Freedom from Want. In Rockwell’s painting, the people at the table appear gleeful, innocent, eager, and also relieved to be free of the feeling of want. One of the major critiques of the painting—a critique that came primarily from outside the United States—was that it glorified overabundance.

  For the
Times photo, the photographer asked that we emulate, as best we could, the expressions of the people in Rockwell’s painting. Most of us made it only halfway to those Rockwellian expressions of innocence. Our faces possess hesitation, the good kind. For some viewers of the photograph, the pig on the table might appear gluttonous and overabundant. But to me, it represented thrift, resourcefulness, a tempering of want, a rethinking of need, a willingness to know.

  * * *

  —

  THESE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS and I had spent the week leading up to that photo shoot exploring, in proper, hands-on, Meat Collective fashion, the basic processes by which meat gets to our tables, while a New York Times writer shadowed us for her story. Each year, students at the school are granted a weeklong, out-of-the-classroom, hands-on learning experience about a specific topic of their own choosing. These students had chosen to learn about meat with me, instead of hat making or dogsledding (two other offerings that year), and on our first day together, I asked them why.

  Most of their answers went along these lines:

  “I’m here because I love to eat meat, especially hamburgers.”

  Or “I’m here because I really like chicken.”

  Most of the students had seen the workshop as an opportunity to eat a lot of meat and maybe learn how to cook it. My secret hope was that, through this class, they’d come out the other side asking questions about their very desire for it.

  I started the class out with burgers.