“I told you, you made us late,” Viv huffed. “Every senior is going to beat us and they’ll take all the good spots.” Our headlights illuminated long-abandoned farming equipment scattered in the barren landscape.
Harry drummed his palms on the steering wheel. “How do you know a good sleeping spot from a bad one in a slaughterhouse? Don’t they all inherently suck?” He raked his hand through his brown hair, leaving the sides vertical banks. Viv laced her fingers watching him, trying to resist licking her palm and styling his hair. “And there will be at least three missing seniors other than us. The Animal Rights Club isn’t coming,” Harry directed to Viv, “out of protest.”
“Fascist bullies.” Her chin jutted out. Viv was club treasurer sophomore year. She’d had three rescue bunnies, her parents had trained assistance dogs, and she’d teared up during those animal rescue commercials with puppies behind bars. One unlucky day she was spotted in leather riding boots; Viv was shunned.
Graham perked up. “Did I tell you about that lecture in my Ethics and Activism course on how the slaughterhouse caught fire?” Graham loved to audit classes in his mom’s department at the University of Santa Barbara.
“Some disgusting smoker dropped their cigarette and burned the place down,” Viv replied absently, riffling through her purse. She craned around and held a chandelier earring to her earlobe, sending a whiff of honeysuckle perfume into the rear seat.
“Space empress chic,” I declared. The pressure I felt when Viv asked for my opinion on accessories and clothes led to theatrical embellishments. Better to overdo it than disappoint.
Graham pitched forward for our attention, one finger raised. “But it wasn’t an accident.”
The car shuddered over a metal grate. “What happened?” Harry asked.
Graham settled forward, elbows on his knees, hands tented under his chin. “Sixty years ago”—he got his eager-to-teach expression—“there weren’t laws about the treatment of animals. None of this free-range, veggie-fed yoga meat. They would just pack the cows onto the killing floor, gas them, and butcher them.”
Viv crawled up on her knees, propped her chin on the seatback, and glared. “If this is just meant to frighten me, I’m going to tell Jess Clarkson about your baby carrot.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get why guys—why you”—I nudged Graham’s shoulder—“are interested in Jess. Her brain function is nil.”
Graham cupped his hands at his pecs and raised a sly eyebrow. “Really? You can’t think of two gigantic reasons why I’d be interested?”
I stuck two fingers in my throat and gagged.
Viv’s eyes flicked down to her front before she crossed her arms there. “God, when did you become such a skeeze? You used to be my squishy Teddy Graham.”
Harry tipped his head back, laughing. “He’s always been a perv, Viv. Even when he was a chubby little dude who let you call him Teddy Graham and Graham Cracker, he used to talk about jerking it and—” His voice broke away as Graham lunged for him and the car swerved left. Graham tried to cover Harry’s mouth. “And he used to brush up against—” Graham caught Harry’s collar. Harry made a gurgling, hacking noise but righted the car.
Viv’s earrings danced on their silver hooks as she half shrieked, half laughed. “Sit down, Teddy Graham.”
I yanked his elbow and he slid back, all shamefaced grin. “Okay, okay.” His hands went up in surrender. “I used to brush up against girls in line during the seventh grade. I wasn’t a sexual predator. I was twelve. And I wouldn’t do it now.”
“No, now you just study on the bleachers by the pool whenever the girls’ swim team is doing laps,” I said. “Now you drool over Jess.”
“You’ll see, Pendleton.” He leveled a finger at me. “That girl wants me. We’re in the middle of a passionate courtship.”
“Does she have a thing for seventeen-year-old boys who use words like courtship?” I asked.
“This is why girls think we’re weird,” Viv said. “We spend all our time with them.” She motioned to the boys.
“I don’t understand why you think our sophisticated loner status is such a plight, Vivian,” Graham said.
“Don’t lump me in with Graham’s perviness,” Harry told her.
Viv patted him on the shoulder and then said to Graham, “Harry’s basically a monk compared to you.” Graham snorted. “He is. We didn’t even know he was going out with that shy little what’s-her-name from work until he broke it off.”
A stich formed between Viv’s brows as she stared into the dark of the rear window. No one was certain where to go from there. Viv had been furious that Harry had developed a crush on a girl, taken her out twice, and kept it from us. Harry insisted it wasn’t about having a secret. It didn’t work out with her anyway, although he’d never said why.
“May I please get back to the story?” Graham asked, exasperated. “I’m not screwing with you guys. They gassed the cows, but the gas wasn’t fatal. They were paralyzed by it and couldn’t struggle when hoisted up on big hooks to be butchered.” He dragged his finger across his neck. “They would bleed out, mooing.”
At a swell in the road, we had an unobstructed view of the slaughterhouse. Windowless, anonymous, with the atmosphere of all creepy abandoned buildings. Cars were parked haphazardly around it. Our classmates were a shadowy mass at the entrance. My hands were shaking and I slipped one in Graham’s. His fingers folded over mine.
He continued, “This one employee couldn’t stand to see the cows suffer anymore. He planned to burn the place down, stop all the carnage. He thought that once the flames caught, the cows would stampede to freedom and the slaughterhouse would close. So he set the fire and the alarm sounded, but rather than open the gates for the cows to run, someone hit the gas button and all the cows were paralyzed.” Graham paused. Viv’s fingers on the headrest were dappled red and white. “They burned alive.”
“Crap,” Harry said.
Graham spoke, waving our joined hands. “But the fire was extinguished before it finished the cows off. They were burned. Thrashing and beating their skeleton heads on the ground.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Viv said, rolling the window open. We got a strong, hot whiff of ash and death. After sixty years, how did the place still reek of decaying flesh? “This is why I’m a vegetarian,” she muttered, rolling the window back up.
We were quiet for a minute until Harry said, “Cheeseburgers smell much, much better.”
I laughed through my nose, failing to hold it in. Viv said, “You’re becoming as gross as Graham, Harry.”
“Really,” Graham said, “that’s the big insult all of a sudden? You’re as bad/vulgar/pervy/substitute-the-negative-adjective-of-your-choosing as Graham is?”