Lily Hoang - Unfinished - stories finished by Lily Hoang

They didn’t catch me though. By them, I mean you. You didn’t catch me.

No, I’m not here because you caught me in any act. I’m here because of betrayal. Not that I mind. I’d known since I was little I’d be a martyr. And whereas this isn’t death, per se, well, let’s just say you don’t really know what death can mean.

But you know this, of course. And you know that you have no evidence against me, except for Elgin’s word. And what’s the value of the word of a man guilty of terrorism? That’s what he was tried for, right? Terrorism? Domestic terrorism.

I’m here because Elgin gave my name, but I’m also here on my own volition. Remember that.

At one point, I had 700 mink running. The forest ahead. The smell of leaves turning orange, then brown. I can smell it, though I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about.

The smell of the place, not the shop we’d raided two years earlier: a trial run where the only casualties would be me and Elgin. The victims were already dead, their pelts fluffed into winter coats, handbags, hand warmers. We used to joke — me and Elgin — before all this: we used to say that if we got caught, at least the mink wouldn’t have to suffer with all those old rich people anymore. So our first raid was a shop that smelled of lilacs and talcum powder. We saved all those furs from a destiny of bourgeois closets, the occasional jaunt on the town, safely tucked away except for lovely days without a chance of rain or snow or too much sun.

One, then another. Five in all. I won’t give you names. I could’ve gone for a few more, but Elgin said we were ready for the real thing. As opposed to the fake thing, of course. And sure, I was impressed with the fact that we’d raided five stores without getting caught, but Elgin always reminded me not to get cocky, that these were just test runs. They were training for the real thing. The real thing isn’t what you’d expect. Have you been there? I mean, I’m sure you’ve been there for evidence. It’s not what I expected at all.

The shops, they weren’t adequate training, not the kind of training we really needed. It’s one thing to rob a cushy fur shop. Five thousand stores wouldn’t have been anything to prepare me for the factory. And no one warned me.

First, the smell. I hadn’t expected the smell.

So many years later, after Elgin got caught and testified, after he snitched on me, on Alice; so many years later, what he left out of all of it was the smell.

Maybe he couldn’t describe it, quantify it.

Or maybe the fear of the impending trial somehow overpowered the fear he once smelled in others, in those more helpless than he’d ever be, subjected to more torture, those awaiting not probation and some community service and an inconvenient fine but those promised to a certain, bloody death.

On them, there was the smell of fear. And apathy. But on Elgin, that day of his trial, somehow, I smelled only malaise, inevitability, a resigned acceptance of shit. On the animals: the smell of torture.

On Elgin: the smell of ennui. On the animals: the smell of being forgotten, an aftertaste of death.

On Elgin: the smell of a deeply desired spotlight, only not this way; this was not the way he was supposed to be honored.

My people all have some story that grounds their actions, a story dating back to pre-cognition — some puppy that was hit by a car, a stray chicken, growing up on a farm — to explain how they whet their activist lips. My people tell these grand stories — Alice hid a lamb in her room so it wouldn’t be killed; Johnnie herd 15,000 cows across a river into a meadow for safety; Renee took a bullet in the leg to explain to her parents the cruelty of “euthanasia.” I’ve heard them all. Nothing would surprise me now. Each one of those stories more far-fetched than the one before it, but we all keep them as treasures, as booty, as war wounds.

I want to say I believe them, but most of them are ridiculous.

I don’t even remember Elgin’s story. It was grand though, literally jaw-dropping. That’s Elgin’s way. He doesn’t fuck around. That’s why we followed him — I followed him. I think I fucked him that first night I met him, when he told me his story. Funny how I don’t remember it. Then again, I think I fucked a lot of people because of their stories. Many of them were pity fucks. Most of them were jealous fucks.

I made up that term you know: jealous fucks. It’s pretty obvious. You fuck because you’re jealous. And I was jealous of most of my people, mainly because they had stories. Stories that enticed.

I don’t have a story dating back to childhood. I ate meat until my senior year of college. Even then, once I understood, I cheated. I still cheat.

I hate that idea: cheating. It implies being ill-prepared. I was — am — prepared. I make my own rules. So what if I eat meat every once in a while? Weighed against the good I’ve done — all those fur coats, all those animals in testing facilities, in CAFOs — a little steak doesn’t do any harm.

It’s because I’m not disciplined.

It’s the smell. I can’t justify it. But I don’t have a story.

If I could, believe me, I would knock out all the bloody blocks it took to build my body. Sometimes, I look at my body in front of a mirror, and I wonder what bits and pieces I’ve incorporated into myself. Not just meat, bones, and organs, but suffering and torture. How can we ever truly be happy when we consume this constant stream of helplessness and pain?

I don’t have a story, but I have this. I have understanding. And the memory of smell. All those animals.

Sometimes, I wonder if eating all that suffering has made me so tall and thin, made my face so ugly. Because I am ugly. I don’t say that to get some kind of denial from you. I’m not like that. I’ve accepted this about myself since I was a child. No story, sure, but ugliness. It’s kind of like a story.

And I’ve done many ugly things.

When I first met Elgin, I asked him if I could pay a penance, maybe a lump sum of money to PETA, he said I could do better than that. And I could.

It was Elgin, of course, who first introduced me to the philosophy I now embrace. He was in one of my advertising classes. You’d think it would be Ethics or Philo or something like that, but no, it was advertising. Come to think of it, maybe this is my story.

Elgin spoke with more confidence than the professor. It was my senior year. I’d never heard anyone talk like him. I stopped eating meat that first day he spoke in class. He was that compelling.

He’s not so compelling anymore.

But his charm has not worn thin.

He smelled of earnestness. That, I think, was the defining difference between Elgin and everyone else, even the professor. They smelled of post-modern indifference.

Elgin took me on a field trip that first day I met him. I don’t remember what I said or what he said — I’ve never been a sentimentalist like that — but I do remember the drive to the farm. He’d lied to me, not that I cared. Told me we were going to see a cousin of his.

Or maybe Elgin thought it was true.

I tried to be nonchalant about it. I guess I was trying to impress him.

But how often do you really look at a farm? I mean, really look. No, we don’t look at farms. We don’t look at cows or chickens or pigs. We eat and we eat blindly. We eat advertisements. We eat colorful packaging. Then again, that’s part of my job. I make it easier for you.

I have to be honest: I’ve never been an animal lover. I never had pets. I cared more about getting into a top-five MBA program more than anything else. Then, the farm. And the smell.

To prove how unshaken I was, after the farm, I insisted we have fast food. I had the works: burger with extra cheese and bacon, fries, milkshake.