Marco was never quite sure where his hatred of animals began. Well, he loved animals, but he loved animals so much that he just couldn't possibly— ever, under any circumstances, dream of, dare to— make any attempts in the manner of eating them!
He was raised on a dairy farm out in the Midwest, one of those “moo” some fly-over states that Americans forget about so much.
It was here Marco lived with his father, his mother, a younger sister, and 10-12 Guatemalans that worked on the farm and would occsaionally sleep with Marco’s mother.
When he was really tiny, just beginning to walk, Marcos’ dad would take him around the industrial rotary milk pumping station, and from behind the plexiglass, he would give all the cows names. Tabitha, Mamsy, Moo-becca (he was always patrial to Moo-becca), and he would watch the Guatemalan’s spray oil into the milk extractors, as they were always getting stuck with dirt, and if youve ever seen a cow hooked up to the 2,000 BTU extractor, as the suction release broke, well oh boy— ware you in for a treat.
When he started off in Elementary school, Marco would race home to help his dad unload the feed trucks. He always loved the logo of “Al and Al’s, All In All Feed” they had on the sides of their trucks. It always made him laugh, the way the cows were drawn with these big googly eyes, and were eating grass so green that it looked like distilled Mountain Dew. The feed itself was an off shade of black, smelled like hell, and had to be handled with gloves due to the quantity of antibiotics in it. Marco was 14 when he finally saw someone get sick in his town. Everyone died at 65, but they never did get sick.
A big train would come through town twice a month, on it new dairy cows were shipped in, and the feeble dairy bulls were shipped out. Dairy bulls really don’t have value. Theyre such weak animals. Lean, little, tiny things, they need milk to grow, but their meat density is just uselessly unefficient, but they do make great puppy chow, the dogs tend to like the beefy taste better than the far gamier faire that comes from a retired race horse.
One day, as Marco’s bus was taking him to school, he must have been 13 or so, a natural gas tanker collided with an oncoming train, and well, he saw the explosion, and for the rest of the summer, the town smelled like bad beef and roast barbecue. Hooves were everywhere.
In High School, his father ended up selling the farm, deporting the Dominican field hands, the Guatemalans had long since been sent home after Marco’s new baby brother came out a few shades darker than Marco’s dad was comfortable with. He sold it to “Free And Green America” a local natural gas company, that had recently been bought by Shell.
To celebrate finally coming into enough money to retire and send his eldest son off to college with, Marco’s father took his family to the nearest 5-star restaurant for a grand victory dinner!
It took a touch over 16 hours, but once they had crossed 5 state lines and made it to New York they sat down at “Le Palm Royale” where Marco’s father ordered fish all around!
What Marco didn’t realise was that the fish here was in the Mediterranean fashion, and came head-on. As Marco stared down at his plate and the little Bass’ mouth, he almost imagined it speaking to him: “Bubble bubble, bloop bloop, do I eat you, Marco?” No, no, Marco thought, a chuckle to himself. “No, Mister Bass, that you do not.”
From this day on, Marco was as Vegan as apple pie, that is, if it was in fact a nondairy and non-egg apple pie. Is there even an egg in apple pie? Not in Marco’s.
Marco found himself a young graduate of Humboldt University in Berlin. Despite the Germans being famous for their sausage, it was apparently the vegan capital of Europe, and Europe always seemed sexier than the states ever could, maybe New York would have been cool, but that’s where Billy Bass was from, not from, but it’s where he was cooked, and years and years later, it was still too much for Marco to think about.
There was a large Vegan community in France, but all that wine, and so little of it, wasn’t legally vegan— that it wasn’t worth the risk. Italy had the exact same problem, add to that the fact that there are no universities in the entire nation of Italy, and it became quite low on the “where should I go to school list.” England? Vegan capital? For sure, there was a large swath of veganites in Jolly Old, but it’s England, which is great, but… they killed Princess Diana. Spain? He read online that the beaches always smelled like Paella and shellfish, but Berlin, Berlin had no such beaches, and as a city, it was oh so cheap, with the society of vegans (SOV) having their international headquarters there, right by Tiergarten.
His studies at Humboldt had went well, he was a childhood psychology major, and had dreams of getting further and further graduate dedrees to eventually be allowed to work with and help younger people get through their issues.
Something marvelous happened in his senior year at Humboldt. his course advisor, an old ancient man by the name of “Heinz Rinzler,” told Marco that he had something exceedingly important to talk to him about over their weekly pints of beer.
Over the steins, Dr. Rinzler revealed, with great sadness, that his wife was getting very sick. She was a few years younger than he was, but she was finding walking very difficult, and their third-floor flat was officially too much for her to do without assistance, assistance that Dr. Rinzler himself was far too old to provide.
Marco let a friendly grasp, ear, and spoke his most honest of sympathies to the old man that he now considered a mentor and a friend.
“What do I mean, Marco?” Heinz began. “Is that I now have no need for this, flat, as you'd call it, and I really would like to show it to you, since it seems you'd like to stay in Berlin after graduation.”
Tempted to correct him on his people calling it a flat, which is so exclusively a British thing, but he agreed and said that he would love to come and visit the old man’s apartment.
The space was brilliant, three rooms, right off of the Crellestabe. It had giant bay windows, a kitchen with a courtyard view, a small chandelier from the 30’s hanging up in the main room, it was a brilliant space with good hard wood floors.
“How much is it?” Marco asked.
“600 a month.”
“600?”
“600!”
“Euros?”
“Exactly.”
“But how?”
“Rent controlled from the war.”
“You had this since the war?”
“Well, yes, my father wanted a place to hide Jews in; he saw everything going the way it would from as early as 32, so he thought it might be useful to have a place with a solid attic.”
“This place has an attic?”
“No, he read the flyer wrong.”
“Oh.”
“So you really can’t blame him for adjusting his position on it all.”
“No attic.”
“No attic.”
“Did he manage other ways to save anyone?”
“This really took a lot out of him to find, and well, he was pretty heartbroken about the lack of attic.”
“I see.”
“Beautiful balcony though!” They walked over to the balcony, overlooking the boulevard.
“Gorgeous, doctor, just gorgeous.”
“Can’t hide anyone on a balcony.”
“I guess not.”
“You can grow tomatoes.” He gestured to the tomatoes in pots. “But you can’t hide anyone.”
Marco sezied the space with great joy and he wrote a message to the Vegan council! “House Warming Party This Weekend” he continued it with “Theme: Vegetation Day.”
It was a who's who of Berlin veganites. You had Ackerbohne Rosenberg, Albert Spargel, Joseph Gurken, Rotkohl Heydrich, Adolf Erbse, and of course the high command, leading voice, hero for the chlorophyll’d: Heinrich Himmler (no relation).
The party was grand! Each room was set up with a different assortment of plant-based delicacies. Soy was in the study, as well as soy popsicles, soy pot pie, and soy chips. Pea was in the bedroom, pea popsicles, peas and potatoes, and pea poppers. In the main living room was where you could get you could find your root vegtables, carrot cups, parsnip bites, and turnip popsicles, everyone really liked popsicles.
The reviews were raves, and discussion after vegan discussion was had over pint after pint of locally brewed and soil regenerative beer. Ideas about turning high-end housing into multi-level community farms, whether or not lab-grown meat was still murder, and some other social causes were discussed. The group was decisively pro-immigrant, and acknowledgments were made that so much of the vegan cause was started by Indian and south asian peoples, who understood the benefits and importance of a plant-based diet.
It was at this party that Marco met Eva. She was a thin, good looking blonde, with an iron difeicney.
“Hey,” said Marco.
“Hallo.” Went Eva.
“Enjoying the party?”
“Jah.”
“Ha, wow, cool, so cool.”
Yeah, I guess you could say it was love at first sight, and this began to blossom from there. She quickly began to spend more and more time over at his place, working on his balcony garden. It was love in all its bean sprouty glory.
Marco quickly became fast friends with the higher-ups in the world of vegan German politics, even Himmler said to him, “I think we need to annex this apartment. I mean come on man, dis shiet ist banging!”
Party after party was held at marco’s. Vegan potluck, after vegan potluck, and eventually even the members of the European Greenpeace Movement found themselves partying at Marco’s swank pad.
It was there, on the night of October the 8th, that the Green Peacers decided that they were going to fully back the concept of, free soy milk for all— and open German borders. When the head of the party cheered his glass of bio dynamic sherry to Marco, his gorgeous German minx of a girlfriend gave him a kiss, which would not leave his face for another week and a half.
It was two days later, after this last party, that Marco, while staring at his sex turnip of a lady, working on her ruddabaghes, noticed a dull hum of machine work. He did his best to ignore it.
Slowly, the dull hum became a loud growl, and he lifted up his sunglasses and peeked his head down below, where he saw several Turkish guys working on some kind of construction project.
Golly gee, he thought, isn’t that grand, not only am I going to have some new ethnic neightbors, but all of this coming less than 72 hours from that Green Peace meeting. Life sure is good.
The next morning, he kissed his lady goodbye, and went out on his morning jog, and when he went downstairs, he saw that the crews had really gotten a lot done over night. There was still masking paper up in the windows, but there was clearly a lot that had been done to the old laundry mat that he lived above. Hmm, he thought, maybe they are adding some high efficency machines.
As he got back from the run, he saw two massive trailer trucks, and a had dozen Turks unloading large stainless steel blocks. Hmm, he thought, must be those new efficent machines.
The next night, as he was sitting on his couch, reading “Gardener’s Weekly,” he smelled something awful. What, what even is that? He wondered. It smelled like arsenic on fire. It made his skin crawl, so he closed his window and returned to his couch, his girlfriend’s legs returning to their resting place over his.
He fell asleep and awoke with his nostrils on fire. What in the living fuck, he wondered once again. He excused himself from his girlfriend, grabbed a robe, and went downstairs.
It was there he discovered what was lying behind the paper and in that truck. A new neon sign read: CHICKEN CITY. Maro almost passed out. In the glass bay windows, like a Macy’s Christmas display, were two massive rotisserie machines, each holding a dozen birds in constant rotation. Fuck.
He ran upstairs, took off his robe, and tried to convince his girlfriend to get in bed. he threw the curtains over the windows, hoping their sheer silk nature might diffuse, or do something to keep the smell of Halal chicken from entering his princely kingdom.
She noticed something was wrong.
“Baby, what’s gotten into you?”
“Oh God, I'm just, aghck, so tired— aren't you tired?”
“Not really, it’s only six in the afternoon.”
“When it’s six, it’s no longer the afternoon.”
“Okay well—“
“Arent you horny?”
“What?”
“God I just realised, Im not tired Im just so horny.”
He pulled her in close.
“You smell like shit babe.”
“No you smell like shit.”
“What?”
“Uh, nothing— so are we gonna fuck or?”
“I really am not—“
“Ahh but baby, six pm is prime fucking hours.”
They made out in an embrace.
“You really smell like something died— I swear it’s like.”
“It’s not chicken.”
“No, no!” She began. “It is like chicken! Are you eating chicken behind my back?”
“Babe.” He soothed. “I would sooner cheat on you and raise a family behind your back in the apartment next door than eat chicken.”
“Now that you say, or I said it, this whole place smells like chicken.” She rushed out of his arms to the door.
“Babe!”
Marco chased her down the stairs and watched as she fainted as she exited to the street. The smell of Zaatar and seared skin was so strong that she collapsed the second she made it out of the front door.
He ran to her, grabbed her in his arms, and screamed to the passersby.
“Help! Help! Does anyone have any Kale? Any— fucking it doesn’t even have to be Organic.”
After minutes of waiting for someone to run and grab her a handful of raw almonds, she came to in his arms.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“I, I…”
“Are you there?”
“I, I…”
“Say anything.”
“We have to break up.”
“Baby.”
“We, we have to, I can’t—I can’t ever be here.”
“Chicken shop?”
“Chicken shop.”
That same night she packed her things, kissing him one last time, headed out of town, she was moving to a farm.
“I need the dirt to clean me.”
Himmler and his gang of merry Vegans too stopped arriving.
“You can still come to the meeting, but you have to use my shower before you do.”
Marco found himself alone, rocking back and forth, tying rosemary an sage into ornate masks, wearing them around like a biblical plague doctor, but all was lost— even during the day, when they didn’t serve lunch, he knew it was a matter of time, but the rooster coo’d and he would have his nostrils return to their onsalught.
Now Marco, unable to afford to live anywhere else, sits on his balcony upon high, with earplugs in his nose and snacks on sunflower seeds every night. Every night, in silent vegan revenge, he spits the seeds down below. So if you ever are eating Doner in Berlin, and feel the wet brush of a seed called Sunflower, take a look up, and you might see Marco, broken vegan, shell spitting in the night.