An eye for an eye

It was a black and white morass of broken bodies.

Shifting bodies, some downed. Double-deckered, rocking sides. Drooling, overheated, overstressed. It was 106 here today. How long had they been travelling already? Arizona plates.

Velvet patches, perfect noses, big round eyes and long lashes, ears like puppies’ prompting a desire to stroke and embrace. Stench of manure, fear, desperation and resignation. One nose reaching out of a top window as if gulping for air and release. I thought of the jumpers.

I felt dirty peering hesitantly into their container of hell. I met their eyes in shame. I was no comfort to them. I couldn’t give them water, but I flooded them with apologies and tears. My own pain and need were making it worse for them. I stepped back but couldn’t step away.

It was the first time a truckful of animals was in front of me, and it was the last thing I expected that day, down on the corner, out in the street.

62 & Park is where our neighbors come together to fight the power. Joshua Tree can organize in a heartbeat – we’re well-practiced – and a last-minute call from the National Parks Conservation Association was a piece of cake. We’re fighting plans for a pit mine along the boundary of the park’s east entrance. My sign said “No Mine in 29.” I brought a bubble wand. It was evening, the sun finally giving way, and there was reggae music. I waved at friends, took my post on the corner – and then I saw the truck.

Those metal holes.

Dread. Nausea. Adrenaline. Confusion, too: an animal transport truck parked in the empty lot behind the library. What the actual fuck?

Highway 62 connects the high desert to the low desert and the 10 Freeway, and it is not a normal route for any animal carriers.

I handed off my sign, dropped the bubble wand – now such a cruel surreality.

More personal irony hit me as I walked toward the truck, parked amidst our protest, at the place where we regularly rail against all manner of crimes against humanity. I wanted to grab all my comrades and protest the thing that matters most to me. It was right in front of us, and I was alone.

I was alone until one woman came to stand by me. She was picking her daughter up from the library. Her tears matched mine. She tried to tell me something about a cow from her childhood, but she could barely speak and I could barely listen. We could barely breathe.

We held each other’s shoulders and watched the truck from a short distance, heard hooves scraping on metal and occasional thuds. Caught glimpses of ear tags. Silently wondered where they were going, how many of their babies had already been stolen, how much rape and suffering they had already endured before they found themselves in this liminal space of transport. The engine idled. I guessed the driver was sleeping.

Sleep did not come easily for me that night. Whether my eyes were open or closed, I kept replaying the scenes inside that truck. I began to wish I had filmed it so everyone could see. Would my words be enough to tell the story?

The next day I went investigating. At the library, I learned several people had complained about the truck and that no one on staff had seen one parked there before.

I found Mark Gonzalez in the library parking lot. He is the private security guard hired by the county to police the area. There’s been a lot of transience and homelessness, and I guess some problems. He had been on duty, said he saw the truck, and he said he felt sorry for the cows. I also learned from him that the drivers, maybe a father and son, had been over at the JT Saloon, not in the cab. Mark generously took my number. He’s going to call me if this becomes a real pit-stop.

I was trying to piece it together. The empty lot behind the library only has egress from a side street. The saloon is across the highway. How would a big rig even find the spot? Was the driver local or just brazen?

Then my mind did what it always does: I conflate bad guys with other bad guys. Here’s some more irony about the “truck stop” in question.

For protests, we like the visibility of covering all four corners of 62 & Park. After a couple of rallies, the owner of the defunct real estate building on the northeast corner began to rope off his building and the empty lot next to it, to stage counterprotests. Big 4x4 trucks pulled in there, big flags and big (little) men.

A property search confirms the same owner for both parcels. Coincidence, maybe. Was the dairy company or the truck driver a friend of the opposition?

I keep asking what this truck was doing, but the real question, now that I've looked through those metal holes, is what am I going to do about it?

You might also like to read Jumpers or other blog entries at Plants on Purpose.