Does freedom of speech entitle you to shout 'Cliche!' in a crowded ashram?
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Ty could feel the grease in the air as he opened the Chick'n Shak door. He searched the restaurant for familiar faces.
I've got to stop, he thought. The militants had declared all of Santa Cruz a junk-food-free zone. There were picket lines at McDonald's now.
The Chick'n Shak was the usual fast-food palace, decorated in fake woodgrain and plastic tables and Employees of the Month. A banner over the menu board bragged, Real Chicken Taste.
A gray-haired guy took Ty's order. My Name's Mel, his nameplate said.
Ty said he wanted the three-piece meal and watched the fryboys hustle up orders in the kitchen.
Mel took his money and handed over a box in a greasy bag. "Thank you sir and have a nice day, " Mel said.
Ty went back to the parking lot and slid into his car. He pulled the chicken box out of the bag.
I've got to stop, he thought, I've got to quit.
He scarfed one piece of chicken after the other, not stopping. Ty could feel the cholesterol accumulating in his veins, hear the arteries hardening in his body, feel the torment of ten thousand innocent chickens.
A drop of sweat rolled down his face and fell on his shirt.
Ty tried to end these dirty little sessions a dozen times, but nothing worked. There was some perversion built deep into his soul, some animal fat demon with its claws sunk into his gut. He was a cholesterol wino.
Ty scanned the parking lot for any cars he recognized. There was a blue hatchback with a guy sitting by himself and a minivan with two hefty hausfraus and some kids in the back.
His hand twitched a little as he put the bones back in the box. The bones of one of God's creations. A creature with a face.
Ty wiped his hands with a napkin and tossed the chicken bag in the back seat. He'd clean out the car when he got home.
...
A few days later was the usual Tuesday night housemeeting. Most of the housemates were around that night, including Ty, Sola, Nick, Ronnie, Sheeva.
Racked with chicken guilt and drowsy with animal fat, Ty slumped in the corner armchair like a beery NFL dad. He tried not to stare at Sola, mostly because one stray look from her would turn his heart to compost.
Sola and Nick were over on the couch, talking and laughing as Nick showed off her new flattop and workboots.
Ronnie sat on the floor in his usual state of total and absolute Ronnieness. With his ganja and cornrows, Ronnie smiled and nodded as if he were a high-level ambassador from Ronnie-World.
Sheeva paced back and forth in the corner of the common room. He was looking particularly handsome in his drawstring pants, natural fibers and breck-blonde hair. The man glowed with such good health and spiritual positivity that many people felt an irresistible urge to crush his head with a rock.
After an involved, half-hour discussion, the housemates finally agreed that Nick would make miso soup on Wednesday, Ty a veggie casserole on Thursday, and Sheeva a stir-fry for Sunday dinner.
"Alright," Nick said. "Anything else?"
"Yes," Sheeva said. "I have something. Something very serious. Something that affects us all."
"What," Nick said.
Sheeva reached behind the couch and pulled out a square object covered with a piece of cheesecloth. He put it in the middle of the room.
"This," Sheeva said, and pulled off the cheesecloth.
It was the Chick'n Shak box from a few days ago.
"I found it in the trashcans while looking for compostables," Sheeva said. "From the rest of the car trash with it, I have no doubt it belongs to Ty."
Sola gasped. Nick shook her head.
"This means Ty's been violating our most basic rule," Sheeva said. "He's been eating meat."
Sheeva gave Ty his best gotcha-now smile. Ronnie stared at the chicken box like it was the final exam for a class he forgot to attend.
Ty looked down at the carpet. He knew it would all come out someday.
"This is a vegan household," Sheeva said. "We don't allow eggs or honey, and he's eating meat?"
Ty looked up long enough to catch Sola's how-could-you look. "People are tired of you and your unpositive attitude," she said.
"Yeah," Nick said. "Your attitude. You do your chores, alright, but you always act so put-upon."
"Yeah," Sola and Sheeva said.
"Yeah," Ronnie said.
Everyone in the House looked at Ty, waiting for his defense, but Ty just went on staring another hole in the carpet.
He'd crossed the line, there was no defense. For some crimes, there can be no forgiveness. Ty could feel all the steak and chops and meatloaf he'd ever eaten sitting there in his veins, waiting for the day they'd send him to the boneyard.
Sheeva pointed to the crumpled chicken box as he reached his final summation. "Meat in the House. Processed food in the House," he said. "What's next? Tobacco? Steak?"
The chicken box sat in the middle of the floor, Exhibit A, a greasy indictment of Ty's sins.
"I say we vote to give him 30-days notice," Sheeva said. "We don't need that energy in this House." With Ty out of the picture, Sheeva could move into his room, with its cheap $400 rent.
There was no way Ty could afford to move or find another house. All he had was his work and his pain. Well, his work, his pain, and the now-dead possibility that Sola might favor him one night.
"I vote him out," Sheeva said. Ty knew that once Sheeva got his plebiscite, there would be no stopping him.
"Ronnie? Nick?" Sheeva asked.
"Whatever everybody wants...is cool with me," Ronnie said.
Nick shook her head and gave Sheeva some serious hardface. "Sheeva, you and your traumatic dramatics," she said. "Every goddamn housemeeting, it's some damn thing. First of all, Sheeva, you don't live here, so you can't vote."
Sheeva's perfect skin flushed a bit. It was true that he was subletting his girlfriend's room while she was in Costa Rica.
"Second, I like Ty," Nick said. "He's a broody guy, but his heart's in the right place. And he didn't eat any meat in the House, did he?"
Ty shook his head, No.
Everyone turned to Sola with the due deference given to the incredibly attractive. She sat and thought some of her beautiful-person thoughts.
"I agree with Nicky," Sola said. "He didn't eat any meat in the House. And everyone makes mistakes, even you, Sheeva."
Sheeva winced like a tourist who'd just had all his flights cancelled because of fog.
So, Ty calculated, Sheeva, yes; Nick and Sola, no. And the absentee ballot from Ronnie-World. The motion fails.
"I'm very sorry," Ty said. "Sometimes--I don't know why I do things, sometimes."
"It's OK," Sola said. "Everyone knows how weak you are, Ty."
Everyone started to nod, since the jury had spoken, but then Nick pointed her hardface over at Ty.
"Don't let it happen again," Nick said. She glared at him like a Marine sergeant at a timid recruit.
"Alright," Ty said. He nodded.
Satisfied with the verdict, everyone nodded. They declared the housemeeting over and stir-fried some nice vegetables from the Rainbow Collective.
...
A few weeks later, Ty was sitting in his car back at the Chick'n Shak.
I've got to stop, he thought, I've got to quit.
Little by little, he was sliding to hell. Sheeva brought up the fried chicken heresy at every housemeeting.
Even worse, some junk-food militants had torched two McDonald's last week. It was all over the news.
The whole thing was driving him crazy, and he didn't have very far to drive.
Ty finished his cholesterol bombs and looked around before tossing the box into the egg-shaped trashcan.
He had to be more careful, he was getting sloppy disposing of the evidence. And he had to remember to shower and use the breath mints when he got back to the House.
As Ty got back in his car at the Chick'n Shak, a Santa Cruz moon shaped like a dragon poked its nose out of the clouds.
Jon Alan Carroll is a fiction and humor writer, so his path is a lonely one.