Behold the naked lady
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may not have their finger on the pulse of carnivorous South Louisiana, but they sure do know how to press our buttons.
In February, hoping to raise awareness that the meat industry is actually a chronic polluter, they staged a modest demonstration to illustrate that switching to brussels sprouts is more effective than driving a Toyota Prius.
They went with their go-to attention-getting shtick: a naked young woman to step into a shower on a downtown sidewalk during lunch hour.
As the two or three demonstrators started setting up, sidewalk diners nearby kept right on munching pepperoni pizza. At first they showed mild interest in the slim young activists futzing with their makeshift contraption.
The animal rights activists seemed detached, not at all intense or nervous—just another day in the CBD. They weren’t worried about whether anyone would show—they knew their organizers had sprinkled the city with e-mails promising lunchtime nudity.
About five minutes before 1 p.m., the Dockers set started sauntering up in knowing twos and threes, converging in an unnatural circumference around the Florida and Third Street intersection.
Then a guy named B.R. Smith of Pride walked right up to her, smiling. He wore a cowboy hat and denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. “Can you read?” he asked the showering woman.
“Then read this,” he said, turning around to reveal the wording embroidered on the back of his jacket: “Eat more meat, drink more milk: Womack Dairy.”
“I heard they was going to be here,” Smith said. “That’s all I came to say. Now I’m going to go home and cook me some venison.”
I snapped a picture. I named the file “Welcome to Baton Rouge.”
Cheryl Iennusa and Christina Soileau were walking back to work from lunch and stopped to find out what the hubbub was about.
“So she’s taking a shower on the sidewalk and wasting water to protest how much water the meat industry wastes?” Iennusa asked, either genuinely confused or wickedly sarcastic.
“And who wears pumps in the shower?” Soileau added.
Sarcastic. Definitely sarcastic.
When it became clear the half-dozen police officers from three different agencies weren’t going to arrest anyone, I started walking back to the office. I reached a female parking attendant eating lunch in the front seat of a parked car who couldn’t quite see what was going on:
“They fin’ to have a parade?” she asked through the open windows.
“Nah, just a naked lady taking a shower on the sidewalk.”
Her male co-worker lurched forward in the passenger seat, staring intently beyond his dashboard lunch.
“Where?” he blurted, his gold teeth suddenly bathed in smiling sunlight.
Never taking his eyes off the horizon, he climbed out of the truck and drifted smoothly toward the commotion.
“Fastest he’s moved all morning, right?” I asked.
“Yup!” she confirmed, smiling.
