As a boy, my father raised rabbits. “Raised” is a euphemism. The rabbits were meat. When customers wanted stew or fricassee, he slaughtered the rabbits with a hammer to the back of the head so they wouldn’t get scared and taint the succulent flesh with their screams. He did this after months of giving them food, water, a place to sleep, and the occasional pet when his fingers yearned for softness in his life—but no name, never a name. “Livestock aren’t meant to be friends,” he told me. “They exist to be used.”