"So, you switched sides, huh?" Christopher Patterson wheezed as he flung his straw hat on the table.

     This old man wasn't ever going to let me live down working for Exxon-Mobil.

     "'Bout time somebody stepped up and fought for us. We are being poisoned and nobody's doing a damn thing about it."

     Vincent, was, of course, once again, out of the office.

     "How can I help you, Mr. Patterson?"

     "How do you sleep at night after what you did to the Gulf?"

     I sighed. Did I personally light a match and set off the explosion that caused the worst environmental disaster in US history?

     "I'm just a lawyer, Mr. Patterson. I never worked on an oil rig."

     "Shrimp born without eyes. Fish oozing sores. Clawless crabs. Good eating, huh?"

     "..."

     "But you didn't grow up around here. I've lived in this town all my life. Went to the Fifth Ward elementary school where our babies are being inundated with polluted air twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."

     "Well, that's why we started Fair Fight."

     He raised an eyebrow. I didn't flinch.

     "And my daughter-in-law—hell, the daughter I never had—almost didn't marry my son once he told her where he was from. She didn't want no parts of this place, so scared she was going to get cancer. Then she did."

     He wouldn't ever let me forget this chapter of the horror story either.

     "Vincent should be back before long, Mr. Patterson."

     "You'll do," he said. "Just wanted to make sure you knew about the rally at Tabernacle tomorrow evening. Don't know how many will show, but I, for one, will be there."

     I studied his face. Like so many of the residents here, he'd lost too much. I couldn't begrudge his anger, but I wasn't going to let anyone disrespect me.

     "Fair Fight will be there, Mr. Patterson. We invited the chemist who's going to share her air analysis with us."

     "Oh, so now it's us," he said and shook his head. "Particles so fine, we can't even see what's killing us. But bad days, which is most days, we can smell it."

     "Yes—well, I do have off-rig work to do," I said, and rose.

     Mr. Patterson studied me.

     "Never could trust no flip-flopper," he said before retrieving his hat.

     "Have a good day," I said.

     He half-turned and opened his mouth, then clammed it shut. The glass rattled in the door.

     Would my punishment ever end? Wasn't it bad enough that I now lived in a place where the air smelled like rotten eggs and permeated my body enough to plant tumors in my marrow? That sweat beaded on the surface of my skin as soon as I stepped outside the range of air conditioning? Where I couldn't throw a stone and

miss an oil refinery, or compressor station, or warehouse stuffed with toxic materials, or metal recycler, or salvage yard? Where people burn down their houses by using candlelight instead of electricity they can't afford, or the oil runs out so they use faulty heaters, or are on respirators because of the foul air that caused their asthma in the first place and the electricity just goes out? Where the air is contaminated as much as the water is poisoned and even the land itself is too foul to grow life-sustaining food?