The Death Historian

They found them slumped in their cars en route to the ER.

They found them in apartments od'd and self-harmed,

in the ICU with chests cracked open by machines,

tubes ferried down throats on fire.

Some lie in comas. Some lose a limb.

And the nurse clasps their hands so

they don't die alone.

There are sirens keening. The morgue is overflowing.

There are bodies stacked in refrigerated trucks,

that mirror facing us and the threat of silence,

too much to bear on our own.

We cower-in-place, too frightened to breathe

the less-polluted air.

And the bus driver gets spit upon.

And the store clerk risks her life,

so we can hoard paper

to wipe our behinds with.

There is a new protocol for touch.

There is a circle of suffocating light in the jail cell.

The corona atop an ICE skull glows in its cage.

And that dead ER doctor had seen enough so the hospital

corridors are hushed and there is a harp's Amazing Grace.

And this was meant for the old (like you, Grandma),

and the black and the brown, and they are beating Southeast Asians

in the street, calling them by Chinese names

and I buy Mr. Chen's fried rice weekly to atone

and resist the call to inhumanity.

Truth tellers lose their jobs. Only the lies of MBAs suffice.

The world is going blind to the hysteria of the grieving poor,

rent now months overdue and no grace, no grace for you.

And Navajo Nation is ravaged again. And Canada won't open

its border. And Mexico is shut down too. This is the shithole country.

You can't get a passport now to save your life.

And the bomber plane crashes into a neighbor's house.

Georgia cooks the books and sends the nonessential

essentials into orange virus death.

"Throw Grandma from the train" and into the flames

of Wall Street's oven. Work Will Set You Free

coming from the mouths of Bergen-Belsen

and soul-snatchers everywhere.

They clamor for opening not the heart, but the death box.

Open and re-open they bray, hollering for more death

as long as it is not their own.

And we rush into the hair salon. Crowd into the barbershop

and get infected 100 times more. And there's no parade for the dead

even though body bags lie in state at the White House gate.

And the number is always an undercount in this necropolis.

But the helpers rose to cancel the metallic haze hovering over our cities,

plasticized water, sleeping in the elements, charity drives for the cost

of wellness, the millennial nightmare of debt and never-ending catastrophe.

     "I don't like our chances," I said once Neely Porter left the office.

    "We knew what we were getting into," Vincent said.

    "I don't want to go bankrupt fighting losing battles for people questioning my integrity," I said.

    "Now that's a surprise," he said.

    "What?"

   "That you even care," he said. "That's not the tough-titty Teflon Toi, I know and love."

    He'd never used that word.

    "I don't trust her," I said.

    "You don't trust yourself."

    "She's too emotional, we have to be able to control the narrative if we're going to have any chance of winning. Do you think you can control Neely Porter?”

    "No more than I can control Toi Simmons, but maybe there's more than one way to win," he said.

    "Spending thousands of dollars on this case before we even see the inside of a courtroom and then have people cave before we get to trial, is really going to piss me off."

    "Neely Turner doesn't strike me as the caving type. Neither does Christopher Patterson. Most of these folk don't have anything left to lose."

    "And that's not good news either," I said.

    "Here," he dropped a form onto the table.  "You suggested a four-pronged attack and I agree.  We try to compel compliance by EPA."

    "But if they refuse to comply, administrative action can't be enforced in court," I said.

    "But the EPA can refer an action to the DOJ for civil prosecution seeking compliance and/or civil penalties."

    "Ca-ching," I said. "Now we're in my wheelhouse."

    I glanced at the form.

Notice of Intent to file Clean Air Act citizen enforcement suit against ExxonMobil Chemical Co. on behalf of Parish Citizens Alliance and Mr. Christopher Patterson (Supplementing a April 22, 2019, notice and alleging that ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge chemical plant releases dangerous air pollutants in violation of its permits and the Clean Air Act) (101-055.1).

    "Well," I said. "He has standing: he's suffered an "injury in fact" that is concrete and particularized, and actual, not hypothetical. There's a causal connection between his injury and the release of dangerous air pollutants that can be traced to the plant and it's likely that his injury will be redressed by a favorable verdict. On paper, it looks like a win."

    Vincent smiled.

    "But what about when the plant slaps its own lawsuit on anybody trying to charge them with this pollution? When they start saying these people are defaming them or interfering with their contracts, ie, when the real intimidation starts? How fired-up will Neely Porter be then?"

    "You're two peas in a pod," Vincent said. "You don't have to worry about Neely Porter.”

    He massaged my shoulders.

    "These folk are going to surprise you," he said. "Show you what true southern patriots are all about."

    "Besides slavery?" I said and rolled my neck. "The Civil War?"

    His fingers felt so good on me.

    "Let me get something spicy to eat," he whispered.

    "Po-Boys?" I said.

    "That could work, but I was talking about you."

    "Sorry to interrupt."

    We swiveled toward the door. A barrel-chested, cigar-chomping man in an Army cap, navy blue blazer and leather boots scowled at us.

    “Sir!” Vincent rushed to shake the man’s hand. "Please—"

    "Don't get up on my account," he said.

    I flashed a devastating smile. His reputation preceded him, but I would not be cowed. And I refused to call him C in C like everybody else. He was not my commander-in-charge.

    “This is about as stupid as stupid gets!”

    "Excuse me?" I said.

    "America never should have let this happen to Louisiana. Hell, we went to war with a dictator for gassing his own people. Isn't that what we said Saddam did? Well, what about us? We're out here doing the same damn thing. What kind of government knowingly poisons its own people? We're in a goddamn apocalypse out here. Who's going to war for the people of Louisiana? I am, that's who! And I got my own damn army—and we're going to clean up this mess!"

    “Sir, consider us one of your battalions," Vincent said. "'And we're about to start our first skirmish."

    I glared at them both.

    "I can't stand with you if you're going after the Governor. Now, if you want to take on these plants, I'm your man. But y'all gonna haveta leave the Governor alone."

    "It was a governor, sir, who invited all this industry into Louisiana in the first place and let them do or not do whatever they want," I said.

     "That governor, not this governor," he said.

     "I don't see how—" I said.

     "Complicated, isn't it?" Vincent said.  

     I raised my eyebrows.

    "Listen," C in C said. "I know that look. But you gotta understand. We got a lot of incest going on 'round here. Industry in bed with the government and I mean lawmakers and regulators. Regulatory capture. The industry tells the regulators what to do and how to do it. Psy-ops. Psychological operations. Atypical information warfare. Industry funds our educational systems. They control what is taught in these schools."

     "Schools built on old waste dumps," I add.  

    "Children can't even learn about pollution and what-all is making everybody sick. Universities won't research. They get petrochemical dollars."

    "And you tell us to leave the Governor out of this mess," I said.

    "We got all the natural resources any somebody could want and we're the second largest energy producer in America and yet we're the second poorest state in the nation. How in the world does that make any kind of sense?"

    "It doesn't," I said. "Hence, my growing confusion as to why the Governor is exempt from criticism. Or accountability."

    "This isn't about him," the General said. "Something just don't compute—it ain't adding up. Where does all that energy money go? Not to our schools—we're still building schools on old waste dumps, with all the lead, mercury and arsenic still there. Not to our infrastructure—hell, folks all riled up about Flint? What about Louisiana? We got 400 public water systems with lead or other hazardous substances leaching into the drinking water. And these goddamn plants release carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and neurotoxins into the air and water, plus inject them deep into the earth. What the fuck is this? It's apocalypse now, goddamn it."

    "And the Governor is untouchable because—" I said.

    "It's bigger than him. Hell, this is one of the few places in America, where anybody would even allow an open-air burn of military explosives. Bring us all your toxic shit, our politicians say. And from every corner of America, it comes. We're the nation's fucking dumping ground. They burn those explosives out in the open and release arsenic, lead and radioactive strontium into the environment. The most advanced military in the world and we use the methods of the Roman army to get rid of old military and industrial explosives."

    I made a mental note to add strontium to the Dictionary.

    "A goddamn toxic mushroom cloud rose 7000 feet into the atmosphere after millions of pounds of old explosives blew and blew out windows four miles away. Sheriff had the goddamn balls to tell folks a meteor caused the blast.

    "We got plants that use creosote and pentachlorophenol to pressure-treat and preserve things like rail ties and telephone poles operating right next to communities where human beings live. They soak the wood in these chemicals then lay it outside where the compounds escape into the air and leak into the soil and groundwater.  One plant drained into a schoolyard. Exposure to that shit can cause the outer layers of your skin to flake off and peel away. And the powers-that-be continue to lie and say these plants don't pose a health hazard.

    "Another town they built a wood preservation plant right next to got folks with leukemia rates 40 times the national average. Folks grew up breathing in the fumes of that plant. One woman got four different kinds of cancer. Babies born with birth defects, women birthing stillborns.

    "Coal-burning power plant sprays our fine country air with neurotoxins, mutagens and teratogens—compounds that can alter DNA and disturb the development of a fetus. You wanna talk right to life? What about our goddamn right to life? And clean air? And clean water?"

    Mutagens and teratogens. Dictionary words.

    "What we look like out here fighting our own government for clean air?

    "We got an environmental service company shipping industrial waste across the nation and injecting it deep beneath the waters of the largest bottomland hardwood swamp in America. For decades.

    "We got a community 230 years old, established by freed slaves, now surrounded by 14 industrial facilities, including petroleum refineries, vinyl chloride manufacturers and a coal-fired power plant.  The folks dioxin levels are among the highest ever seen in the country. And they got no birds. Not one fucking bird to be found in the town.

    "And legislators call me a terrorist. For wanting air monitors installed.

    Say me and my Army are a threat to commerce and tourism.

    Say we over-speak and tourists will be scared to eat our seafood.

    Tourism — jazzy festivals brought to you by oil companies poisoning every last one of us."

**********

What to do

Quarantine Journal

Day 55, Monday, May 4, 2020

     When Trump won in 2016, a group of former Congressional staffers wrote a 23-page handbook and put it up online. It was called "Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda." In it they suggest ways people can peacefully but effectively resist the move toward authoritarianism that Trump's election signified. They suggest citizen activism like showing up at town halls, calling Congressmen, visiting their offices, and writing letters/sending emails. The essence was push-back; in the same way the Tea Party had acted as a culture jam to Obama's agenda, this road map by Indivisible gave a way forward for people like me who were in despair and needed something to do so I wasn't grinding my teeth all night. When my friend Ethan approached me to start an Indivisible group I said yes.

     Ethan's brainchild was to marry the ideas of Indivisible with the quiet activism of writing letters and postcards. He and I are both artists and have been active in artist driven movements coming from the '60's - among them, Mail Art. That was a movement that resisted the commercialization of the art market by creating global open calls for art to be sent through the mail and shown in easily accessible places. Ethan, my husband J and I started a chapter of Indivisible but we quickly morphed into "Pen Connection." We are guided by the Indivisible agenda but don't want  endless meetings. We keep it simple: every Sunday we write letters to politicians, voters, and media people - thanking them or nudging them. We helped Katy Porter and Harley Rouda win close elections, and, most recently, the challenger for the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, Jill Karofsky. (Next project: get voters to sign up for mail-in ballots AND save the post office.)  

     After the wins of the 2018 election, when such an exciting and diverse group was elected to the House of Representatives, Indivisible said, "Ok, you were telling people in government what you didn't want. Now it is time to tell them what you do want."

     It was a great question. Turns out it is much harder. You can kill a child in a second, but to nurture and grow one takes an infinite number of small decisions, made over decades. It is the aggregate of the decisions - plus serendipity - that makes a human out of a tiny baby.  Which is the same thing you can say about politics: it is always slow and meandering, messy and imperfect,made of a million million parts. Show me a system that isn't. Medicine? Teaching? Manufacturing? Science? Art? Business?

     My point here is that messy involvement is better than perfect detachment. Politics is messy, yes. Humans are messy, yes. Get on with it. This is our moment to try things. Coronavirus will continue to upend systems that looked impenetrable, like McConnell's Congress or oil based economies as our future. The virus is an accelerator of cracks in the foundation of globalism. 

     What can we create that is useful for everyone? What happened after the Great Depression? FDR developed a robust safety net: Social Security, minimum wage, non-discrimination in employment, and banking regulation among them. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promotes the Green New Deal she is referencing the New Deal Roosevelt used to create jobs, like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which hired young people for conservation work, or the Public Works Administration that created 70% of the nation's new educational institutions. Artists, too, were given work that is unparalleled in our history.  I'm cherry picking from the projects, but we can do that with the gift of hindsight. What do we need now? Internet across the country, robust libraries, places for walking - streets, hiking trails, rails-to trails. We could have students work in America as they have in the Peace Corps. We can hire millions of workers to update infrastructure. We need public art and performances, restorative justice programs, gardens instead of lawns and community supported agriculture. How about public banks, urban gleaning, bikes routes that aren't in competition with cars, the de-fencing of cities so people gather together, older kids teaching younger ones, libraries of tools and supplies - I don't know, what do we need? 

     One vision that has sustained me is Richard Hawken's book "Blessed Unrest." He gives talks all over the world, and stays to schmooze with people who come up to him and press their business cards in his hand. After years of this he realized he had thousands of cards. They were for tiny groups and non-profits everywhere - people who wanted to save a language or a species or a kind of music/dance/craft. Folks who were organizing, connecting, speaking out. When he started to look more closely he realized there weren't thousands of these little groups, there were hundreds of thousands. He calls this unrecognized and unruly vanguard the immune system of the planet coming to save it.  

     For instance: City Repair in Portland, OR. They have been working for 30+ years to create spaces in cities where people can gather and talk, organize and speak out, come together for protest and celebration and creation. They recognize that gathering in small groups to converse and play is the bedrock of democracy. It breaks urban cycles of loneliness and despair, bringing people out of their houses/apartments to create community - with a garden, an intersection painting, a free library, a tea stand. They've gotten thousands of homeless people a place indoors to live and heal. They work on the meta - city planning - and the minute: tiny stands (like realtor's boxes) that have poetry you can take with you on your walk.  

     The weird thing is we need places to come together more than ever and this virus has jinxed that. Our new main streets are online. But maybe, like boredom is good for creativity, this time away from each other and our incessant busyness is actually a good time to see the whole. To do a life in review or a culture-in-review or both; to do a what-do-I-want-to-do/see/make. When, in moments of crisis, kids ask me what to do I say, "Pick something you love and do one small thing for it every day for fifty years." They hate that - it's so unsexy. But it works. My most radical friends from 60's social movements crashed and burned and died young. I'm still alive, still working. I do small things some days and more when I get fired up. It's so much easier to keep a drip going than let the pipes freeze and have to unearth them. I'm not the volcano, I'm the coral reef, built one tiny effort at a time. It adds up.