"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."

**********