It Ain't Easy to Be Green

Golden Fawn applauded for Philippe Cousteau, then left the auditorium to check out the rest of the Green Festival. Her people hadn't explored underwater, and she found herself more and more interested in the subject. The truth was, water gave her the creeps, and she was trying to get over it. She was seriously thinking of seeing a shrink about these Ardua-of-the-Potomac dreams she kept having. She was afraid to tell her grandmother about them, but last night she had dreamt about the pink warblers for the third time. It was either grandmother or a shrink....She was still undecided. As her mind wandered, she bumped into Coast Guard officer Marcos Vasquez, who had been trying to make his way forward to meet Cousteau. He excused himself in Spanish and continued forward slowly. She turned back and stared at him: she had seen him before-- in her dreams, on the river. Vasquez turned to look back at her and smiled, then got jostled forward by the crowd.

Golden Fawn wandered slowly through the aisles, amazed at all the optimists trying to peddle their visions and products in a town like this, where $2 billion a week was spent sacrificing U.S. soldiers on the pyre of Iraq. What could the optimists do with their crumbs of money and hope? Golden Fawn walked past a rape victim looking at organic body products from the Amazon as a possible salve for her limbic system, and a young attorney from Prince and Prowling looking at an ethical investment company as a possible salve for his moral system. Golden Fawn stopped to sign a Greenpeace petition, while a nearby FBI agent loitered nonchalantly, his hidden camcorder aimed at the table.

The FBI agent turned slowly to film two men signing the Stop Landmines Now petition--Dr. Khalid Mohammad and pet courier Sebastian L'Arche. Dr. Mohammad walked off oblivious, but former Army Reservist L'Arche looked suspiciously at the spook. L'Arche then walked straight up to the guy and asked the time. The FBI agent stammered, then groped for his watch to give the time. L'Arche walked over to sign the Greenpeace petition, then headed out to figure out where the organic doggie treats vendor was--his customer calls increased tenfold when he added "all-organic diet" to his website. Maybe they would have some new kind of treats for particularly nervous animals. The damned dogs never seemed nervous until they were crossing the Potomac into D.C., just in time to make their owners think they had been miserable the whole way. He needed to figure this out. Animals loved him, so what was the problem? The FBI agent exhaled nervously as L'Arche departed. He had seen that look before--Iraqi war veteran looking for payback. They all looked the same. They signed up for the army and got a war, and war is hell, so what did they expect?

Outside the convention center, the sparrows sang in the sunshine while the rats stayed in the shadows.