It can’t be said that I came here. Or that we talked about this. This is strictly friends, Essie. Old times’ sake, you know? I’ve got a career on the line here.”
“Your career’s not in jeopardy on this, not the way you imagine it is. Besides, your true career is politics, not running Fish and Wildlife. I’m asking for something very simple. Put your hands to your soul on this one, Lewis. Take your soul up in your hands, tell me what you see.”
“Cut the college talk.”
“Ethics? A sense of the Beautiful? Did you leave all that behind in a bunch of essays in O’Rourke’s class?”
“Essie, we’re talking about the art of the possible here, we’re talking politics. Reality.”
“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting. Once you’re inside the Beltway, language is just another technology.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean speak to me as my friend, not like someone paranoid about rumors. Like somebody who knows truth and integrity are also part of the art of the possible. Remember that guy?”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to face up like a man on this one.”
“I’m not being a man here?”
“No, dammit, Lewis, you are not. You’ve lost a sense of family on this. You’re maneuvering for position, for your own pleasure.”
“Wait. Are we actually talking about Carol? Carol Gleason? Because that’s way over.”
“Oh, Lew. Wake up. This isn’t sexual fidelity, it’s your obsession with your position. ‘Is she good-looking enough to be seen with me?’ ‘Can this guy hurt me?’ ‘Will this pay off for me?’ You’ve come all this way, Lew—don’t you remember what you said years ago about ‘integrity’? About representing the voter, not just your career interests?”
“I represent the views of the American voter very well. No question. Look up the polls.”
“Entertainers watch polls, Lew. Movie producers. This is your politics?”
“Essie, I respect your position. We’re at an impasse here.”
“What is my position?”
“You want me to unilaterally declare the ferruginous hawk endangered in the lower forty-eight.”
“Not exactly. What I want from you has as much to do with our friendship as it does with the plight of that bird. I want you to read the reports; and then stand up and say to yourself, ‘I did not go to Jefferson City, Missouri, to represent the people of the Thirty-ninth District, shake all those hands, make all those promises and become Speaker of the House, I did not serve all those tedious years in committees and on the stump for my party, I did not, after four years as Attorney General of the State of Missouri, accept a presidential appointment to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to read a set of reports that demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the life of the ferruginous hawk is virtually finished in the lower forty-eight states, its biology terminated, to then step aside and say, “Ladies and gentlemen, far be it from me to tell you that no creature, large or small, beautiful or ugly, for which I have responsibility shall stand in the way of one single job. Far be it from me to say that I will not hesitate to spend the currency of this country’s biological heritage in bills large and small to ensure that no job, no matter how venal, destructive, outdated, wasteful, self-aggrandizing, or demanding will be threatened.” No, I didn’t come all this way to say that. What I want to say is: Here’s my Rubicon. The last rivet in the plane has popped for me. I’m standing this ground.’ ”
“Very moving, Essie. Really. But the American people don’t buy it.”
“They’d go for it, in a way to make your shoes spin.”
“Our polls—sorry, I’m sorry, but polls are a solid political reality and they don’t show that.”
“They would, if you’d ask questions that don’t play so cleverly on selfishness and fear.”
“I know people hate it—forest after forest, animal after animal. I don’t like it either—but the country’s more diverse than just biology.”
“That’s the heart of the madness right there, Lew. You can’t eat computer printout. You can’t breathe ‘upturn in the economy.’ An animal is not a ‘system component,’ any more than it’s a constituent. That’s closer to the problem.”
“The Secretary just won’t hear of it.”
“What’s happened here is that after twenty-three years your compromise with mediocrity is nearly complete.”
“There are no complaints that I’ve heard.”
“In the circles you travel in, you’re not likely to hear a discouraging word. That, too, is the art of politics.”
“Essie, please. I’d like to do this. Truth. I know it’s right. But it’s not the time. The elections are four months away. It’ll hold until we’re on the other side. I can delay it.”
“What you mean is, you don’t have the courage.”
“No. What I mean is, I have a distinguished legacy of good decisions because they were timely. I’ve come this far, dammit, because I know something about timing.”
“We’re not talking timing, Lew, we’re talking guts. We’re talking intelligence. We’re talking about the big bottom line.”
“And that is …?”
“Biology.”
“Are you seriously suggesting that if these last few ferruginous hawks in the Great Basin and Montana disappear, humanity will suffer anything more than a psychic wound?—and I’m not slighting that, I’ve lost animals I loved—but, geez, the biological future of Homo sapiens is not hanging in the balance here.”
“Oh, but it is, Lew. And you’re the man with the power to make the decision. Anyone whose neurons are still firing knows that if you don’t make it, this executive power is worthless. Popcorn. People with an attention span longer than a nightly news story know our biology is unraveling in a holocaust of extinct species, unprecedented in the history of the planet. Loss of diversity is not like losing the family dog, Lew. The best minds we’ve got, the ones outside government and business—and even those people are now signing on—are saying no, the risk is too great. We can’t throw all this material in the wastebasket and expect ‘business and technology’ to take up the slack. At best they can hand us a few decades of weedlots in which to enjoy ‘economic security.’ Can’t you see where this is going? What makes me angry is you’ve become so devoted, so careful, with your career and you can’t see where it’s taking you.”
“You know, Essie—I know you won’t like this—but women always try to run this stunt. They rouse men to go out and ‘wage the good fight,’ do the morally right thing. But, really, they like the situation just fine. They like the advantages that come with just playing ball, not becoming hysterical about how humanity’s doomed.”
“What kind of person have you become? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Lisa, my kids, my family, my first family. I’m talking about you and David and your kids. All our friends and their kids. I’m talking about how people live, Essie. Do you fight the good fight at the risk of your job? No! You don’t have a job.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“The head of the Environmental Defense League. No paid salary, no benefits, no retirement, expenses out of your own pocket—where the hell would you be, really, without David’s income?”
“For Christ’s sake, Lew, this isn’t about income.”
“Yes, it is, because it’s only because of David’s income that you have the free time to run this organization—I’ll be blunt—it’s his income that makes your rise in social class possible. I wouldn’t be here with you now if it was just old school ties. Like it or not, in the end, these people are right—it’s about jobs. You want me to fight the good fight for you, for us? Take the same risks I do. Put your head on the line, just like I do.”
“I’m a little lost here. If your responsibility is to your family, why don’t you get a job where you won’t have to compromise your integrity on a daily basis?”
“My integrity is not compromised here.”
“If it’s not, horses can fly.”
“I’m a practical man, Essie, like most men.”
“I thought—forgive me—that you were something special.”
“Don’t use female flattery with me.”
“Lew, do you believe there’s a difference between love and sex?”
“What do we mean here?”
“What it means to love—to accept in spite of flaws, not to judge, but to support, to give in instead of asking for more room all the time? Do you know this?”
“Yes.”
“What do you love?”
“I love Lisa, I love the kids. I love my job. What do you want me to say? I love the Earth. That’s my job, to love the Earth, to love all of creation, including humanity, and to protect it from threat.”
“But you won’t do this.”
“See, you’re just trying to get something out of me.”
“No, Lewis, really. I want you to have something for yourself. I’d like to see you do this in part because in doing it I think you’ll find again what started you down this path all those years back, and it will do you good. And I think you’d be surprised politically. If you acted on this, you’d galvanize people, people disaffected with politics and politicians. Yes, I’d like to see the ferruginous hawk protected. I value it as I value anything alive, from tulips to sharks. But if you pressed me to a wall, I’d say the reason I asked you to come out here, to talk to me, was because you are my family, because I love and care for you, because I want to fight on your behalf, because your failure to act would grieve me as your death would grieve me. Is this only a woman talking, Lew? Or are we talking about the human voice here? Are we talking about an ethics that doesn’t know gender?”
“You’re very persuasive, I must say.”
“I know—you’ve got to go.”
“Yes.”
“You have a few days. Thanks for agreeing to talk. You know what this is really about. You’ll make it your Rubicon or a Tippecanoe.”
“Yes. I’ll give you a call.”
“I won’t need a call. But I’d appreciate it.”
“It’ll be the right kind of call, Essie, I think.”
“I hope it is. We’re going to see, aren’t we?”