HEART FAILURE

For once, living way down in Brooklyn put me closer to where I needed to be, and I was able to walk to the pick up. I was expecting a full fleet of buses lined in front of the stylish entrance of the museum with teems of young people bustling around holding steaming thermoses trying to find each other. But when I arrived, I saw a single bus in the back parking lot looking cold and lonely. I boarded.
I had signed up for Climate Control Action Day just the day before. I wanted a free ride to DC to get a first hand look at the current state of the revolution.
Our bus leader had not arrived, so a middle-aged, pony-tailed, deaf man in the front of the bus suggested we pass a sheet around and write our names and cell phone numbers down just in case anyone got lost. He was overtly proud of his own life long activism and subsequent ability to spontaneously plan and make lists.
The bus was about half empty. It was still dark and I couldn’t see if there were any pretty girls. More people arrived, we pulled out, and everyone but me went to sleep.
By nine we had make our way almost to Baltimore passing some amazing stretches off nothing green. When everyone woke up we were handed neatly assembled packets of information about Climate Control Action Day. Our bus leaders were beginning to seem like my old Hebrew School teachers as they talked over the bus’s distorted sound system.
We were to arrive at RFK Stadium at11 a.m. In the parking lot we would get Climate Day t-shirts and metro cards, take the Metro to Capitol Hill, and there, finally, join thousands of ferocious environmentalists and change the world forever. But not before we stopped for donuts and coffee.
When we re-boarded I was able to take a survey of my fellow rebels; a small Spanish man, a high school teacher from The Harbor School with ten or so of his students, three black girls with dreadlocks, and a bunch of old white people who could afford, like me, to waste their time going to Washington DC on a Tuesday.



Honestly, I had prepared for an all out party. I even brought The Champ. Champ is short for “chest-amp”; I invented it two summers ago in Israel. The champ is a little guitar amplifier that clips to a round CD carrying case and hangs around my neck. I have all the controls in from of me while my hands are free to shake and snap as I blast music from my solar plexus.
I also brought spray paint to make protest signs with. On the bus I was thinking of possible phrases; “I heard it’s nice on Mars this time of year!”, “What about the weather machine?”, “It’s the poor peoples’ fault”, and, “Nice Day; Get It”, where the best I came up with. But, the day turned out to be not even worth the effort.
The rally was on the back lawn of The Capitol. A small group, equally as pasty as the one I was arriving with, stood facing the stage heads high and attentive in there matching t-shirts. A line-up of politicians and Alaskans spoke in five minute intervals as they were introduced by the very enthusiastic, Weasel, daytime personality of Washington’s only “green” radio station. They talked about stabilizing our climate and disallowing drilling in the arctic for two hours as the crowd got smaller and smaller. By the end, Weasel was noticeably fatigued.
After the rally we were supposed to hand deliver to our senators’ and representatives’ offices type form letters we had been given to sign on the bus. I would tell you what the letter said, but I didn’t read it. I could only imagine a gauntlet scene from Indiana Jones, or Mad Max, where I dive and roll past swinging blades, defeat the fanged-horse-beast, and solve the stone rubrics puzzle, just before I drop my little piece of paper in the “in” box and thank the clerk. It all just seemed so lame to me. Where was the passion?
I did go along with some people to Chuck Schumer’s and Hillary Clinton’s offices though. No gauntlet, just big hallways and good etiquette. It was time to get back on the bus. As we walked one of my trip mates said, “My heart is starting to act up. I need some more of my medication when we get back to the bus.” I thought, heart failure. I slept most of the way back, but the chicken fajitas I had eaten for lunch at the Native American Museum were hurting my stomach. We got back around 10 o’clock; I got off the bus and walked home in the dark.