Juan Bautista de Anza Park was empty. Later on, a few families would show up for lunch and the playground would laugh.
For now it was quiet. The five of them sat at a picnic table.
“What would Teddy do about these frackers?” Caroline asked no one in particular. “Well, he wouldn’t be bought off. He wouldn’t have a PAC, he wouldn’t be beholden.
“He’d be disgusted. Angry and indignant. He’d haul his bully pulpit into the boardroom of every oil and gas company. Well, no he wouldn’t. He’d order oil and gas executives to the White House and the moment his cajoling failed he would tear them to shreds. He would call them out and publicly shame them, those faceless greedy bastards. He’d browbeat them, hammer on them to get them to cave, and when they refused he’d toss them out.
“Then he would legislate and sling out an executive order or two. He would invoke the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
“He’d rip into their lame propaganda and tear up the big lie of how American energy independence is the patriotic result of fracking.
“He’d tell them their caper’s up. If they want to export the oil that should stay here at home, fine, they can export all they want. But there’s a new tax to pay. Every nickel of those taxes pays people good salaries to clean up all the poison fracking leaves behind and the rest of the messes.
“Teddy Roosevelt would flash his beguiling grin at lobbyists used to getting their way. He’d up the financial ante, start lobbing fines at the frackers, big fines they can’t account for as a cost of doing business. These fines would force companies to cut dividends and bring down the wrath of Wall Street.
“He would personally call out CEOs who insist on covering up their companies’ own science and lies about the impact of carbon emissions.
“His anger, his disgust would spill out of the White House and cover the entire country.”
Caroline’s epistle came to an end and she lit a cigarette.
Juan Bautista de Anza Park was just about empty.
Now and then they looked over at the basketball court where a woman in a wheelchair adorned with an 805 Beer bumper sticker shot leisurely hoops.
