Blog Love Omega Glee: If You Really Want To Help The Environment, Here's What I Recommend (29 July 2012)

Watching the London Olympics on television in a downtown hotel bar in Cleaveland, Louis Carson Fir orders another scotch. The bartender, a middle-aged white man wearing a white shirt and a black bowtie, refills Fir's glass. Fir goes to light up a cigar, but the bartender says, "I'm sorry, sir. Smoking isn't allowed in here."

Fir looks at him, shrugs, and puts the cigar away. He downs the scotch, throws a crumbled bill on the bar, and wanders outside into the late afternoon sunlight. Walking down the street, he pauses for a moment to light his cigar before ambling on in his limpish way. "Another night in this dreadful place," he thinks, looking around at the tall buildings and dirty sidewalks, "At least it's the Democrats having their convention here and not us."

He wanders down to the lake, occasionally pausing to ash on homeless people taking naps on the streets. Hearing the devil's music, he follows it to the plaza in front of the rock and roll museum, where a garage band plays to a small crowd. Their amplifiers and microphones are powered by solar energy panels on top of the small gazebo in which the band plays. After the song ends, the singer, an Asian -American man in a wheelchair discusses how the band is touring across the country using public transportation in order to reduce their carbon footprint, or, in his case, wheelprint.

Fir prefers his rock bands to worry more about what substance they are going to abuse next than protecting the environment. He raises his lighter, flicks it, and shouts "Freebird!"

People in the crowd look at him. Fir is undoubtedly the oldest person here except for possibly the homeless guy sleeping in the grass nearby. The singer chuckles, and says, sarcastically, "Wow, we've never heard that one before. Hey, old guy, maybe you're confused, the polka museum is on the other side of town."

The crowd laughs. Fir bares his teeth and flashes them all a dirty look. "Hey singer guy, if you care about the environment so much, want to know how to really help it?" he yells, jabbing his cigar in the direction of the band.

"No," the singer says, and the band starts the next song, which kind of sounds like The Ramones playing Afropop.

Fir fumes, and not just from his cigar. He stalks away and goes and sits on the stone fountain, away from the gazebo.

A white male punk rocker dressed in a leather jacket with spikes on it and wearing white makeup on his face breaks from a gaggle of rockers and approaches Fir. "Hey, dude, what were you going to tell the singer about how to help the environment?" the punk asks, then takes a swig from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.

Fir eyes the punk rocker, whose leather jacket has the name "Dead Boy" spray painted across it, "I was going to tell him to be sure not to have any children if he really wanted to do the Earth a favor since the fact that there are too many human beings is the ultimate cause of all of his environmental concerns. And that if he wanted to eliminate his carbon footprint and not just reduce it, he could kill himself. One doesn't use up any resources when one is dead, and in fact one can become a nice mulch oneself for a garden, adding to the Earth's resources. That's very organic, provided one doesn't get embalmed first. In fact, if he could kill a bunch of other people before killing himself, then the other species currently being endangered would thank him. All those rabbits who get run over by cars would stamp their feet loudly in appreciation. It's what someone who really loved the Earth and not just himself would do. Live fast, die young, and let the crows eat your beautiful corpse."

"Whoa! That's crazy, dude! I thought you were just going to remind him to keep the tires in his wheelchair properly inflated. But what you said is more punk! Do you like G.G. Allin too?"

"Now that's rock and roll," Fir says, "He vomited on me once in New York, you know."

"No way, dude!"

"Yes, and his vomit was very environmentally-friendly."

"Why's that?"

"It was green."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.