Fossil Financial

Scents of baked bread and roses carried on the breeze. DeArte Collinsworth loved the summer. He was forty. Main Street in Newark, Delaware had returned to the sleepy town that it became during the two months where it is not populated with busy Delaware Institute of Technology (DIT) students. He was as light as the espresso and cream that he sipped outside of a cafe towards the end of the rows of shops. He wore a white linen shirt with khakis and cognac loafers. He was away from his office in Wilmington, Delaware this Tuesday. He relaxed. He sipped. The warm beverage danced on his tongue and the bittersweetness propelled his mind.

As CEO of UltiTrust Bank in Wilmington, Delaware he oversaw four hundred million dollars in assets and had ten thousand clients and fifteen hundred employees. He bit into a cinnamon scone that paired perfectly with the espresso and cream. His thoughts about his company only accelerated with each bite.

When he had caught a glimpse of another man of color with a navy blue business suit and a white shirt with no tie. He wondered what he was involved in. Collinsworth beckoned for the man to come over to his table after he had ordered an iced coffee and a bagel with lox.

“I know you,” Freddie Gamon, thirty-eight, said with a smile.

“Yes, but who are you?” Collinsworth stretched out a hand.

“Call me Freddie. I’m the leader of a medium sized consortium just getting off the ground to save the planet,” he proclaimed.

Collinsworth recoiled. His smile evaporated and he brought his cup up to his lips. Then he spoke.

“Why on earth would you want to espouse that?”

“You’re in banking. In fact, you're the head of a bank. So, it’s like the more assets we possess, like solar, wind, and electric, that improves our portfolio on this planet. In ten years, there’s going to be a run on the planet. The accounts are going to experience overdraft after overdraft. There will be no bailouts of any kind. We will just be left in a smoldering pile of ash.”

Collinsworth nodded not in agreement but just as a natural response to ideas.

“I don’t agree with you, but I could video chat with a client of ours. She’s our largest asset holder in the bank.”

“Sure. I’m fine with that,” Gamon sipped.

The ringing was like church bells until a brown-skinned woman appeared on the screen. Thirty-six years old, Tomara Hoskins looked like she had been formed from bronze.

“Hello, darling,” she said in the picture.

“Hi, my dear. I have a young man here with me who would like to know the process of saving the planet.”

Collinsworth didn’t mention that Tomara was the CEO of Fossil Financial.

Gamon gave the same spiel as he gave Collinsworth. She kissed her teeth and sighed.

“I think you’re a bright young man and that you have a lot of ideas, but what you say is unsustainable. You claim you're about the environment, but what about the human environment? You’re trying to save a place that is a bloody murderer and the only savior, humans, should be saving themselves from the nefarious beast.”

Collinsworth smirked as he drank his coffee.

“I’m right around the corner. I can tell this to your faces. You already know DeArte.”

The arrival of Tamora was like seeing the presence of royalty. She wore teal stilleto heels and a turquoise skirt and creme top. Except, she earned her stately position through grit and grace. She ordered a caramel macchiato with no whipped cream and sat outside with the two gentlemen. They exchanged pleasantries in person this time.

“Now, what you were saying is catastrophizing,” Tamora said and sipped.

“What is that?” Gamon said.

“It’s where you say the world is going to end by means of human activity and that we should rush to alternative fuel sources. Energy depends on oil, coal, and natural gas. That is the standard for my company, Only. Wind, solar, and electric are not only more expensive, they drain the efforts for actual energy sources to feed, clothe, and shelter the world.”

“Do they do more than that?” Gamon asked.

“Of course! You see these cups of coffee and this cafe and the people walking with clothes on their back and the vehicles zipping by us? They’re all powered by the flourishing status of fossil fuels. And I am thankful that the three of us can get together because of the fact that fossil fuels have elevated us from fumes. Those fumes came from burning wood and dung in the caves. We arose from that to factories and skyscrapers and mansions. We can expect to live to ninety-nine instead of thirty-nine.”

“I’d be dead now,” Collinsworth mentioned with an acidic grin.

“So, I say this…there is only the availability of fossil fuels and the refutation of catastrophizing. Once we get to the point where we can say that all of the science and the data points to longer life, higher quality of life, and higher standards of life, we will see a wellspring of flourishing.”

“You keep using those words ‘flourishing’ and ‘catastrophizing.’ Can’t you just say that we’re heading on a collision course and that we have to strap our bodies to the earth and to the trees and band together in the oceans?”

Collinsworth and Tomara exchanged glances. She looked at him as if to say “We can work with him.” His face said “He has potential.”

Tomara cleared her throat. “So what is your major concern with the planet? It can’t just be about the ‘damage’ humans are doing. It has to be about the way that you have a disdain for humanity.”

“Not a disdain,” Gamon replied. “It’s more like a deep-seated opposition. I think that people can do great things like run businesses like yourselves but I also feel that there is a lot of destruction carried out in the name of human greed.”

“Greed is a beautiful thing,” Collinsworth said. “You should have greed for money, sex, love, air, the wonders of the world.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean corporations bulldozing rainforests and entire tribes of people being vanquished.”

“While those may seem like total disasters, think about the trees that are replanted and the individuation of tribes who may seek to profit through casinos and other forms of commerce. It’s a gorgeous thing to consider that oil, coal, and natural gas and even though it’s not a fossil fuel, nuclear power advances the human race further and further into the future.”

Gamon looked like he had been stabbed in the chest and that the stabber had dressed his wounds. His mouth hung slightly open. His face reddened because of his light features. Like a deer suddenly stunned by a gunshot burst but able to flee from danger, that’s where Gamon was at now.

“So how do we do this?” Gamon queried.

“Do what?” Collinsworth asked.

“He wants to know how we team up and make this a win-win-win proposition,” Tomara interjected. “If we are to have a future as a species on this planet and possibly branch out to other parts of the Solar System, it is key that we focus on the reason why we have interstellar space travel and running shoes and glasses and receive ideas from professors. It’s because of what’s dug out of the ground. It’s because of all the dirty, filthy, grimey fossil fuels that power our very existence.”

“I get that, but what can my startup, Environable, LLC, do with a banker and a CEO of a fossil fuel company?”

“We can team up. We can say that your company can be transformed from its negativity towards humanity and incorporate ideas that we can relate to on a level of mutual respect for this earth. I love the planet. But what’s to love about a planet that butchers human life with hurricanes, tornados, reversals of the polar caps, solar flares, poisonous animals, great beasts of land and sea ice ages and actual catastrophes not by the hands of humans over the past four and a half billion years? You have to look at it from the perspective of human love flourishing despite all of that.”

Collinsworth looked at his hundred thousand dollar watch. “I think we should set up a trust in your name Freddie. Or in Environable. Whichever you choose. If you can focus on what Tomara said here and relate it to your base, we could have a revolution based on the fact we reformed an opponent of mankind. I think that should be all for this afternoon chat.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you both,” Gamon said.

“A pleasure,” Collinsworth and Tamora said in unison. They both walked to their gas guzzlers and headed for their respective homes.