Still, the members were nothing if not committed. Molly McNamara steadfastly had refused all offers to merge her organization with the Audubon Society or the Sierra Club or the Friends of the Everglades. She wanted no part of coalitions because coalitions compromised. She enjoyed being alone on the fringe, enjoyed being the loose cannon that establishment environmentalists feared. The fact that the Mothers of Wilderness was politically impotent did not diminish Molly McNamara’s passion, though occasionally it ate at her pride.
She ran the meetings with brusque efficiency, presiding over a membership that tended to be retired and liberal and well-to-do. For its size, the Mothers of Wilderness was exceedingly well financed; Molly knew this was why the other environmental groups wooed her, in hopes of a merger. The Mothers had bucks.
They had hired a hotshot Miami land-use lawyer to fight the golf course project, which was called Falcon Trace. The lawyer, whose name was Spacci, stood up at the meeting to update the Mothers on the progress of the lawsuit, which, typically, was about to be thrown out of court. The case was being heard in Monroe County—specifically, Key West—where many of the judges were linked by conspiracy or simple inbreeding to the crookedest politicians. Moreover, the zoning lawyer admitted he was having a terrible time ascertaining the true owners of the Falcon Trace property; he had gotten as far as a blind trust in Dallas, then stalled.
Molly McNamara thanked Spacci for his report and made a motion to authorize another twenty thousand dollars for legal fees and investigative expenses. It passed unanimously.
After the meeting, Molly took the lawyer aside and said, “Next time I want to see some results. I want the names of these bastards.”
“What about the lawsuit?”
“File a new one,” Molly said. “You ever considered going federal?”
“How?” asked Spacci. “On what grounds?”
Pinching his elbow, Molly led him to an easel behind the rostrum. Propped on the easel was an aerial map of North Key Largo. Molly pointed and said, “See? There’s where they want the golf course. And right here is a national wildlife refuge. That’s your federal jurisdiction, Counselor.”
The lawyer plucked a gold pen from his breast pocket and did some pointing of his own. “And right here, Ms. McNamara, is a two-thousand-acre amusement park that draws three million tourists every year. We’d be hard pressed to argue that one lousy golf course would be more disruptive to the habitat than what’s already there—a major vacation resort.”
Molly snapped, “You’re the damn attorney. Think of something.”
Bitterly she remembered the years she had fought the Kingsbury project; the Mothers of Wilderness had been the only group that had never given up. Audubon and the others had realized immediately that protest was futile; the prospect of a major theme park to compete with Disney World carried an orgasmic musk to local chambers of commerce. The most powerful of powerful civic leaders clung to the myth that Mickey Mouse was responsible for killing the family tourist trade in South Florida, strangling the peninsula so that all southbound station wagons stopped in Orlando. What did Miami have to offer as competition? Porpoises that could pitch a baseball with their blow-holes? Wisecracking parrots on unicycles? Enjoyable diversions, but scarcely in the same high-tech league with Disney. The Mouse’s sprawling self-contained empire sucked tourists’ pockets inside out; they came, they spent until there was nothing left to spend; then they went home happy. To lifelong Floridians it was a dream concept: fleecing a snowbird in such a way that he came back for more. Astounding! So when Francis X. Kingsbury unveiled his impressive miniature replica of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills—the Wet Willy water flume, the Magic Mansion, Orky the Killer Whale, Jungle Jerry, and so on—roars of exultation were heard from Palm Beach to Big Pine.
The only cry of dismay came from the Mothers of Wilderness, who were (as usual) ignored.
“No golf course,” Molly told Spacci the lawyer, “and no more chickenshit excuses from you.” She sent him away with the wave of a blue-veined hand.
After the rank and file had gone home, Molly gathered the board of directors in the back of the library. Five women and two men, all nearly as gray as Molly, they sat in molded plastic chairs and sipped herbal tea while Molly told them what had happened.