by Nancy Lieder
A houseboat. Finegan Fine
Nancy Lieder
Finegan Fine
Copyright by Nancy Lieder, 2009.
This is a tale about a houseboat living in the Aftertime.
The pole shift has happened and the waters have risen several hundred
feet due to melting poles and glaciers and the heating of the ocean
bottom. The rising sea level is happening slowly but steadily, forcing
survivors to relocate when they discover the flood is not receding.
Finegan Fine has found a niche in this new world by running a trading
boat along the new coastline and up and down ever broadening rivers.
1
Introduction
The main theme is the sociological adaptation of the populace to the
lack of rescue and rising waters after the cataclysms. Finegan meets
survivors from all walks of life:
-
the very wealthy who expected to survive in their well stocked
enclaves,
-
the politically connected who expected rescue on demand,
-
the wealthy who thought their bankroll would buy them comfort,
-
suburbanites unprepared to be self sustaining,
-
those who stubbornly refused to leave their cities and towns and
steadily starve to death,
-
families who are separated from each other,
-
rural folk familiar with local produce,
-
immigrants caught a long way from home,
-
pedophiles peddlers selling children,
-
the handicapped who take hardship in stride,
-
military men cut off from their commanders,
-
former politicians trying to establish a continuity of government,
-
those who turn from their responsibilities and those who raise
orphans and care for the aged,
-
teens without supervision,
-
the deluded who think the good times will return,
-
and those trying to maintain slave labor camps.
A second theme is the devastation itself, which is widespread. Florida
is under water, trapping those who lingered too long. Coastal
subdivisions and river front towns are steadily flooded, often forcing
people to repeatedly relocate. Satellites have been torn from the sky,
so communications are by short wave radio at best. Rescue is simply not
forthcoming.
A third theme is survival techniques. Survivors adapt by eating
atypical but highly nutritious foods. They live in makeshift shacks and
tents. Electricity is generated from windmills or by pedals. Barter is
the mode and the dollar is dead.
A fourth theme is how people react to the crisis – by rising to the
challenge and helping one another or by looting and hoarding. Survivors
are on their own and must rely on resourcefulness and cooperation with
others for survival. Those that mistreat others find themselves without
supplies or friends in due time.
2
Table of Contents
Houseboat Living ………………………………………
4
Burial at Sea ………………………………………………
10
Good Hard Cash …………………………………………
14
Peaches and Cream ……………………………………
18
Political Connections …………………………
22
Jury of Peers …………………………………………
27
Industrial Revolution ………………………
33
Zombies …………………………………………………………
38
The Castle …………………………………………………
44
Love at Last ………………………………………………
50
No Call Home
…………………………………………… 55
Shark in the Water ……………………………
60
The Orphanage
…………………………………………… 64
Continuity of Government …………………
69
Lost and Found …………………………………………
77
Yahoos Afloat ……………………………………………
81
Eating Rats
…………………………………………… 88
The Pawn Shop …………………………………………
94
Slave Labor
…………………………………………… 99
Bear Market ………………………………………………
104
Rust Belt ………………………………………………………
108
New Leaders ………………………………………………
114
Canibals ………………………………………………………
121
Kudzu Canyons …………………………………………
127
Homecoming …………………………………………………
135
3
Chapter 1: Houseboat Living
The humidity and Spanish moss hanging from the trees on the Georgia
coastline is not unusual, but the fact that the coastline is flooded is
unusual. Rooftops and treetops are sticking out of the placid water,
which is lapping gently on suburban lawns.
A houseboat is floating nearby, tied to a sturdy treetrunk sticking out
of the floodwaters. The houseboat is solidly built, a modified
commercial houseboat with metal floatation tubes underneath and a
single story home in the center, and with patios all around. But this
houseboat is not new, is well weathered with paint worm off and a roof
tile here and there missing.
And the houseboat is immensely cluttered.
Bins of vegetables are stacked one on top of the other and side by
side. Engine and mechanical parts are heaped in piles on the corners of
the houseboat, placed for balance. There are pegs everywhere a peg can
be placed, where loops of fishing line, wire, and rope are hung.
Boxes are stacked, smaller boxes on top of larger ones. Some of the
wooden boxes have pull-out drawers. Large plastic containers are
stacked here and there, but only a few are labeled. Folded tarps are on
top of one pile, topped by fishing netting flung there to dry after a
night’s catch.
Poles have been placed on the four corners of the houseboat and lines
are strung from these poles to the single story house in the center. On
one, some fresh fish, gutted and headless, are hung by the tail. On
another, a confederate flag is hung alongside a US flag. On yet
another, some attractive items of clothing, hung out to advertise that
they are for sale or barter.
A part
y of gulls approachs, greeting the dawn with their screams. They
fly overhead, swooping down toward the fish hung out to drain and dry
on the line. The raucous calls of the gulls have woken Finegan, who
comes stumbling out of the house, bleary eyed, shirt half pulled out of
his pants, barefoot and annoyed. He is waving his arms at the gulls and
walking toward his catch, pulling a wooden box along behind him.
Arrrgh. Go catch your own.
4
Finegan’s dog Barney, a mutt with one rear leg missing, is hobbling out
behind him, throwing a bark or two in the direction of the gulls. Gulls
are nothing new to Barney, and not a threat.
The fish on the line are hooked by a hangman’s noose made of wire with
a hook on the other end of the wire. The cleaned fish are hung by their
tails to drain and dry. Finegan unhooks the fish quickly, dropping them
into the wooden box, which he covers with a wooden cover near at hand.
Finegan grabs a dented bucket and dips it into the water, sloshing the
deck of the houseboat, washing off remaining fish guts and blood. He
pulls the fishing netting flung on top of the tarp pile and hangs it
over an unused corner line.
All is now ready for a trip up one of the new bays that have been
formed by the flooding, peddling wares and looking for barter. Finegan
pulls on the rope securing the houseboat to a flooded tree, going hand
over hand to pull the houseboat close. Noting that the tie point is an
inch below water Finegan looks at Barney and mutters,
S till rising.
At the rear of the houseboat is an extension with a water wheel, half
in the water, half out. Finegan has rigged the large wooden paddles so
they turn when he pedals on some bike pedals – powered by lean muscle
and determination.
Sitting on the bike seat, leaning back against a seat backstop he has
rigged, Finegan reverse pedals to pull away from the tree. He is
steering the houseboat by a rudder attached to a lever. Satisfied that
he is clear, Finegan leans back heavily into the chair’s backstop,
pushing with his lean legs aggressively, and the houseboat moves up a
newly flooded ravine along what is now the new coastline.
5
A country road at one side of the ravine is dipping down and
disappearing into the murky floodwaters. Trees and shrubs are clustered
on the hillside pasturelands and sink into the floodwaters too, so that
only the tips of the trees are visible further out. The flood is
recent, but persistent.
Finegan is keeping the houseboat centered in the flooded ravine, being
careful to avoid being snagged by flooded trees. Though the houseboat
moves slowly, it moves steadily. Finegan strips his shirt off,
overheated from the exercise, and tosses it onto a pile of boxes
nearby.
The houseboat is approaching a rooftop sticking up above the water.
Over here. Over here!
An elderly woman is sitting on her rooftop, barefoot and clinging to
the roof peak with one trembling hand while waving at Finegan with the
other. She is wearing a summer dress, lightweight and slightly damp
around her thin frame.
Finegan lets the houseboat drift, closing the gap. He strides to the
front and grabs a large grappling hook on a rope and throws it onto the
rooftop on the extreme left. He jerks on the rope so the hooks catch on
the roof, then throws another to the extreme right, doing the same.
Disappearing into the house, Finegan comes out with a battered
stepladder. He steps up, grabs the knob at the end of the roof peak,
and heaves himself onto the rooftop.
Trust me now. I won’t drop you into the water.
In a tremulous voice, May relays her plight.
My son-in-law took the family to shore
yesterday. He was supposed to come back for me.
Finegan takes her free hand, holding it high so she can cling to his
hand instead of the roof peak.
Ease yourself over to the boat now. I’m going
to help you down. You can’t stay here.
May scuffs along the roof, clinging to the roof peak with one hand
while gripping Finegan’s hand with the other. When they get to the edge
of the rooftop, she freezes. After a slight pause, Finegan suddenly
grabs both her hands and swings her out over the boat, so she is
hanging over the stepladder.
Get your footing now.
Seeing that she has her footing, Finegan releases first one hand and
then the other. Finegan steps over to the grappling hooks and frees
6
them, first on one side and then the other, and swings down onto the
stepladder just as the houseboat is starting to drift away.
Just to ask, you didn’t happen to have any
booze in that house, did you?
May has a look on her face like he had invited the Devil himself into
their midst.
Alcohol? Oh lord no!
______________________________
Further up the ravine the terrain is relatively free of trees and
shrubs, though is still plunging into the water. A farmhouse is beyond
the pasture, at the high crest of a hill. The farmhouse is leaning at a
tilt, with part of the roof torn off and thrown into the yard.
There are tents in the yard, mostly made from tarps and blankets. About
a dozen people – men, women and children - are emerging from the tents
and rising from where they have been seated at a picnic table, pointing
toward the approaching houseboat.
Finegan moors the houseboat with his pair of grapping hooks and pulls a
plank from between some boxes, shoving it out onto the shoreline. He
strids over to greet those who are running down from the farmhouse.
Finegan Fine here, trader. I’ve got stuff
you’re no doubt looking for. And what useless
things have you got that you’d like to get rid
of?
A friend of May’s toward the back of the crowd recognizes her.
We were so worried about you.
Looking past May to the houseboat and not seeing any others, she looks
puzzled.
Where’s the family?
May is walking cautiously along the plank, stepping gingerly onto shore
and up to greet her friend.
They left in a boat yesterday. Something must
have happened because they were supposed to
come back for me.
May is looking a little consternated, but her friend has hardened her
face. They both turn to go up the hill, the friend’s arm around May’s
frail frame. May’s friend says grimly
I never did like that man.
Finegan is bargaining with the farm matron. She complains that the
group staying with her
7
Ate everything.
Ready to barter, Finegan says
I’ve got some fine fish here, fresh from last
night, and if you let me stay for dinner I’d be
obliged.
Finegan reaches behind him to pull a rusty child’s wagon out and heaves
the wooden box of fish into it. They set out up the hill, side by side,
chatting.
How’d you catch all that? We don’t get but an
occasional with the line
.
The sky is beginning to turn orange, signaling eventide.
______________________________
Fish are sizzling in a pan placed over a campfire. Finegan is milling
around in the background, talking to several people over a pile of junk
that has been assembled. There are children in the group, curious as
always.
A man jogs up holding what looks like a radio setup, including a long
stiff wire that has been used as an antenna. Finegan takes this in his
hands and looks it over, talking to the man at the same time, and
glancing up at the rooftop.
Can’t get anything from there?
The man shakes his head.
Not lately. I think the base tower went down.
The group is drifting away, moving toward the picnic table in
anticipation of supper. The farm matron comes up from behind Finegan
and begins talking behind him, so the group won’t be alerted to their
conversation. She has a bag of onions hanging from one hand, her barter
for the fish, to explain why she is approaching him. Finegan looks up,
but does not yet turn around to face her, sensing the agenda.
The farm matron speaks quietly.
I have a favor to ask. We’ve got little Joey
here, was trapped here with his grandad when
the waters started to rise. Grandpa died
yesterday, and the boy wants to go home. Take
the boy up aways and give his folks the body.
I’m afraid if you don’t do this, someone here
will eat him.
8
Finegan nods, then turns for their official conversation about the
onions.
Fine mess you have there! Keep well too. You
grow these here?
As the farm matron backs away, Finegan moves to the side to address an
