has been piled on top of her head and she is bedecked with costume
jewelry. Rings are stuffed over her plump fingers. She is helped up
onto the wagon by a couple backers who stand under her ample buttocks
as she heaves herself up the step. She straightens up and clears her
throat.
The rule of law must be our first concern.
There are simply no guidelines. I’ve taken the
initiative of drawing up statutes that give
clear guidelines.
A handful of people in the crowd stomp their feet and whistle loudly at
this point, as she unfurls a roll of paper she has brought with her and
proceeds to read off her proposed statues.
Finegan and Joey are sitting side by side in the back of the crowd.
Finegan is still trying to get his head around the idea that a little
girl could be in the competition.
Her father ran a pig farm, and they all escaped
when the troubles hit. Ran off into the swamp.
. . Well they go wild after a time. But she got
‘em back, is breeding ‘em tame again. . . OK,
so she’s got guts, I’ll give her that. . .
Finegan is shaking his head, muttering to himself. Joey says,
I watched her. . . It’s not what she says. It’s
what she gets other people to do. . . I dunno.
. . I dunno, but they’re fretting and fussing.
Then comes Matilda. Then when she leaves
they’re set to go off to do somethin. But I
never hear her tell them what to do. . . She
points to this or that one and asks a question.
That’s it. . . Huh.
Now Matilda is jumping up on the wagon, to thunderous applause.
Clem says I’m the jell in the jello, and my dad
always said I brung his mind to a focus, but to
my way of thinking it ain’t me. It’s you. It’s
you come up with what to do, and it’s you who
do it. But we rounded up the pigs now and I’ve
got more time. If this is what you want me to
do, then I’m happy to help.
119
With that, Matilda hops off the wagon and continues to work the crowd
on the edge of the seating area. Finegan is still dumbfounded.
Huh.
______________________________
Finegan and Joey are walking up over the hill between the flea market
and the houseboat, going home. They are silhouetted against the setting
sun. Sounds of cheering and whooping are in the background. Matilda is
being carried about on the shoulders of her backers, clearly having
won. Finegan and Joey look back over their shoulders at the uproar,
turning around to look back on the flea market for a moment. Finegan is
shaking his head.
I still can’t figure it . .
Joey is still trying to explain what he observed when Finegan was off
trading and he was trailing along behind Matilda. He puts both hands
first on one side and then the other, trying to indicate first
confusion and then resolve.
You should’a seed her. First folks were looking
worried. One lady looked like she was gonna
cry. Some guy red in the face. Then Matilda’d
come up and ask a bunch of questions. Then
everyone’d be smiling and Matilda’d walk away.
Joey looks up at Finegan to see if he’d gotten his point across.
I swear.
Finegan is pondering, but finally says,
. . or it’s the barbeque.
120
Canibals
The tide is coming in, waves slapping against the shore. Finegan and
Joey are pulling in the fishing net and sorting out the catch, putting
flapping fish and snapping crabs into a bucket and sweeping any twigs,
seaweed, or coke cans that got swept up into the net back into the
water. Gradually the incoming tide starts carrying more and more
floating debris. A partially empty soda bottle, tightly capped, comes
by. Splintered boards, a woven sewing basket, a child’s rag doll with a
smiling face, and finally a bloated dead body. The body has been
partially eaten by fish, but the belly, covered by shirt and pants, is
still intact and full of bloat. Finegan says,
I think I just lost my appetite.
______________________________
Finegan is at the rear of the houseboat, peddling to get some distance
from shore. Joey, who is sitting on a box at the rear, is looking back
toward shore. Joey says,
I think we’re clear. . . Was that gross or
what.
Finegan rolls off his bike seat and climbs up onto the houseboat roof
to get some perspective, shielding his eyes with his hand. He looks
back toward shore at first, then turns to look out toward deep water.
Oh Lord. . . Gets worse.
Joey jumps up to join Finegan, to see what he is looking at. They both
stand side-by-side, hands shielding their eyes.
In the distance is a conglomeration of rafts, made from pastel
insulation boards, pink and baby blue. The raft city seems to almost
fill the horizon, spreading from one side to the next, and is floating
closer to them on the incoming tide. Some of the rafts have soggy
cardboard boxes on them, half melted flat by repeated rainstorms. Some
items of clothing are thrown on the insulation boards here and there,
as though someone stripped and didn’t bother to pick up afterwards. An
empty pie tin, partially filled with rainwater, stands on one raft, the
sole item that raft contains.
Except for items of clothing, the rafts seem empty, and devoid of
people. The rafts are looped together by construction netting used to
keep the public from construction sites. This netting holds a half
dozen insulation rafts together in a neat rectangle, with each
rectangle then tied to the others with rope. The raft city was
constructed, in desperation, as flood waters were overtaking an island.
121
One of the rafts has a sign laid flat, which says “Ellis Construction”
in red lettering against a white background. What looks like rusty
reddish/brown paint smears are amid the red lettering and on the pastel
pink of the insulation board raft. An open pocketknife is laid on the
construction sign.
One of the soggy cardboard boxes begins to bump around, and a leg
sticks out. The foot is bare, no shoes, and the pants frayed and
tattered. The box bumps around some more and the cannibal’s head comes
out over the leg and knee, hands to his head, rubbing his eyes. His