They say you can’t choose your neighbors, but if you’re homeless, you basically can choose your neighbors. You can choose your neighborhood. You can live in a tent down by the river, if you want to. And that’s what Finn did. Pitched her tent in a shady nook beside the Willamette River on the edge of the Oak Bottom Wildlife Refuge, in Southeast Portland. Finn’s only visible neighbor was another homeless woman, Vicky Spear, who was old enough to be Finn’s oldish mother or youngish grandmother. Vicky was much messier than Finn, but Finn thought it was safer and easier to set up camp near a woman. Men were more likely to be violent, insane, or otherwise unpredictable.
Finn kept a tidy camp. She had a tent, a sleeping bag, a cooler, and a used camp chair. She had a bicycle, and a good lock. She kept the bike chained to a tree. She kept three 5-gallon plastic buckets for various forms of waste. She had her guitar and her clothes. And she had plenty of rope. Rope, she had learned in her two-plus years of vagabonding, was almost infinitely useful. For protection, she kept a five-inch serrated Kershaw flip-knife.
Vicky Spear’s camp looked like an I.E.D. had gone off. Her thin canvas tent was covered by an incongruously large rain fly. Surrounding the tent was a graveyard of random items and trash. The things Vicky used, and counted as personal possessions, were indistinguishable from the trash. Vicky had a bicycle, but the tires were flat. Finn bought Vicky a tire pump, a gift of diplomacy. Thus was born an informal alliance. It was good to have someone else looking out for your shit, especially when you weren’t in camp.
Vicky also had a propane stove, and this was how she and Finn generally cooked their meals. In the evenings, Finn picked up her chair, and a package of hot dogs, or burger meat, or whatever, and hiked fifty yards or so over to Vicky’s camp for dinner.
“I don’t know where you keep coming up with meat,” Vicky said. “But I won’t argue.”
“Catering,” Finn told her. “I either take home the leftovers, or I buy food.”
“Can’t work,” Vicky said. “Fibromyalgia.”
“I’m happy to share,” said Finn.
Finn was happy to share hot dogs, since Vicky shared the propane. She was more careful about sharing personal information, such as the extent of her financial resources. Which were not insignificant. Three months earlier, a local record company had signed her to a recording contract. Her first album, to be entitled River God, after a strange creature she had seen in the Columbia the previous summer, would be released in the fall. The company had given her a three-thousand-dollar advance. Elated, Finn had abandoned her cozy, but suffocating, domestic life, and moved down to the river.
Vicky set up the propane stove. Her propane tank was white, and she had painted a colorful garden of flowers on it. “That way I always know which one’s mine,” she said, somewhat ominously. Soon the hot dogs were sizzling.
“What else we got?” Vicky asked.
Finn produced some vegetables out of a Trader Joe’s bag. Carrots, celery, and a pair of avocadoes.
“There’s pop,” Vicky said, pulling out a two-liter bottle of what had originally been Dr. Pepper, but now looked more like Mountain Dew. Finn could tell at a glance that whatever the beverage was, its carbonation was gone. She declined a pour.
“This is it for my contributions,” Vicky said. “Lost my Trail Card.”
They sat in their camp chairs. Vicky rolled a cigarette, Finn sipped water from a Nalgene bottle, and they stared out at the river. Several sailboats, in various stages of decommission, floated together in the channel off Ross Island. Finn had been watching this flotilla all summer. It had begun as random, unconnected boats, but now seemed to have formed a fleet, all tied together. Various sunburnt, dread-locked, half-naked pirates roamed the decks, hopping from vessel to vessel, smoking, talking, standing around, a general sense of timeless imprisonment rising off the cluster like heat waves.
“Wish I had a boat,” Vicky said.
“They’re not so great,” said Finn. Two summers ago, she had lost all her possessions when her feckless girlfriend had signed them up to crew for a young man who had found a fixer- upper floating in the Willamette. The boat had proven unseaworthy against the mighty current of the Columbia, swamping, and nearly killing them all.
“You could go anywhere you pleased,” said Vicky.
“Where would you go?”
“The hell away from here.”
Finn knew bits and pieces of Vicky’s life story. Details spewed out of her with random ferocity, like water from holes punched in a hose. Vicky was from the Midwest, had lived all over the country. First husband in the Army. An abusive drunk. Second husband dead under mysterious circumstances. Last boyfriend was a biker- whereabouts unknown. Several kids scattered around. One of them, a Portlander, a hopeless meth addict. Vicky called herself a recovering addict. She was clean now, but drugs and alcohol had battered her mind into pudding.
“You goin’ into town tomorrow?” Vicky asked.
“Probably.”
“I’m outta Bugler. Pick me up a packet, I’ll pay ya back.”
Finn nodded. There would be no recompense for any purchased tobacco. But she didn’t mind shelling out a couple of bucks, knowing Vicky would scream like a banshee at anyone who tried to pillage Finn’s camp.
“Them boat folks are so young,” Vicky said, as they watched the pirates. “Shame to see so many young people on the street. Already messed up. It should take a lifetime to ruin your life.”
“Your life isn’t ruined, Vicky,” Finn said, though the detritus surrounding them suggested otherwise.
“Lost my SNAP card. Again.”
“I’ll help you get a new one.”
“Wonder if my son’s one of them.” Vicky pointed her cigarette at the pirates, squinted at them. “Can’t tell.”
“I had another thought,” Finn said.
“Tell me.”
“You worked, didn’t you, Vicky?”
“When I wasn’t messed up, you betcha. Worked for Kroger for thirty years. In six different states.”
“I thought maybe we could go to the Social Security office, and get you signed up,” Finn said. “You worked for it. You should collect.”
Vicky frowned. “I don’t care much for government.”
“I know you don’t. But that’s money you put in. It’s yours.”
“They got forms, and all,” Vicky said. “Seems like every time I sign something, I do it wrong.”
“I can go with you.”
Vicky took a long drag on her cigarette. Her mouth formed a perpetual frown, owing to the many teeth she’d lost.
“It’s the way they look at you,” she said.
“I’ll tell them I’m your attorney,” said Finn. “A woman with legal representation must be a pretty big deal, right?”
“That’s sweet of you, honey.”
“Maybe Wednesday.”
Vicky sighed. “It’s a date.”
The skin on the hot dogs looked just crispy. Vicky shut off the propane. They never used more than they needed. Finn opened a package of buns with a fairly recent expiration date. Handed Vicky two carrots, three celery sticks, and an avocado.
“Wish I could chew these carrots,” Vicky said. “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my teeth the most.”
Finn laughed. The thing she missed the most was indoor plumbing. The bucket served its purpose, without much comfort.
A warm summer evening settled over the river. Golden sunlight danced through the leafy trees. Finn chewed her hot dog slowly, savoring each bite, staring out at the broad horseshoe of Ross Island.
“What I’d like is a canoe,” she said. “Maybe if one of my songs becomes a hit, I’ll buy one.”
Vicky stared at her, her toothless jaws chewing in deliberate circles. “Honey, you’re nice to help out an old bum like me,” she said. “But you oughtn’t be down here in Rock Bottom. You should patch things up with your lady friend.”
“I’m more of an outdoor cat than a housecat,” said Finn.
Which is what she had told Martine.
“Well, I’m grateful for your company.”
They ate dinner in pleasant silence. Afterwards, Finn broke out her guitar, and serenaded the Willamette with a few new tunes she’d been working on. Vicky rolled another cigarette, listening with a contented grin. The honks and roars of the city died down to a low distant hum, giving rise to the collective cackle of nearby ravens. The gentle current of the river whispered beneath Finn’s guitar.
“I don’t know where a girl like you learned to sing the blues,” Vicky said. “But you sure can carry a tune.”
“Just born blue, that’s all,” Finn said.
Vicky stood up and started gathering dry river wood for a fire. “Dark’s coming.”
Finn stared out at the boat people. Two young men, one hunched over, the other skinny as a wraith, stood on the deck of a sailboat that had a mast but no sails. They were looking toward the riverbank. Leaning into each other. Whispering.
“Maybe hold off on that fire,” Finn said to Vicky.
Vicky followed her gaze. She set down a few pieces of wood, stood defiantly along the edge of the river, hands on her hips. “Yeah, I see ya!” she hollered at the men on the boat. “What do you want?”
The men glared at her.
“Warm night anyway,” Vicky said.
Finn nodded, touching the pocket of her shorts, where she kept her knife.
Timberline Studios was located in Northeast Portland, off MLK, a neighborhood which had once been a ghetto, then gentrified slightly, then backslid in the 2020s, when the pandemic, and rising incoming inequality, caused people to stop cleaning up after themselves. Finn rode her bike up MLK in the dry summer heat, swerving around meth addicts slumped on the sidewalk, and coffee-clutching Millennials walking their dogs. She rode around to the back of the studio, brought her bike in through the back door.
The studio was quiet and air conditioned, two things Rock Bottom was not. Her producer was an old hippy named Lonnie Tracks, which might have been a stage name. Lonnie was tall, slow, friendly, and partially-deaf. He had played sessions with all the old blues artists of the sixties and seventies. Finn thought he was a wizard with a mixing board. Her songs floated off Lonnie’s machines like clouds of pure oxygen permeating a smoggy haze.
“Dingleberry Finn,” Lonnie said, when they were both sipping kombucha in Lonnie’s office. “Working on any new material?”
“Always.”
“Still looking for inspiration the hard way?”
“I have this theory,” Finn said. “That comfort erases authenticity.”
Lonnie nodded, stroking his beard.
“Look at Jay Z,” Finn said. “Rose to prominence rapping about street life, selling drugs, gangster shit. Then he becomes a millionaire. Multi-millionaire. Diversifies. Buys various businesses. Properties. Produces other artists. He even became a sports agent for some baseball player. Probably he lives in a penthouse somewhere. What’s he going to rap about now? How there’s no room in his closet for all his suits?”
“Wouldn’t make a very interesting record.”
“Snoop Dogg is like fifty. He could rap about his blood pressure medication.”
Lonnie laughed. “So you’re afraid if you move indoors, or brush your teeth over a sink, you’ll lose your edge.”
“I can’t write a song about a Prius.”
Finn opened her backpack. She had been working on some sketches for her album art. A couple of covers, and some interior designs. Handed them to Lonnie.
“A Renaissance girl,” he said, smiling at the drawings. “We have good people in the art department. Most artists leave design to the pros.”
“I want to make as much of this record as possible myself.”
“You don’t want it to look like amateur night.”
“I want it to look like anyone could do it. So someone sees my record, and wants to make one themselves.”
“We’ll see how you feel in ten years. You might want that Prius.” He held up her drawings. “These are good. I’ll pass them along. Let me show you what I’ve been working on.”
Lonnie played her some of the tracks he had been mixing. Finn put on a pair of headphones, drifted away into the sound of her own voice. Her whole life she had wanted to record her music. Hearing the songs now made her want to cry.
“It sounds good, Lonnie,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You are good,” Lonnie said. He held up her art again. “I know you’re pretty psyched for a CD, Finn, but we’re only going to cut a few hundred copies. Most of your exposure will come from streaming.”
“I just want something to hold.”
“I still have a press of every record I’ve made. But digital is the future. You’re going to need a website. Social media.”
“All that shit.”
“All that shit. Something else to think about: how do you feel about touring?”
“Bring it on.”
“You make more money than playing bars. We’re thinking of pairing you with a slightly more established act. Have you open in a bunch of cities in the Northwest.” Lonnie checked his watch. “Session in ten minutes. How you doing otherwise? Being careful out there?”
Finn plucked her knife out of her pocket, flipped open the blade.
“I give you a piece of advice?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Make friends with musicians. Your best stuff will come when you start feeding off other people- off their energy. Find a guitarist. Maybe a drummer. See what happens.”
“Thanks, Lonnie.”
Lonnie sent her off with half a sandwich he had left over from lunch at Jersey Mike’s. This was the kind of treatment Taylor Swift got, she told him.
She rode all the way to Martine’s block, almost changed her mind and turned around, but then thought: what the hell, she’d ridden this far, and she was thirsty.
Martine was sitting on the front porch, bare feet kicked up on the banister, laptop sitting on her thighs. Her expression slalomed around several gates when she saw Finn: surprise, confusion, distrust.
Finn stopped her bike on the edge of the small yard. “I come in peace. Just thought I’d say hey.”
“Hey.”
Finn rested her bike against the front steps. “Working?”
“Yeah.”
“I just went up to Timberline, dropped off some art for my album.”
Martine waved her forward. Finn pointed toward a rocking chair. Martine nodded, and Finn sat down.
“I brought something for Ava,” Finn said. She pulled her sketch pad out of her backpack, showed Martine a drawing of a gray heron she had seen on the river.
“That’s pretty,” Martine said.
“She around?”
“She’s at basketball camp.”
Martine stared at her for a moment, not removing the laptop from her outstretched legs. “She misses you,” she said eventually.
“I think about her,” Finn said.
They sat there in the pressing heat. Even the ravens had given up squawking at each other. “Can I offer you anything?” Martine asked. “Water?”
“Water. Please.”
Martine stood up, carried the laptop into the house, returned with a glass of water, sat back down, set the laptop back on her legs. “I don’t really know what to say to you,” she said. “I assume you’re camping somewhere?”
“Down by Oak Bottom, on the river.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yeah. It’s not so bad.”
“I keep watching for you on the evening news.”
“I like being by the water. The city is too suffocating in the summer.”
“Well, I don’t really know what to tell you. I haven’t rented your room.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
Finn drank the water in one long, chugging procession. She liked sitting on Martine’s porch. But the neighborhood felt as hot and tight and claustrophobic as ever. Houses packed in together. Cars wedged against the sidewalk on both sides of the street. No room to pass. Traffic thrumming endlessly over on Division.
“They want me to go on tour, when the record comes out,” Finn said.
“Where to?”
“Don’t know yet. They don’t even know with who. Turns out they don’t just give you a bunch of CDs. They want to make their money back.”
“Ah, that pesky economy.”
“I still have enough to camp the rest of the summer.”
Martine stared off the porch. “Then what?”
“Don’t know.”
It was getting late. Finn remembered Vicky’s tobacco. Vicky was probably pacing the campsite, frazzled, nothing to smoke.
“I gotta hit the trail, Mar,” she said. “It’s nice to see you. Give Ava a hug for me?” Martine looked at her with what did not quite seem like total discomfort. “Stick around a little while, you can give her one yourself.”
Finn stared at her empty water glass. “Next time. Maybe I’ll stop by some evening, if that’s cool.”
Martine shrugged. “Maybe we’ll see you then. Or on the news.”
“Fair enough.”
Finn stood up and walked down the steps to her bike. Pinched Martine’s bare toe on her way down.
Finn and Vicky walked downtown to the Social Security Office. Neither of them wanted to leave their camps unattended for what might be a long day- they had no appointment. In her backpack, Finn brought her I.D., her cash, the drawing pad and journal she took everywhere. Tied her guitar to the pack. Vicky carried nothing, which Finn tried not to see as a discouraging start.
They crossed the river on the Hawthorne Bridge. The blue-green Willamette shimmered in the morning sun. Vicky told a convoluted story about a feud one of her sons had gotten into with a neighbor in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The story was hard to follow, but soon Vicky ran out of breath, abandoning the narrative.
They waited three hours to see a Social Security officer, a woman a few years younger than Vicky, named Brenda. Finn introduced herself as Vicky’s advocate, and was pleasantly surprised when Brenda did not really pursue this supposition.
Vicky had a hard time answering Brenda’s questions.
“When you say you lost your driver’s license, Victoria, do you mean you don’t have the physical license, or your license has been revoked?”
“Both, I guess,” Vicky said.
“Do you have a Medicare card, or I.D. from some other health care provider?”
“No.”
“And no mailing address?”
“Not at the moment.”
“That shouldn’t matter though, correct?” Finn said. As Vicky’s “advocate,” she hadn’t said much. She realized she didn’t really know much about Vicky. Or the system.
“That’s right,” Brenda said. “You don’t need an address to collect your benefits. We do need to establish your identity, however.”
Vicky leaned toward Finn. “Maybe she thinks I’m somebody else.”
“Are you?” Finn asked.
“I wish.”
Brenda smiled patiently. “I believe you are who you say you are, Victoria. But without your Social Security number, we have no way of verifying your benefits.”
“I did work, though,” Vicky said. “I was a clerk at Kroger. And worked in the meat department.”
“Do you keep any paperwork in your possession?” Brenda asked. “I realize you are unhoused, but do you keep documents somewhere? Official documents?”
“All my paperwork blew away over the years,” Vicky said.
“According to your birthday, you’re sixty-nine years old,” Brenda said. “At some point the Social Security office would have sent you a letter informing you of your eligibility.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Vicky.
“Might one of your children have it?” Finn asked. “What about your son?”
“He wouldn’t have it. He’s in a halfway house.”
“So, here’s what we’ll need to do,” Brenda said. “We’re kind of starting from zero. I’ll give you all the forms you’ll need to fill out to process your benefits. Your friend here can help you fill them out, or if you need, you can make an appointment and someone here can help you. But in order to verify your identity, and your Social Security number, we’re going to need a copy of your birth certificate.”
“Oh, god,” Vicky said. “Ma’am, if you think I still got my birth certificate, you’re dreamin’. I’ve never even seen it.”
“Your birth hospital would have a copy,” said Brenda.
“That place ain’t around either.”
“Where were you born, Vicky?” Finn asked.
“Racine, Wisconsin.”
Brenda nodded, and Finn realized that Vicky was a long way from a Social Security check. Vicky seemed to realize this too, because she stopped talking, and starting fidgeting with her fingers, like she wanted to roll a cigarette.
“The city hall in your place of birth would have a copy of your birth certificate,” Brenda said.
“So, we would have to contact them?” Finn asked. “In Wisconsin?”
“That’s right.”
“Would we have to show up in person?”
Finn could see that Brenda was trying very hard not to say “Yes.” Instead, she said: “With no other form of I.D., and no current address, that’s a possibility. My advice would be to contact the city hall in Racine, and ask them what to do. Explain your situation.”
“They’ll probably want my Social Security number,” Vicky said.
“Maybe we should just rob a bank,” said Finn.
Vicky cackled with laughter.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Spear,” Brenda said. “I know it’s a complicated process. Your advocate is right though. You worked for the money. You’re entitled to it. My advice is to call Racine.”
“Honey,” Vicky said. “I’ll be a debutante in Hell before I ever set foot in Wisconsin.”
When they returned to camp, the sun was on its way down, and though it was hard to tell, the camp looked like it had been trashed. Both of their tents had been turned inside out, their possessions scattered through the bushes. Finn’s bicycle was still intact, minus tires. Some of her clothes were gone.
“The fuckers took my propane!” Vicky cried, and for the next few minutes she unleashed a tornado of profanity.
Finn sat down on a tree trunk. She felt only a mild sting of violation. This was the cost of living out of doors. This was the price of absolute freedom. A consolation she chose not to share with Vicky. Instead, she thought of practical things: how to get new tires for the bike; how to procure a new propane tank, and transport it down to the river.
The smell of barbecue seeped into the air. Finn saw a small party yukking it up onboard the pirate flotilla. Smoke belched out of a grill on the deck of one of the boats. Shirtless demons danced around it, hooting triumphant war cries.
“They stole the propane,” Finn said.
Vicky looked up, her eyes crazed with hate.
“I knew they was watchin’ us. Fuckin’ knew it. Excuse my French.”
Finn returned to her own camp. Buried beneath a particular rock she had marked with blue nail polish was a small tin box, containing a few things she didn’t want anyone to know about. She excavated the box and pulled out a pair of binoculars, a gift from another vagabond friend who had been a bird-watcher. She rejoined Vicky, and they traded the binocs back and forth.
“It’s right there on deck, by their stove,” Finn whispered, not sure why she was whispering.
“I see it. There’s my flowers painted on it.” She stood up, about to shout.
Finn touched her wrist. “Wait.”
“Wait, what?”
“Let’s figure this out, Vic.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to figure out, honey. That’s thievery, and I want my property.”
“I know. What are you planning to do?”
Vicky opened her mouth, but said nothing. “Well,” she muttered. “What do you think?”
“I think we sit tight,” Finn said. “We know they’re watching us. So let’s just clean up camp. It’ll be dark soon. I’m going to go find some wood.”
There was no moon. Finn and Vicky sat by the river in the dark, watching the party on the riverboats die down. Sometime after midnight, the last lights went out. A breeze picked up on the water. Finn gently strummed her guitar, trying to calm her nerves. Vicky smoked cigarettes and whispered wicked oaths.
“All right,” Finn said, when no sound had emanated from the boats for almost an hour. “I’m going.”
“I can come with ya,” Vicky said. “I can swim, at least.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Finn said. “Help me with the raft.”
While Vicky had made a show of cleaning up camp, and the boaters had reveled around what smelled like grilled chicken, Finn had spent the evening constructing a crude raft. She collected enough driftwood to make a bundle about four feet long, then tied one of her empty plastic waste buckets to each end. With the lids on, the buckets were air-tight.
They pushed the raft into the water.
“Can’t believe it floats,” Vicky said. “What are you gonna do, sit on that clump of sticks and paddle? What are you gonna use for an oar?”
Finn shook her head. “I’m going to swim, holding onto the wood.” In one of the buckets, she had a coil of rope. “I’ll get the tank, tie it to the raft, and swim back.”
“Good Lord, I can’t believe this,” Vicky said.
Me neither, Finn thought. She had drawn a sketch of the raft before building it, but had no idea if the bound bundle of sticks would actually float. It might come apart, costing her precious supplies.
Finn stripped down to her underwear, stuck the Kershaw knife between her bra cup and her tit. She waded into the river. The raft bobbed in the shallows. She gave it a kick, and it did not break or sink.
“If I don’t come back, you can pawn my guitar,” she said.
“Please be careful, honey.”
Finn pushed off into the river, holding the raft with one hand, paddling forward with the other. Kicking behind her. The current picked up as she reached deeper water. She corrected her course, heading south, hoping the current would push her up onto the stern of the nearest vessel. She kicked hard, trying not to splash. It was exhausting, but she gained water.
When she reached the boats, she opened the bucket with the rope inside, careful not to let any water in. She tied a quick, loose knot around the anchor line of the outermost boat, securing her raft to the flotilla.
There was no obvious way onto the boat. She took the knife out of her bra, clutched it between her teeth, and breast-stroked around the boats until she found one with a ladder she could reach. Hoisting herself from the water, she stepped barefoot over the transom. The cabin hatch gaped open like a black mouth. Somewhere in there, one or more pirates were hopefully asleep.
There were five boats in the fleet, bound together with hapless knots, anchored, Finn saw, by only two anchor lines, one south and one kind of northwest. The smell emanating from the floating shanty stung her nasal passages- rot, mildew, gasoline, turpentine, tobacco, human waste.
In the middle of the flotilla, the pirates had built a kitchen on a wooden platform. They had a grill, three propane tanks, and two coolers. Finn tip-toed across the deck, crouched by the propane tanks. Hefted each one. Vicky’s felt fuller than the other two. Finn lifted the tank over her head, crept back toward the stern.
A voice grumbled belowdecks. A man coughed. A woman swore.
The boat rocked gently. A skinny man swung himself out of the cabin. He lurched toward the transom. Finn stood still.
The man hawked and spat into the river. He stood swaying on the transom for what seemed like several minutes, before a thin stream of urine trickled out of him into the water.
Finn crouched down, clutching her knife. The man hawked and spat again, causing the woman in the cabin to say: “You’re fuckin’ disgusting.”
“Fuck you,” the man drawled, swiveling around. He ducked back into the cabin.
Finn listened to them trade a few tired insults.
A stillness settled over the boats. She sidestepped onto one of the adjacent vessels, padded softly along the deck to the stern. One hand gripping the propane tank, she swung over the transom, stepped gingerly down the ladder.
How the fuck am I going to swim back to the raft with this thing?
The tank would sink her. She was not so strong a swimmer that she could swim with one arm, while hoisting the tank above the water with the other. She set the tank down gently on the bottom step of the ladder, slipped into the water.
She swam to her raft, untied, recoiled the rope, and pushed the raft around the boats, kicking silently. It took her a long time to secure the tank to the raft. Ultimately, she looped the rope through the tank’s hand-hold and secured it as tightly as she could to the lid of one of the buckets. The tank rested precariously on the driftwood platform.
Good enough. Just have to hold it steady.
She stared at the dark wall of trees along the shore. Vicky was lurking somewhere in the shadows, probably pacing, worrying about her.
Just one more thing to do.
She swam to the anchor line on the northwest side of the fleet. Pulled her knife out of her bra. It only took a minute to slice through the line. Then she kicked back around to the rear of the flotilla, and severed the south-facing anchor line.
“Adios, muchachos,” she whispered.
*
The next morning, Finn and Vicky cooked their last two eggs for breakfast. Vicky rubbed her hands contentedly, as the propane hissed through the fuel line to the stove. “The neighborhood’s certainly improving,” she said, nodding toward the river.
No boats floated in the channel. The Willamette was clear and green and beautiful. The treeline of Ross Island sparkled in the morning sun.
“Where do you think they went?” Vicky asked.
“Where indeed?” Finn mused. The pirates were probably beached somewhere north of downtown. Or stuck on the pilon of a bridge.
“What are we gonna do today?” Vicky asked.
“Today we’re going to go find some tires for the bikes,” said Finn. “I didn’t see any of the other shit they stole when I was out on their boats.”
“You got the most important thing,” said Vicky.
“The most important thing is right here,” Finn said, pulling the Kershaw out of her pocket. “As long as you’ve got a good knife, you’ve got a chance.”
Adam Matson is the author of three collections of short fiction, The Last Three Hours, Sometimes Things Go Horribly Wrong, and Watch City. His fiction has appeared internationally in over thirty publications.
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