It’s only an old canoe, tucked back behind the lawnmower—an algae-crusted, mud-smeared vessel with two bench seats and what looks like gator teeth marks on the hull. A torn life preserver lies in the bottom, its orange reflective tape shining, and one long, double-ended paddle is stashed under the seats. There’s nothing special about it. Only this feeling, this whisper, that she will need it.
Chapter 42
When three weeks have gone by since he started calling his supervisor to file the crew’s overtime requests and he still hasn’t been able to get anyone at city hall on the phone, Kirby resolves to go in person. He leaves Lucas and Brenda at the job site after lunch and heads over. Pulling into the parking lot, he can already feel that something is wrong. It’s nearly empty. The flagpole is bare. The lawn is overgrown, sprouting wildflowers. The windows are dark. The fears that he told himself were premature are beginning to seem entirely plausible. Inside, the hallways are dim shadowy stretches and the offices are all empty. When he gets to the city planning bullpen and finds a lone employee flicking through a box of files, he feels as though he’s come upon a ghost. Kirby pauses in the open doorway, reassuring himself that this is just an ordinary man, in a regular building, doing his job. He raps his knuckles against the pane of frosted glass.
The man yelps and puts a hand on his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” Kirby says, but he isn’t. He’s relieved there’s someone else to confirm how eerie this building has become. They look at each other. The man is middle-aged, with a hairline creeping back toward the tops of his ears. A deep pink flush of rosacea spreads across his cheeks. Kirby tries to remember if he’s ever met this man before, but nothing about him seems familiar. “Are you…Do you work with Declan?”
“Well, I did,” the man replies. “But he’s gone now.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah, gone,” the man says. “Look around, buddy. Everyone’s gone.”
“Well, yeah. I see that. Look, I’m the foreman.” Kirby receives a blank look. “The electrical foreman?”
“Oh sure, sure.” The man waits to see what he wants, his hands still resting on the edge of the cardboard bank box. Kirby looks closer—the man isn’t filing at all. He’s cleaning out his desk.
“I haven’t been able to get my crew’s overtime approved,” Kirby finally says. “For a while now. I’ve been calling. Is there someone I can speak to?”
“You don’t know? Look, it’s really not my job, to deliver news like this, but…someone should have told you. Didn’t you get an email or something? The whole municipality is shutting down. Is shut down. We’re…well, we’re bankrupt, is the thing.” Kirby just stares at him. It’s not that he’s surprised, just that he can’t imagine what to say or do now that this news is being delivered as a fact, rather than a possibility. The man is uncomfortable with Kirby’s silence. “So, no overtime,” he adds, dumping a mug full of pens into the box and waiting for Kirby to leave. But Kirby doesn’t want to leave.
“Don’t you know what I do?” Kirby asks. The man just keeps at it with his packing: a stress ball, a few pairs of reading glasses, a framed picture of a little boy holding a fishing rod that’s too big for him. He doesn’t want to look Kirby in the eye. This reaction, when people find out that their job has ceased to exist, that there are no more city services, no more Rudder—he’s seen enough of it. Everyone’s reaction is different, but no one’s is good. Kirby barrels forward anyway, feeling that he must explain how vital his job is. “I keep the electricity on. The water pumps. AC. All of it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” The man sighs, wondering why he chose this day of all days to come gather his things.
“So I’m just supposed to stop? With no plan? Are the county’s linemen taking over? A contractor?”
The man shakes his head slowly. “I couldn’t tell you, really. But. County’s not far behind,” he says.
“So then…what, the entire town falls off the grid? The whole county? No more power? No more air-conditioning? No more…fuck, no more gas? How will people live?”
“Look, guy,” the man says, and then takes a deep breath. “Believe me when I say that the repercussions of the fiscal situation we find ourselves in have not escaped me, or anyone else. But the fact is, the population is migrating. The entire coastline is eroding, the sea level’s rising—I mean, it’s not like it’s news to you. The cost of infrastructure is too high to sustain. And getting higher every year. Fewer taxpayers, bigger problems, less money. Et cetera.”
“Well, what about relocation packages, then? Didn’t they…didn’t they do that in Miami? Federal relocation allowances?”
The man struggles not to laugh. It’s despair, not humor, but he’s learned from experience that it’s never a good idea to name the absurdity of it all in these situations. “Yes, Miami did receive some federal money for relocations. But we’re not Miami.”
“So we…”
“Got nothing.”
Kirby shakes his head, as though he doesn’t understand. But he does. He understands perfectly. “You’ve known for how long? About the bankruptcy?”
“Understand that I’m just the messenger. My salary is forty K a year, you know? Was. I’m as pissed as you. We’ve known for a little over two weeks. And before that…we were still trying. But yeah. Two weeks or so. Look, someone should have sent you an email, obviously, I’m sorry about that, but I don’t know what else I can say.”
Kirby slowly turns to go, still in shock.
“Good luck out there,” the man calls.
By the time Kirby reaches the parking lot, he realizes that he’s known for weeks. Months, even. It was the same with the beaches. The same with the floods, the hurricanes, the sea level. Didn’t he know all of this was coming? Didn’t everyone? They’ve known for years. Decades. It didn’t make any difference. None at all. Because now it’s here and despite all that knowing, he’s lost. Everyone is. They had all hung their hats on the question of proximity. Yes, it will be bad, they’d said to one another, but we have years. We have time. Somehow we’ll solve this along the way. He doesn’t even have the energy to be angry.
Kirby gets in his truck and lays his cheek against the steering wheel. He wants to cry, but he’s forgotten how. His eyes water and he waits for it; nothing comes. He just sits, unsure what to do next. The smooth plastic on his cheek is hot without the AC, burning really, but he can’t manage to reach over and turn the truck on. The only thing surprising about any of this is that he’s alive to see it. That’s the real bet they all made, isn’t it? It will come. But not until we’re gone.
Kirby drives to the Edge. He never crosses the causeway anymore unless it’s for work, but today he wants to look the ocean in the face. When he gets there, though, he can’t bring himself to get out of the truck. He feels set apart behind his windshield; not safe exactly, just—other. The saltiness of the air slips in through the vents, even though the windows are closed. The tide creeps forward. Soon it will lap at his tires. Just because there is glass between him and the Edge doesn’t mean it won’t swallow him whole. He realizes now that this idea of being separate isn’t real.