Finegan points to the rust just under the water level.
Finegan turns to face the gardener. He barely gets his words out before
the building starts to collapse.
There is a sound of metal screeching onmetal. The stairwell shutters
and both men lose their footing.
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A frantic scene ensues, as the gardener and his family are evacuating.
The wife and daughter are tossing bundles of personal items out the
window of their living quarters down to Joey, who is on the roof of the
houseboat. Finegan is on the roof of the factory with the gardener,
trying to harvest his crop. Finegan drops a rope with hook down to
Joey.
The gardener is harvesting potatoes, shaking the soil off when he
wrenches a plant up out of the trough, and plucking potatoes off the
roots. He tosses the filled plastic bag onto a pile to be lowered to
Joey. Finegan is doing the same to carrots, starting to tear the greens
off them. The gardener cries out,
Finegan is hooking potatoe bags on the hook used to lower produce from
the rooftop to Joey. He swings the bag of potatoes out over the
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houseboat rooftop and holds the rope while Joey catches the swinging
mess. Joey says,
The wife and daughter are now climbing out the window of their living
quarters below the factory roof, the daughter dropping down and then
reaching up to help her more portly mother, standing beneath her to
soften her fall. Her mother says,
The wife falls on her butt, but rolls to stand up and brush herself
off.
Finegan and the gardener are now harvesting green cabbage, cutting this
off at the root and discarding the brown and tattered outer leaves. The
gardener cries out again,
They have a pile of bagged vegetables at the side of the factory roof,
ready to be lowered down. Just then the sound of metal screeching again
cuts through the air, as the factory visibly shutters and lowers again
by a few feet. Only inches remain until the flood waters will pour over
the rooftop guard walls.
Finegan rushes over to the pile of plastic bags packed and tied and
ready to be lowered. He hooks and swings this to Joey as though they
only have seconds to spare. Joey signals Finegan as soon as the hook is
clear.
The daughter is now helping Joey, moving the bags to the edge of the
roof and out of his way, and lowering the bags into her mother’s eager
hands during the off moments.
The water starts lapping over one edge of the rooftop guard. The
gardener rushes over to the far side of the factory rooftop, tearing
off his shift. He picks seed shoots from carrot and cabbage plants
being used to grow seed and ties them into his shift, tying the sleeves
together so it is a bundle. He staggers and sloshes back to the
houseboat side through the rising water and tosses this into his
daughter’s hands.
Finegan is hooking the harvested and bagged tomatoes, lowering them
carefully rather than swinging them out.
The wife comes over to the side of the houseboat deck to catch them.
Finegan turns to the gardener.
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Just then, the factory settles yet again, accompanied by the sound of
screeching metal and splashing water, putting both Finegan and the
gardener in the water. Finegan and the gardener climb onto the
houseboat and stand, dripping web, looking over the flooded roof.
Along the sides of the factory roof the vines holding summer squash can
be seen bobbing up. The squash on the surface is bloated and yellow,
oversized and almost rotting in appearance. The gardener cries out,
He dives into the water and swims along the bobbing vines, plucking the
overripe summer squash and tossing them to Finegan. Several of them
shatter when caught.
The gardener’s wife rushes up to collect the mess in a basin. She says,
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