Fishermen’s Fingers

By S.B. Borgersen

Kicked from one orphanage to another, Lenny’s had a raw deal from his first breath...until the rebel in him finds a way through.

"Fishermen’s Fingers" peeks into the underbelly of a remote coastal community, revealing how poverty, an unwanted pregnancy, and a bad start in life can lead to a precarious adulthood for those who are different, like Lenny.

There are no real worries in small communities where houses are not locked and children are sent alone to the store for a loaf of bread, but when 10-year-old Betty isn’t in her usual seat at school, her teacher, Miss Watson, has to explain to students the perils of talking to strangers.

Like most aftermaths, this becomes a story of ‘if-onlys,’ where naivety and trust blind those who should have seen, should have known.

But where strong bonds of friendship, love and caring are never far away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unsolicited Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005504779

Book preview

Fishermen’s Fingers

a novella

S.B. Borgersen

Copyright © 2020 S.B. Borgersen

All Rights Reserved

Published by Unsolicited Press

First Edition 2020.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Attention schools and businesses: for discounted copies on large orders, please contact the publisher directly. Books are brought to the trade by Ingram.

For information contact:

Unsolicited Press

Portland, Oregon

www.unsolicitedpress.com

[e-mail]

619-354-8005

Cover Design: Kathryn Gerhardt

Editor: S.R. Stewart

For Elke and Kat

my sounding boards

Author’s note

National Novel Writing Month (now known fondly, around the world, as NaNo) is an event where writers of all ages and genres write their hearts out in the thirty days of November. There is no time to plot, write character studies, consider settings, research, edit, rewrite — all of those good disciplines normal to a writer.

No, the idea is to bravely bash out around 2,000 words a day, and to enjoy the liberating feel of writing mostly without conscious thought. Letting the story have its head.

I have done this every November since 2006. Fishermen’s Fingers is one of three novellas I wrote during NaNo 2018. It was indeed written without conscious thought, this story bears no resemblance to characters or places — it’s all fiction.

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Acknowledgements

To all the good folk at National Novel Writing Month, without your continued commitment to the project, this story would not have been written. To the international writing group, Writers Abroad, your support keeps me motivated and inspired. To the eagle eyes: Kat, Barbara, Chris, Laura, Elke, Kimberly and Pam. I do thank you for your spotting of all my blunders. To wonderful small fishing communities along this coast and to all fisherfolk, who put to sea before dawn in all weathers to put food on tables, you and your families deserve medals for bravery.

To S.R. Stewart and all at Unsolicited Press, you have turned me from a writer into author. Thank you.

And to Arne. You keep our home ticking over through those November writing indulgences, and the rest of the year during my writing hours. Thank you for making all things possible. And for the stories about the pig in the liquor store and the drunk ducks.

Red sky by morning, sailor take warning.

An ancient rhyme often repeated by mariners.

Miss Watson stood before her class of ten-year-olds and moistened her lips. She needed to warn them. It was her job. She looked at their faces of innocence, at their lack of street-wisdom, at their trust and acceptance in every member of the fishing community. She looked at the empty chair on the back row. She began to tell them about Betty. And why she wasn't in school today.

Chapter 1

BETTY SITS ON the bank contemplating her parents’ discussion around the table last night. She kicks at the skeleton. She knows it was a porcupine from the shower of quills along the gravel edge. She toes the curved spine, perfect in its formation and wonders what kind of brain was once in that small skull.

Alongside the spread of bones is an unmoving chickadee. Must’ve been hit by something, the ten-year-old murmurs, reaching down to stroke its minute head of still-silky but dead feathers. She touches its beak, smaller than a grain of corn.

Betty remembers last night’s heated talk then. About the poor crop. How there’ll be no money for anything. How Ma said she’ll go back out West and take Betty with her.

How Pa said, Over my dead body.

There’s peanut butter sandwiches for supper, Ain’t no money for more, says Ma, but gives Betty a sideways grin, Lift the corner of the tablecloth, she whispers, when Pa goes out to the tavern.

Betty’s not stupid, she knows the correlation between not enough money for food and Pa going to the tavern but keeps her own counsel. She’s learned well from the best; her ma, who learned from her own mother. That was before Nanny went to