Nickel’s cousin has died during the storm (impaled by a mast pole), so he’s out of work and homeless again. Fleeing the dust that coats his lungs and a county sheriff, Nickel sets out for New York City, where he arrives at the harbor via hitching, hoboing, and a little thieving to arrive “eye to eye with more water than thirsty eyes could take in.” His cousin begrudgingly puts him to work in a boathouse a month later a monster hurricane tries to take out the Eastern Seaboard, which is when the giraffes show up, worse for wear. Woodrow Wilson Nickel (yes, that’s his name), seventeen and newly orphaned, has one relative left in the world.
It is 1938 and the Dust Bowl and Great Depression have decimated the Texas Panhandle.
“That’s your first story, but it doesn’t have to be your only story.
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