Fuller's Folly

The date: Saturday, October 14, 1865. The place: The Main Street boat dock in Davenport, Iowa...where, at an auction, former slave ANGIE FULLER surprises the crowd by bidding on, and buying with most of her life’s savings, the "Aura Lea," a 152-foot-long steamer once owned by a now-defunct steamboat line.

The auction takes place on the third anniversary of the ship’s grounding at the same dock by...a schooner.

Angie’s successful bid pleases her best buddy, fellow Louisiana slave-turned-food server JOSEPHINE HUNT...but not A.W. SMITH, the conniving St. Louis steamboat magnate who lost out on the former pride of the old Hartman Line.

After two years of waiting tables on a ship called the "Moselle Two," self-reliant Angie and studious Josephine use their maritime experience to examine the former’s new purchase...and seek to repair its paddlewheel and fill the gaping hole in the ship’s hull.

Josephine decides to use her own life’s savings to provide the "Aura Lea" with provisions. When she and Angie go into town to buy those provisions and gain support for their venture into the steamer business, the two women face plenty of opposition...and not just from A.W. and textbook flunky WOODROW SHIRES, who vow to use every trick they can to get that boat for the Smith Line.

Including sticking a black cat aboard.

Local lumber-company owner MILTON RENWICK and newspaper publisher-editor EMIL KREUTZER share Woodrow’s and A.W.’s belief that the two ex-slaves are “in over their heads” and “don’t know nothin’ ‘bout boatin’.” In fact, smug Emil considers Angie’s and Josephine’s effort “complete, unmistakable folly!”

So what if Davenport’s a major port along the Mississippi River in what was a free state during the recently-concluded American Civil War...and, as Angie puts it, “deserves its own steamer company.”

Angie and Josephine find eventual allies in PENNY PENNYPACKER and MIRIAM SEARAGE, two hookers who hide out underneath the "Aura Lea’s" main deck to evade thieving pimps JULIUS HULL and HUBERT CONKLIN. Confrontational, physically-strong Miriam and cool-and-slick Penny deal with the hotheaded Milton to get the grounded boat much-needed lumber, among other things...and the two hookers team up with the two former food servers to repair the "Aura Lea." They give it a new name, too: "Fuller’s Folly."

The boat got its old name from a minstrel song...and Josephine’s wary of the reminders those minstrel tunes bring.

The four women form the core of a crew: Angie becomes the renamed boat’s captain, Josephine its pilot, Miriam the engineer, and Penny takes charge of the casino.

More pieces fall into place: Two of Josephine’s and Angie’s plantation pals, ZENAS and JUDITH FOWLEY, offer their services...as a mate and a security chief, respectively. Down-to-Earth teenager TAMMY TONER gets a chance to follow in her saloon-pianist father CLETUS RAY’S footsteps by becoming "Folly’s" own ivory tickler...only after running away from home because he wouldn’t teach her to play. And, because of the "Sultana" steamboat tragedy, hubby-wifey medical professionals GILBERT and BESSIE YELVINGTON offer to come aboard.

Eager SPURGEON LOOMIS quits the lumber yard to join the "Folly" crew...as does Emil’s sassy wife ELIZABETH KREUTZER, who becomes a cook. Even mild-mannered Cletus Ray, the first paying passenger on the newly-repaired boat, becomes the bartender...so the Toners can be together again.

At last, on Saturday, February 3, 1866, the old boat with a new name returns to the Mississippi River waters...and Angie and Josephine get to share their desire to travel and show travelers what the Fuller-Hunt brand of hospitality really means.

Rough waters await in St. Louis, though: Hubert and Julius break into the boiler room...and confront Miriam and Spurgeon...but Josephine, feisty Judith, Miriam, and Spurgeon team up to put the two pimps off the boat. And inside the steamship’s saloon, a complaint about Elizabeth’s cuisine turns into complainer LORELEI PARK becoming "Folly’s" second cook.

Elizabeth and efficient Lorelei make quite a team: The latter, a restaurant veteran, sails Angie’s boat because “I tired of my fiance telling me I love cooking more than he.”

In Memphis, A.W. catches up with Angie...and challenges her to a steamboat race to get a shipment of grain down to New Orleans. If "Fuller’s Folly" wins, Angie and Co. get to keep the boat and win the grain contract. If A.W.’s "Captain Jinks" grabs the victory, he gets Angie’s steamboat, too.

Things run neck and neck between the two steamers...but "Jinks" takes the lead when Angie, Elizabeth, Josephine, and Miriam almost eat lead aboard another ship in Vicksburg, Mississippi in an effort to refuel "Folly."

Lorelei and Josephine stumble onto the solution: Use butter and grease as substitutes for coal.

The decision helps "Folly" gain on "Jinks..." and ultimately win the race when the latter’s doctor pump gives out just short of the finish line at the Big Easy’s Canal Street boat dock.

Judith’s, Josephine’s, and Angie’s Mardi Gras disguises help...but the real factor in "Folly’s" win is the camaraderie between crewmembers and between crew and passengers...real empathy. It’s all about treating people like people...not like animals.

In the words of understanding, empathetic Zenas: “Everybody deserves dignity...no matter what they look like.”

By the way...Woodrow and A.W. win something in New Orleans: Twin kittens born to that black cat.