The Falls (18 page)

“We know it's the real thing,” Timmy said.

“Maybe you know it, but that Ripley's guy won't buy anything until he hears from his expert,” Boomer said.

“Fine, let him bring his expert here too,” Timmy said.

“His expert has already been here.” Boomer pointed to himself.

“You?”

“That's right. And who knows, maybe I can't guarantee him, one thousand percent, that it's real.”

“But you just
said
it was real!” Timmy exclaimed.

“I'm old. I forget things. How about two thousand dollars?”

“For two thousand dollars it can just sit down there in the basement and rot. Hell, for that price I might as well chop it up and use it for firewood.”

“You think that's some sort of threat?” Boomer asked.

“No threat,” Timmy said. “I'm just so stupid that I'd rather burn it than be cheated. So make us an offer that makes sense or—”

“You can have it for two thousand dollars,” I said to Boomer.

“Jay, shut up! Let me handle things. We can get more than that. I'm sure I can sell it for—”

I turned directly to Boomer. “For two thousand dollars you can have it in your museum . . . for two years. I'll rent it to you.”

“Rent it?” Timmy questioned. “That makes no sense!”

“Actually, it makes perfect sense,” Boomer said. “You got yourself a deal,” he said as he reached across the table to shake hands.

“No! No deal!” Timmy grabbed my hand before we could shake. “We gotta talk . . . privately?”

“No,” I said, shaking my hand free from his grip. “Is that a deal?”

“I think it is, but on one condition,” Boomer said.

“What sort of condition?” I asked.

“Good help is hard to get—you've seen Crystal. I need some help at the museum. I'd like you two to work for me.”

“You want
us
?” I asked.

“Nothing too fancy. Some evenings and weekends. Minimum wage. You could keep an eye on your barrel, as well.”

Timmy looked at me and I looked at him. He shrugged.

“You got yourself a deal,” I said, and Boomer and I shook hands.

 

 

 

 

I
TOSSED AND I TURNED
. I couldn't get to sleep. My mind was going around and around. I was thinking about what I was going to do with two thousand dollars . . . well, really, twelve hundred bucks. I was going to give Timmy four hundred and four hundred to my mother to help pay for a new roof, but the rest was mine. That was more money than I'd ever had in my entire life, more than I thought I'd ever have unless I won a lottery or something. Should I save it for a car, or maybe put it away for school, or just piss it all away? I wondered which decision would be the smart one, and which one would make me look like a loser? I couldn't seem to come up with an answer and I couldn't sleep.

Maybe if I went downstairs and got a glass of milk, maybe watched some TV, I might be able to get tired enough to fall asleep.

I opened my bedroom door and saw that a light was on downstairs. Was my mother still awake, or had she fallen asleep in front of the TV herself? Quietly I went down the stairs, following the light that I now saw was coming from the kitchen. I walked in. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table with her back to me.

“Hello,” I said softly, and she shrieked and practically jumped into the air.

“You scared me!” she exclaimed.

“I was trying
not
to scare you!”

My mother was jumpy and startled easily. Sometimes she'd be walking down the street, lost in thought, until she practically bumped into somebody walking toward her. Then she'd scream, and nearly scare the heck out of everybody for blocks. I'd learned to expect it, but sometimes it still took me by surprise.

“What are you doing up?” she asked.

“How about I ask you the same question?”

“Do you want some hot chocolate?”

“That would be nice, maybe with some of those little marshmallows.”

“Do we have little marshmallows?” she asked.

I opened the cupboard and pulled out a bag of mini-marshmallows. I also grabbed the container of hot chocolate mix. “You didn't actually know if we had hot chocolate, did you?” I asked.

“Not really.”

Since I did most of the grocery shopping I almost always had a better idea what we had and what we didn't have.

My mother filled the kettle and put it on the stove, turning on a burner. I set the hot chocolate and marshmallows down on the counter and she got two big mugs.

“You know, we have to talk about that,” she said.

“Talk about what?”

“About you doing the shopping.”

“What about me doing the shopping? I do a really good job—”

“I know, you do a
great
job. It's just that I was thinking that . . . maybe it's time for
me
to start doing it again.”

“You?”

“Don't sound so surprised. I can do the shopping, you know. I did it for years when you were little. Did you think the groceries were delivered by the Food Fairy?”

“Of course not.” What I did remember was that the food often wasn't delivered at all. When I was really little I used to go grocery shopping with her. Then, when I was older, I was the one who'd go out and get a few things at the store—things like milk and bread when we had nothing. Finally, when I was about twelve, I'd just started doing it all myself.

“So no arguments and no questions . . . unless you have a question?”

“No . . . you want to do the shopping, be my guest . . .” I paused.

“Go on,” she said, although the look in her eyes made me think that she really didn't want me to. She looked nervous about what I was going to say.

“Well, since we're both up and you're clearly in the mood for questions, I was just wondering . . . why didn't you ever tell me anything about my great-grandfather, about how famous he was, what a hero he was?”

“Like I already told you. I just figured if you didn't want to hear anything about your father, you probably didn't want to hear anything about your great-grandfather.”

“Is that the only reason?”

The kettle started whistling and my mother reached over and took it off the burner. She poured boiling water
into the two mugs and then shovelled in two heaping spoonfuls of cocoa powder. She set them down at the table.

“Bring over the marshmallows,” she said, and sat back down.

I sat down at my usual spot, across the table from her. I took a spoon and stirred until the powder had all dissolved, and then I added marshmallows—fifteen, for fifteen years old.

“So was there any other reason?” I asked again.

She kept stirring her mug, looking down at the swirling brown whirlpool she was creating, like the answer was going to be there. She reminded me of a fortune-teller reading the leaves in a teacup. But the only answer it gave was the
ting
of spoon against ceramic. Then, just when I thought she wasn't going to answer at all, she looked up directly into my eyes.

“I was scared.” She
looked
scared now.

“Of what?”

She pointed at me.

“You were scared of me?”

She shook her head. “Not
of
you.
For
you.” She reached across the table and gathered up my hands, holding them in hers. “Let me try to explain.” She gave my hands a gentle squeeze but didn't let go. “You know how much I love you, how I'd give up my life for you in a second. You know that, right?”

I nodded my head slightly. I knew. I wondered if she knew I felt the same way about her.

“I was afraid of what you could become.”

“I'm not going to become an alcoholic!” I snapped, anger surging through me. I tried to get my hands free but she held on with surprising strength.

“Please, listen. That isn't what I was going to say.”

I stopped struggling and she continued to hold on.

“It isn't just alcoholism that is passed through the genes. It's so much. I remember the first time I realized you had your father's eyes. And then I noticed you hold your head the way he did, tilted to the left, when you're confused or worried.”

I realized my head was tilted that way right now and I straightened up.

“The way you phrase words, some of the foods you like and dislike—that's just like him too, even though I know you didn't learn it from him.”

“Yeah, so we like the same foods, so what?”

“And then you started to build things. First with blocks, and then Lego, and then how you loved to use tools to make things. The go-kart, the mini-bike.”

“Like my father,” I said softly.

“And you liked me to drive the car fast, and you seemed to be fearless around heights. Like your father and your great-grandfather. And that's what worries me. It's important to be afraid of things.”

“What?” I demanded.

“Fear is important because it helps keep you alive.”

“According to Boomer, fear is what gets you killed. He said fear fogs the brain.”

“He said
too much
fear is dangerous. Not being afraid can get you killed just as fast. Like it killed your father and your great-grandfather.”

I knew about my father. “How did my great-grandfather die?”

“On the river, trying to rescue somebody.”

“At least he died a hero.”

“He died trying to be a hero. The man was already dead, and when it was all over your great-grandfather was dead as well. Hero or no hero, he was dead.”

“You seem to know a lot about him,” I said.

“I do now. I've been reading that book you brought home yesterday.” She tapped her finger against the book. I hadn't noticed it sitting there on the table along with the newspaper and some magazines. “You should read this,” she said as she slid it across the table to me.

“I have . . . at least, I started to.”

“You might want to read it all, but maybe tomorrow would be better.” My mother took another big sip from her hot chocolate and stood up. “I'm going to bed now, and you should probably do the same.”

“I'm not sleepy. I'm going to watch a little TV.”

“Just a little. You have a big day tomorrow. What time do you start working?”

“Boomer said to be there around eleven so he could train us. How about you, what shift are you on tomorrow?”

“Noon to eight, so I'll be here when you get home.”

“I'll be here way before that. He's only going to keep us until around five.”

“I meant when you get home from your Alateen meeting,” she said.

I'd forgotten all about that. Unfortunately, she hadn't.

“You are going, aren't you?”

“Yeah . . . probably . . . unless something comes up.”

My mother rinsed out her mug and put it in the sink. She walked back, gave me a hug and a kiss on the top of my head. “Let's hope nothing comes up. I'll see you in the morning.”

 

I
CLOSED THE DOOR
quietly, so quietly that I could hardly hear it shut. That meant that there was no chance that my mother, two floors up, would have heard anything. I moved down the driveway as silently as possible, but my footsteps still echoed ever so softly off the wall. It was amazing how in the dead of night every sound seemed loud. I hung a left out of the driveway, headed down the street, and walked quickly until I'd put a couple of houses behind me. I took a deep breath—I'd been holding my breath up until then.

The air was cool and moist. No surprise there. When you lived this close to the Falls the air was almost always that way. Even in the middle of the summer, in the middle of a heat wave, it was cool at night. As the sun sank, the mist was carried along on the breeze until it blanketed the whole city.

I looked at my watch. It was just past four in the morning. There was nobody on the street. Again, no surprise. All the people who had been out drinking or gambling or partying had gone home, and the people who had to get up early for work were still sleeping. The street basically belonged to me—me and a stray cat that darted out between two parked cars.

At the first cross street I looked to my left and caught a glimpse of Clifton Hill. The neon lights still glared but
there was nobody on the street to see them shine. The sidewalks were deserted and the street was empty. A police car shot across the intersection, appearing and then disappearing in a flash. I guess I wasn't completely alone.

What would a cop do if he saw me out here? Would he stop and talk to me or give me a hard time? It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong. I was just out for a walk, and it wasn't like it was illegal to go for a walk . . . was it? But then again, it was late and I wasn't sixteen. Actually, how the hell would he know how old I was? I could say I was sixteen, maybe even seventeen or eighteen . . . Okay, sixteen. I could probably get away with that. Maybe it would be better not to talk to a cop to begin with. Maybe it would be better to just go home. No, I didn't want to do that.

As I continued down the street the sound of the Falls got louder. The noises of the day were all gone, stripped away, leaving the water to sing by itself. Up ahead, overtop of the houses, I caught my first glimpse of the column of mist rising up into the sky. What would it have been like for the first explorers to see that in the distance? They would never have believed what their eyes were seeing.

A car flashed by on the road in front of me. Then another. I stopped at the edge of the road that ran along the river. There was more traffic than I would have thought, and there were people on the sidewalk, looking down at the gorge. I didn't imagine I'd be completely alone, but I was surprised at the number of people who were still out. Not thousands or even hundreds, but I could see at least a dozen or so. What were they doing there at
that time of the night? Maybe the same thing as me. Maybe none of them could sleep either. Everybody was walking in the same direction, toward the Falls. It was like a magnet pulling us closer.