The Falls (22 page)

“This is all unbelievable,” I said. “And I don't mean the part about people going over the Falls—I mean you actually
knowing
all this stuff.”

“I'm not stupid, you know,” Timmy said.

“I never said you were stupid . . . although many people would disagree. I'm just surprised you've taken such an interest in all of this.”

“Why shouldn't I? We're working here, so I might as well know about it.”

I turned around. Out of the corner of my eye I had caught sight of movement through the front window. A bus had slowed down and stopped right in front of the museum, blocking the entire window. It was a gigantic tour bus, and the writing on the side was in English and what I figured was Japanese. The big door opened, and people started bouncing down the steps. There were lots and lots of them. They just kept coming—Japanese tourists, all sporting cameras around their necks.

“I think you're going to get a chance to show off your new knowledge. Do you speak much Japanese?” I asked.

 

 

 

 

T
HE FRONT DOOR OPENED
and a virtual wave of Japanese tourists washed into the store, flooding into every open space. There were men and women and kids, all tiny and well dressed, and each of them had a camera or two strung around their neck. The air was filled with laughter and loud conversations—conversations in Japanese. And then they started to take pictures. Bursts of flash filled the air.

“Look at 'em all,” Timmy whispered. “There must be a hundred of them.”

“Not that many, but there are a lot.”

I stood back and watched. They swarmed around the displays, taking pictures of the barrels, themselves with the barrels, individual shots, and group shots. A number of them scanned the room with video cameras so that every little detail would be captured. People in the Falls always made fun of the tourists in general, and the Japanese tourists in particular. The joke was that they spent so much of their holiday time looking through the viewfinders of their cameras that they didn't ever see the Falls except through a viewfinder.

“Picture, picture?” a man asked as he held up his camera and thrust it toward Timmy.

“You want me to take your picture?” Timmy asked, mimicking taking a photograph.

The man nodded his head enthusiastically and Timmy took the camera. The tourist then pulled over a woman and the two of them posed, with gigantic smiles plastered on their faces.

Timmy aimed the camera. “I hope this works,” he said to me. The camera flashed and clicked.

Both the man and the woman nodded and bowed. Timmy handed him back his camera, and then the woman held out hers.

“You want me to take one with yours as well?” Timmy asked. He was talking slower and louder, as if somehow they'd be able to understand him if he spoke that way.

In answer she pressed her camera into his hands. She called out and another two women rushed to her side to pose. As soon as Timmy took that picture he was handed another camera, and then another. He had apparently found a new job. I edged away before anybody else could ask me to do the same.

In between snapping pictures, the tourists were snapping up things off the shelves: T-shirts, snow-globes, little statues, videos, and lots and lots of postcards. Basically, if it had a picture of the Falls on it, they wanted it. I just hoped I could remember how to use the cash register.

There was a loud clapping sound. I spun around, and everybody stopped talking. Every eye was aimed at a man standing by the door. Boomer was at his side. The man started to speak in Japanese in short, loud, powerful bursts. Nobody else spoke. They watched, silently,
nodding their heads. I got the feeling that he was like their teacher and they were his obedient little students.

He gestured toward Boomer and barked out a few sentences. Suddenly Boomer was bathed in the light of dozens and dozens of flashes. People crowded forward. The guy must have told everybody who Boomer was, about his history as a riverman. Boomer patiently began posing for pictures.

And then Boomer began to speak—in Japanese! I certainly hadn't expected that. Timmy and I exchanged surprised looks. I figured he must have learned a few words so that he could say hello and be polite. But he didn't stop after just a few words. He kept talking, and the tourists all nodded along with him. A number of people thrust their hands into the air. Boomer motioned to one of the men at the front and he started to say something, and then Boomer said something back. Was he answering a question? Person after person spoke and Boomer responded. I wanted to know what he was saying, what they were asking, but the only Japanese words I knew were
sushi
and
kimono
.

Without warning, Boomer turned in my direction and gestured. He said something, and while of course I didn't understand what he was saying, I did hear my name spoken among all those meaningless words. The tourists suddenly swung around as one toward me, and I was blinded by the flashes of their cameras.

“Boomer!” I called out. “What did you—?”

“I told 'em about your great-grandfather!” he yelled back. “They all want to have their pictures taken with you because your great-grandfather went over the Falls.”

In ones and twos and small groups they began crowding around me. I felt stupid standing there, towering head and shoulders above most of them, while they took turns taking my picture, flashes bursting until my eyes were starry. Timmy was still behind the counter. He had a gigantic grin plastered across his face, as though my misery was giving him a good laugh.

Boomer walked over to my side. “Just smile and pretend you're enjoying yourself.”

“Pretend I can do, but it's not so easy.”

“Could be worse. You're just gonna stand here and have your picture taken, but Timmy's gonna have to work the cash register.”

I looked over at Timmy and gave
him
a smile.

 

A
FTER WHAT SEEMED
like a million photographs, and a million smiles and bows and nods to go along with them, the tourists started filtering out of the museum. The tour guide, who spoke some English, thanked me and pumped my hand and bowed. He chased out the last members of the tour and they boarded the waiting bus— leaving behind an empty room and a silence almost as overwhelming as the noise that had preceded it.

“Well, boys, you done good,” Boomer said. “Here.” He handed Timmy and me a twenty-dollar bill each.

“What's this for?” I asked.

“A gratuity from the tour guide.”

“You mean a tip?”

“Exactly. He was pleased with how you boys treated his tour. Taking pictures and being in the pictures and being so friendly.”

“They were nice. I just wish I could have spoken to them. Do you think you could teach me some Japanese?”

“It would be my pleasure!” Boomer replied.

“When did you learn to speak Japanese?” I asked him.

“Long time ago. Although, to be honest, I don't speak it that well.”

“Sounded pretty good to me,” Timmy said.

“And just how would you know if I spoke it good?” Boomer asked.

“I guess I wouldn't,” Timmy admitted. “How did you learn it to begin with?”

“Didn't have much choice,” Boomer said with a shrug. “I spent a year in Japan.”

“What were you doing there?” I asked.

“I was part of a worldwide tour . . . a daredevil show. You know, tightrope walking, high tower diving, motorcycle jumping . . . things like that.”

“What did you do?” Timmy asked.

“What didn't I do?” Boomer laughed. “I was young and stupid and figured I was unbreakable. At least, I thought that until I broke a few things. Why do you think I limp?”

“I thought it was because you're old,” Timmy replied.

“If you don't watch your mouth,
you
might not get any older, but you will get a limp when I kick your butt across the floor.”

“I was just joking!” Timmy exclaimed.

“So was I, son . . . don't worry about it. You're a bit of a smart-mouth, but I like that about you. I was jumping cars on my bike and missed the ramp. Broke twenty-three different bones. On the plus side, I can tell when it's gonna rain. I can feel it right in my bones.”

“Is the accident what made you give it up?” I asked.

“That last accident did. I came home to mend and never left again.”

If I ever leave, I'm never coming back, I thought, but kept quiet.

Timmy started to giggle.

“What's so funny?” Boomer asked.

“I'm just trying to picture you being young and foolish.”

“I was young but I was never . . . well . . . let's be honest, I was downright stupid. I was just lucky enough to outlive the stupid part,” Boomer said, and he began to laugh.

“Did you ever think about going over the Falls?” Timmy asked.

Boomer stopped laughing. Maybe this was something that shouldn't have been brought up. “I thought about it.”

“But you never tried.”

Boomer shook his head. “Some people probably figured I didn't have the guts.”

“I don't believe that,” I said.

“Me neither,” Timmy agreed.

“
Nobody
could ever accuse you of not having the guts. How many times did you risk your life going into the water to pull people out?” I asked.

“More than I care to remember.”

“And that girl,” Timmy said, “the one you pulled out of the water just before she went over the edge. It makes my spine tingle just thinking about that.”

“Sometimes I think the reason I didn't try to go over was because I'd seen too much. Pulled out too many people, dead and alive. Seen what the river can do.”

“I think you were too smart to try to go over,” Timmy said.

Boomer shook his head. “To just jump into the water is plenty stupid. To go in and live, now that takes lots of brains. Even forgetting about building the barrel, you still need to know where to put it into the water, the times of day and seasons and how they affect water levels, the currents, where the barrel is going to come out down below.”

“And you know all of those things, right?” Timmy asked.

“I know the river as well as she'll ever allow anybody to know her.”

“Have people ever come to you and asked for your help in going over?” I asked.

“All the time.”

“And do you help them?”

“Mostly I help them by talking them out of it. Most of the plans are hare-brained and have no chance of working.”

“And if you can't talk them out of doing it?” Timmy asked.

“I try harder.”

“And if they still won't listen?” Timmy persisted.

“Then I give 'em some advice.”

“So you
do
help them.”

“Haven't got any choice. Either way, it's probably gonna be me who pulls them out. Much rather pull 'em out alive and breathing instead of dead and bloated.” He paused. “Either of you ever seen a body that's drowned?”

We both shook our heads. Except for my grandparents, all done up in their coffins, I'd never seen anybody dead.

“Not a pretty sight. All swollen and puffy. Unless of course it's been under the water for a while and it starts to rot, or gets bashed and battered by the river and the rocks. Parts can be practically torn off and—”

“I think we get the idea,” Timmy said, cutting him off.

“What ends up killing most people is that they didn't prepare their barrel, the craft, right. It's either gonna be a ship that will keep 'em safe or a coffin.”

“What about Dave Munday?” I asked, pointing out his contraption.

“That's a fine piece of work. That guy's a skilled craftsman. Give him enough time and money and he could probably build a spaceship.”

“Did you help him with his trips over the Falls?” I asked.

“If I had helped it wouldn't have taken him four tries to make two trips over. It was me that pulled him out both times, though.”

“Do you know him?”

Boomer nodded. “Quiet man. Very humble. Practically a genius. Hold on, I almost forgot something.” Boomer limped off and into his office.

“I know somebody who could build a barrel,” Timmy said.

“Who?”

He pointed at me and a shiver went up my spine. “You could do it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You could. I know you could,” Timmy said.

“Even if I wanted to it would take a whole
lot
of money.”

Boomer came back out of his office and walked over to us. “Here you go,” he said as he handed me an envelope.

“What is it?”

“The money I owe you. The two thousand dollars for your great-grandfather's barrel.”

Timmy smiled. “Two thousand dollars. That's a
lot
of money.”

 

 

 

 

“C
OKE
?”
BOOMER ASKED
, offering me a drink.

I put down the hammer. “Thanks.”

Boomer pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. “It's starting to really take shape.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

The display—
my great-grandfather's
display—was three-quarters finished. The barrel itself would of course be the centre of the exhibit, but we were building walls to go around it, so we'd have somewhere to put up old photographs and newspaper articles describing the day he went over the Falls. There were eyewitness accounts, and an interview with him right after he was pulled out of the barrel. Still to be installed was a small projection theatre. We had a forty-second film clip that showed my great-grandfather as he was being pulled from the barrel. You could see him coming out, a little shaky and unsteady on his feet, and then raising his hands above his head like a champion—like the champion he was. The film was old and grainy and in black and white. When Boomer had first showed me the footage I couldn't believe my eyes. Now that I'd watched it two dozen times it still sent a chill up my spine.