All Gone to Look for America (7 page)

Ben, however, isn’t impressed by the inexorable logic of iron roads that don’t allow for overtaking, and his mood is not improved when, staring out into dark freight yards of heavy duty rolling stock, he gradually perceives that
we’re going backwards. The concept of reversing into a siding to change
locomotives
is new to him. And not welcome.

‘Come on, honey,’ says Sandra gamely, smiling at me for encouragement. ‘You agreed to stop off and see Niagara Falls.’

‘I didn’t know what I was getting into,’ says Ben tetchily, obviously
regretting
it. ‘I’m a Noo Yoiker,’ he says, lapsing into the Big Apple’s unmistakable drawl: ‘I don’t do this stuff. It’s like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. It’s for people from other countries.’

Meanwhile our little train is creaking and rattling its way towards what – it occurs to me Ben might possibly have forgotten – actually is another country. It’s raining and it feels later than it is, and I realise I have been here before. Not literally, but on a similar slow empty train to the edge of the world: as a student in the 1970s returning home to Northern Ireland at the end of term in Oxford, sitting in a cold railway carriage with worn shabby seats and flickering lights crawling along the bleak and all but invisible Lancashire coast towards the tiny seaport of Heysham and the docks for a soon to be scrapped overnight ferry service to Belfast.

Our all but empty Amtrak service creeping along past dark riverbanks and derelict factories towards the Canadian frontier doesn’t exactly have carriages still scuffed by boots of wartime servicemen 30 years earlier and the power at least is consistent, but there’s still a feeling of terminal melancholy about it. Something relentlessly soul-sapping about spending a long time on a dark wet night going nowhere fast.

At last we pull in, though it feels more like a siding than a station, as the
conductor
bellows, ‘Niagara Falls, New York, end of the line.’ Which is precisely what it feels like. As we climb down the high steps to the platform I realise my instinct was right and this is indeed a siding: a little line sprung out on its own on the edge of a vast freight yard, next to a small redbrick building where a single fluorescent strip light burns in an empty room. On a weed-fringed strip of tarmac a couple of motley taxis stand with their lights out.

I watch as the conductor helps Sandra out with her suitcases and she turns her head apprehensively towards Ben who adjusts his thick-rimmed glasses on his nose before declaring: ‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ, is this it?’

I hope whatever Ben and Sandra have come to Niagara Falls for, it isn’t a second honeymoon.

THERE IS NOTHING
quite like the anticlimax of arriving at one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions to find it shut.

Not that you can actually shut something like Niagara Falls, pouring more than 25 million gallons of water per minute from one Great Lake towards another for tens of thousands of years. Niagara at night ought to be a
spellbindingly
romantic location, and maybe it is if you’re in the right mood with the right company and at the right moment, with the moon out and a balmy breeze wafting through the trees. But watching water churn towards a
precipice
you know is there but can’t see – which is what you essentially have at city level on the American side of the falls – is weird enough at the best of times. Wandering out alone in the dark with a cold damp drizzle in the air that is almost certainly spray from thundering rapids but feels like a damp dank English autumn evening with the roar of heavy traffic in the background, it seems best to look for entertainment elsewhere and wait for morning. I mean, one of the most famous honeymoon destinations in the world has to have a nightlife. Or then again, maybe not!

One way or another, 10:00 p.m. sees me heading out from my motel room (which costs less than the YMCA and in comparison, with king-size double bed, television and en-suite bathroom feels like the Savoy) across a
wilderness
of parking lots in a blustery drizzle looking for something to eat and maybe a drink and some company. It was the Canadians who first realised that having got the punters into town to see the falls, there ought to be more ways to take money off them than just providing boat trips and viewing platforms. Their first attempt was a ‘futuristic’ observation tower that now protrudes into the night sky above their side of the falls, rather ruining the impact of a natural wonder, but nowhere near as much as their second, and far more
successful
when it came to taking in the money, attempt: several huge, neon-lit
multistorey casinos. The skyline of Niagara Falls, Ontario, therefore, as seen from Niagara Falls, New York, gleams surreally out of the night fog like a set from a low budget 1960s sci-fi film. When the ‘Skylon’ tower and its like were built (1964) – and it is amazing how many of them were – architects had a vision of the future based on Superman comics and imagined that by the twenty-first century we’d all be jetting around in hovercars wearing one-piece figure-hugging jumpsuits. Luckily for carbon emissions and the general shape of the American public, neither of these predictions has proved true.

But they do explain the strange case of one-upmanship that has led the otherwise still small town of Niagara Falls, New York, to erect a 20-storey
skyscraper
with an ethnic-tribal symbol in blue and green neon flashing up and down its face. Peeved by the Canadians hogging the lion’s share of the tourist income, not least because they also claim that the best view of the falls is from their side, the Americans decided to fight fire with fire and build a casino of their own. Or rather, the Native Americans have. Or sort of, as I shall find out slightly later. Signs proclaim it to be the property of the ‘Seneca clan of
Iroquois
Indians’.

Casinos aren’t really my thing, so for the moment I leave it alone and head towards the small row of single-storey buildings that would appear to be what passes for ‘Main Street’. I’m just musing on the fact that the Seneca refer to themselves as ‘Indians’ rather than the now accepted and politically correct Native Americans, when as if conjured up by the power of association (another one of those small gods) I run across the Taste of India restaurant, quickly followed by the Bombay Cuisine, the Sirdhar Sahib and the Punjabi Dhaba, more Indian restaurants in a short stretch than you’re likely to find in Leicester or Bradford, and that’s saying something. For a moment the thought whizzes through my head that maybe some large group of migrants from the subcontinent heard a rumour that things were going well these days for the Indians up in Niagara and misunderstood. I put it to the back of my mind for the moment as strange but unlikely and forage on.

It quickly becomes clear that the nightlife in Niagara, like many small towns in America, particularly those with a large transient or tourist population, is chiefly made up of rows of identical dark bars with multicoloured neon signs in the window advertising cheap ‘domestic’ beer – Coors, Bud Lite, Miller – and blaring almost identical music. Kids lurch in and out of them, most repeatedly having to produce picture identity cards to the doorman to prove they are over 21, though such is the practised hypocrisy of absurd drinking laws which even the president’s daughters break, that both parties are happily aware they are
fake. Doormen examine IDs chiefly in the hope of eliciting cute smiles or a peck on the cheek from pretty girls or for an excuse to turn away 20-year-old men they don’t like the look of. Either way, I’m not in the mood for mingling with a load of drunk kids.

The hotel tourist map marks ‘Wine on 3rd’ which might be worth one final investigation before giving up altogether and admitting defeat to the drizzle before an early night and an early morning start to the sightseeing. I have just about decided that ‘Wine on 3rd’ is probably a euphemism for the closed ‘liquor store’ on 3rd Street, when I spot the establishment in question a few doors further along. To my total amazement it is a bright, airy, almost modern minimalist decorated wine bar, with just a few customers of mixed age sitting conversing in civilised fashion at the bar. Too good to miss. And it proves to be better still when the barman – who insists on being known only as JB – turns out to be an authority on something I didn’t even know existed: New York wine!

I don’t know why – I have had white wine from Herefordshire and red wine from Gloucestershire, English counties far from the sunny climes of the Mosel or Gironde – but New York just didn’t chime with wine. On sudden reflection, though, I realise I have actually tasted a wine made in upstate New York: a kosher wine. It had been made from original pre-phylloxera American grapes and then been pasteurised to ensure it would retain its religious authenticity even when served by gentiles, and it tasted like rather manky grape juice. This recollection almost immediately dampens my euphoria at the promise of
oenophile
delight, particularly as the last thing I want to do in a strange bar in a strange city at night is to offend anybody’s religious sensitivities.

My fears could not have been more unfounded. Over the next hour or so the knowledgeable man behind the counter introduces me to a whole new wine landscape: the Finger Lakes of upstate New York and wineries with names ranging from the distinctly Hispanic-sounding Casa Larga from Fairport to the very Anglo-Saxon Heron Hill from Hammondsport. The former produces an interesting variant on the Viognier grape which has so entranced the world since taking off from its niche home at Condrieu on the Rhone (though no one has yet equalled the original), the latter a wholly unexpected mature
full-bodied
2004 red, marketed under the brand name Eclipse but full enough of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc to pull its weight in any backwater around Bordeaux if not exactly the grand cellars of the Médoc.

A Chardonnay that could have blagged me into thinking it was a Chablis, comes from the Vinifera cellars of Dr Konstantin Frank, a Ukrainian who
arrived in the US in 1951 and almost single-handedly created the Finger Lake – and hence New York state – wine industry. The most remarkable thing about that achievement, was that his fluent command of six European languages had one notable omission: English. The winery, also in Hammondsport, is run today by his grandson Frederick, who presumably speaks English fluently and also produces an excellent Riesling.

I could have gone on all evening tasting the wines of upper New York with such a knowledgeable host – this, you remember, on an evening when I had been expecting no more entertainment than a few bottles of Miller Lite in a bar playing The Eagles at 200 decibels – when my sophisticated wine connoisseur bartender unpredictably decides to demonstrate another side to his
character.
To be fair, the blame probably lay with his assistant barman whose iPod plugged into the stereo system has up until now been providing a background of discreetly subdued classic rock songs. But just as I’m about to say something erudite on the almost Alsatian attributes coaxed by the Frank family into that most German of grapes, the Riesling, the track changes and JB suddenly
abandons
his sommelier stance for one of raving lunatic: turning up the volume and singing along in a spontaneous karaoke version of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘All Along the Watchtowers’. Accompanied by some quite spectacular air guitar.

As you can imagine this is followed by something of a pregnant pause in the conversation. I mean, it’s sort of hard to get back to discussing poncy points of oenophilia with someone who’s just splattered testosterone all over the walls. So under the circumstances I do the only thing any self-respecting Brit would do in my situation, I turn the conversation to the weather. This at least has the benefit of drawing someone else into the discussion, even if not in the way I had quite anticipated.

‘Say that again, what you just said. I really
lurvve
your accent,’ says the extremely good-looking 30-something woman with long blonde hair who for the past hour has been sitting a few feet away with a bloke old enough to be her father.

‘I said it was really hot in New York City,’ I say, repeating myself in
embarrassment
and knowing what’s coming. The terrible trouble here, and it is mine particularly, is that I have always had something of an affinity for foreign
languages
and accents, possibly out of an only-child shyness which made me overly anxious to fit in and therefore eager to adapt any accent that happens to be around me. This is, I have been told, a formidable advantage insofar as I don’t feel silly putting on a ‘funny’ accent if it is the way other people around me are speaking.

The other side of that coin is that, especially in other English-speaking countries, I have a tendency to adopt over-readily the native accent, which of course makes me seem like a complete dork to friends from home if I happen to be travelling with any. There is also the danger – I’m thinking primarily of Scotland here – of ending up doing what is perceived to be a very poor
imitation
of the locals’ accent, which in Glasgow especially is a recipe for ending the evening in the Royal Infirmary, with what the locals term ‘yer heed in yer hands’. Try it. I have.

Then, of course, you get the situation, as here, when I have managed not to succumb to local peer pressure and am talking in what I consider to be my normal accent and all of a sudden someone next to me declares it to be the funniest thing she has ever heard. In the nicest possible way. At which point I start thinking about the sound of the words and can, at worst, become
horribly
confused. Right at this moment, however, I am doing my level best to repeat the words I had just said in exactly the same accent; an attractive young woman, after all, had just said she ‘
lurrrrved
it’.

‘
Hoht
,’ she says. ‘I just
lurrv
that.
Hoht
. You mean “
hat
”.’

‘No,’ I reply, playing the game because I’m not sure I can take more air guitar, ‘that is something you put on your head.’

This causes a fair amount of merriment, including from the older chap next to her. ‘That’s “
het
”,’ she erupts. (I should point out I am doing my best here to render this as it sounded to me at the time; if you are American, of course, it’s all going to seem the wrong way round and you won’t have a clue what I’m on about, but the only alternative would be to use the international phonetic alphabet, which would come out with things like ‘ha]t’ and ‘hæt’ that wouldn’t help any of us.)

Anyhow, much to my relief – I could see this going on all night and getting sillier and sillier until one of us took offence – a bloke on my other side taps me on my other shoulder and says, ‘I hear you’re from London?’ I nod, and he continues with: ‘Did you just drive down this evening.’ Now this has got me puzzled, there being the not insignificant obstacle of the Atlantic Ocean in between, until he catches the accent and says, ‘Oh, London, England?’ It turns out he thought I had driven from London, Ontario, which it seems is not too far away. ‘Like all the Injuns,’ he adds, which has got me puzzled again until I realise he means the Indian Indians, of which it seems London, Ontario, has a goodly number. ‘Thousands of ’em,’ he says, in a tone of voice that leads me to suspect there may be a few racial tensions lurking under the bland friendly face most of us conjure up when we think of Canada. ‘They come down here
in their thousands too, don’t know why. All feel they have to see the falls.’ I’m about to mention that a fair few other folk do and that tourist dollars must provide the main source of income around here, when he adds the obvious, ‘That’s why there’s all them restaurants. Don’t see any of ’em in the American bars.’

At this point I decide it might be as well to deflect the topic of
conversation
and tell him that when he said ‘Injuns’ I had thought he meant the ones that own the casino. That gets a bit of a laugh all round, including from the older bloke with the young woman who turns out to be something of an
apologist
for the Native American cause. He laughs when I ask him how come the Seneca clan came to still own such a prime chunk of land in the middle of town: ‘They gave it to ’em,’ he says. ‘If you can call it giving to them when they stole it from them in the first place.’

The story of the casino, it appears, is that the town’s desire to have one to combat their Canadian competition wasn’t received quite so simply down in distant Albany, home of the New York state legislature. There were questions asked, problems posed about moral issues, general doubts about how to go about partially legalising gambling in just one part of the state while it is illegal in the rest. At which point a deal was cut with elders of the Seneca tribe to declare a chunk of downtown Niagara Falls, including a moribund convention centre, tribal territory, in theory making it a ‘sovereign nation’. The convention centre was then transformed into a casino with adjoining hotel, using money and expertise put together by a gambling magnate close to Donald Trump and a Chinese billionaire, whose takings theoretically benefit the Seneca. They also, not incidentally, benefit the state to the tune of some $38 million a year in tax. According to my new acquaintance, whose name is Dan and is a college professor – the younger woman being an ex-student – state legislatures purport to uphold a prudish public morality worthy of their Puritan forebears but are happy to let the Indians do the ‘dirty work’ for them, while the people who run the casino actually make most of the profits. Nobody seems to know quite how much the Seneca Indians actually make out of it, although they are supposedly entitled to a fixed percentage. ‘They have a shop in there that sells trinkets,’ says Dan with an ironic smile.