The Falls (17 page)

“There it is,” I said.

Boomer walked over and placed his hand against the side of the barrel. He ran his hand up and down the wood and then looked inside. “What's all this stuff?”

“Things that belonged to my grandparents. They used it to store things.”

“That's awful! We need to get everything out so I can have a look at it, proper like.”

Quickly Timmy and I unloaded the barrel. I reached in, grabbing things and handing them to Timmy, who put them on the floor—dishes, pots and pans, and assorted kitchen stuff, including an old toaster and a waffle-maker. When the barrel was about halfway empty I had to bend over and reach right down inside, so there was about as much of me inside the barrel as out. The first time I did that it felt a little bit eerie. My great-grandfather had put his entire body inside there, had the top put on and sealed, and then gone over the Falls. A shudder went through my body at the same time as a buzz went through my brain.

I tipped the barrel onto its side and started pulling out the remaining items. After taking out the last thing—a big pot—I lifted the barrel back up so it was sitting on its end again. It was a big barrel and it had some weight to it.

“There, it's empty,” I said.

Boomer came over and started looking at the barrel while Timmy and I stood off to the side. He walked around it, tapping on it with his fingers, running his hands along its length. He had a picture—the one from the book with my great-grandfather standing beside his barrel—and he kept looking from the picture to the real thing . . . or I guess what I
hoped
was the real thing.

He pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and measured the height and then the circumference of the barrel. He stuck his head inside, and for a second I thought he
was going to climb right in. He grabbed the rim and tipped it back onto its side. I knew the barrel was fairly big and heavy but he made it look effortless. He was a strong old bird. Finally he stood up and brushed off his pants.

“I was worried when you told me it was in a basement,” Boomer said. “Figured the whole thing would be nothing more than rotten wood.”

“It's in pretty good shape, I think,” I said.

“Not pretty good. Perfect. This basement is dry, so there's no rot whatsoever.”

“And is it . . . is it real?” I asked.

He smiled. “I don't think there's any doubt.”

I felt as if a gigantic weight had been lifted off my shoulders—a weight I hadn't fully realized was there until it was gone.

“Okay,” Timmy said, “not only is it the real deal, but it's in great shape. So how much money are we talking?”

“I think before we start talking money we should all go upstairs and have Jay's mother be part of the discussion,” Boomer said.

“It's Jay's barrel,” Timmy said.

“Maybe so, but I still want his mother involved. Don't want anybody to say I cheated a young boy . . . especially a relative of Harold Jamison's.”

 

W
E SAT AROUND
the kitchen table, drinking a third cup of coffee. It seemed like we were talking about anything and everything
but
the barrel.

“So, you like working at that casino place?” Boomer asked my mother.

“It's not bad. People are friendly, pay is okay . . . good benefits package . . . dental, health, prescription drugs and everything.”

“That's important. Especially when you get older.”

“And my boss is pretty nice,” my mother continued.

“I wish mine was nicer,” Boomer said.

“I thought you worked for yourself, that you owned the museum,” I said.

“I do own the place and I do work for myself. You boys might find out if you ever own your own business that the worst boss you can ever have is yourself. I gotta work evenings and weekends and holidays, can't phone in sick and take a day off. No overtime pay, bonuses, or paid vacations. And worst of all, I can't fire myself.”

“More coffee?” my mother asked.

“I'd love another one,” he said as he held his cup out to her, “but I probably shouldn't.”

My mother took his cup, stood up, walked over to the counter, and refilled it. “A little coffee never hurt anybody,” she said as she handed him back the cup.

“I guess that's the problem. I think this is about my twentieth cup today.”

“Twenty!” we all said at once.

“I'm sort of addicted to the stuff.”

“There are worse things to be addicted to,” my mother said.

I had a terrible feeling that she was going to go off on one of her AA lectures.

“That's for sure, but I don't even touch any of that other stuff. I don't think I've had a drink for forty years.”

“Do you belong to AA?” my mother asked, and I cringed.

Boomer snorted. “Not me! Never. I'd never go near one of those meetings!”

I knew I liked this guy.

“A bunch of people sitting around bellyaching about alcohol having power over their lives and such. If drinking is a problem, then just stop drinking!”

“You make it sound easy,” my mother said.

“Far as I can see it is easy. You just gotta stop putting the stuff in your mouth and . . .” He quit talking and looked directly at my mother. “Shoot, you're one of those AA people, aren't you?”

“I've been sober and dry for five years.”

“Five years and a day,” I added.

“I didn't mean no disrespect. Whatever you need to do to stop drinking is a whole lot better than drinking. It really wasn't a problem for me to begin with.”

“Then why did you stop?” Timmy asked.

“I just didn't see the point. Stuff doesn't taste very good, costs lots of money, and doesn't do you any favours. So I just stopped. Wasn't hard.”

“For some of us it
is
hard. We had to understand and accept that we were powerless over alcohol before we could quit.”

“Maybe that's where I have an advantage. Spending my time on the river, I learned what ‘powerless' meant real early on. Saw that time and time again.” Boomer paused, and in his silence I wondered if he was thinking about those days. “Course, the river can have the opposite effect, too. Can cause people to drink. I think that was
what it was like for your grandfather,” he said, looking at me.

“I don't understand.”

“I don't think it was easy for him,” Boomer said.

“Or easy for anybody who had to be around him,” my mother said.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm not excusing him—I didn't even like him. Heck, if we're gonna be real honest, I thought he was a jerk. But I still understand some of it. It would have been hard for him, being the son of a man like his father. Your great-grandfather was a hero. He cast a big shadow. All men long to live up to their fathers.”

I wouldn't have known anything about that. Invisible men didn't cast a shadow.

“Your grandfather tried, but he couldn't fill his father's shoes. He was no riverman . . . just too scared of it.”

“And you weren't afraid?” I snapped. I didn't understand why I was defending my grandfather. I knew hardly anything about him, and the little I did know I didn't like. So why did I feel so angry?

“There were many days when I was scared. Sometimes I was terrified. Only a fool wouldn't be afraid of something that big and strong and powerful and unpredictable.”

“Then what's the difference between him and you?” I asked.

“In some ways, not much. It's just that I used the fear to keep me sharp, keep me alive, and keep other people alive, too. I knew when to be afraid.”

“And my grandfather didn't?”

Boomer shook his head. “He was afraid all the time he was around the river.”

“That's like me,” my mother said.

“He tried to hide it by acting brave and blustery, but people could tell. I could tell. And because he was afraid all the time he couldn't rely on his head to be clear, to think, or listen to his gut to let him know he really was in danger. Some people can stand right at the edge of a cliff without getting nervous.”

“Now that sounds like you, Jay,” Timmy said.

My mother's eyes opened wide. Why? It wasn't like she was hearing something that she didn't already know about me and heights.

“Jay can stand right on the edge of the gorge and not even blink,” Timmy continued. “He does it all the time.”

I didn't want to even look over at my mother now. The heights part she knew, standing at the edge of the gorge she didn't. Or how often I went there, stood there, just to look all that way down . . .

“I don't really get that close,” I said.

“Are you joking?” Timmy exclaimed. “I've seen you practically—”

I shot Timmy a dirty look and he shut up. “I only stand where I know it's safe.”

“That's the key,” Boomer said. “Knowing where it's safe and where it's not. Knowing what you can and can
not
do. Not letting fear fog your brain. That's what was right with your great-grandfather and lacking in your grandfather. Fear makes for bad decisions. And because of his fear and those bad decisions, he started to drink. Maybe it was to calm his nerves, but it only made it worse.” Boomer stopped. “Maybe I shouldn't be talking like this, not to family members.”

“He's not my family,” I said. “I didn't even know the guy.”

“Know him or not, he
was
your family. And you should be proud of your great-grandfather, and proud that you share something with him and—”

“More coffee?” my mother asked, cutting Boomer off.

“Still working on this one.”

“Do you boys know that Boomer was involved in the most miraculous rescue in the history of the Falls?” my mother asked.

Timmy and I both shook our heads.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing special,” Boomer said. “I pulled a girl from the river, that's all.”

“If he won't tell you about it, I will,” my mother said. She turned to Boomer. “If I get anything wrong, then you correct me, okay?”

Boomer nodded.

“There was a young girl who was being swept down the river, and Boomer reached out and grabbed her . . . a dozen feet before she was swept over the Falls.”

A shiver went up my spine as I tried to picture it.

“I was in the right place at the right time, and she was close enough for me to grab. Just lucky,” Boomer explained.

“It was more than luck. There had to be dozens of people standing there,” my mother said.

“More like hundreds,” Boomer said.

“And of those
hundreds
you were the only one to react.”

“That's not true. There was me and a Parks worker. He was holding me when I reached out to grab the girl. If it
wasn't for him, me and the girl both would probably have gone over together.”

“But why was she in the river to begin with?” Timmy asked.

“A family friend took her and her brother for a boat ride and the engine conked out.”

I noticed that Boomer was the one telling the story now—
enjoying
telling the story.

“They got caught in the current, pulled into the rapids, and the boat tipped, throwing them into the drink.”

“Unbelievable,” I said. “She must be the luckiest person in the world.”

“I think that honour belongs to her brother. He went over the Falls . . . and lived.”

“What?” I gasped.

“He went over the Falls wearing nothing but a life jacket and lived to tell about it. He was pulled out of the water by the
Maid of the Mist
. Alive, well, unharmed, except for a few bumps, bruises, and cuts.”

“That's impossible.”

“I would have said so myself. I thought it was a one in a million chance, until that man went over last year and lived.”

“I remember that,” Timmy said.

“The good Lord protects fools and small children,” Boomer said.

“What about the other guy?” Timmy asked. “The guy driving the boat with the kids.”

“He went over the Falls too. I saw him. Close enough to see the look on his face, the look of terror, but not close
enough to do anything . . . anything except remember that look forever.”

“And he died, right?” Timmy asked.

“They never even found his body.”

“Being there on the edge, grabbing that girl, that must have been terrifying,” I said.

“It was, but I wasn't really scared at the time. It all happened so fast. It wasn't till later that I got scared. I'm holding the little girl in my arms and she refuses to let me go. She has a grip on me, digging her fingers right into me. And she's crying for her brother and shaking, and then I started shaking too. Then it was me who didn't want to let go of her. I didn't want anybody to know it was me doing the shaking.” Boomer looked down at his coffee.

“All fascinating stuff,” Timmy said. “But enough about the past, I'm more interested in the future. Like, how much money are you going to be offering us for the barrel?”

“I was thinking a thousand dollars.”

“A thousand dollars!” Timmy exclaimed. “You gotta be joking, and I don't think it's that funny a joke. How about
ten
thousand dollars?”

“Now you're the one doing the joking,” Boomer said.

“You're right. Ten thousand dollars is a joke. I should have said
twenty-five
thousand!”

Boomer laughed out loud. “Now you're not joking, you're hallucinating! Did you think that old Ford of mine—the one I drove you over in—was a Mercedes in disguise? Twenty-five grand is way, way out of my league.”

“Then maybe we should go and talk to somebody who's in that league. Maybe the guy who runs the Ripley's Museum.”

“Try all you want. First off, he probably won't pay you near that much, and he definitely won't pay anything unless he knows it's the real thing.”