The Falls (20 page)

“Yeah,” I said immediately. Timmy didn't answer.

“Timmy?” Boomer asked.

“I . . . I have to tell you something, man. I really want this job. It's just that I . . . I made a mistake . . . before I knew you really . . . before you offered us the job.”

Timmy, just shut up,
I thought. It was a big enough mistake taking the T-shirt, confessing to it was just plain stupid.

“The other day I took—”

“A T-shirt,” Boomer said, cutting him off. “You stuffed it down your pants.”

“You knew?”

“You think the camera behind the cash register is the only one in the store? There are cameras hidden in the ceiling in every corner. The monitors are back in my office.”

“You knew, and you still offered me a job?” Timmy asked. He sounded as confused as I felt.

“I didn't know about it until I came back and saw the tapes . . .
after
I'd already offered you guys the jobs.”

“But after you'd seen it, you were still gonna let me work here?” Timmy asked. “After you knew I'd scoffed something from you?”

“I had my doubts about how bright it was to still have you work here.” He reached over and put a hand on Timmy's shoulder. “Now I don't. I'm proud of you.”

“Of
me
? You're proud because I stole from you?”

“Course not. It's what you did after that. That took a whole lot of guts, kid. Now I know I can trust you.”

“You can! Believe me, you can!”

“Do I have your word on that?” Boomer asked.

“Of course!”

Boomer reached out his hand and he and Timmy shook.

“You know that when I offer my hand and my word I'd rather die than do something different,” Boomer said. “So don't go offering your hand and your word unless you mean the same. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Boomer asked. He was still holding on to Timmy's hand. His expression was dead serious and his eyes were bright and sharp. He didn't seem old at all anymore. He seemed strong and powerful.

“I understand. I promise.”

“Good.” Boomer released his hand. “Now, let's keep moving. There's lots of things I still gotta show you about stocking the shelves, selling admissions, discount tickets. Lots of things. Say, are either of you boys any good with tools?”

“Not me, but Jay is,” Timmy said.

Boomer nodded his head. “I should have figured. Your grandfather and great-grandfather were both trained carpenters.”

“I didn't know that.”

“You don't seem to know much about them, do you?”

I didn't answer.

“I'm gonna be doing some carpentry work to make this new display for your great-grandfather. There's gonna be pictures, newspaper articles, eyewitness reports. It's gonna be pretty sharp. How does that all sound?”

“Good, I guess.”

“People are gonna learn a whole lot about your great-grandfather. I think he hasn't been celebrated nearly as much as he should.”

“How about you?” I asked.

“How about me what?”

“How come there isn't a display about you?”

He snorted. “Wouldn't it look a little strange for me to make a display about myself?”

“Well . . . couldn't it just be about those guys who risked their lives to save people?”

Boomer didn't answer, but he didn't snort either. “Interesting idea. Do you boys have any other ideas?”

“Um . . . not that I can think of . . . right now,” I said.

“I don't usually have any ideas,” Timmy said. “At least, ideas that don't get me in trouble.”

Boomer laughed. “How about both of you think about things a little. You've probably noticed that business isn't the best it could be. This place could use some new ideas—especially ones that wouldn't get
me
in trouble. Okay?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Good. I'm gonna go and get us some coffee and donuts. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. You boys are in charge.”

Timmy and I exchanged worried looks.

“You'll do fine. How much do you think you can do wrong in fifteen minutes?”

“Is that a challenge?” Timmy asked.

Boomer chuckled and shook his head. He grabbed his hat and walked out.

I looked over at Timmy. “Man, you should have seen your face when he mentioned that T-shirt.”

“It's not my face I was worried about.” He held up his hand. “When he shook my hand he nearly crunched the bones. He might be an old man but I wouldn't want to get him mad at me. I'm pretty sure he could mop the floor with both of us.”

“Let's just not find out, okay?”

“Don't worry about me. You got my word on it.”

I had been a little worried, but not now. Boomer wasn't the only one who always kept his word. Timmy could be a flake sometimes, but he was also somebody who could be counted on.

 

 

 

 

I
SHIFTED FROM FOOT TO FOOT
, anxiously waiting— hoping she'd arrive soon, but hoping even more that she wouldn't arrive at all. A car turned onto the street. I recognized it immediately as belonging to Mrs. Bayliss. As it got closer and slowed down I could see she'd already picked up Timmy. He gave me a big wave from the passenger seat. Mrs. Bayliss pulled to the curb and stopped. I opened the back passenger door and jumped in.

“Hey, Jay!” Timmy said.

“Hi . . . hi, Mrs. Bayliss.”

“Glad you're ready and waiting. We don't have much time.”

I snapped on my seat belt and she started away.

“Is it far from here?”

“Not far, but is anything in the Falls that far from anything else?” she asked.

“I guess not, really.”

“Of course, it certainly has gotten a lot bigger since I grew up here. This used to be such a tiny little town, really not much more than a village, and everybody knew everybody . . . and everybody's business.”

“Sounds about the same now,” Timmy said.

“Not really. There are new suburbs, lots of people who commute—some travel hours to get to work. There's more than just the two high schools, and people are aware of the bigger world—they travel, they go off to university, they move to other places.”

“I don't know anybody who moved away,” Timmy said.

“Well, lots of us do stay here,” she told him. “Like me, and your father, Timmy. But most people in most places stay where they were born. Or if they do move away, like Jay's mother, they come back.”

“I'd like to move away,” I said.

“You probably will. At least to go to university. You are planning on going to university, aren't you?”

“I don't know,” I answered. Maybe I didn't have the marks. Maybe I didn't want to go.

“Is money a concern?” she asked.

“Isn't it always a concern?” I asked.

“I guess it is. I just hope you know that there are scholarships and loans. Some people even join the military and they pay for your university.”

Timmy started giggling. “Man, I can't picture you in the army.”

“Me? What about you? They'd have you in front of a firing squad before you finished basic training.”

“That's no problem for me. I ain't got no thoughts of university. I'm just hoping to finish Grade 11 . . . in less than three years.”

“But you are hoping to graduate, right?” Mrs. Bayliss asked.

“Where there's life there's hope . . . why, don't you think I can?”

“I think you work very hard at not working. At being the clown. At setting low expectations.”

“Sounds about right,” Timmy said.

“Sounds just plain
wrong
. You have potential for better. You both have such potential. That's one of the saddest things about teaching—seeing people who could be so much more, but choose to waste their opportunities.”

“Could you tell me a bit more about this meeting?” I asked, changing the subject. I wasn't there for a guidance session.

“I could tell you, but it would be easier to show you.” She pulled the car off to the side of the road in front of a pizza parlour. “We're here.”

“We're meeting in the pizza joint?” Timmy asked.

“We're meeting in the office
above
the pizza place.”

We got out of the car. “Are we late?” I asked, looking at my watch.

“A couple of minutes, but that's okay. They can't start without me, since I'm leading the meeting.” She opened the door leading to the stairs. There were people—kids— sitting on the steps, laughing and talking.

“Sorry I'm late!” Mrs. Bayliss sang out.

They all stood up, making a little path up the middle of the stairs to allow Mrs. Bayliss to pass by. Timmy and I waited at the bottom while everybody else trudged up. Timmy started to follow and I grabbed him by the arm.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

“They got snacks,” he said. “Come on.”

By the time we reached the top of the stairs everybody else had gone inside. I pushed open the door. They were already taking seats around a big table. There were
ten or fifteen people, and after they'd settled in, the only two empty seats were at the end. Timmy and I took those two spots. I looked around the table. Fourteen kids— nine girls and five boys. All teenagers. A couple younger than us, a couple older, but most around our age. I knew three of them and recognized another three from around—either school or the neighbourhood.

“You've probably noticed that we have a couple of new faces at the table,” Mrs. Bayliss said. “I'm sure some of you know them already, but for the others, how about we let them start off the introductions tonight. First names only.”

“Sure,” Timmy said. “I'm Timmy.”

“Good to meet you, Timmy,” the girl beside him said, and the others mumbled out similar greetings.

I introduced myself next and was greeted the same friendly way.

After I introduced myself, the girl sitting beside me introduced herself, and then the girl beside her, and we went around the table. Everybody seemed friendly—a familiar kind of friendly. The same sort of friendly I'd seen at AA meetings. That was what I'd figured it would be like. But how long was this meeting supposed to be? Didn't really matter, I had no choice but to sit there and take it. Of course, that didn't mean I was going to
say
anything. Matter of fact, I was going to work as hard as I could to not even
hear
anything. If this was like the AA meetings, it was just going to be a bunch of people whining and complaining.

“So, does anybody have anything they want to talk about this week?” Mrs. Bayliss asked.

People started babbling on about how their week had gone. It was the usual sort of conversations you'd expect from a bunch of teenagers—movies they'd seen, part-time jobs, arguments with boyfriends or girlfriends or parents, things they were going to do. It seemed like a bunch of them did a lot of things together. But on top of that there was the occasional flash of AA talk. About parents who were dry, parents who were still drinking. And then one of the girls started to cry.

“Becky, what happened?” Mrs. Bayliss asked.

Another girl got up and put her arm around Becky. I suddenly went from uncomfortable to
very
uncomfortable. I didn't want to be there to watch some stranger cry.

“It's my father . . . he started drinking again.” Becky started to really sob, and a second girl got up and wrapped her arms around her as well.

Timmy got out of his chair. He wasn't going to hug her as well, was he? He started toward the door. Man, he was going to leave and—he stopped at the table and grabbed a Coke! He was getting himself a drink! Unbelievable! Then he walked back over and knelt down beside Becky.

“Here, take this, take a sip and then another,” he said. “It'll slow down the sobbing.”

She looked up at him. “Thanks.” She sniffed and took the Coke from him.

Timmy patted her on the arm and then returned to his seat. He gave me a little smile as he passed. Knowing Timmy the way I did, he might have been being nice like that because he figured it would help him pick her up later—she was kind of cute—or it might really have just
been him being supportive. Timmy was that way . . . at least when he wasn't being a donkey.

“It's just . . . just that he started drinking . . . and I was trying so hard,” Becky said.

“What do you mean, you were trying?” another girl asked.

“You know, helping around the house, making meals, trying to make sure everybody was happy.”

“And you think he started drinking because you didn't make things good enough?” that same girl asked.

“Well . . . not completely . . . but if I had only—”

“Stop right there!” a boy ordered. He stood up. “Your father didn't start drinking again because you didn't clean the house, or make the right meal. He started drinking because he's an alcoholic. It isn't your job to take care of
him
. It's his job to take care of
you
!”

She started sobbing even harder. He shouldn't have yelled at her. She was having it tough enough already without him giving her a hard time.

“Cody's right,” a girl named Desiree said. “It's not your fault he started drinking again, just like it wasn't your fault that he drank in the first place.”

“It's not your fault,” one of the girls still hugging her said. “It's
not
.”

“Becky is still new to our program,” Mrs. Bayliss said. “She doesn't fully understand how it's easy to blame yourself for your parent's drinking problem.”

“How could she?” the boy who'd started it all said. “She's only been here a few weeks. It took me a few years, and sometimes I
still
feel responsible, like it's my job.”