The Vinyl Café Notebooks (27 page)

Roger remembers moving peacefully down the river in that little silver boat, remembers passing under the Grand Island Bridge—which is only a mile upriver from the falls and which many see as the last point of safety. Roger had no idea of safety points, however. He didn’t even know they were anywhere near Niagara Falls. He didn’t understand that one
mile ahead, the river he was travelling on would tumble over the falls. It would be a day later, after he had followed the water over the edge, before he understood that.

So the little fishing boat passed under the Grand Island Bridge—the point of no return. Roger says he remembers the faces of people in other larger boats. He says he remembers thinking they looked concerned, probably because such a little boat was about to enter such a dangerous part of the river.

Ahead of them Roger saw what looked like a small white island. It was, in fact, a shoal, a small piece of land peeking up from beneath the water. It was covered with thousands of seagulls.

The little fishing boat hit the shoal. And suddenly there was no thrust from the propeller. Suddenly they were in trouble. The current was picking up and the boat had begun to drift, moving down the river, toward the falls. Jim yelled to Deanne to get her life jacket on. Then he took out the oars and tried to regain control of his boat. The water, however, was getting rough.

The average flow of the Niagara River at Queenston is greater than the Fraser, the Columbia or the Nelson rivers. They were hit by one wave, then another. The boat flipped. It happened so quickly that Deanne had only managed to get one of the straps on her life jacket done up before she hit the water. Roger had his jacket done up, but it was an adult-sized life jacket, and he didn’t know how to swim. His head was throbbing—later doctors would tell him he had a concussion.

And so it was in this state, Roger, seven years old, unable to swim and wearing nothing but a giant life jacket, Deanne,
with her jacket halfway done up, and Jim, with nothing at all, hit the rapids. Within seconds they were separated. Roger wouldn’t see his sister for three days. He would never see Jim again.

Roger still had no idea that he was heading toward Niagara Falls or that he was tumbling through some of the most powerful rapids in the world. His head was slammed against rocks, and he was sucked under the churning water and shot back out again like he was being blown out of a whale’s blowhole. He couldn’t see anything.

His sister, Deanne, knew she had to swim with the current if she was going to reach the shore, and that’s what she started to do. She battled the strong water and the weight of her life jacket. It felt, she would later say, as if she was swimming through peanut butter.

And just when she thought she couldn’t do it anymore, just when she thought she was over, she heard a voice. The voice belonged to John Hayes. John was on land, on Goat Island, the island that separates the American Falls from the Canadian Falls. John had seen the capsized fishing boat whisk by him. John knew that if there was a boat, then there must be people too. That’s when he spotted Deanne struggling to get to shore. Of all the people watching, John was the only one to take action. He ran down the riverbank to get himself in front of Deanne. Over the roar of the Niagara River, Deanne heard John’s deep, strong voice calling her, “Come to me, girl,” he called. “Come to me.”

The falls were only a hundred feet away. His voice gave her strength. She could see John Hayes reaching out, extending his arm over the barrier that was protecting him from the
water. John reaching for Deanne, and now Deanne reaching for John.

But she was moving too fast, and they missed.

Now John had to get ahead of her again. He had to get where he thought Deanne would be. And to get there, he had to outrun the powerful water that was carrying her along. He was running hard, but he was running out of land himself.

He ran down the bank and got himself in position again, this time just feet in front of the big drop. He folded his upper body over the safety barrier and reached out just as Deanne came flying by. He reached way down, and she reached way up and she caught ... his thumb.

They were feet from the falls, and he had her, but only her cold, wet, slippery hand. And all she had was his thumb.

He didn’t want to pull too hard because he was terrified that if he did, she might have lost her grip. He screamed for help.

John Quattrochi, a truck driver from New Jersey, ran to him. The two men reached down and pulled Deanne up by her life jacket.

The first thing Deanne did was ask, “Where’s my brother?”

And that’s when John looked out into the river and saw Roger Woodward’s seven-year-old head bobbing up and down like a tennis ball. John leaned down and whispered in Deanne’s ear. Deanne put her hands together in front of her heart.

“What did he tell her?” I asked Roger over the phone.

He said, “You need to say a little prayer for your brother. You need to say a prayer.”

So Deanne put her hands together in front of her heart and
began to pray, praying for Roger, who was still being thrown around by the rapids.

Roger was panicked and terrified, unable to gain control of his own body in the paralyzing force of the river. He couldn’t see anything. And he still had no idea where he was. All he knew was that he was moving fast. All he knew was that he was out of control.

If you have ever been to Niagara Falls, and stood, like I have, staring at the water, you know the Niagara River starts to flatten as it approaches the lip of the falls. Roger remembers that moment. He remembers when the rapids ended and the water smoothed.

“I was finally able to catch my breath, he said. “I was able to look around and see where I was.”

What Roger saw was that he was moving swiftly toward the edge of an abyss. He remembers looking at the shore. A crowd had gathered on the riverbank. He could see them watching him. And the panic and terror he had been feeling just seconds before turned into anger. Why, he wanted to know, weren’t they doing anything to help him?

Then seven-year-old Roger Woodward looked ahead. And his anger turned to submission. He was at eye level with the falls, just feet from the lip. He still had no idea it was Niagara Falls in front of him. He couldn’t see the drop. He just knew he was approaching a void—a vast area of nothingness.

And that’s when he realized that he was going to die.

“What did you think about?” I asked.

“I thought about my dog,” he said. “And about my parents. And my toys.” Roger says he remembers wondering what his
parents would do with his toys when he died. He says he didn’t think of heaven or hell.

“I hadn’t heard of them,” he said.

And then, he says, he felt at peace. That’s when he dropped over the edge of Niagara Falls.

He told me when he went over, he felt as if he were floating, floating on a cloud of mist. He said it felt like he was suspended in the mist.

“There was no sensation of falling,” he said. “My stomach didn’t jump into my throat. And there was no smack when I hit the water, no rocks, no pain. There was nothing but mist.”

The next thing he remembers is coming out of the mist and seeing the
Maid of the Mist
tour boat.

The captain that day was Clifford Keech.

One of Captain Keech’s deck hands thought he spotted a child in a life jacket. And though they couldn’t tell if the child was alive, Captain Keech decided to take a risk. He steered the
Maid of the Mist
off course. Roger was now in the current again—so Keech had to anticipate where the rough water was going to take him so that he could be there at the same time.

And he did. They threw a life ring to Roger, but he missed it. So they tried again.

Roger was tired and bruised. He missed it again.

On the third throw it landed right in front of the boy and Roger flopped his arms around it. They towed him up and onto the
Maid of the Mist
.

Roger remembers the nurse who looked after him at the Niagara Falls hospital. He even remembers her name, Eleanor Weaver. She brought him chocolate milk, he said. It was Eleanor who told Roger that he had gone over Niagara Falls.

And yes, he’s been back to the falls. A few weeks after the accident Roger went out on the
Maid of the Mist
with Captain Keech. He said it was the first time he realized the magnitude of what had happened to him. He said he was terrified. A few months later his family went to Atlantic City. It was Roger’s first time on an airplane. The pilot knew Roger was on board so, as a special treat, he flew the plane over Niagara Falls. Roger said he became hysterical. “I was afraid the plane would fall. I was afraid I’d have to do the whole thing over again.”

Roger’s family left Niagara a year after the accident. He didn’t return to the falls again for ten years, until he was a freshman in college. He came back with his father. He says as an adult the falls didn’t seem as big as they did when he was a child--not quite the monster he’d seen years before.

After college, and marriage, and kids, Roger ended up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He and his family used to spend their holidays touring the Great Lakes on their forty-two-foot yacht. He says he didn’t often think about that Saturday afternoon, so many years ago. But sometimes, when he was standing on his boat and looking down at the water of Lake Huron, he would get a pang in his stomach, knowing that the water he was floating on would flow from Huron into the St. Clair River, and from there into Lake St. Clair. And from Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie and then eventually, inevitably, become part of the violent rapids of the Niagara River on its way to and over the falls.

25 April 2004

MY HELLO PROBLEM

Over the years, it has been my experience that other people, my friends, my colleagues, members of my immediate family, just about everyone actually, all seem to have more understanding of how I work than I do. They are certainly all quite willing to tell me things about me, and explain various behaviours of mine, at the drop of a hat. And 99 percent of the time, if I am going to be honest about this, the things they say are insightful. They are able to explain, sum up and capture me in a way that I could never do.

Even complete strangers seem to know me better than I do. Just the other day, for instance, I was biking to work when I came upon a yellow light, and in a moment of intemperance, instead of slowing down, I sped up. A guy standing on the sidewalk, a complete stranger who had never met me, not once in my life, yelled out, “You idiot!” As I peeled through the intersection, and I thought about it, I had to admit it, he got
that
right.

It is as if there is a Stuart Instruction Manual out there and everyone has read it except for me. I don’t even know where to get my hands on one.

I don’t want to imply that I am a
complete
moron. I do know
certain things about myself. I know, for instance, that if I am feeling tired or cranky, that can often mean that I am actually hungry and if I have something to eat, I will find out that I was not tired and cranky at all, just hungry. So I do have
some
insight, as they say, but most of what I seem to know about myself hovers in my brain stem, the part of the reptilian me, the place that looks after breathing and digestion. I am fairly good about that stuff, but the rest of it is pretty much a mystery. And I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I do, from time to time, wish it were otherwise.

I have heard that in psychotherapy one can experience moments of blinding insight. I have wondered what that would be like and, if I started psychotherapy myself, if I would be smart enough to have a blinding moment.

And I tell you this because just the other day I had just such a moment. A moment of startling revelation, a moment of personal clarity and self-understanding that was so stunning to me that I am still trying to process it.

I have come to call it my
Hello Problem
.

I became aware of it at the gym.

This is what happened.

I arrived at the gym and was walking toward the Men’s Locker Room when Erica, who works at the gym, passed me in the hallway, coming
this
way as I was going
that
. As we passed, Erica smiled and said, “Hello, Stuart. How are you?”

Now, I happen to like Erica. Erica manages the gym, and she is a smart, funny lady. She has been helpful to me in the past and is always pleasant. But she was clearly going somewhere. And I knew I wasn’t expected to stop and have a conversation with her, so I kept walking past her and as I
passed I smiled. Well, I didn’t just smile, I beamed. I was a picture of delight. I smiled and beamed, and I said, “Hi, Erica. How are you?” and I took about three more steps and then ... here it comes, this is the moment of insight.

I stopped dead in my tracks, and I turned and I said, “Erica?” She was almost out of sight.

“Erica?” I said. And
she
stopped, turned and said, “Yes?”

“Erica,” I said, dreading the answer. “Did I just say hi to you?”

And to my horror she shook her head and said, “No, you didn’t say anything.”