The Falls (24 page)

“Nope. They've gone up to get some other members of the search and rescue squad. They'll come down, check out the rocks along this stretch, and then
they'll
wait.”

“For how long?”

“Minutes. Hours. Days.” Boomer squatted down on the rocks. “Might not find it at all. Lots of bodies that go over are never found.”

“How can they not find a body?”

“It's a big river, and it leads to an even bigger lake.”

There was something I had to ask. “Were you serious . . . about me being somebody you could train to do this . . . somebody who could know about the river? Do you think it could be me?”

“Wasn't really thinking much about it one way or another. Just wanted to make sure that they wouldn't object to you coming along.”

“Oh . . . yeah . . . sure . . . I understand.” I didn't know whether I should feel disappointed or relieved. Instead I felt both.

“Course, no reason why you
couldn't
be the person. It
is
in your blood. The same blood that flowed through your great-grandfather's veins flows through yours.”

His blood
was
in my veins and somehow I
did
feel strangely at home here. I stood there on the rocks, on the edge, the mist swirling around me, and thought about my great-grandfather in that old wooden barrel going over those Falls . . . did he come out around here somewhere?

“It is a high isn't it?” Boomer said.

“Yeah, it was like a roller coaster ride.”

“Always gets my old heart pumping faster. Yours?”

“Really fast.”

“Adrenalin will do that. Bigger rush than alcohol or drugs . . . not that you'd know about that.”

“No,” I said. “Not really.” That was only a partial lie. The alcohol I knew about, but except for a couple of tokes of weed I'd always avoided drugs. “This is a different feeling . . . better.”

Boomer nodded. “Better because it's more powerful. A bigger high. A bigger rush. To stand there looking death in the eye and staring it down, not blinking, and surviving. That's the rush. That's why people do it. I can only imagine the rush of going over.”

I knew what he was saying was right.

“I saw you the other night, in the middle of the night, out there staring at the Falls,” Boomer said.

I felt embarrassed. I hadn't seen him. I didn't know what to say.

“It's all right. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights out there myself. Just staring at the water. Thinking.”

“What do you think about?” I asked.

“Lots of things. Life. Death. I guess more about death these days. Wondering if it's really the end. What were
you
thinking about?”

Now I knew what to say but I didn't want to so I remained silent.

“I know what I was thinking about when I was your age,” Boomer said. “I was thinking about the river . . . wondering . . . wondering if I could go over the Falls.” He struggled to his feet and I offered him a hand. He held on to me. “Is it the same with you?”

I didn't answer.

“Thinking about it is okay. Trying to do something about it is another thing. You don't have any crazy ideas, do you?”

“Nothing crazy,” I reassured him.

“Good, because—”

“Boomer!” a voice bellowed out of the mist. “Boomer!”

The two officers reappeared. “The
Maid of the Mist
just radioed in. They spotted a body.”

 

 

 

 

“J
AY, YOU
'
VE BEEN EVEN QUIETER
than usual tonight,” Mrs. Bayliss said, and a couple of other members of the Alateen group nodded or voiced agreement.

I shrugged.

“He's had a pretty rough day,” Timmy said, and I shot him a dirty look.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Bayliss said.

“Anything we can help with?” one of the girls asked.

I shook my head. “There's nothing anybody can do. It's over.”

“What's over?”

“The guy's life,” Timmy said. “Jay helped pull a body out of the river today.”

I was going to bark something at Timmy but before I could, everybody in the room reacted, all of them asking me questions or making comments at once.

“I didn't do anything. I didn't pull anybody out of the river. I was just there. The police pulled him out.”

“Why were you even there to begin with?” somebody asked.

“I went along with Boomer . . . he runs the Daredevil Museum.”

“Where me and Jay work,” Timmy added. “The police call him in when a body goes over the Falls.”

“That's so sad, an accident like that happening,” a girl said.

“Probably no accident,” another said.

“Was it a suicide?” Timmy asked me.

“I really can't talk about it,” I said, shaking my head.

The police had told Boomer, and he'd told me, but he'd made me promise not to say anything. It was confidential. Actually, even if I'd been allowed to talk about it I wouldn't have. Apparently there was a hotel key in the guy's pocket when they pulled him out. That led them to his room . . . and a suicide note. The guy was from somewhere down in the southern States. He'd come all this way up here to kill himself. He had to have passed thousands of places that would have been just as good, but he wanted the Falls. The suicide letter said something about how this was where he and his wife had gone on their honeymoon, and now that she'd left him he wanted to go back to where it had all started.

“Tell 'em about what the body looked like,” Timmy said.

“I don't think that would be appropriate!” Mrs. Bayliss exclaimed.

“Why not? I thought we could talk about anything here,” a boy said.

“Anything related to alcohol.”

“Maybe after the meeting you can—”

“I'm not talking to anybody about it,” I said, cutting him off. “I've already talked to one person too many,” I said, shooting Timmy a hard look.

The man had been pretty beaten up. His face—what was left of it—was all smashed up, and the top of his head was bashed in so it wasn't round anymore. What was even worse was the body itself. The clothes were almost all ripped off to reveal the grotesquely swollen, whitish-grey flesh. Boomer said that was how a body got when it had been underwater.

“We're almost at the end of our time tonight,” Mrs. Bayliss said. “Does anybody have anything else they want to talk about? Anything related to alcohol?”

Nobody had anything to say.

“Then let's call it a night.” People got up from their seats. “Jay, could I talk to you for a minute?”

I stopped halfway up and settled back into my seat.

“I'll wait for you downstairs,” Timmy said as he walked out with all the others, leaving just Mrs. Bayliss and me in the room.

She walked over and sat down on the table beside me. “Are you okay?”

“As okay as I can be.”

“Do you want to talk?”

“What good would that do? It wouldn't bring him back to life, or stop me from thinking about it.”

“Sometimes the secret isn't to try to stop thinking about it, but to let it out,” she said.

“You know, there was alcohol involved,” I said. “There were lots of empty bottles in the hotel room . . . the police told Boomer.”

“That doesn't surprise me. I was drunk when I tried to kill myself.”

“When you
what
?” I gasped.

“Tried to end my life. Pills . . . an overdose.”

“But . . . but . . . you just don't seem like the type to do that.”

“Alcohol makes anybody the type. Look, if you decide you need to talk, you just call me. Day or night. Okay?”

“I will. Thanks.” I got up. “I'd better go. Timmy's waiting.”

I hurried out of the room and down the stairs. Timmy was sitting on the bottom step.

“Come on, let's get going,” I said as I bounced past him.

“Slow down!” he called out. “What's the rush?”

I just kept going. Timmy ran to catch up to me.

“Why didn't you tell them about the body?” Timmy asked.

“Like I said, I already told
one
person too many.”

“But you said you only told . . . oh, you mean me, right?”

“Good guess.”

“So what, are you not gonna tell me things now?” Timmy asked.

“I'll have to stop if you don't learn to shut up sometimes.”

“I was just trying to do you a favour,” Timmy said.

“How is you shooting off your mouth doing me a favour?”

“Didn't you see the way the girls reacted? Dead bodies are cool.”

“Dead bodies are
cold
.”

“I was trying to make you out to be a hero so maybe you could get a little action with the ladies. In case you haven't noticed, you ain't doing so well lately.”

“And you're doing better?”

“I was last night,” Timmy said, and he smiled.

“Yeah, right, and who was the
lucky
lady?”

“You know her . . . at least, I think you know her. Her name is Amber.”

“Like that narrows it down. Half the girls in town are named Amber.”

“And the other half are called Crystal,” Timmy said. “And the third half are called—”

“Timmy, there aren't three halves.”

“I was just trying to make a point. But you
do
know this Amber. Amber Commisso.”

“You were hanging out with Amber
Commisso
?”

“More like hanging
on
Amber Commisso. She's hot, and more than a little wild, and she likes the Tim-man.”

“Are you crazy?” I snapped. “She's Angelo Commisso's little sister and Rudy Commisso's daughter. You mess with her and the next body I help pull out of the river might be
yours
.”

“This isn't an episode of
The Sopranos
, you know,” Timmy said. “Nobody's gonna drop me in the river.” He started to laugh.

“You're probably right,” I said. “They might just put you in one of those machines. You know, the ones they use to crush junked cars at the wrecking yard they own.”

Timmy stopped laughing. “Do you really, for a fact, know that they're
connected
?”

“No, but do you really, for a fact, know that they're
not
connected?”

Timmy didn't answer.

“Why take a chance?” I asked.

“Two reasons come to mind . . . man, can that girl ever fill out a T-shirt.”

“Timmy, think with your brain sometimes.”

“I tried that. It gave me a real sharp pain right there between the—”

“Stop that!” I snapped as I grabbed him by the arm and spun him around to face me.

“Okay, okay, I'll stop seeing her!”

“Good, but that's not what I was talking about. Why don't you stop acting like you're stupid all the time?”

“Who's acting?”

“Cut it out. You're not stupid.”

“You obviously didn't see my last report card. Or the one before that. Or the one before that. Or the—”

“I'm not talking about your marks in school,” I said. “They
do
suck. But I'm talking about your smarts. I know you could do better in school if you wanted to.”

“Couldn't do much worse and still pass.”

“If you buckled down and worked you could do
better
.”

“First off, you're not my father—you're sober, for one thing, so that's a difference. Second, if
you
buckled down you could get better marks too, so don't go talking to me about it. Third, what difference would it make? I'm just putting in time anyway. I turn sixteen in October and then I can become an official dropout.”

“And then what? You gonna get a job at the arcade, or at one of the hotels?” I didn't like to think about Timmy turning into Jack, working a dead-end job and getting his kicks from shortchanging the tourists. I didn't like to think of me ending up that way, either. “Or maybe Boomer
would take you on full-time at the museum. Thirty-five hours a week at minimum wage. That'll really add up,” I taunted him.

“I got plans.”

“Then let me in on them,” I demanded.

“My father was a tool and die maker. He still has all his tools and some machines in the garage.”

“And he's going to sober up long enough to teach you?” I said mockingly. “The only thing he could teach you is how to become a falling-down drunk!”

“For that I don't need lessons. That's something that's passed on through the genes, like eye colour.”

“Timmy, I'm not joking.”

“Neither am I. Have you been listening to anything we talk about in those Alateen meetings?”

“Quit it, Timmy. Do you really have a plan?”

He nodded. “My old man's still got connections in the business. He used to be really good . . . respected. He thinks he can get me a job in a machine shop, maybe an apprenticeship, and I can become a tool and die maker too.”

“Sorry . . . that sounds good . . . I never knew that's what you wanted to do.”

“I don't
want
to do it, Jay. Nobody
wants
to work in a factory. It's just what you become because you gotta become something.”

“I guess so. But didn't you ever have something that you really wanted to do?” I asked.

“Yeah. I had dreams of getting inside of Amber Commisso's sweater, but that doesn't look like it's gonna work out.”

“Be serious.”

“You want serious? Okay, when I was little, really little, and didn't know any better, I wanted to become a pilot.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

“Gee, thanks for being so supportive.”