The Falls (63 page)

As the months passed, Stonecrop began to acquire customers who liked his food. The burnt-out ADAs and the lonely divorcées were among the first.

As Budd, Sr.’s health deteriorated, Bud, Jr. spent more time away from the house on Garrison. When he wasn’t working at the restaurant he cruised the city, along the river and into Buffalo and back in a meandering loop. He had a second-hand Thunderbird he’d bought with the intention of repairing but neglected instead. Sometimes he prowled the neighborhood on foot. He asked no girls out, had no apparent interest in girls. (That anyone knew of. It was speculated that Stonecrop might have had a secret life.) A hulky boy with a scowling, flattened, blemished face, dishwater eyes and that brutal shaved head, Stonecrop exerted a perverse attraction upon certain of the female customers at Duke’s, some of whom were observed waiting (in the bar) for the kitchen to close at 11 p.m., to take Stonecrop home with them. Though the shaved-headed boy’s mother had been missing for more than a decade, yet Stonecrop was frequently spoken of, by such women, as a “motherless boy”—“that poor, motherless Stonecrop boy.”

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Stonecrop’s father was an invalid at home, tended primarily by an older, unmarried sister. When he’d been in better condition, Bud, Sr.

had made everyone in the family sign a document promising never to check him into a nursing home. Among the Stonecrops, as among most families in the Baltic Street neighborhood, such a desperate measure was rarely taken.
Better to die at home, with your own kind.

Better for whom, wasn’t asked. There were some things you just didn’t do, out of duty and guilt.

It was observed that Stonecrop had become increasingly tense and short-tempered over his father’s decline. He’d fought with Bud, Sr. for years but maybe he loved the old man after all? Stonecrop was a mysterious boy, evolving into a more mysterious young man. By this time he’d dropped his old friends. Sometimes he took a weekend off from the restaurant and disappeared. At Duke’s, as his cooking came to be more appreciated, and new customers joined the old regulars, Stonecrop had a way of storming out of the kitchen if his feelings were hurt by his uncle. Duke fired him, and rehired him; and fired him again. But there were local restaurants keen to hire him, at good wages, so Duke hurriedly rehired him, grudgingly raising his salary. Stonecrop’s sense of family obligation must have been such, he kept returning to Duke’s Bar & Grill, like a kicked large-breed dog warily returning to his seemingly repentant master. “The little bastard has a mind of his own,” Duke said, with grudging approval. “But the premises are mine.” The Stonecrop men were not given to tactful speech, especially in their business dealings. When Duke called his hulking nephew “asshole”—“little shit”—“piss-pot”—“cocksucker”—Stonecrop reacted with indifference, knowing these to be backhanded forms of endearment; but when his uncle called him “stupid”—“retard”—

“deaf-mute” in front of witnesses, Stonecrop reacted with violence.

He might rip off his apron, throw it down and stalk out of the restaurant. He might smash plates, overturn platters of hot steaming food, or plates piled with garbage. Once, Stonecrop was observed seizing a heavy, hot iron skillet off a stove and advancing upon the older man with the apparent intention of killing him. The shaved-headed boy had had to be forcibly restrained by several NFPD officers who hap-The Falls X 441

pened to be eating in the restaurant. “If we hadn’t stopped him, the crazy kid would’ve broke Duke’s skull.” This episode quickly became part of the Stonecrop family legend, recounted frequently, with mirth.

One evening, Royall Burnaby and his sister, Juliet, were having dinner at Duke’s, seated in a booth against the outer wall, and there hovered Stonecrop in the kitchen doorway, brooding and impassive.

This was an evening in November 1977, several weeks after Royall had moved away from home; Juliet had come to visit him in his apartment on Fourth Street. Brother and sister were talking quietly together. “Mom misses you,” Juliet said. “She keeps sighing as if her heart is broken.” Royall shrugged. With a knife and a fork he was idly beating out a rock rhythm on the Formica tabletop, accompanying Bill Haley’s classic “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” on the jukebox. Since moving out of the house on Baltic Street, Royall seemed older; even to himself he seemed more self-sufficient, and more secretive. He wasn’t nearly so lonely as he’d thought he might be. “I guess I miss you, too,” Juliet said, ducking her head as if embarrassed.

The record ended abruptly, leaving Royall exposed. Awkwardly he said, “It doesn’t mean anybody loves anybody less, not living with them. It just means . . .” Royall’s voice trailed off, uncertain.

Royall had ordered a large bowl of chili, into which he’d crumbled a handful of oyster crackers, and Juliette had ordered a Spanish omelette. Both Royall’s bowl and Juliet’s plate had been heated. On Juliet’s plate, in addition to the omelette, was a garnish of baby car-rots and parsley, and thin sliced cantaloupe arranged like petals. The omelette was so exotically spiced and so packed with stir-fried tomatoes, onions, chopped green and red peppers, Juliet was having difficulty finishing it. What an enormous meal! It was like opening a familiar drawer, and something magical balloons out, you can’t quite recognize. And the cook had sent out a hefty basket of baking powder biscuits, hot from the oven. The waitress said, “He says it’s for you, it’s extra. No charge.” Royall regarded Juliet’s plate doubtfully. In an undertone he said, “That looks sort of runny. Is it any good?” Juliet said, “I think an omelette is supposed to be soft inside. Folded over, 442 W
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and soft inside.” Ariah, a hasty cook, had always prepared omelettes for the family by simply scrambling eggs and dumping them into a frying pan and letting the mass puff and whiten and congeal to something resembling a pancake; often, Ariah’s omelettes tasted of scorch.

Royall had grown up with simple, crude tastes; he trusted only eggs that were toughly textured, even rubbery. Juliet said, “This is the most delicious omelette I’ve ever had. Want some?”

“Thanks, no! I’ll take your word for it.”

They saw that Stonecrop, the shaved-headed cook who was only a year or two older than Royall, had emerged from the kitchen to the rear and was behind the counter now, preparing to clean the grill.

He’d been watching Royall and Juliet covertly but now he appeared to take no notice of them. Royall called over, meaning to be polite,

“Hey, Bud. This is terrific. Both our dinners.
You
made this?” Royall meant well, but Stonecrop’s warm, flushed face darkened with blood as if he’d been insulted. He returned to the kitchen abruptly, the door swinging shut in his wake. Royall stared after him, struck by Stonecrop’s steely, anguished stare in the instant before he’d turned away. Juliet was folding her paper napkin, in silence. She’d eaten about two-thirds of the omelette and most of a biscuit and all of the lovingly arranged garnish.

Royall muttered, “Shit. I guess I said the wrong thing.”

Driving Juliet home to Baltic Street, Royall said, “That guy, Bud Stonecrop. He looks at me funny sometimes. What about you, Juliet?”

Juliet murmured she wasn’t sure. “Like there’s something between us,” Royall said. “But—what?” Royall was uneasy thinking that the shaved-headed Stonecrop, of whom it was rumored he was built like a horse, had a thing for Royall’s eighty-nine-pound sister, at this time fifteen years old.

11

Shame, shame’s the name
.
You know your name.

Come to your father in The Falls
.

It’s the anniversary of his death. The voices are clearer now. Less confused, and less reproachful. As if what Juliet will do, she has al-The Falls X 443

ready accomplished. Like the fifteen-year-old Irish girl. Penitent, breathless, numbed bare feet in the wet grass.

Juliet! Burn-a-by! Come come to us
.

Now at the railing above The Falls. Her hands gripping the wet railing. Her face wet with blown mist. Thrashing white-water rapids like the muscles of a great beast rippling beneath its skin. How many times Juliet has seen the Niagara River at close range and yet it’s different at this twilit time before morning, the eastern sky banked with cloud like dirty concrete yet laced with a faint golden-bronze light, it’s different, or Juliet is different, light-headed yet somber, yet smiling. Regretting only that she didn’t leave a note for her family, and now it’s too late.

No turning back from The Falls.

Burn-a-by! Burn-a-by
!
Come.

The voices are more sympathetic, at close range. Juliet isn’t so frightened now. She isn’t unhappy. It isn’t unhappiness nor even sorrow or grief that has drawn her here. It’s knowing that this is right, this is the right place, and this is the right time. The voices in The Falls are not threats, and not admonitions. She hears them now as music. Like
My country ’tis-of-thee
she’d sung with other children at Baltic Street Elementary and the music teacher had singled her out for praise though Juliet had not known what
’tis-of-thee
meant. Like
Silent night holy night round yon virgin mother-and-child
which was the most beautiful of the Christmas carols she’d sung but she had no idea what
round you virgin
meant, nor even, somehow, for she’d heard it as a single phrase,
mother-and-child
, and there were
heavenly hosts
and
hallelu-jah
utterly mysterious to her, codified, like the vast world itself, in adult speech. Have faith, trust in that vast world to give comfort to you and to protect you, Juliet had tried, she’d tried to have faith, but she had failed. But now she would redeem herself, as others had redeemed themselves, in The Falls.

It isn’t yet 6:30 a.m. Except for the overcast sky, it would be dawn. The embankment along the river, facing Goat Island, which will be crowded with tourists in a few hours, is deserted now. A heavy yellowish fog has been slowly lifting but billowing clouds are being blown westward from The Falls and as Juliet stares there’s a sudden 444 W
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schism in the cloud-impacted eastern sky and a glow as of phospho-rescence in the river and in her mesmerized light-headed state Juliet wishes to believe that this is a sign; this is the vision meant for her alone, as the Irish dairy maid had a vision meant for her alone, long ago; a lightning-stroke of sunlight, and rising from the Gorge a giant, shapeless figure, nearly opaque columns of mist teasingly forming, dissolving, and reforming continuously out of the great Gorge. Amid the deafening roar of The Falls the near-inaudible but unmistakable murmur
Juliet! Juliet! Come come to me it’s time.

Juliet smiles. It’s time!

Blindly, she’s been edging along the railing, gripping it tight in both hands. By instinct, like a trapped creature seeking the most pragmatic way out. As if there might be a little gate as in a fairy tale, she might open, and step through. But the railing is waist-high and there is no little gate and so she will have to hoist herself over it and her young, ardent muscles tense to execute this feat as she has held her body in thrilled readiness drawing breath to sing and she has sung her heart out and been redeemed in singing, all shame obliterated, even her curse of a name forgotten. It’s time!

And then, someone swiftly approaches her. So swiftly, Juliet hasn’t seen him until now. He speaks words she can’t decipher. He’s gripping her hand, prying her fingers loose from the railing. It must be—

Royall? Her brother taking hold of her so familiarly, as if he had the right? Juliet struggles frantic as a trapped cat, it isn’t Royall but the massive shaved-headed Stonecrop, twice her size and looming over her, grunting what sounds like, “No! C’mon.” Within seconds he has pulled Juliet away from the railing. Back from the embankment, and onto the grass. Stonecrop is so strong, and so unhesitating in his strength, it’s as if Juliet has been lifted by an elemental force, wind or an earthquake, her individual will blotted out, of no more consequence than a struck sparrow. Juliet protests, “Leave me alone! You’re not my brother.” She’s furious, this young man has no right to interfere, no right even to touch her. He’s panting through his mouth like a winded animal. Hasn’t shaved in some time, the lower part of his face glints a smudged, steely blue. His expression is embarrassed, dismayed, stoic and determined. He isn’t going to release her though
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she’s struggling against him, slaps and kicks at him, tries to claw his knuckles. “Let me go! Leave me alone! You have no right! I hate you!”

But it’s too early. Prospect Park is deserted. No one sees, and no one will prevent Stonecrop from lifting Juliet as one might lift a small, resisting child, walking with her kicking and trying to elbow him, his massive arms closed about her, awkwardly yet unhesitatingly Stonecrop walks Juliet across an edge of parkland, to his parked Thunderbird and safety.

12

“ M o m ? Where’s Zarjo?”

“In the back yard.”

“No. He isn’t there.”

“Of course he’s there, honey. Don’t be silly.”

“Mom, he isn’t! He’s gone.”

That terrible time. Those days of misery, anguish. Never will the Burnabys forget. Calling, crying
Zarjo! Zarjo!
imagining that at any moment the dog would reappear panting and repentant and anxious to be hugged. In the neighborhood, in the park and the railroad yard and along the smelly drainage ditch, along streets and sidewalks and alleys desperately peering into neighbors’ yards, daring to ring doorbells, stopping strangers on the sidewalk, asking, pleading
Have you
seen our missing dog, his name is Zarjo, he’s a mixed cocker spaniel and beagle, a
small dog, four years old, a friendly dog but shy with strangers, no he doesn’t
bite, he barks sometimes if he’s nervous, he slipped his leash and ran away and
we think he must be lost
showing snapshots of Zarjo, to us he seemed such a beautiful dog and yet to strangers only just a small buff-colored dog of no distinction, immediately forgettable
His name is
Zarjo, we love him, we want him back, if you see him here’s our telephone number
. Our throats hoarse, and eyes reddened from crying.