The Falls

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I love you Royall clenched his jaws tight to keep from exclaiming.

  When he came to consciousness he was lying sprawled on this woman unknown to him as if the two had fallen together, in this intimate embrace, from a great height. And where were they, and what time was this? Royall’s brain was dazed, obliterated. Since infancy he’d slept with unusual intensity, and often woke in a state of dazed distraction, exhausted from sleep, in thrall to whatever had happened to him in sleep which he could only dimly recall in consciousness. And so it was now, in the cemetery beside the abandoned stone church on Portage Road. As the woman murmured to him, kissed and stroked him, Royall lay passive for some minutes, without volition. When at last he made a movement to lift himself from her, the woman quickly gripped his thighs with her own, pressed her hands firmly against his back and held him. In her rapt throaty voice she murmured, “No. Not yet. I’ll be so lonely. I can’t bear it. Stay with me. Don’t leave me yet.” Kissing and stroking and beginning again gently to squeeze him, beginning again that rhythm that so excited Royall, like a giant heartbeat it seemed to him, that enveloped him, as if he were an infant in his mother’s womb. “Not yet. Not yet. Don’t leave me yet.” Until at last, Royall was hard again.

  2

  A whistling-hearted boy. Exactly the type a girl can’t trust.

  That day. That long day in Royall Burnaby’s life. The first Friday of October 1977. The eve of Royall’s marriage to Candace McCann he loved and would never, never wish to hurt.

  Except: how could Royall be married now?

  His heart pounded in shame. Already, before Royall had a wife, he’d been unfaithful to her.

  As Juliet said There’s a curse on us Burnabys. The way people say our name, you can hear it.

  Royall had been an hour and twenty minutes late at the boarding dock on the river. He’d missed his cruise, and both boats were out. Captain Stu was furious with him. Royall mumbled an apology. His brain was so dazzled, his mouth so parched with love for the woman in black, he made no effort to think of an excuse. It was like an exam essay question in high school where Royall’s mind was blank as a wiped-over blackboard. Not clean, but wiped-over and cloudy. He just stood there nodding, eyes downcast, as Captain Stu like an exasperated father chewed him out and sent him on his way, to get into uniform for the 11 A.M. cruise.

  That long day, through which Royall moved like a sleepwalker smiling, blinking, behaving courteously in his role as “Lieutenant Captain Royall,” the youngest of the several pilots employed by the Devil’s Hole Cruise Company. He was a favorite with female tourists of all ages, as well as children who clamored to have their picture taken with him. Smiling his open, frank smile as he was photographed for the thousandth time at the wheel of the spray-soaked boat. And when Royall was asked the inevitable question how much water flowed over The Falls, he never failed to give the answer, “Six million cubic feet a minute, a million bathtubs a second,” as if for the first time.

  Piloting tourists for the Devil’s Hole Company was a job that required manual skill, patience, “personality,” and minimal ambition, and so a job well suited for Royall Burnaby who’d barely managed to graduate from high school. Chandler was disappointed in his younger brother, having expected Royall to at least apply to a local college like Buffalo State, but Royall liked his job at the Devil’s Hole, work that kept him busy and didn’t require much thought. It hurts too much to think. There’s no future in it. Ariah had encouraged Royall to take the job, to stay close to home. In fact, Ariah encouraged Royall to live at home as long as he wanted.

  Royall, and his wife-to-be Candace. Until the young couple could afford a “decent” place of their own.

  Royall hurriedly boarded the tourist boat. Here he had a purpose, and he had power. “Lieutenant Captain Royall.” At the helm of the crowded boat he felt strangely free. He needed to be working, and he needed to be responsible. Maybe it was better to be responsible for strangers than for people you knew and cared about. Tourists were a sub-species of humanity focused on Getting The Most Out Of Their Money. They were greedy and anxious to See What Was So Special. Their attention spans were short, which was a good thing. They were easily pleased, and The Falls were genuinely awesome so they were never disappointed. Some of them, and not just children or the elderly, were so intimidated by The Falls that they came close to fainting, which was exciting, and dramatic, and Something To Remember. On those occasions when someone did succumb to panic and had to be comforted by an attendant, observers were satisfied that they were Getting The Most Out Of Their Money.

  Royall was repeatedly asked, “It must scare you, too, sometimes? Have you ever had an accident out here?” Smiling to show that he took such questions seriously, Royall always said:

  “Yes and no. Yes, I’m scared as hell sometimes. No, I’ve never had an accident. The Devil’s Hole Cruise has never lost a customer in twenty-two years of service at the Niagara Gorge.”

  This elicited relieved chuckles. Anyway, it was true.

  No one in any of the expertly piloted excursion boats was in danger from The Falls. The excursion routes were carefully plotted and no pilot ever varied his course. Mechanical as clockwork, and reliable. For all the grandeur and “nightmare” of the gigantic Falls, the danger was a known and therefore navigable thing, a form of entertainment. And business.

  The danger was above The Falls, not below. If you fell in, above The Falls, and were carried over.

  Royall was asked repeatedly, too, whether “very many” people committed suicide at The Falls. Like every employee in the Niagara Falls tourist trade, Royall was instructed to smile politely, and to say, “Absolutely not. All that is exaggerated by the media.”

  To take the Devil’s Hole excursion you had to gear up in waterproof raincoats and hats provided at the landing dock. Warned that the voyage was very wet, and they should make certain that their watches and cameras were waterproof, passengers began squealing and shrieking as soon as spray began to hit, and the boat lurched, wobbled, bobbed, bounced in the waves like a carnival ride. They passed the American Falls on their left, and then the Horseshoe Falls, which was massive, glaring green in the autumn sunlight like molten glass. Pouring, deafening water. Except it hardly seemed like water. Think of a million tin cans being dumped, Royall liked to describe the noise, only the dumping never ends. You’d think that by now Royall would have gotten used to it and that was true, to a degree. Some days, he piloted the boat like a mechanical man, every beat memorized. Other days, like today, he was distracted. Thinking It could not have happened. That wasn’t me. The woman in black was kissing Royall’s slack, dreamy mouth. Even as the boat ventured out into the mist, the woman in black was twining her snaky arms around Royall’s neck. He found himself staring up at the falling, cascading water. That dense sinewy substance that could kill in seconds. Snap a man’s backbone like a twig. His own backbone had arched like a bow, he’d moaned aloud as a wounded creature as the arrow shot, the arrow that shot from his groin that was at the same time the arrow that lodged in Royall’s body. He could not believe that he’d done what he had done that morning, and could only think that the woman in black had hypnotized him. His eyes she’d murmured. Oh I knew. Knew you.

  The strange thing was, the water below The Falls was as deep as The Falls itself. So that whatever The Falls meant, it was half hidden. When you saw The Falls, you were seeing only half of the Niagara Gorge.

  Never would Royall tell Candace what he’d done. Making love to a woman he didn’t know, a woman old enough to be his mother. And you loved it didn’t you. Dying to do it again aren’t you. Never would Royall confess to his bride that he’d betrayed her.

  Twenty minutes out, and looping back to the loading dock right on schedule. Again, again, and again that afternoon like clockwork.

  God damn it could not have happened. Must’ve been a dream.

  One of the passengers was plucking at Royall’s arm. “Mister? Can we take a picture of you? By the railing here, O.K.?
D’you mind if Linda gets in the picture, too? Thanks!”

  After the last trip of the day, Captain Stu insisted upon taking Royall out for a few beers. Royall was leaving on his honeymoon next day, and would be away for a week; by then, the Devil’s Hole cruises would have shut down for the season and wouldn’t resume until next May. “Gonna miss you, kid. You’re a good kid.” Captain Stu shook Royall’s hand with coarse cordiality, to show that he’d forgiven him for being late that morning. He winked lewdly at Royall and wished him good luck in his “voyage.” Royall wiped beer from his mouth and smiled at his employer blankly. “What voyage, Stu?” Captain Stu laughed. “Marriage, son. You’ll need all the horsepower you can get.”

  Stu Fletcher was a white-haired portly man in his fifties with a nose of broken capillaries that glowed like radium. He readily admitted to having a drinking problem, and he smoked too many cigars, but he was “damned fond” of Royall—“You’re like a son, except my own son wouldn’t work for me. Thinks he’s too goddam good for Cap’n Stu.” Royall laughed uneasily. He’d gathered from previous conversations with the older man that Stu knew who he, Royall, was, in a way that Royall himself didn’t exactly know, because Ariah had forbidden him such knowledge. You have your mother. You don’t need anyone else. Royall understood that his father had died when he, Royall, had been very young; before his father died, he’d left Ariah and his children. Dirk Burnaby betrayed the family, the unforgiveable sin. From Chandler, Royall learned that their father had died in an accident, his car had swerved through a guard railing on the Buffalo–Niagara Falls Highway and gone into the Niagara River. Chandler cautioned Royall never to hint to Ariah that he knew this much, Ariah would be furious. Juliet was always saying there was a curse on them, the name “Burnaby” was a curse, but Royall knew better. He’d had plenty of friends through school and he’d been elected “best-looking boy” of the Class of ’76 at Niagara Falls High—did that sound like a curse?

  Royall lingered with Cap’n Stu at the bar of the Old Dutch Inn, a smoky tavern in downtown Niagara Falls that conspicuously did not cater to, or attract, tourists. Cap’n Stu was in a mellow talkative mood, which was fine because Royall was not. Especially this evening, he was not. If Royall had a question or two he might’ve asked the old man, he kept his mouth shut.

  More tenderly than anyone had ever touched Royall Burnaby, the woman in black had touched him. We know each other don’t we? More tenderly than anyone had ever kissed Royall, the woman in black had kissed him. Your eyes. His eyes. He had not dared to ask the woman in black whose eyes she meant. Somehow, Royall knew.

  He was supposed to drop by to see Candace, briefly. The route was a familiar one but, driving, Royall kept drifting off in his thoughts. A shaft of stark white sunshine struck the uplifted face of a stone angel and Royall smelled the damp, slightly rank hair of the woman in black, a strand fallen across his panting mouth. Oh God. Blood pumped into Royall’s groin as the woman in black drew him down beside her in the matted grass. Beautiful boy. We know each other don’t we? As in a dream suddenly she’d unzipped his trousers, she was guiding him inside her, stroking and holding his penis with such tender familiarity, it was as if they’d made love many times before. It was an easy act, and it was a happy, uncomplicated act. And they could do it again, again, again. Royall swallowed hard. His eyes filled with moisture. An amber traffic light turned to red as Royall drove blindly through an intersection. Someone sounded a horn, and a man in a Mayflower moving van leaned out his window to yell. Royall whispered, “God damn.” He saw that he was on Ferry, blocks past Fifth Street.

  He drove on. He found himself at Thirty-third, circling the block for no reason except to drive past the high school. Why? He didn’t miss the damned place. He was grateful to be gone. Still, he’d been young then. Hadn’t even met Candace McCann yet. (Ariah had brought them together: she’d met Candace at one of her neighborhood churches where Candace was singing in the choir and Ariah had volunteered to direct the choir for several months, until gradually she’d lost interest in the church.) Royall had had other girl friends, and he’d let those girls down too, he supposed. Royall Burnaby, that boy will break your heart. It seemed to happen, each time, without Royall’s knowing. Without his intention. Girls fell in love with his sweet, easy smile, his frank blue eyes, his gentle touch. His voice that told them what they most wanted to believe, even when they should not have believed it. Royall, I love you. I love you so much. Royall, do you love me? Just a little?

  How was it Royall’s fault, words sprang from his lips. Yes. I guess Ido.

  You do? You love me? Oh, Royall!

  Candace McCann was the girl who’d made a man of Royall Burnaby. Breaking down weeping in his arms one night that spring, in this very car, telling Royall she’d “missed a period”—she was “so ashamed, and so frightened” and she loved him so much, she’d “want to die” if he didn’t love her. Royall felt a chill pass over him even as he comforted Candace and told her he’d take care of her, please don’t cry he’d take care of her, though stunned trying to grasp how Candace could be pregnant; how, when Royall had been so damned careful; and they hadn’t even made love many times, not in any way that might cause a girl to become pregnant. But if it was so, Royall reasoned, it was so; at heart, Royall was a fatalist like his mother.

  Honey I love you. It will be O.K.

  Are you sure? Oh Royall, are you sure you love me? Because if—

  Candace, sure I’m sure! Everything will be O.K., I promise.

  I’m terrified of telling my mother. I can’t tell my mother. Unless—

  Don’t tell her yet. Until you’re absolutely sure—

  Royall, I am. I am absolutely sure. I’ve been sure for twelve days at least. Oh Royall, you don’t love me—

  Honey, I do! I said I do.

  But—would you want to marry me anyway? Even if—I wasn’t—

  Candace had broken down weeping as if her heart would break, and what choice had Royall except to comfort her? He’d felt a stir of excitement, pride, dread, but mostly plain wonderment, that he might be a father within nine months; when he felt, most days, like a boy of about twelve. Still, he couldn’t let Candace down. He did love her. She was about the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, in Niagara Falls at least.

  So Royall bought an engagement ring at a downtown jeweler’s, a silver setting with a tiny diamond he’d managed, through connections, to get at a discount for ninety dollars. So Royall formally proposed, and Candace McCann tearfully accepted his proposal.

  At first, the wedding was set for June. Then, when Candace discovered she wasn’t pregnant after all, the date was moved to October, when Royall’s season with the Devil’s Hole Company ended.

  But do you still love me? Royall? Even if—

  Honey, of course. I love you more than ever.

  You’re sure? Because if—

  I’m sure.

  We will have babies, though. Won’t we?

  Just as many as you want, Candace. I promise.

  Such strange gnarly toads, leaping out of Royall Burnaby’s mouth!

  But truly Royall wanted to marry Candace. He loved her, and he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her. Hearing that girl cry as if her heart was breaking near about broke Royall’s own heart, he’d come to think was a plastic heart. Cheap and easily cracked yet its materials indestructible.

  The most surprising thing about Royall’s engagement was Ariah’s reaction. You’d have thought Mom would fly into one of her raging tantrums and kick Royall out of the house; in fact, Ariah drew a deep breath when Royall stammered in embarrassment he “guessed he wanted to get married, it was time,” and told him yes. Yes, it was time. At nineteen, he was old enough. The way girls and women threw themselves at Royall, it was better for him to settle down quickly with a good, sweet, uncomplicated girl like Candace McCann who wouldn’t push him beyond his capabilities, before something disastrous happened. (This could only mean Royall impregnating some unsuitable girl! As if h
e had no more control of himself than a dog trotting about the neighborhood in thrall to any bitch in heat.) Just as Ariah hadn’t been disappointed when Royall didn’t go to college, but had seemed relieved, so Ariah smiled at the prospect of her younger son marrying. In fact, the newlyweds could live at 1703 Baltic, for a while. Ariah would move out of her upstairs bedroom, and redecorate it for them.

  Live with Ariah in that narrow, cramped house! Royall shuddered at the prospect. Poor Candace would be gobbled up alive, and made over into a second daughter for Ariah.

  No. The newlyweds would live in a rented flat on Fifth Street, a few minutes’ drive to the Niagara Gorge where Royall worked from May to mid-October and to King’s Dairy, the most popular ice cream parlor in Niagara Falls, where Candace worked at the counter, and was assistant manager. The newlyweds would live alone!

  Ariah was disappointed. You could see Ariah was very disappointed.