by Pasha Malla
The diggers and bulldozers kept working, shifting the garbage around, moving it into the compactors. The sounds drifted up: the grumble and growls, the grinding of trash packed into neat little squares, the buzz of generators, and the steady drone of trucks moving single file in and out of the pit, dumping their loads and then heading out to fetch more garbage.
THE NEXT DAY I drove down to the store, pulled up into that familiar spot out front. Above loomed our sign, paint flaking; the G of Gold had peeled off in the past year and I'd never bothered to replace it - so now the family business was called Canada _old Souvenirs. I caught myself sighing as I got out of the car, my standard reaction to thinking about the day ahead: sitting there, waiting in vain for the chime of the doors opening.
Leaving the Closed sign turned out, I took my spot behind the counter. Dust had settled over everything, the gleam of figurines and paperweights hidden under greyish fluff. I thought about cleaning it off, going around with one of those feather things. But what was the point? Quickly the feelings from the day before began to rear up again, as sickly and shame-soaked as a hangover.
I looked at the photograph of my parents taped to the cash register, something that usually kept me going. It'd been taken the day they opened the store and stuck up there shortly thereafter. In the picture the two of them stood out front, my mom in a sari and my dad in his turban, the new sign shiny and bright above. Later they laughed at how arbitrarily they'd named it, the naive, immigrant enthusiasm of Gold, and the photo captured exactly that in their faces: eagerness, trepidation, hope.
I'd been born a few years later. We never had many problems. Mostly people found us charming, maybe a little perplexing, this polite Sikh family hawking Canadiana. The honeymooners would come and ooh and ahh at our shop full of kitsch, or there were the tour groups who went nuts for our novelty T-shirts. You could just imagine them parading around back home in their new duds like they were something special, someone worldly. But we sold the same things to everyone. Each tourist who came to the Falls had the same experience: pay too much for parking, look at the water, buy something shitty, load back onto your chartered bus, and go home. There was nothing special about it.
The register itself was an old, clunky thing. We'd never modernized to digital for some reason, and whenever we rang up a sale - as I remember sales, anyway - the thing dinged and clunked as we filed the cash away. Without a second thought, I punched the drawer open, peeled the picture of my folks off the register, and stashed it in the cash drawer, banging it closed. Maybe Dave was right, I thought. Maybe it was time to call it quits, sell the land to CanAm, finish school with the money.
There was a knocking sound then - I had this crazy idea that it was my folks from inside the register, begging to be set free, before I realized someone was at the front door of the shop. I hopped the counter and saw that it was the new girl, Kaede, uniform on, looking very official.
"We're actually open," I said. "Just haven't turned the sign around yet."
She nodded, that big goofy smile splashing across her face. I'm not a big guy, but I had to look down at her: she was maybe five feet tall, with broad cheekbones and a little bob haircut streaked with gold. Her grin exuded a warmth that I'd nearly forgotten could exist in people.
Kaede stepped past me, started moving through the store. She had a camera strapped around her neck.
"Any trouble?" I asked. "With security, I mean?"
"Hardly," she said, and kept looking around. Was she actually shopping?
From one of the racks, she picked up a pen with a little Maid of the Mist boat that went sliding up and down the stem when you tilted it. She pointed it at me like a sword, cocked her head in an inquisitive way. "How much?"
"Honestly, when they closed, every tourist shop in town unloaded their stock on us. We've got a warehouse full of this crap. Take it. Take whatever you want."
Kaede shot me a quizzical look. "Yeah? How about if I take some pictures?"
"What? Of this place?" I laughed. "Knock yourself out."
The lens cap came off and she was at it, snapping away, doing little knee bends and leaning back to get certain angles. When she turned toward me, though, I put my hand up. "Whoa."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't -"
I forced a smile. "No, you know. Just didn't have a chance to do my hair."
She capped the camera. "Gotcha."
"Hey, can I ask you something? What the hell are you doing here? In Niagara Falls, I mean. I know you're in our shop because it's totally amazing. But to come all the way from Japan to work guarding a garbage dump - I don't know, seems a little weird."
"Paul," said Kaede. "I'm from Calgary. My parents are Japanese, and I taught English in Tokyo for a bit, but - no, anyway, I'm here mainly for a project." She held up the camera. "I'm a photographer. Back when the Falls were here, people took thousands of pictures, but they're all the same - the water, the boat-ride, whatever. I want to document the way it is now, for an entire year. The people who live here, their homes, their jobs, and what's become of all the old sites - Marineland, especially."
"Marineland? There's nothing there."
"Exactly. And CanAm gives me a place for free, and I can shoot on the job, so..."
"So you'll be here for a year?"
I felt like I should add that I'd be around, that I could take her out to Marineland sometime, whatever. But I'd forgotten how to do this sort of thing. My last attempt at romance ended with me humiliating myself with some German backpacker, a big horsy woman down for one night from Toronto. We'd met at Dooley's and gone back to her hotel. But it'd been a bust. The machinery didn't work, I guess you'd say; I ended up sneaking off as soon as she passed out. And that had been months ago now.
Kaede was making for the door. "Hey, Paul - can I askyou something?"
"Um. Sure."
"Am I ever going to get used to the smell? It's awful."
"Ha, yeah," I said. "Give it a couple months."
She shook her head, said something about getting back to work. At the door of the shop, she paused. "Your friend Dave said something about a bar? Do you ever go there?"
"Dooley's?" I thought of the German. "I used to. Not so much any more."
"Dave invited me tomorrow night. You should come. I haven't got a phone yet, but why don't you drop by my place beforehand? We'll go together."
AFTER SPENDING AN hour trying to find my going-out shirt, I headed up to Kaede's apartment off Lundy's Lane, in the back of the old Econo Lodge. She was waiting on the steps, cycling through the images in her camera. On the walk down to Dooley's we went around to some of the old tourist stops so she could take a few pictures in the dusky light. Most of them were boarded up; the few that still had their windows intact had been converted to housing or CanAm offices.
"Find it depressing?" I asked.
"No," she said. Click, click. "More interesting."
We took a little detour to Clifton Hill, stopping in front of what used to be the old Guinness Museum. While Kaede snapped away I explained how, at first, the place had been turned into a nostalgic retrospective. "They filled it with interactive displays and old videos about the nutbars who went over in barrels, and there was a little working model with water rushing over the side and a pair of headphones to listen to the actual sound of it, recorded way back when."
"And what was that like?"
"The real sound? It's weird, I can't really tell you. I mean, I know what noise waterfalls make, I just can't remember exactly what it was like here - like if we were standing in this spot, what we'd be listening to. Or if we could hear anything at all."
She stood looking at me with the camera in her hands, waiting for more. But I just said, "Let's go," and started walking again, leading us through Victoria Park. With the overcast sky darkening, the shadows of the trees stretched and deepened.
"Is it true I shouldn't walk around here alone at night?" she said.
"Well, after dark you get garbage pickers coming down from Welland
or Fort Erie and that. There have been some problems."
"But I'm security, Paul." Her hand brushed mine, sending a ripple of heat up my arm. "If I was working nights these are the people I'd have to deal with, right?"
DOOLEY'S WAS RUN by its namesake, a salmon-coloured, tubby little Newfie who had opened the place back in the days of happy tourism. When asked about keeping it going while everyone else went under, Dooley would shrug and give his standard answer: "Folks gotta drink."
The place was split into two gloomy rooms: one featured a pool table ringed with stools; the other side had the bar and a few booths. The clientele practised a similar division. Guys like me and Dave, locals from way back, stuck together, while anyone else - especially the Americans who'd been stationed up here - went to the side of the bar where we weren't. Every now and then one of our guys would get a few drinks in him and start to feel sore, "accidentally" spill a beer on someone's lap and have to take it outside. Not me, though. I've never been a fighter.
Dave and everyone else were set up in the booths, empty pitchers lined up on the table. Our crowd were folks who went to high school together and had stuck around, most either working public service or jobs with CanAm. Dooley had sold the jukebox since it only caused fights, so there was no music, just the clicks and clacks of pool balls being knocked around in the adjoining room, subdued conversations filtering through wafts of blue smoke from Camels or Marlboros bought at the duty-free.
Kaede and I got chairs and added them to the end of the table. I started going through introductions when Dave slammed his beer down and stood up. His eyes blazed. "I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing, Pauly. I mean, nice of you to honour us with your presence for once, but if anyone was invited here tonight it sure wasn't you, you fucking sellout."
"Dave," I said, my hands raising in defence. "Easy, man, I'm just-"
Then the rage was swept away with a wink. "Shit, man, I'm just pulling your chain. Nice shirt." He turned toward the bar. "Shots for my man Pauly here, Dooley! Line'em up!"
Dooley came around with beakers of Canadian Club for me and Kaede: cheers and down the hatch. And right into the beer, mugs filled and pushed sloppily in our direction, half of it splashing onto the floor.
"To new friends!" screamed Dave, and everyone clinked glasses and drank.
Getting drunk at Dooley's was purposeful, steady. Conversations were two or three lines traded between big swallows of Moosehead or Blue. Dave's cousin Lisa asked me, "How are things at the store, Pauly?" and I said, "Shitty," and everyone took a big gulp of their pints. But then there was Kaede, right beside me. I turned to her while everyone else sat working away at their beers in silence, wondering how she'd fit in.
"So," I said.
Kaede lit a cigarette. "In Japanese 'so' means once, before, ever, never."
"So?„
"So what," she said, blasting smoke out the corner of her mouth. "Let's get wasted."
Within an hour we had managed just that, chatting, trading drinking stories from our school days. We got closer, her leg against mine. "Are you glad you came out?" she asked.
"Sure. It'd be better if the bar wasn't in Niagara Falls, but whatever."
"You've been back here how long?"
"Six years. Since my mom passed away. My dad and I ran the store for a year, and then one day at work about a year later a blood vessel popped in his brain. Right in front of me."
"Oh, Paul," said Kaede. Then, slowly, "Your parents never saw the Falls dry, then."
I shook my head.
"Would they have stayed, do you think?"
I wasn't ready for this question. I picked up my beer, then put it down. Kaede just sat there waiting for a reply as if she'd asked for the time or directions. Finally I just said, "I don't know."
Then we heard a shout. Dave was in the face of some guy at the bar with a full pitcher in either hand. I didn't recognize him, but he had about four inches on Dave, and the guy beside him, whom I'd also never seen before, was even bigger.
"I heard you, asshole," Dave was saying. "You called my buddy a coon."
"Koontz, dickwad. I said Koontz."
"Dude, we've got a friend named Koontz," said the other guy, stepping in. "He's in the other room if you want to meet him."
Dave kept staring at the first guy. "Pauly!" he yelled. "This guy called you a coon."
"A what?" I had to stop myself from laughing.
Kaede grabbed my leg. "Did he just say'coon'? Does that even apply to you?"
Dooley came flapping out from behind the bar. "Outside, lads, outside!" he hollered, and shooed them out the doorthe two bewildered strangers first, and then Dave, already rolling up his sleeves. A bunch of our guys followed. The pool room went silent and then a crowd poured out the door as well.
"Jesus," I said, turning to Kaede. "Sorry you have to see this."
But she was already standing. "Come on, Paul! Fight!"
Out in the parking lot the bigger guy was pointing to a Jeep with New York plates. "Dude, look at the fucking tags." Dave wouldn't, but I did: KOONTZ. "This is his car. Can you see?"
Dave stood face to face with the other guy. "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, coming up here and acting like you own the place."
There was some sort of idiotic retort, something in response from Dave, and then they were swinging at each other. Our buddies circled around to hold the other Americans back, saying, "Let them go, just let them go," while Kaede, a foot shorter than everyone else, was hopping on tiptoes and craning her neck. "I can't see! Paul, what's happening? I can't see!"
Dave got a few shots in, but the other guy was just too big for him. A few seconds later he grabbed one of Dave's punches out of the air, like picking fruit from a tree, and hauled him in. Dave took a solid elbow to the chops and then a big left hook came swinging around, the crack of his jaw releasing an empathetic gasp from the crowd. Then our guys were diving in - although now the Americans were holding them back to let their buddy go for it.
"You didn't miss anything," I told Kaede. "It's over."
Kaeded slumped beside me. "Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"
"Oh, come on. I hate this bullshit. You want to get out of here?"
"I guess so," she said, turning to me. "But where do you want to go?"
IF DURING THE daytime it was a ghost town, N.F. at night was more of a graveyard. We tottered through the empty streets, Kaede clinging to my arm with her nose buried in my shoulder, the world swimming up underneath our feet. Those buildings that weren't boarded up loomed, their windows black and empty, on either side of the street. Drunkenly I tried to focus on the road ahead, one step after the next. Everything was a muddy fuzz. But when something went scuttling by in the shadows, my brain snapped to attention.
"What?" Kaede said. "What was that?"
"Nothing. Just keep moving."
"Paul," she said.
I looked straight ahead and took her hand. "Let's go," I said.
But there was someone following us. I could hear whispering from the shadows: up front, then behind, off to the left, then the right. I thought about Dave, losing it on that picker on the American side, smashing the poor guy's skull in with his nightstick. Over a broken fridge.
We stumbled along a little faster, the clopping of our footsteps echoing all the way to the end of the street. "It's not far," I said. "Maybe you should get your keys out now."
At the door to her housing block, Kaede struggled with the deadbolt while I watched the street and listened. The shadows seemed to shift and ripple. I strained to tell if the wisps of voices I heard were real or imagined. And then I saw something that looked like a child rise up from the ground at the end of street, as though it were getting to its legs from all fours. Kaede's keys clattered on the lock. The shape stood there, facing me, unmoving - a dark blot hovering in the shadows of the next block.
When the door finally opened, I nearly pushed Kaede over to get inside.
"Is it one of the pi
ckers?" she asked.
Her eyes were red from booze, that usually perfect bob all askew and wild. I didn't say anything, just put my hand on the small of her back. She reached up and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. Together, we wobbled our way down the hall to her apartment.
"You should stay here," she said, letting me into her place. "You know, just in case."
"Sure," I told her. "What, on the couch?"
"No," she said, reaching past me and locking the door. Her arms looped around my waist, her face turned up at mine so I could smell the sweetness of booze on her breath. When she spoke again the words were slow. "My bed's much more comfortable."
THE NEXT MORNING, while I was struggling to ignore a pounding headache and find my socks amid the mess on her bedroom floor, Kaede lay in bed piecing together the night before.
"There was a fight, right? Did you start it? I feel like it was your fault, for some reason."
I threw a pile of shirts to one side, only to discover a pile of pants.
"Or was it because of something you did? Man, I was so drunk."
"That's what happens when you drink, I guess. Imagine that."
She was silent for a minute. I could feel her watching me as I went rifling through her stuff. "Paul, do your friends always fight for you?"
"Jesus, Kaede," I said, kicking my way through laundry and books. "You've got no idea what you're talking about. And I don't know how you expect to get any sort of project done when you can't even keep your bedroom in order either. Look at this place. It's like a twelve-year-old got her own apartment."
She sat up in bed. "Get my project done? Excuse me?"
"Yeah, you know, the one where you come rolling into town, taking pictures of people's homes - like we're animals in a zoo or something. These are real lives, Kaede. We're not just something for you to leech off."
"Oh, give me a break. At least I'm doing something, Paul. Look at you, rushing around to get your stuff together so you can go sit in your parents' store where no one ever comes."