The Barrel

Vince and Sophia were from Michigan and decided one night to go to Niagara Falls. It would be a little more than four hours driving, straight through Canada, on deserted roads in southern Ontario, but they would arrive in the middle of the night at Niagara Falls since they were leaving Michigan at about ten.

They had been engaged, and were talking about having a honeymoon there, but recently their engagement was on the rocks; Sophia had decided that marriage might not be such a good idea. For one thing, Vince was chronically depressed and couldn't control it. He'd get so down he'd talk about killing himself, and that scared her; she didn't want that kind of possibility hanging over their marriage. In fact it made her very nervous that she was trying to break up with him, as clearly he could kill himself now, too, especially in Niagara Falls itself. But she trusted him, and felt that at least going to Niagara Falls would be the least she could do before they split up. She thought about all the trouble back in Michigan - getting a few days off her job, his getting a week off from his job, his brother splitting up with his wife - they both took a deep breath as they crossed the bridge over into Ontario. The Canadian authorities didn't seem to have a problem with letting them in.

In Vince's pocket, he kept a ring in a dull pink case; his strategy was to try to change Sophia's mind by talking through it, then give her the ring. Through the dark, deserted roads of southern Ontario they talked about their life dreams, and why marriage could or couldn't work out. It became clear that Sophia was not inclined to marry at the moment. Vince fought against dark thoughts: often he felt he could never make it without her, if she left him he was finished, he might as well go over the falls in a barrel. Slowly a plan developed in his mind, since he sensed, through talking with her again and again, that she wouldn't change her mind about the marriage, at least not right away. Just from what she said, he felt it was over. And look what happened with his own brother! Even marriage seemed futile sometimes. He started envisioning a barrel and a plan to climb inside it.

When they got to Niagara Falls, it was about three in the morning, and they were still on the Canadian side, where you can get right up against the water as it goes pouring over the edge. It's incredibly powerful water, and a lot of it, and it was the middle of June with a number of tourists around, but the tourists' park was really relatively empty because of the time. People kept using flash cameras on the falls but that seemed kind of futile, like there was no way the light from the flash cameras would reach across the gorge. A Canadian policeman looked at them warily from the edge of Vinnie's vision, but they just leaned against the railing watching the water for about an hour. They had run out of things to say. Vince suggested a nearby hotel room and Sophia agreed, since she knew something like this would happen. It wasn't that big of a problem, really; they'd been engaged, they slept together often, whether they would marry or not was not the kind of question that could be resolved in a single night anyway.

But in the room, which was on the Canadian side but had a good view of both falls, Vince was unable to sleep. Sophia told him she loved him and to stay safe, having some premonition of what was to come, but then fell sound asleep very quickly. Vince got up pacing as the sun began to rise, and he was still struggling with his demons.

Finally he went out to his car and took off driving, upstream along the border of the river, about half an hour up the river toward the Peace Bridge and Buffalo. He stopped at a liquor store, surprised that it would be open at six in the morning, but it was; it was probably open all night. He bought two six-packs of beer and two bottles of whiskey, challenging himself to drink the whole thing. He always could hold his alcohol, and would sometimes drink this much at a shift at the factory, though it didn't help much, as the bad thoughts not only didn't go away but also got worse. Nevertheless he sat down not too far from the river and started in on drinking. He made it through an entire bottle of whiskey and one of the six-packs, and was starting in on the second bottle, when he noticed a hardware store off in the distance. "There's my barrel," he said as he stood up, noticing that by now he was quite drunk, and was slurring the words. He couldn't walk a straight line, and his words were unclear, even to him, but the mere fact that he was talking to himself and judging his own drunken rambling made him know that the whiskey was having its effect.

Nevertheless he was able to drive over to the hardware store, park, and go in, and he was right, they had several kinds of barrels. He hadn't quite worked out how he would get himself into a barrel, put the top on, and then push himself off of the banks of the river, but once he saw the barrels in front of him he began to see how it would work. He picked one out that he knew he could fit in. It was wide in the middle, with metal rims at the edges and around the center, and an old-fashioned look but apparently water resistant inside. He bought it. The cashier seemed to know he was drunk, but probably had no way of guessing what he wanted it for and didn't ask. He was out of the store very quickly and trying to figure out how to get the large barrel into his small car.

On the banks of the river everything went remarkably smoothly: it was in fact possible to get in a barrel, push off from the side, and then put the top on the barrel, which is what he did. Surprisingly a young kid came up and watched, joining him. At first the kid, who was about four, just threw rocks in the river, watching out from the side of his vision, but then the kid walked up to him and just asked what he was doing. He said he was trying to get into the barrel to go floating down the river. The kid would have helped him, but Vince asked him not to; he didn't want the kid also to be swept down the river. After a while the kid backed off and went back to throwing rocks.

Once he was in, and managed to get the top on, the barrel rocked a lot, but pretty soon got into the part of the river that was moving pretty quickly, and he was on his way. He threw up, with the rocking of the barrel, because of the fact that he'd pretty much finished the second bottle and the rest of the beer before he took off, but he was determined to go through with his plan, and did nothing about it. The bThe top of the barrel, which didn't fit so well at first, came to be pretty smug with the movement of the river and he noticed that now he probably couldn't even get back out if he tried. He squirmed around a little, made himself as comfortable as he could, and settled in for the ride. It stunk in the barrel, but he was drunk, and couldn't reach the top, let alone open it, so he relaxed.

Around Goat Island the barrel had to go either down the Canadian falls, or down the American, and it chose Canadian, though the choice had been made already based on the water it was in. Right past there, though, the barrel hit a rock, and the top sprung off; Vince was thrown out of the barrel and suddenly into the water. He didn't know what to do, but was so drunk, it didn't matter. There wasn't much he could do. The water was going so fast, whatever movements he made would be entirely futile.
At Goat Island someone alerted the authorities that a barrel was going over the falls, and the rescue boats set out from the banks below the falls to pull it out the minute it went over. Gerard and his partner, Adam, had done this before. There had been a barrel incident five years ago; barrels attracted the public's imagination because of historical memories of celebrities who had gone over in a barrel, some of whom survived. Really it was just a matter of chance, whether they survived or not. If they went over the rocks, and landed in water, their chances were better.

Back in the hotel room, Sophia woke up both angry and drained. She knew in the bottom of her heart that Vince was in trouble, because he'd been gone a while and hadn't come back or texted her. She was angry because, if this were to be their honeymoon or anything like it, it was a bad way to start. She was drained because she felt his depression was just taking everything out of her. She was a counselor, and more than familiar with this kind of problem, yet didn't feel like she wanted to apply counseling skills to someone she'd been in love with, and was just getting to know, but who was just now telling her he couldn't live without her. It made her personal life too much like a counseling session. She knew what to do to treat it, and did it to some degree, but it was painful and it was not how she wanted to spend her life.

She made a cup of hotel coffee and sat by the window watching gallons of water go over the falls every second, thinking that well, lots of things were like water under the bridge, or water over the falls, so to speak. Down the gorge she could see the Rainbow Bridge in the morning sun which, to her, reminded her that she was in another country, and would have to find a way back to the USA if Vince never returned. As time went by it occurred to her that maybe this was just the best option, to find a way home, and forget the whole thing, and leave him behind with his depression and whatever else he was dragging with him out of her life.

She knew that he was torn up about his brother's marriage breaking up, as there was a little girl involved, Vince's niece Iris, who was about three, and who would now have to split time between the two. It seemed like there was nothing anyone could do about it. When two people were diametrically set against each other no amount of counseling could even change their minds, and the poor little niece would just be a victim for life. Nobody, it seemed, got out of childhood unharmed.

She went for a long walk down by the falls and came back for another cup of coffee, figuring that she would just sign up for another night no matter whether he returned or not. This time she got the coffee from downstairs, made it large, and put plenty of real cream in it. As soon as she sat down at the little table by the window, and got herself comfortable to start drinking it, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a barrel and a man going over the falls. The man was a little behind the barrel, by maybe two seconds. She couldn't really tell that it was a man, couldn't even be sure it was a person, but it looked like one. Somehow she knew it was Vince.

Word spread pretty quickly that someone had gone over in a barrel and that they were busy pulling him or her out from beneath the falls. Within a half hour came news that the man was saved though the barrel itself was long gone, down the raging river toward the whirlpool. The whirlpool was the reason you had to pull people out as soon as possible - if you let them drift down the river, they wouldn't last long, even if they lived, because the whirlpool would suck them in and make them impossible to retrieve until it was too late. But they'd gotten this guy somehow, pulled him straight out of the water below the rocks. They were working on identifying him.

Sophia rushed out of the hotel room and down to the docks of the boats that patrolled the water beneath the falls. It took her a while to find it, as she was on foot and it was a little hike from the hotel, but eventually she stepped in to the lobby of the little building to find it full of newsmen and authorities all eager to find out more about Vince and get his picture up on the news. He was already a celebrity, but he was clearly still drunk and disoriented; he hadn't intended to live at all. He recognized her and was glad to see her, but she was angry enough that she almost slapped him for doing what he did. Somehow she contained herself and just played the part of a grateful girlfriend, glad to have him back and glad that he'd lived through his ordeal. She seethed when he'd make a little smile at his obvious celebrity, as if making depression and suicide into news bite was a clever idea that only he had thought of. But really, he was smiling because he didn't know what else to do. Everything had worked out so bizarrely; he had no idea what to do next.

She spoke for a few minutes with Gerard, who had actually pulled Vince out of the water, and who had a playful smile, proud of himself for saving another life. Gerard, in that short period of time, maintained that being drunk is what actually saved Vince's life, because landing hard even on water from such a height, was tough to survive if you were all tensed up. Gerard was somewhat philosophical about it, which was helpful to Sophia, who at this point didn't know what to do except to tell Vince to meet her back at the hotel.

But when he got there, she made it clear that she couldn't take this kind of ongoing celebrity - he was being interviewed by news people almost every hour - and, though she had paid for another night at the hotel, didn't want to stick around any longer than she had to. She had already made plans to get back to Buffalo and fly back to Michigan assuming that he still had his car and would keep it. And that's what she did; she arrived in Michigan the following day. When she got there she learned that Vince's parents had died in a traffic accident, and Vince hadn't been told. Iris, the brother's daughter, told her (Aunt Sophia) that she would love her forever and didn't ever want her to leave. It broke Sophia's heart.

She spent a couple restless nights worrying about Vince, but finally convinced herself that it would work out ok; he would either have to find a better reason to stay alive than marriage, or choose not to stay alive. She needed space from the situation and came home to get it. Within days the story virtually disappeared from the news, though it had had a good run for a while, and he was a celebrity to some degree even in their social circle in Michigan. He was "the guy who went over the falls in a barrel."

But about a week later came news that Vince had in fact killed himself, by more conventional means, and Vince's brother asked Sophia to go back and attend to the body and getting it back to Michigan, and dealing with the car and whatever else. Both would be a little complicated due to the fact that there was an international border involved. Nevertheless Sophia agreed, took time off from work, and did it. It was not easy being in Niagara Falls and she knew that every time she saw that water she would remember the body going over it.

One day though while she was getting something to eat at a convenience store, Gerard walked in, and agreed to sit with her for a minute as they ate small convenience-store lunches. He was in a good mood, again, and remembered her well, and was also familiar enough with Vince to know that he had just died. He said he was sorry and expressed condolences. He also asked her out to lunch the following day, promising a slightly better venue than the one they were in.

He was handsome and charming; she was attracted to him. But where would this go? She would be leaving town in a day or two, and had no intention of hanging around near falls that would always remind her of Vince tumbling over them. He at least gave her a different perspective. He was used to pulling people out of the water and, though he couldn't prevent Vince's suicide, he could at least make sure it didn't happen on his watch. He was comfortable in his own environment. There was mist in the air, and she commented on it, but he said there always was, though only the breeze would decide if she felt it. She turned down his lunch request finally and he was a little disappointed, but he took it in stride. He again expressed his condolences, and left.

On the plane home, she got a chance to reflect on everything. She'd sold the car relatively easily. The family was devastated by the losses; only the brother was left, besides Iris. She had at least helped them out. She would not be manipulated into believing it was her doing. If she wasn't ready to marry, she wasn't, and that shouldn't have cost him his life. From the plane she could see the mist rising from the gorge, as, even on a clear day, the falls created an incredible amount of mist.

Down the river, about three quarters of a mile from the whirlpool, a boy noticed a barrel coming up upon the shore, and went out a few feet into the river to retrieve it. To do this he had to take off his socks and shoes, but this was no problem, since he was now about four. He was the same age as the boy who had observed its launch, but in a different spot: he was down the river, while the first boy was a ways up the river from the falls.

He pulled the barrel out of the river and up onto the shore. It had no lid; that was long gone. But when he looked into the barrel, he saw a dull pink box at the bottom, which had somehow stayed in the barrel through all its bouncing along in the waters. It was partly because the barrel had rims that blocked the box when it could have flown out, but the rims obviously hadn't blocked Vince when he went flying out. In any case, the ring was still there. And it was the boy's surprise find, and made his day; he went home to show it to his mother, who was, in fact, very pleased.

Siri the Temptress

My friend Randy the trucker admitted to me one day that he was falling in love with Siri. He'd been driving too long, I told him, too long alone in the cab with that voice. I myself couldn't stand her, and stopped using her. What especially bothered me was the way she'd say things more forcefully if I missed the turn she wanted me to take. Usually this happened because I wanted it to happen, for example, I was driving around the block of my destination. But she'd say Turn right at the next street with a kind of attitude, and I'd think, I don't need that kind of attitude, I'll use another way to find my destination.

But my wife is a lot like Randy, she relies on Siri entirely, because she doesn't really have a clear idea of where things are in space. So when her Siri, which is a man with an Australian accent, told her to go off on this country road the other day, she really wanted to do it. I could see that the country road was going to be a little out of the way, and probably slower than the divided highway we were on, so I told her I was opposed. But she was driving, so I said ok, might as well see where this road takes us. There was no way that road could be quicker.

Of course it's easy to get mad at a male Australian Siri who doesn't have a clue about a country road. But I thought about why it could have happened. Did he think there was some kind of construction on the main road? (there was, but it merely slowed traffic, not stopped it, and the main road I thought was still faster)...was he being fed wrong information somewhere?

Randy's Siri apparently sent him on this one road south of town where there was a bridge with eleven-foot clearance, and he and his truck needed thirteen-foot clearance. Fortunately he saw it coming and stopped his truck in time so it didn't have the top two feet of its load clipped off. But the problem was, there was no place to turn around. It had rained a lot in the last week, so it was very soggy right off the shoulder - there was no room for error. He had to back up - straight, in his own lane, with his blinkers on - and he had to keep it straight for quite a ways until he found a place where he could pull over. It was quite a ways, and he wasn't sure he would make it. He turned Siri off; he couldn't believe she would get him into this kind of a jam.

Next time I saw him, he had cooled off on Siri quite a bit. He never really was in love with her, he said, he'd just been kidding. Well, one one level, I knew he'd been kidding - he knew she was just a computer connected to some source creating and giving directions - if it got things wrong, there could be all kinds of reasons. Maybe she just didn't know about the low bridge or they failed to program into her a simple warning, be careful if you're driving a truck. I'm sure he has to learn that she's not infallable, that someone somewhere is sending him down the wrong road.

With my wife's Siri, the Australian guy, I found myself glad that I'd proved him wrong, that his way was longer than mine. Somehow the mere fact that he had an accent had led me to not quite believe him in the first place, as if it was obvious that you shouldn't let some stranger send you down the wrong road. But my wife had come to trust him implicitly, so she still hasn't figured out where he might have gone wrong. I still do it the hard way - stare hard at the map before I even set off, write down the directions if necessary, keep them right by me as I drive, and, if I miss a stop, pull way over so I can start the whole process again from the beginning.