Time Drifters

“He just doesn’t understand,” Helene said, already on the move to try to stop Lucas as he strode past us. “He’s just a kid.”

“And you aren’t?” Lucas said, still on the move. “Look, I was wrong to even involve you in any of this. I’d like to help you. But I think I made a mistake about which one of us is really in trouble here.”

“I believe you,” said Adrienne, running ahead and grabbing Lucas’ sleeve. “I believe what you believe.”

“You don’t have any idea what I believe,” he said, pulling away.

“My father’s family are from Romania,” she said, urgently. “He has seen terrible things. People completely cut off because of thinking differently. People even killed, not even in wars. And my father, he had to walk away from his country with nothing. And that hurt him very deeply, but he had to do it, to live.”

Lucas stopped. He wasn’t looking at Adrienne but what she’d said was reaching him. His eyes were welling up with tears.

“It’s like I won’t exist,” he said quietly.

“You will,” Adrienne said, looking way up at him. His hair hung forward and seemed to join with his sandy blond moustache. Short puffs of steam emerged from his concealed face and it seemed like a black cloak had been pulled over him. I felt a thickness in my stomach, like there was a dark tar dripping from every part of me.

“Bridget,” he said. “I’m already dead to her.”

“Sir?” I said, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry… about what I said.”

“It’s what a lot of people think,” Lucas said, sniffing and then looking up. He was putting on a brave face, but he didn’t feel any different.

“Why don’t you live?” I said.

“Pardon?”

“If you’re already dead inside, here, in this country,” I said, “Then, why don’t you live? I mean, on the other side?”

I nodded towards the sign for the Rainbow Bridge and he turned to stare at it. As we’d walked along Niagara Street, I’d seen a plume of mist rising through the cold in the distance. When it evaporated, I could see the far side of the gorge, as though it had materialized out of nowhere. Kind of like what we saw when we Drifted.

“That’s Canada,” I said. “I know people live there, because… they do,” I said, pointing to Adrienne and Helene.

“The war won’t last forever,” I said, almost as an afterthought. Fortunately, Lucas was still looking away when Helene stomped on my heel. I buckled a bit and she slapped her glove over my mouth, stifling my protest. Lucas turned back to us and Helene instantly moved her hand, stroking my greased-down hair affectionately.

“I mean, wars usually don’t,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and nudging Helene away.

“The clouds look darkest just before the storm,” Helene said. “But then the rain starts and even if it seems torrential, you realize you’ll make it through.” It was strange how Helene seemed to be saying this to me rather than to our adopted friend.

Lucas was still in a daze as we walked across the last couple of intersections towards the border plaza, which was a busy tangle of lanes with old cars filing into line and others emerging from Canada.

Lucas kept staring at the mist looming in ghost-like shapes from the adjacent falls. They curled and squirmed until they slipped themselves into invisible holes in the air. I was thankful that the plumes seemed to be washing away the heaviness he had been carrying.

He didn’t put up any fuss when Helene told him to hand over his wallet. She gave it to Adrienne, reasoning that it would be less likely for her to be searched than it would for him as an adult.

I was worried, but she assured me that we wouldn’t need passports.

“Not now,” she said, putting special emphasis on the “now” part, letting me know she meant, “not in 1965.” I had to trust her on that.

The story she laid out was the same she’d told Lucas, and he thought most of it was true, so that probably helped. We were on a field trip. Only now, he was going to be one of the uncles, accompanying us. Our wallets were all lost when Helene’s purse went over the cliff in the park, so we didn’t have any ID.

I saw Lucas flinch when he faced one of the turnstiles, moving us into line for questioning by immigration and customs officials. He looked back over his shoulder. Helene reached out and grabbed his hand, smiling.

But just as he went through, the metal knob at the end of the turnstile poked his pocket. A piece of paper came out and made a graceful glide backwards to the ground. It was a pamphlet.

The Student Union for Peace Action Facts on Immigration for War-Objectors.

“You drop this, son?”

The security guard had picked it up just before my fingers could get to it.

“Yes, thank you, sir,” I said, reaching out for it. But the title caught his eye and the text below was making him concerned.

“That’s… pretty alarming material,” he said, grimacing as he looked inside the flier.

“It’s mine,” I said, trying to snatch it. But he frowned at me and held on. We were in a kind of tug of war. I was stuck right at the turnstile and the people behind me were stacking up. I knew that Helene and Adrienne and Lucas were already inside.

“What are you doing with this?” the guard asked.

“It was a man in the bus station,” I said, pointing back to where we had come from.

“Then you won’t mind me keeping it,” he said, yanking it completely out of my fingers.

“I do,” I said. “I do mind, because… because I’m on a field trip. And I want to take that back to my teacher. And ask her to explain it to me. In Richmond Hill. North of Toronto. Where I’m from.”

I pulled on it each time I added another fact that I thought would help, but this man was very serious.

“Come on,” said an impatient man farther back in the line. The guard held up his hand to silence the objection.

“This is not the kind of thing you need to discuss in school or anywhere else,” he said, snatching it away and wagging it at me.

“I don’t agree,” I said, now getting really angry. “I have a cousin who lives in Tarrytown, near New York City. And he’s always telling me how this is a great nation. And how we have freedom of speech. The freedom to ask questions. That’s what he says. So I think it’s just as good a thing to discuss as any other topic. Unless you don’t believe in freedom of speech?”

“Give the kid the paper,” said the impatient man. His protests were joined by a few other grunts and noises of agreement coming from others in the line. I saw Lucas looking back at me, worried, but he turned his head when he was called forward with Adrienne and Helene.

The guard looked at me with a smug expression while he tore the pamphlet in two, and then in two again. Then he handed the pieces back to me.

“I think there’s a trash can on the other side of the bridge,” he said. “Make sure you keep that garbage off American soil.”

I didn’t remember ever feeling so angry. I couldn’t say anything. He was sneering and yet I knew he had the power to stop me. Adrienne and the others were already speaking to the uniformed officer up ahead. The guard motioned that I could proceed at will; his face was smug, pretending that nothing that happened. I shoved the scraps into my pants pocket and pushed through.

“Here he is,” Helene said, pulling me in front of her. “He thinks he can get away with anything because his uncle is our group captain,” she added, flicking her head in Lucas’ direction. She tilted her head to the side and smiled at the Officer.

“And you don’t have any identification either, is this true?” the uniformed man asked me. He was an older guy with graying temples and a white handlebar moustache. I shook my head in response.

“But he does have an apple, sir,” Helene said.

I couldn’t believe it.

“What?” asked the officer.

“I saw the sign, right there,” she said, turning and pointing. “No fruits, vegetables or meats allowed. We want to be honest about this. Go ahead, Liam. No special treatment here.”

I glared at her, but the officer held out his hand. I pulled the shiny green apple from my left pocket. The smell of food in the terminal had made me hungry and I wanted to take a bite before it was gone, but I handed it over anyway.

“Alright then, go on,” the Officer said, eyeing the apple with interest. “Just make certain you have proper I.D. the next time you decide to cross over.”

“Thank you, sir, we will,” said Lucas, with Adrienne and Helene echoing agreement. I was considering making a fuss about the fruit, but I felt Lucas’ hand guiding me ahead.

Helene went to take my hand but I snatched it away.

“I’m not talking to you,” I said. I set my sights on the far side of the bridge and she’d have to be crazy if she thought I was going to look at her until we got there.

Lucas apparently had a similar idea. He began to walk ahead and his pace quickened as he went. With his head up and shoulders back, he strode faster and faster.

“Let him go, Adrienne,” Helene called out ahead. Adrienne stopped jogging but continued to walk along ahead of us.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” Helene said when we were close to the center. I saw the flags of the two nations flying side by side on poles extending up from the guardrail; the Stars & Stripes and then the red Maple Leaf. But I didn’t want to look at anything else.

“Leave me alone,” I said.

“Ah…still rivers run deep,” she said. “Only this one isn’t so still. Have you seen the froth and foam down there?”

I kept on walking.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Liam,” she exclaimed. “You’re only here once. Just look at it.”

I wheeled around.

“You wanted me to steal an apple so you could be an honest person?”

“Yes, I guess I did,” she said, stopping to look out through the fencing and down into the gorge. Cars were continuing to pass in both directions behind us, but there were very few other pedestrians.

“Did you know?” I asked. “Or did Adrienne know?”

“No,” she said, shrugging. “I thought we might get hungry. But we have to do whatever it takes.”

“Lying and stealing?” I asked.

“Oh… you better hope we do worse than that before the day is done, Liam Trinder,” she said, her tone changing and sounding a bit worried. She looked at me coolly. She might be nuts, but I knew she wasn’t fooling around.

“You’re wound up and angry,” she said, passing me where I stood. “That’s good. Now we just need to channel all of that energy in the right direction. Like the water beneath us. All riled up and tormented and just itching to be free.”

“What do you mean, worse than lying and stealing?” I asked, hurrying to keep up with her. “What are we going to do?”

“Um… I don’t know, exactly,” she said, smiling. “But in less than five hours, all these people,” she said, pointing her finger and doing a 360 as she spoke, “Canadians and Americans… their lights are going to go out. All the power from Ontario to New York City and throughout almost all of New England is just going to go… ‘Poof.’”

“What?”

“Isn’t it extraordinary?” she said, rushing back to me with almost crazed excitement. “To begin to realize what can happen when each house doesn’t generate its own power. I mean, it’s just a first step. But isn’t it great?” she continued, laughing. “One-sixth of America… thirty million people. Oops!”

“We do that?” I asked.

“We have to, Liam,” she said. “Our future depends on it.”